Blood Cruise

by Mats Strandberg

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vincent replies, his voice fading into a whisper. ‘He disappeared even before … I don’t know where he is.’

  He looks so devastated she is sorry she asked. She would like to make him feel better, but he has looked out of the window too.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she says. ‘On getting married, I mean.’

  He smiles, but it is the most mirthless smile she has ever seen. ‘I said no,’ he says.

  ‘How come?’ The question just slips out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she adds quickly. ‘It’s none of my business. It’s just that …’

  This time she stops herself just in time. It’s just I can tell from looking at you that you love him.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. But, yeah, I don’t know. I thought I needed some time to think about it …’ He chuckles. ‘I assumed there was more time.’

  ‘You could hardly be expected to know people would start tearing each other apart with their teeth.’

  ‘Please,’ Marianne interjects.

  ‘No, that’s true,’ Vincent says, and laughs again, putting his head in his hands. ‘I should look for him,’ he adds. ‘He’s out there somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ Marianne says. ‘He will come here if he can.’

  ‘Exactly. If he can. What if he needs help?’ Vincent says.

  ‘But what if you miss each other?’ Marianne says. ‘He would want you to stay put.’ She looks at Madde as if she wants to be backed up. As though Madde has the faintest idea about what Vincent’s boyfriend might want.

  ‘Yeah, he probably would,’ Madde says. ‘It’s what I would want.’

  If she loved someone, she would want that person to be as safe as possible, and somewhere where she could find him or her.

  Also, she really doesn’t want Vincent to leave.

  Calle

  They watch the doors slide open in silence. Outside the rectangle of light from the lift, the shadows lurk deep. Green and orange dots gleam here and there: tiny lights on enormous kitchen machines.

  Calle listens into the dark, but hears nothing but the humming of the ventilation system. He gives Filip a quick look.

  Antti heaves an exasperated sigh and steps out of the lift. Walking with his back overly straight, holding his arms away from his sides, he looks like a small dog trying to look big and threatening. The effect is the opposite.

  Calle and the children move into the galley, along with Marisol and Filip. Mika is the last to leave the lift.

  There is a jangling above them and the fluorescent lights come to life. Antti is standing by the light switches, his face extremely flushed, almost purple. The vast stainless-steel countertops, the big ovens, grills, holding cabinets, deep-fryers all gleam in the bright light. Everything is spotless, meticulously cleaned. On a regular cruise, it would almost be time to start prepping breakfast. On the wall next to the dishwashers there is a noticeboard with schedules and a couple of postcards with girls in bikinis on beaches. And next to the board is a grey wall-mounted phone.

  Vincent.

  If he doesn’t call, he can keep telling himself Vincent is in their suite and safe. But if he calls and Vincent doesn’t pick up …

  ‘We need weapons,’ Antti says, opening a few drawers at random and slamming them shut again.

  Calle gently lets go of Albin’s hand and walks to the prep area: four long counters surrounded by oversized refrigerators. He opens a drawer and sees a neat row of big knives.

  ‘There’s loads here,’ he says.

  Marisol walks to the next counter; she pulls out a couple of cleavers and a meat tenderiser and places them on the worktop. Their eyes meet and Calle instinctively feels he likes her. He lines up a number of blades in front of him and gingerly tests the edges with his finger. They are sharp, clearly well cared for. He wonders whether the big ones are better by default, or if the parers might be nimbler. And should the kids have sharp implements too?

  ‘Can you believe we’re doing this?’ he says.

  Marisol leans against the counter and wipes her brow. ‘I beat a woman to death up at Starlight,’ she says. ‘She was one of them … but I …’ She swallows. ‘I don’t know if I can do it again.’

  ‘I know. I mean, me neither.’

  He pushes aside thoughts of the man with dreadlocks, the thoughts of the things that leaked out of his head, and studies the selection. Suddenly the notion of putting them to use seems ridiculous. He glances around for the children.

  Lo comes up to him, holding out a big pair of kitchen scissors with stainless-steel blades. Albin is standing half a step behind her. His gaze is blank, chillingly vacant.

  ‘This should be useful for something,’ Lo says.

  She looks so childish and yet so grown up at the same time.

  Calle has to look away when he accepts the scissors. She and Albin shouldn’t be here. They should be at home, safe in their beds.

  He lets his eyes sweep across the dishwashers, the stacks of dishwasher racks, the high-pressure hoses dangling like slumbering snakes above the sinks. His gaze catches on the phone again. He will call, soon. He just has to gather his wits first.

  A loud crash and clattering behind him makes him spin around. Antti has pulled out a couple of drawers and turned them upside down. Whisks and pasta forks and potato pressers lie scattered across the floor.

  ‘Could you maybe keep it the fuck down, yeah?’ Filip says.

  Antti stares up at him, pulls out another drawer and deliberately empties out the contents onto the floor. ‘Just being efficient,’ he says. ‘Maybe you should try it.’

  ‘You’re going to draw them here,’ Calle says. ‘How hard is that to understand?’

  Antti gives him a look of utter contempt. ‘Shut the fuck up, faggot!’

  ‘Stellar fucking guy,’ Lo mutters to Albin. ‘Can they please come and kill him right now?’

  Calle barely registers her words. Hate surges through him when he looks at Antti. It is so strong he barely recognises himself.

