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  Chapter 3 – The Butcher

  Although he wasn’t a qualified chef - and what the fuck was that anyway - Jeremy Kristiakov was still the ship’s cook. He was instead a trained butcher, and for a ship full of men who wanted meat all the time, this was a useful trade. They would have a whole cow delivered on board and The Butcher, as they liked to call him, could make that cow last for weeks. He would strip it bare - every useful cut served as meat and turning the not-so-useful parts into sausages or mince.

  Still, he was just the cook, low on the totem pole of the ship’s hierarchy. He was also soaked through, shivering on the wet beach - he longed for the warmth of the kitchen. In summer they stayed away in droves but at sea in the bowels of winter, the warmth of the kitchen was what everyone flocked to.

  Looking around it was dark – so dark. Being a city person, Jeremy hadn’t known a dark like that which was presently surrounding him. Even his torch cut a meager swath of light that barely extended 8 feet in front of him. There were many stars above him and although he didn’t know how to read them, they did look impressive. He had been walking along the beach for a while but had not come across any other people, hadn’t passed a building. It was just sand and the occasional ship's debris that had washed to shore.

  Absentmindedly, he picked up a jagged part of steel, most likely derived from the ship’s hull. It ended at a sinister point and could possibly make a useful weapon for any wild animals – although deep down he knew wild animals wouldn’t be his problem.

  One thing about being the ship’s cook is you’re often ignored whilst people are eating around you. And when people ate they usually talked, or, more appropriately, gossiped. They may joke about their wives and how much the women gossip but the gossip swapped by the men on a ship would put any sewing circle to shame. Information and rumor was the currency on board when you’ve been out to sea for a while, and the galley is usually where such trade occurs.

  He’d heard the snippets of conversation, the hushed mutterings and the shared looks the senior members of the crew gave each other. This place they were sailing near had been… damaged, scarred? The word he heard a lot was ‘infected’, especially from Doc with whom the Captain had spent a lot of time talking, away from other crew members.

  From what he gathered, some sort of virus or infection had decimated the population. Those that were alive were primitive; they didn’t possess normal human functions. They feasted on blood and each other, although to Jeremy that sounded like rumor, the military had been overrun and had abandoned the area a while ago. No one knew if other areas had been infected as well, if the whole world had gone to shit. For weeks, long range communications had been silent, satellite and radio had ceased to receive anything. Either they were shut down or they were blocked to stop information getting out, as the tin foil hat wearers on board kept spouting.

  All he knew was that some bad shit had gone down on this miserable part of the Russian coastline where he was now washed up with nothing more than a Band-Aid, flashlight and some pills. He’d seen enough shit to know it was better to have a weapon and not need it than not to have a weapon and need it. He thought about all the mistakes he’d made to get him to this point. People talked about karma and but he’d always laughed it off. He’d done a lot of bad shit and gotten away with most of it – for him it had always seemed that karma had turned a blind eye.

  Now he was thinking maybe karma just stored it all up and gave it all back as one major 'fuck you.' He had a feeling this situation was karma butt fucking him back, and the prick wouldn’t even give him a reach around. His instincts told him this shit was about to get a whole lot worse and he trusted those instincts unquestionably. He tested the sharp point of the steel shard and felt ready to give back as good as he got.