by M. L. Banner
“Heel!” He tugged hard on the master leash. Two of the dogs yelped in surprise and instantly came to attention. Monsieur went the other way—again.
“Dammit!” he hollered as the little rascal once more tried to dart toward another hallway. This dog has some of the worst shiny ball syndrome I’ve ever seen.
Al did a quick 180, making sure what he did next wasn’t seen. He reached over the other dogs’ leashes to make sure he grabbed only the poodle’s leash and gave an enormous tug. Like a giant rubber-band had broken, little Monsieur snapped back into the air and then tumbled to the feet of the others. A Shepherd in the group unceremoniously stepped on top of the dog—Al would have sworn it was vindictive. The little dog yelped and then attempted to dart away in the other direction, tangling all of their leashes into a web of leather spaghetti.
“No!”
He’d have to untangle this mess quickly, before he lost further control of the situation.
One by one, he unleashed a dog, untangled the leash and reattached the dog to the master leash. When he unhooked Monsieur’s leash, the little dog unexpectedly bolted through Al’s grip. A flash of white scurried away, then down the hall it had been angling toward the whole time.
Al knew why: this hall contained all the food storage on the ship.
Thinking quickly, he attached the master leash to an orange strap binding two boxes bursting with discarded wood furniture pieces. He trotted after the poodle. The dog, already out of sight, seemed to be hot on the trail of something: no doubt some of the ship’s food.
That little dog is about to experience the wrath of Al, he thought as he stomped off after the mutt.
As Al came around several pallets of canned food, he found the poodle. It had stopped in front of the opening of the butcher’s area, and was growling a face full of little teeth.
Al proceeded toward the beastie, figuring he could grab it while the dog’s attention was on the doorway.
Cold from the refrigerated area met the warm hallway air, condensing it into billowing clouds of dense fog, making the inside invisible. The dog seemed fixated on what was inside.
Now was Al’s best chance.
He slowed his pace, meticulously placing one foot in front of the other, to not startle the animal while it was preoccupied with the fog. When he was a couple of feet behind the unsuspecting pooch, he leapt. At the same time, Monsieur decided to dart inside the milky murk.
Al didn’t even lay a finger on him.
He glared at the opening shrouded in white mist. He couldn’t see a thing.
He had never been inside the butcher’s area where they stored the ship’s beef, in which one butcher cut up all the meat before sending the cuts to one of the ship’s three galleys. Al was a vegetarian, so he’d never had an interest in venturing inside. Now he wished he had.
As he stepped into the vapor, he immediately ran into a table with lumps of beef randomly strewn around it. An icicle of pain dug into his hip.
It occurred to him then that the butcher couldn’t have operated in this near invisibility. One of the freezers inside must be open and none of the lights were on. Al squinted his eyes tighter and could only make out that there were one or two large shapes further away. Their images were fuzzy, almost ethereal.
“Hello?” he begged, thrusting his hands out to block anything he might run into, and continued around the table. Now he could only make out the dark sticks of his arms and the two approaching shapes. Then he wondered how he would even see Monsieur. By every measure, he was blind.
“Monsieur,” he called out as he moved deeper into the room. He remembered overhearing that it was three rooms in one: a preparation room that he was walking through, one refrigerated storage room full of meat, already prepared and ready to be cooked, and one freezer. He couldn’t tell which or if both were opened.
The two shapes, he suspected, were by the cold storage. They were also bigger than he’d thought.
And they almost seemed to be... moving.
Al felt his way around until he reached one of the two shapes. His heart rose up as he touched it. Cold.
It was a side of beef, hanging from the ceiling.
Taking in a breath of the room’s arctic-like air, and feeling more confident, he pushed forward to what he guessed was the open freezer.
It was a good thing he held his hands out like bumpers, because both his feet tripped over something—probably another side of beef on the ground, only defrosted—and he cartwheeled forward. He would have hit the hard floor face first, but his palms and elbows took the fall, and banged loudly.
Electric jolts of agony shot up from his elbows.
