ESE
STEVE
"Lurch, we're coming down; you did get that crazy lady in the dress, right?" the walkie-talkie crackles.
The hatch above opens and a Hispanic man peeks down through it. Lurch smiles awkwardly in spite of the stinging of his scraped chest, and waves up at the hatch. "Oh, hey. Yeah, we met her."
The man's face disappears from view, and moments later a shaking blonde woman rushes through the hatch and down the ladder. From above comes the sound of cracking and screaming, followed by two more people coming down: a blonde woman in a doctor's smock and a man in an officer's uniform, who you immediately recognize as Captain Rendahl. The hatch above suddenly slams shut.
"Ese!" Lurch yells, bewildered.
Captain Rendahl runs a hand through his sweaty hair. "It's no good; they've swarmed Deck 01. My God, Anna, how many were in there?!"
The blonde doctor is distraught, but the act of recollection seems to calm her. "We had sixty-three sick patients," she says in a quiet, accented voice.
"And now they're loose on the ship," says the trembling blonde woman who was the first person down the ladder. Her name tag reads "REBECCA".