by M. L. Banner
“What!” Ted hollered.
“Well, it appears,” she said in an even voice, her best attempt to be calming, “that people really want to listen to your talk about the apocalypse, especially after the captain’s announcement this morning. They decided to make sure you had enough room.”
“But the theater?” He groaned, closed his eyes, and fell back onto the bed, his breaths becoming shorter and more uneasy.
She moved over beside him and stroked his head. “There’s more. The captain wanted you to stress the point that the whole animal craziness thing was just temporary and that everyone on board is safe right now. You could just say a few words and then take questions. You’ll be into it quickly—I know you—and you’ll forget the audience in no time.”
She thought about the story he had told her about the death of his first wife and young child on a French vacation, deaths he was sure he had caused.
As she watched him breathe, she tried to imagine what it must have been like: watching the crowds building around him in the public square and his enochlophobia causing a full-on panic; then seeing his young wife cradling their child, walking across the street toward him; then his glancing up and seeing the madman barreling through the crowds in a truck; then Ted realizing his wife and child would be next, but because he was frozen from fear, he couldn’t do anything, except watch them die.
She still couldn’t imagine how devastating that was for him.
But that was so long ago, and he had been doing much better lately.
This cruise, and especially the main dining room, were big tests, which he passed with flying colors. This next one would be much bigger. Perhaps it was too huge for him to bear.
“Just tell me you’ll be there,” he groaned, his eyes still closed.
She didn’t answer.
He lifted his head and glared at her. “Really?”
“You told me you didn’t want me to come to this; I’d be bored and so on, remember? Besides I have some work-related stuff after my run.
“You mean your work-related stuff with Jean Pierre?” he countered.
“Yes, Bureau work, Jean Pierre is helping us with. I told you, it’s the main reason we’re here.”
“Fine, guess I don’t need to do this talk then,” he huffed.
“Ted Williams, don’t be selfish. You agreed to do this, regardless of venue size. I’ll miss only the first part of your talk, and then I’ll be there.”
“Guess it’s settled then.” He sprang up and darted to the bathroom. “I’m jumping in the shower and going to go get a stiff drink. That way, I can really make a spectacle of myself.”
She thought about saying something more, but she had already said too much. She knew he had to deal with this in his own way. At least he was dealing with it, versus just hiding in their room. She could hardly have been surprised if he did. She just didn’t want to compound his problem.
As the muffled spray in the shower sounded, she slithered her other foot into its shoe and quickly tied both.
Guilt about leaving Ted to fend for himself swept over her. She had set up another meet with Jean Pierre, while Ted was giving his presentation. She decided then that her husband had to come first; she’d tell Jean Pierre that she could no longer do what she was doing. She was going to spend the rest of the cruise with her husband. She’d not waste this opportunity, feeling like maybe they’d all been given a second chance.
She stood up, truly excited. She was anxious to get going and finish this, so she could support her husband. And knowing that the threat of wild animals roving the decks of the ship had been handled, she could enjoy her run as well.
~~~
Two decks above them on the other end of the ship, completely forward, Catur, the room steward, pounded once more on the door of cabin 8500. Its occupants had not been heard from for over two days, and they did not prop their door open as requested by their staff captain last night. He had waited as long as possible, wanting to offer the couple their privacy. The Do Not Disturb card carried lots of weight for most guests on the Intrepid’s transatlantic cruises, as some guests rarely left their cabins. This was especially true with the Royal Suite. But the time for privacy had passed. And the hotel captain now required that each room steward account for every one of their guests, DND card or not.
Cabins with doors propped open by life preservers had already been inspected and their occupants’ wellness checked. Cleared cabins received a green sticker on the lock assembly. Catur had just three non-green sticker cabins. One deck 7 cabin was a disaster and a tragedy. When he first did his wellness-check rounds last night, he saw water pouring out of the bottom of 7512. He opened it to find that the slider had been left open during the tsunami, and the cabin was utterly destroyed. In a heap, among all the other debris, he’d found the beautiful honeymoon couple, naked and drowned. It was awful.
The next of the three was cabin 8504. But it was empty, so he didn’t bother to check it. That left one more suite. And he had put this one off to the very last minute. He desperately didn’t want to find any more dead guests.
He pounded again. “Housekeeping. This is Catur, Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael, I need to come in and check on you.”
Catur pressed his ear to the door and listened. He could hear a grunt and a rumble inside the cabin. He panicked then and thought that maybe one of them was severely injured and couldn’t get to the door. Mr. Carmichael was much older, and so it was very possible that he had fallen and broken something. Falls were common with older guests.
The guard normally stationed in front of the bridge entrance at the end of the hall wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Probably better that security didn’t see what was going to happen next. Catur imagined accidentally interrupting something he just didn’t want to see: two old people having sex. Although the wife was a looker, the old man was just scary-old. He tried to shake away the ghastly image, knowing it would be something he could never unsee. He’d have to offer that mental image to Asep and Jaga, and let them share in his discomfort.