He breathed out a puff of frothy air, relieved that only his elbows absorbed the landing, and not his head. Then he gasped.
Just in front of him was a small object. At first, he thought it was another piece of meat that had fallen to the floor, only smaller. He still couldn’t see anything in this white soup.
He reached out with a finger and touched it, retreating back instantly, as if the object had snapped at him.
It was warm, and furry. Not what he expected.
Panicked, thinking it might be Monsieur, he unhooked his feet from what had tripped him up and scurried forward on his elbows to get a closer look.
“Mon-sewer?” he begged, his voice cracking. He didn’t want it to be true.
“Yip-yip-yip,” shrieked a reply from the murk.
Al caught a flash of movement in front of him, then over him, and then behind him—a frightened sounding yip trailing behind, and then exiting the door both the dog and Al had entered.
He tried to turn toward the escaping animal to get a glimpse, to confirm his hope. He still couldn’t see past his knees. But he was pretty sure it was Monsieur. He is all right.
The chill of the floor and the frosty air all around started to seep into him, making him shiver.
He had almost forgotten about the soft furry thing he had thought was Monsieur, but now confirmed it wasn’t. Then he was jolted with the thought that what had he touched wasn’t the dog, but something else entirely.
He turned back with trepidation to see and was rocked once more.
It was a dead rat. Worse yet, half a dead rat. Its head was cleaved off.
Al shrank back in revulsion, pushing himself up so that he was again standing. More like wobbling.
Rubbing feeling back into his legs and hands, he tried to get his mind around what a still warm beheaded rat was doing inside the near-frozen butcher’s area.
Scurrying sounds and an unmistakable squeak yanked his head up toward the open freezer.
Like a thunderbolt, Al exploded from the floor.
He wasn’t much of a runner, but he was quite sure that it took him less than a second to find the exit, and close the solid door behind him. This was despite his tripping again over the body of the dead butcher—his mind didn’t even offer an alternative to it being anything other than a fallen side of beef.
Al remained in front of the butcher’s door, bent over puffing, his lungs gasping for air.
When he heard a muddled whimper below him, his heart practically leapt out of his body, thinking it must be another rat. But right away Al could see it was the toy poodle. It rubbed up against him, acting like it had done nothing wrong.
Then he saw the blood.
He reached down and scooped up the animal, and noticed that the little guy’s paw was bleeding, although not badly. He did a quick wrap, using one of the plastic bags he carried to pick up any of the feces his boarders left during their walk. He’d have to clean up the dog’s wound tonight and cover it. And less savory, he’d have to explain to the owner what had happened when she visited tomorrow.
“Come on, you little monster. Quit complaining.”
He connected the leash to Monsieur’s collar and ushered the pack back in the direction of the spa.
He was so focused on the dogs, he didn’t even think to report the rats and the open freezer until th
e next day. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had. A few minutes after Al and the dogs departed, an unsuspecting member of the kitchen crew tasked with getting a few more select cuts of meat for a specialty restaurant would open the sealed butcher’s door and find a terrifying surprise.
09
Crew Mess
Flavio Petrovich from Romania—as it said on his name-badge—was headed to the crew mess carrying with him a giant attitude and an even larger headache.
He had just finished his shift, after being stuck training the world’s dumbest person: Chichi Vega from Chile. Chichi had zero experience in the dining room, while Flavio had years of it. Naturally, the powers that be stuck them together for the rest of this itinerary, and maybe the rest of his contract. And to make matters worse, Chichi spent most of her time gabbing with the guests, instead of doing her job. She’d “Ooh” and “Ahh” at the guests’ stories about rats and birds, while Flavio had to do his job and hers.
He had no appetite, but knew if he didn’t eat, his migraine would get much worse. With his head down, seething with anger, he marched to the mess.
