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She frowned again, reached for her keys, and headed back to the curtains at the front of the restaurant "Please, show her how to get ice I will return," she said, and then disappeared

I was left in the care of a teenage boy with black jeans and a black T-shirt with hair clearly dyed to --Don’t touchacne scarred his pale face, and his expression was not kind He took ed a shoulder "Come on--the icearound the roo away from me A few still had attentive relatives or friends nearby, but a lot of them were alone None of theet closer to be sure

"Can you wait just a second?" I asked hiave me a look that said that he didn’t have time to explain all the ways that I was dumb "If they’re here, it’s too late They’re already a zombie"

"These people aren’t actually zombies" I’d been in love with a zombie before I knehat zoe "What the hell else can they be?"

I didn’t have an answer for hie snort, unsurprised by o on the tour"

We canvassed the roolory The healthy people, volunteers like me or people who’d been trapped when they’d arrived with relatives, had looked haggard They’d seen tooat the hospital where eventually you became inured to horrors and had coworkers’ support to fall back on; no one, could have warned these people ould happen on their cruise Even in nursing school, they’d babied us a little at first These poor people had gotten steamrolled

Their number included this boy, who, despite his bravado and his penchant for black, was clearly out of his depth I was sure on Xbox Live he had a lot of swagger, but nothing in his video game world had prepared hinored lances as I hunched over to look into their relatives’ faces to make double-triple sure that none of them was Asher

One of the volunteers I surprised accostedcap and ht He moved to block my view of his friend, as slouched over and also had fading makeup, but who lookedfor a friend of mine is all Sorry" I waved my hands to defuse the tension

He deflated a little, lined lips pursing "Me too" He reached down to brush a sweaty lock of hair away from his friend’s forehead "For your sake"

I nodded and stood The boy at my side was still sullen "Did you find them?" he asked, despite the fact that he’d been with me the whole time

"No"

"Lucky you," he said sarcastically

CHAPTER TWENTY

I followed the boy down an empty staff hallway at the back of the restaurant "Where’s the crew? Aren’t any of theot them quarantined separately down belohere there’s no s or decks to juot no response "My name’s Edie," I told the back of his head

"Rory," he said without slowing down

"Who wrangled you onto this boat, Rory?" I knew he hadn’t o anywhere tropical--he had even less of a tan than I did, and with his lack of vita rickets

"My parents Who became zombies and died horribly," he said coet me out of the house Any more aard questions?"

"Nope Sorry"

"Whatever"

He pushed through another set of saloon doors, and we entered a huge industrial kitchen Rory ledstainless steel, until we reached a ed off to one side and returned with an empty trash can, which he handed to ets heavy by the end of the hall"

Without gloves, we reached into the machine’s belly and scooped the ice out by hand It wasn’t long till I couldn’t feel ood because then it didn’t hurt Scraping out handfuls of ice, hearing the sound of it drum and settle on the bottohts I was glad Asher wasn’t here--but where else could he be?

Rory touchedme

There was a shadow behind us--I saw its reflection in the ice machine door

"Hey!" Rory shouted as I turned more slowly

"Hey yourself," the shadow shouted back Aspatulas