Catur smiled at that idea and rapped with a balled fist on the door, harder this time, while he fumbled with his master key-card. Almost dropping it, he regained control, slipped it in and out of the slot, and upon seeing the green light flash, he cranked the handle and pushed in hard.
It was dark inside, and only a bare channel of light flooded in from the hallway. He was immediately overwhelmed by the most horrid smell. It smelled like spoiled food. Food that had been bad before it spoiled.
He tried the light switches, flipping them on and off, but to no effect. One more thing that isn’t working.
He took one tentative step inside and stopped, still holding the door open for light, his foot sloshing on the carpet. For a moment, he thought he saw something in the far corner of the room. Squinting, he mentally cursed the guests for leaving the curtains and sheers pulled so tightly across the slider windows.
Swift movement. A shadow, now by the couch.
Then it was closer, and Catur could see the movement was coming toward him.
“It’s Catur.” His voice wavered. “Mr. and Mrs.—” Something struck him in the chest with the force of a moving truck, knocking him hard into the side of the door, which he had still been holding open. At the same time, he felt something inside him break. He tried to scream, in hopes that someone would hear him in the hallway, but whatever hit him knocked his wind out. Some crazed animal screeched at his face with a warm foulness he’d never smelled before, nor did he want to. He clenched his eyes tight, afraid to look as he tried to pull in a painful breath through his mouth and nose. He’d belt out a cry for help. But he gagged at the horrid stench. Once more, he pulled in another breath—this time using just his mouth and ignoring the smell—when it felt like his entire throat had been ripped away. His gurgled half-breath bubbled out of the new opening.
Catur’s dying body was released by his attacker and collapsed into the doorway, keeping the door propped open. The beast che
wed the fresh piece of flesh in its mouth, heard someone else and dashed toward the call for “Housekeeping” down the hall.
33
T.D. Bonaventure
Ted—T.D. Bonaventure, as he was introduced—was being peppered with questions. Although many of the questions were coming from people who had read his books, most of the questions came from those who had no idea who he was. They had come for answers, and heard that Ted was the one on the ship who had them. For Ted, it was a catharsis. He stood in front of a huge crowd, calmly answering questions, without any fear whatsoever. He’d have to thank the captain personally for this. And Vicky, the bartender.
Ted had worked himself up to almost a full-out panic before eight. He marched over to the Anchor Bar for a drink or two to relax him. They technically didn’t open for another hour. Thankfully, he was able to coax a stiff shot of whiskey out of Vicky Smith from England, the bartender who was setting up for the day. She said she remembered his name, although she only read romance novels. Doubtless, she took some pity on the author who admitted he was scared shitless to be giving a speech in front of hundreds of people at the theater. Ted just hoped the drink would give him enough confidence to go through with it. Turned out he didn’t need the drink.
It was just a few words, offered by Vicky, a bartender’s simple platitude about human fears. On any other patron, her little pearl of wisdom would have been lost. For Ted, it was exactly what he needed.
“You know why you’re bloody scared of your talk?” she stated, momentarily moving her gaze from the heavy tumblers she was balancing to Ted.
He bit. “Okay, why?”
“Because you’re hiding from some other shit that bothers you more.”
Better than a dozen shots of heavily fortified Tequila or a doctor-prescribed sedative, her little bromide not only removed his anxiety, he almost forgot his talk altogether. He dashed down a couple hallways and a flight of stairs, before arriving at the theater, one minute late.
At the theater’s performer entrance, a crew member had been waiting for him and delivered a copy of the vet’s report on the crazed dogs. Because this was germane to his talk, he explored the vet’s detailed findings. But he was still chewing on Vicky’s words.
Ted skimmed the very thorough report for its major points, until he arrived at and slowly read the conclusion, “I recommend keeping the dogs isolated from their owners until the conclusion of the cruise, during which time I will continue to observe their behavior. It is my belief that the aggressive tendencies we saw earlier have passed, and that the dogs are no longer a threat.”
Ted had rolled the report up into a tube after rereading this passage once more. Then he fist-pumped the air with it. “Yes!” he said, under his breath. His brain yelled, I sure hope you’re right, and then he stepped through the entrance.
“I’m told he’s here now,” bellowed the amplified voice of Zeka, the cruise director from the theater. “Some of you know him from his international best-selling books. Others of you might be looking for answers about what’s going on outside. But all of you need to welcome the Authoritative Author of the Apocalypse, and your fellow passenger, Mr. T.D. Bonaventure.”
Right on cue, he stepped through the curtains, a big smile enveloping his mustached face. He pulled his pipe from his lips and waved to the crowd.
“Thank you, my friends,” he said into a microphone handed to him, his British accent—practiced for public venues—rolling off his tongue as if he were a London native.
His heart was beating like a set of bongos, and the welcome feeling of adrenaline pumped through his veins. He couldn’t see most of the people because of the stark spotlight, which blinded him, and that was a good thing. He tried to imagine it was only a few dozen, even though the introductory applause sounded like hundreds. The vast room had become quiet very quickly.