It was late. And as expected, the only sounds he heard were the echoes of his rapid footfalls, marching with him down the giant hallway. It was his preferred time to eat: long after the MDR shut down and most of the crew had already eaten and moved on to either their next shifts or their bunks to get some needed sleep before their shifts started again. Eating now meant that he missed out on many of the food options offered to the crew during the prime time. And there were quite a few, although not as many as what was offered their guests above. It was okay though, as Flavio didn’t care for most of the offerings by this head chef, who was English. Flavio did not care for British food, and cared for this chef even less. He often stated flatly to his fellow crew, “How many culinary schools do you hear coming from London versus Paris?”
Eating late did have its benefits, though: there were fewer crew members around, which meant it was quiet. And after a day of noisy guests and dealing with Chichi from Chile, he could use some quiet time. It also gave him the chance to watch what he wanted on the satellite TV without having to haggle with the others over what should be on. One thing he always found interesting on this ship was that the crew had far more options on their satellite TV then the guests had on their own, including the news. But tonight, he wasn’t interested in the news. He just wanted to get a little spicy Thai food (there was always an offering of Thai food, no matter the time of day), eat in quiet, and then return to his cabin and get some sleep. He was exhausted.
He considered what the captain announced to the crew, about many of their fellow crew not making it onto the ship because of flight cancellations and other oddities. Flavio felt pretty sure this was just some bullshit excuse the cruise line used to take advantage of workers like him, who were already working extra shifts. He was always telling others how the cruise line was trying to screw him and his fellow workers.
He realized his headache was really killing him. He might have to take his food back to his room and eat in the dark.
Flavio pushed through the door marked “Pub,” which led to a combo pub and lounge area with comfy chairs and a giant flat-screened TV. It was a great place to get a drink, if he did that, and hang out with friends—he didn’t have many. The beer was cheap: about a euro versus the eight euros the ship charged their guests. At least this was one way the ship didn’t take advantage of its crew.
As Flavio stepped inside, he immediately saw something odd: there were dozens of crew here, even though it was so late. Usually there were only one or two, at the most. All were clustered around the flat-screened TV on the wall. Also odd was that they weren't watching the usual American soap opera or what they called “Reality TV.” They were all watching the news.
He gazed at the screen showing Fox News with several people arguing about something he couldn’t really hear over the crew’s chatter, while a crawl of news points slid across the bottom of the screen...
“Animal attacks continue throughout Europe: four confirmed killed in Paris dog attacks... Rats attack city of Malaga, Spain...” Report after report spoke about animal attacks, over several places in Europe.
He hmphed in disinterest, and then turned back to the mess entrance to get his Thai chicken. The animal attacks were a concern, but not a big one to him because he and the others were on this ship for the next two weeks, headed to America and then the Caribbean, not Europe—where all the attacks were occurring. Now if they had this problem on the ship, then it might draw his interest.
When Flavio entered the crew mess he felt his anger grow even more. The trays that were supposed to hold assortments of food were empty. Other than a bowl of fruit and some desiccated Danishes, there was nothing. He saw a skinny dark-skinned man wearing the white uniform of a sous chef shoot him a glance before returning to his busy work.
“Hey, what am I supposed to eat?” Flavio was almost surprised to hear he was yelling at the man, who kept his back to him, clanging pans and pots. “I’m talking to you. Do I look like some monkey? You must think so if I have only bananas and other fruit to eat.”
The skinny man finally acknowledged Flavio, but he kept his back to him. “You miss dinner time. We all closed up. Come back in morning.”
There was a commotion in the pub area, probably some numbskulls fighting it out over what channel to watch.
He was too tired to fight with this man, not that it would make any difference nor get him his food. He’d go up to one of the main galleys and grab some of the food offered to the guests. Crew weren’t supposed to do that, but the kitchens were supposed to feed him too. The ship’s worry, not his.
Flavio pushed back through the crew mess entry and halted in the doorway, momentarily stunned.
Rather than the futile brawl he’d expected, he was shocked to see that the men and women who’d been sitting in chairs passively gawking at the TV were now spasmodically dashing around the lounge, like some wild version of musical chairs—without the music—attempting to get away from... What were those things?
Rats?
He hated rats.
They were dirty and disgusting animals. They brought disease and filth with them, and they most certainly didn’t belong on his ship.
