The Caribbean is home to beautiful sweeping vistas of sea and sky with islands set in amidst sparkling blue. Its what makes Caribbean cruises so popular. The Caribbean is also the place where the word zombie originated, and reputed to be home to real life zombies. So what are you going to do when the hordes of undead begin to overrun your ship and you have no defenses save for flip-flops, Bermuda shorts, and a succession of increasingly loud floral print shirts? You’ll need to keep your wits about you to avoid joining the ranks of the living dead and wasting away forever in margaritaville.
Most plans for survival in the event of a zombie outbreak involve laying in caches of food, water, and weapons far in advance of the outbreak and having prepared shelter or avenues of escape. For security reasons the cruise lines don’t allow you to bring weapons aboard. For reasons of billing you for every, last, freaking, thing most cruise lines don’t permit you to bring containers of food or water aboard. You’re also surrounded by water which cuts off most avenues of escape. Procuring all of the above will be the first priority when cadavers start to rise, and it becomes clear that the mysterious illness sweeping the ship isn’t just another outbreak of norovirus.
Get to the Lifeboats
The ship’s lifeboats are required by law to have everything you need to survive at sea, and not coincidentally that’s enough to give you a fighting chance during the first days of a zombie outbreak. Aboard you’ll find three quarts of water for each person the lifeboat is certified to carry, emergency rations for the same, first aid kit, and a host of other equipment. Of special note is the boat hook which will be useful for fending off the hordes of undead and the hatchet which can be used to destroy them. Best of all is the engine which will allow you to escape the ship that’s crawling with undead, and allow you to search for safety. In fact we can say with reasonable confidence that you’re home free once you reach the lifeboat as it provides shelter, food, and mobility.
The odds are against you having easy access to the lifeboat. In all likelihood you’ve awakened after having one too many with dinner the night before, and discovered that while you were sleeping it off the ship was being overrun with the undead. Now you have to get to the lifeboats through those moaning horrors and possibly other desperate stragglers just to stand a chance at surviving to see society’s collapse from a tropical beach.
We just hope you had the foresight to spring for a stateroom with a balcony.
The Outside Approach
Staterooms are shockingly bereft of equipment that can be used to destroy them, making evasion your best strategy for escape. If you happened to book a stateroom with a balcony you’re in luck. One of the few useful items in your quarters are the linens. While a sheet rope isn’t recommended for bearing the weight of an adult over any significant drop it can do duty as a safety line for climbing from balcony to balcony between decks. If you’re cabin is amidships then the lifeboats will be visible directly below. If you’re on a smaller ship you might even be able to make it without intervening stops on only the linens available to you in your room, meaning you don’t have to risk getting bitten, but can simply drop onto a lifeboat and figure things out from there.
If you’re on larger ships or the lifeboat below you is missing (perhaps because other passengers or crew beat you to them) then you’re going to have to make your way from balcony to balcony either horizontally or vertically. As you’ll be climbing in a way that isn’t recommended in normal circumstances, and in fact in a way the ship is designed to keep you from even contemplating, odds are that you’re going to be without any armaments in order to keep both hands free and avoid ending up drowning instead of being devoured by those afflicted with the insatiable appetite for your gray matter. It won’t do to exchange a grisly death for a watery one. This can pose a problem if those intervening balconies are occupied by zombies. Perhaps the remnants of an older couple who spent their last lucid moments gazing at the sea together? It’s recommended that you check the next balcony before making the crossing both for zombies, and to make sure the stateroom door is closed to ensure that no rotting horrors will emerge ravenously through the door to devour you as you prepare to make your next move.
If you do encounter a zombie then you should endeavor to somehow hook the zombie and hurl it off of the ship before crossing over to the next balcony. In this the undead tendency to lunge snapping for the warm flesh of the living is your ally. As you’ll have no doubt noticed by this point it is perilously easy to go off balance when climbing around the partitions. Simply allow the zombie to know that you’re on the adjacent balcony and when they reach their rotting limbs around grab hold and assist them off of their balcony and into the ocean below. It is advised that you try not to dwell on how much easier doing this would be if you only had the boat hook that’s from the lifeboat. You may be able to press the deck furniture you find on each balcony into service if you need to.
Things become much more difficult if your balcony is at the stern of the ship, as no matter what path you choose you’re going to have to fend off the undead in the ship’s public areas at some point during your journey.
An Inside Job
If you have no direct exterior route to the lifeboats, for example with a balcony at the stern of the ship or if you booked and exterior or interior staterooms then you’ll have to make your way through the corridors and public areas of the ship. A difficult proposition. Cruise ships are built to comply with fire codes which makes for corridors with a lamentable lack of strategic choke points meaning that on your journey you will always be at risk of being cut off and surrounded.
You’ll need to move quickly to avoid this.
First though, take the time to improvise a weapon. Your stateroom should be equipped with a closet with a rail to hang your clothing from. With effort you should be able to tear it lose to use as an improvised club. Other options may include the tables and chairs in the stateroom, which you’ll need to bash apart before using as weapons. The primary consideration when equipping yourself is the noise you generate doing so. A heavy weapon that can dispatch zombies is no use to you at all if you draw more zombies than you can put down to you in the making of it. After all your priority is speed, and in this scenario your weapons primary benefit is clearing them out of your way instead of dispatching them once and for all.
The priority is not to allow yourself to be surrounded and bitten. All other considerations are secondary. With that in mind enter the corridor outside your stateroom and get moving. The next step will be much quicker if you paid attention during the fire drill.
Launching the Lifeboat
Once you’ve reached the lifeboat the surprisingly complicated task of launching it begins. This is not a single person job normally, and is in fact quite difficult. The job begins with removing the pins that hold the restraining arms (called a davit) in place, then the lines that hold the lifeboat to the side of the ship. Once that’s done you may release the brake on the winch and lower the lifeboat. Because mishaps do occur you’ll want to lower the lifeboat and then jump after it rather than attempt to ride it down. It may take multiple attempts with different lifeboats in order to get it right.
There is an emergency release that will launch the lifeboat within the vessel itself for the ultimate in express disembarkation. If you absolutely must get off the ship to escape the undead hordes then you may enter the vessel and drop it. There is however the chance that it, or you, will not survive the drop to the ocean below. If all does go well, then you will be on the open sea with enough food and water to last you for some time,
Good luck, and a Happy Halloween.
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