“Let’s see,” he said, scratching his head for effect, as he looked up to the ceiling, “a giant tsunami, volcanoes erupting, animals attacking, and chaos everywhere... And you want me to talk about apocalyptic fiction?” He flashed a wide smile for the crowd.
The response from the audience had been a dead-quiet nothing, laced with a couple of nervous snickers, and an elderly man near the front hacking up what sounded like a lung. He’d seen jokes from comedians thud like this.
He took a puff from his pipe and decided to deliver the captain’s message to set his audience and himself at ease.
“First, I have a message from our captain. We have several dogs on board with us, and like the other animal behavior we read about and many of us experienced firsthand on land, there were reports of several passengers and crew getting bitten.”
Gasps billowed throughout the audience, and a woman had started weeping.
“Hang on. Before you get all twisted with worry, I’m happy to announce that the dogs have been apprehended and are locked in a protected area. Furthermore, the ship-board vet has observed their behavior and reports that all the animals’ crazy behavior has passed. They are currently sleeping.
“Let me put this another way. Even though we haven’t been able to communicate yet with the outside world to get further confirmations, it appears that the danger—at least on board this ship—has passed.”
At first there had been just a few claps, but then the entire theater erupted in applause. The guy handling the lights turned them up on the audience and down on the stage. Ted could see the entire theater was packed to its limit and every single person was on their feet, cheering.
He clapped too. He couldn’t help it. Part of him felt like maybe this thing may have passed, and he was ready to embrace this hope just as quickly as his fellow passengers were.
When the clapping subsided, Ted raised the microphone again. “Okay...” He waited for a few more slow ticks of the clock for the clapping to stop, and then said, “Okay, because this situation is unique, rather than me rattling on for a while on subjects I choose, like why you all should buy my next book, I’m going to open it up to you. What would you like to ask me?”
The early questions came from some actual fans and were centered on Ring of Fire, his series about the ring of 452 volcanoes in the Pacific, several of which erupted, causing a new Ice Age. They asked, “Did the rogue wave mean anything bigger?” And, “Are we going to experience more volcanic activity, and even a new Ice Age?”
By this point, even though the lights were still turned up on the house and he could see everyone clearly, Ted felt at ease. He again attempted some humor and reminded his audience that although he did a lot of research for his novels, he was not a geologist or volcanologist. Those points were not entirely true, as he had studied a lot of geology in college, and almost chose that field for his vocation. But he didn’t want any more added responsibility and found it was often better to deflect.
So far, so good.
Then someone went for his jugular, and it changed everything for Ted.
A gruff-looking man wearing a red Ferrari sports shirt—Ted had seen one just like this, on the worst day of his life—stood up. “Why do most people in this room believe that a paperback writer of fictional tales could tell us anything about crazy animals?”
It wasn’t the nature of the question. It wasn’t even the questioner, but the shirt he was wearing and the words of Vicky Smith from England, which transported Ted out of this theater, back to that moment years ago when his life changed.
~~~
It had been a beautiful day in Nice, France. Promenade des Anglais was bustling with Bastille Day celebrants. In the middle of it all was Ted, soaking up the culture and sun, waiting for his wife and toddler son to finish up in a restaurant bathroom across the street.
He was alerted to an odd noise before it seemed anyone else was: a large vehicle’s engine being gunned, somewhere on this street clogged with people. Before he saw the truck, Ted observed his wife and their toddler exiting the restaurant, beaming a smile at Ted.
A man in a red Ferrari sports shirt bumped i
nto Ted and scowled, as if Ted were the cause of their collision. It was then that Ted noticed the throng of people had grown. Worse, they now separated him from his young family. He couldn’t easily get to them.
In a flash, the truck, its engine roaring, was barreling through the crowds of people. Without slowing, it was headed straight for his wife and son, who remained blissfully unaware and unmoving in its path.
Ted sucked in large gulps of air, while the enveloping crowds pushed at him, obscuring his view of them and seemingly taking him farther away from any possibility of saving them.
He had a scientific mind, and he understood cause and effect. His mind had already calculated, based on speed and the direction of the vehicle, what was going to happen: he was going to watch his family die.
It was a gut punch of a realization.
And rather than doing anything, he just watched. More so, he shrank back, away from warning them; saving them. He let the hordes overwhelm him.
~~~
“Hey! So what makes you an expert?” a distant voice hollered.
Ted shook his head, aware that he’d been lost in his own thoughts. His breathing had escalated, and he was uncomfortably hot. He glanced at the giant crowds in front of him—not unlike the crowds of that Bastille Day, when he watched his wife and son die. But he no longer felt possessed by the overwhelming anxiousness he always felt when he faced crowds of people. Something was different.
It was something he had not paid attention to until this flashback: his wife and boy were doomed, regardless of the crowd around him. It wasn’t his fear of the crowd that caused their deaths; it was a crazy terrorist.
Vicky had said his fear of crowds was just his “hiding from some other shit that bothers you more.” Ted needed to feel guilty about their deaths, and his fake disease was what he hung onto as the reason he couldn’t save them. But no one could have saved them, certainly not him.