He withdrew a knife—he always kept a steak knife sheathed to his body—and held it in a reverse defensive grip.
Flavio blinked back his headache and marched toward the melee. He’d kill every last one of these things if he had to. Then, he’d get his meal.
DAY THREE
THE CAPTAIN’S MORNING ADDRESS BLARED, JUST OUTSIDE THE CABIN. NOT WANTING TO MISS IT, I RACED TO OPEN THE DOOR.
THESE WERE HIS WORDS, MORE OR LESS.
“GOOD MORNING, GUESTS OF THE INTREPID. THIS IS YOUR FRIENDLY CAPTAIN, JÖRGEN CHRISTIANSEN, COMING TO YOU FROM THE BRIDGE.
“WE ARE PRESENTLY LOCATED AT 36 DEGREES, 30 MINUTES NORTH BY 4 DEGREES, 30 MINUTES WEST AND ON A SOUTHWESTERLY COURSE AT TEN KNOTS. AS WE SLICE THROUGH THE OCEAN, JUST OFF THE SPANISH COAST TO OUR NORTH, WE WILL PASS BY FUENGIROLA SHORTLY. AT THIS CURRENT PACE, WE WILL ARRIVE AT THE BARBARY COAST TOMORROW AS SCHEDULED.
“TODAY SHOULD BE A CALM DAY AT SEA, WITH THE CURRENT TEMPERATURE OF TEN DEGREES CELSIUS OR FIFTY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. AS WE ATTEMPT TO GET AHEAD OF THE CLOUD LAYERS WHICH SEEM TO BE KEEPING OUR TEMPERATURES DOWN A LITTLE, PLEASE ENJOY ALL THE ACTIVITIES IN ALL OUR LOUNGES. AND TO CELEBRATE OUR FIRST DAY AT SEA, TEQUILA SHOTS WILL BE ON SALE ALL DAY LONG FOR ONLY $5—I MIGHT HAVE ONE OF THOSE WITH YOU... JUST KIDDING.
“HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY ON THE HAPPIEST SHIP ON THE OCEAN, THE INTREPID, REGAL EUROPEAN’S SHINING STAR OF THE SEAS.”
10
All Access Tour
The All Access Tour was supposed to have taken place near the last day of their cruise, but it ended up being pushed up to the second day for reasons unknown. Only later would they realize the tour would save their lives.
Last night, while eating, Ted confided in T
J that there were only three activities on this cruise which interested him: his time with her, the periods of ocean-churning inspiration while writing on their balcony, and the All Access Tour. The tour offered an exclusive look inside the bowels of the ship, a behind-the-scenes peek into what made a cruise ship tick. And only a few people were given this opportunity, if it was even offered during a cruise; because of security concerns, the tour was considered a privilege that did not come cheap. On this ship, participants would have to pony up $160 US, per person. Ted would have gladly paid more.
After they finished their room service, a call on their house phone informed them that the tour would take place at “9 AM sharp, tomorrow,” their two spots were reserved, and it was gratis to them.
Anxious for the superficial respite before bed, they argued over the reasons for the free passes. Was it a gift from the captain, “because the captain is your biggest fan” as TJ loved to chide? Or was it additional compensation, as Ted argued, for his giving a lecture in a couple of days? They’d ask the captain to settle this dispute when they saw him at tomorrow’s dinner.
Neither of them slept well that night. Ted spent more mental time puzzling over trivial matters—any excuse to avoid their larger worries. Before he settled into a fitful sleep, he wondered why he was so excited about the tour. He wasn’t particularly interested in ships, or cruising. It was only because of his agent, and later, his wife’s insistence that he even agreed to go on this cruise.
When the “restricted” doorway opened into another world occupied only by the ship’s crew, Ted hearkened back to a childhood memory when he gazed into the glass ant farm, a thin layer of soil between two panes in a wooden frame. He remembered the thrill he had, with face pressed against the glass, knowing that he was witnessing the buzz of activity usually unseen by mere humans above ground. He felt the same sudden excitement now witnessing the unseen buzz of crew activity—the ship’s worker ants.