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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 match. He was like the teenage version of a poison dart frog—Don’t touch me. Raging acne scarred his pale face, and his expression was not kind. He took me in and shrugged a shoulder. “Come on—the ice machine’s this way—”

I hadn’t finished looking around the room yet. Too many of the sick people were facing away from me. A few still had attentive relatives or friends nearby, but a lot of them were alone. None of them looked like Asher from here, but I needed to get closer to be sure.

“Can you wait just a second?” I asked him.

“Why?”

“I’m looking for a friend. ”

He gave 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 knew what zombies were like.

His chin twitched up in challenge. “What the hell else can they be?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. “I don’t know. ”

He gave me a teenage snort, unsurprised by my idiocy. “Yeah, well—let’s go on the tour. ”

We canvassed the room quickly in all its depressingly repulsive glory. The healthy people, volunteers like me or people who’d been trapped when they’d arrived with relatives, had looked haggard. They’d seen too much too fast with too little preparation. It was one thing at the hospital where eventually you became inured to horrors and had coworkers’ support to fall back on; no one, could have warned these people what would 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 him for this much actual death.

Most of the volunteers ignored me, too tired to care. A few shot me dirty glances 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 accosted me. “What are you looking at?” He had a wig cap and makeup on from a prior night. He moved to block my view of his friend, who was slouched over and also had fading makeup, but who looked much worse for the wear.

“I’m searching for 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 them ill?”

“Raluca’s got them quarantined separately down below where there’s no windows or decks to jump off. ”

“Good idea,” I said and got 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 made the call to go anywhere tropical—he had even less of a tan than I did, and with his lack of vitamin D he must have been approaching rickets.

“My parents. Who became zombies and died horribly,” he said completely deadpan. “They wanted to get me out of the house. Any more awkward questions?”

“Nope. Sorry. ”

“Whatever. ”

He pushed through another set of saloon doors, and we entered a huge industrial kitchen. Rory led me around countertops and tables, all shining stainless steel, until we reached a massive ice machine at the back. He rummaged off to one side and returned with an empty trash can, which he handed to me. “Only take as much ice as you can really carry. It gets 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 my hands anymore, which was good because then it didn’t hurt. Scraping out handfuls of ice, hearing the sound of it drum and settle on the bottom of the cans—my actions fell into a rhythm with my thoughts. I was glad Asher wasn’t here—but where else could he be?

Rory touched my arm with an icy palm before whirling and startling me.

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

“Hey!” Rory shouted as I turned more slowly.