  But then it dawns on him that the opposite is true: he recognises this hatred all too well. He was too much of a chicken to talk back to Antti when they worked together, but now he wants to punch him, beat that blowsy face to a pulp, kick it to shit with his boots.

  The hate feels good; the fire of it burns away his fear, temporarily obliterating all thoughts of contagion and Vincent and Pia and the children.

  ‘Fuck you, Antti,’ Filip says. ‘You can take your macho bullshit and shove it up your arse.’

  ‘Shove it up your friend’s arse instead,’ Antti says. ‘I bet he’d like that. Fuck you too, fuck being here with two brats, a bitch and the fucking thought police!’

  ‘I can’t take it any more,’ Mika says.

  Calle had almost forgotten about him. He notices Mika is slumped on the floor with his back against one of the holding cabinets.

  ‘And that one,’ Antti sneers.

  ‘I don’t want to be here,’ Mika says. ‘Why is this happening to me?’

  ‘To you?’ Calle says. ‘At least you’re alive, unlike all the people up there in the mess. And Pia and Jarno. And all the passengers who—’

  ‘I just don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve this.’

  ‘No one deserves this!’ Filip almost screams.

  Mika glares at them sullenly, as though it is highly unfair of them to deny him his self-pity.

  ‘Let’s all calm down now,’ Marisol says. ‘We don’t even know what the fuck we’re dealing with.’

  ‘I do,’ Lo says. ‘I know what they are, but you’re not going to believe me.’

  Calle turns to her.

  ‘They’re vampires,’ she says.

  ‘Lo …’

  ‘But they are. Don’t you get it?’

  ‘Bitches and brats,’ Antti mutters under his breath.

  ‘I thought they were zombies at first,’ Lo continues, ‘but zombies can’t talk or think. But you saw him, Dan Appelgren; he could do both, but he was one of them. And the woma
n who helped us too.’

  ‘Can you shut her up?’ Antti says. ‘I’m not in the mood to listen to a fucking kid who’s seen too many horror films.’

  Lo’s eyes narrow as she rounds on him. ‘So why don’t you give us a natural explanation then?’ she says. ‘I’m sure that won’t be far-fetched at all.’

  Vampires.

  Maybe it is a sign that he is losing his mind, but the word makes everything fall into place. No matter how insane it sounds, it is the most rational explanation he has heard so far for the irrational things happening all over the Charisma.

  The teeth. The biting. All the blood, the carnage out there. The mayhem in the mess. The woman with a knife through her throat who fumbled for the handle while blood gushed out of her. The man with the dreadlocks who wouldn’t stop moving until there was nothing left of his head.

  The images from the mess flood his brain and he almost loses his grip on reality. It’s as if he has careened right to the brink of insanity but managed to stop at the last moment. The abyss tugs at him, but he doesn’t fall in. Not yet.

  But now he knows it is there, waiting for him.

  ‘Pia said Dan was with a little boy,’ Mika says. ‘She thought the boy was one of them too.’

  ‘That woman said something to Dan about her son,’ Lo says eagerly, looking at Calle.

  ‘Oh, right then,’ Antti says with a theatrical laugh. ‘That confirms it. Great. Well, there should be garlic around here somewhere. Or shall we whittle ourselves some wooden stakes?’

  ‘Maybe we should,’ Lo says. ‘We have to destroy the heart and the brain, she said.’

  ‘It’s terrorists,’ Antti says, looking around, ‘or am I the only one here who doesn’t believe in fairy tales?’

  Calle hides his face in his hands and accidentally touches the gash on his forehead; the sweat on his fingertips makes the wound sting.

  ‘I don’t know what I believe,’ Filip says, ‘but it doesn’t matter what we call them. The question is what we do now.’

  Antti kicks one of the drawers on the floor.

  ‘We have to stop the ship so we can launch the life rafts,’ Marisol says.

  ‘Henke and Pär already tried to get to the bridge once and they …’ Antti’s voice trails off.

  ‘All right, then we’ll try the engine room. Does anyone know how to do a shutdown?’

  Antti sighs. ‘It’s simple,’ he says, sounding almost reluctant. ‘You just have to throw a couple of buckets of water on the main switchboard. That makes the pumps stop, which in turn starves the engines of both fuel and coolant.’

  They look at each other.

  ‘Good,’ Marisol says. ‘Then we have a plan.’

  Calle looks at the phone next to the noticeboard. If they are going to do this, he has to call now.

  I may not get another chance.

  The thought is too enormous, too impossible, so he forces it down. He has to keep his wits about him. He walks to the phone, his heart pounding, picks up the receiver, pushes the greasy buttons. 9. 3. 1. 8.

  It rings. Again. And again.

  ‘Hello?’ Vincent says, breathing heavily.

  The plastic receiver creaks as Calle clutches it. ‘It’s me,’ he says.

  He has to breathe deeply and slowly not to burst out crying. If he does, he will fall into that abyss and never be able to crawl back out.

  ‘Where are you?’ Vincent says in a thick voice.

  ‘I’m in the galley,’ Calle says. When Vincent doesn’t reply he adds, ‘In the kitchen.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Calle says, ‘I’m okay.’

  The wires running through the Charisma hiss with static as if to remind them that the line could cut out anytime.

  ‘And you?’ Calle asks. ‘Are you okay? You’ve not been bitten?’

  ‘No,’ Vincent says.

  That word makes all the difference. A wave of relief washes over Calle and his eyes well up with tears.

  ‘I wish you were here,’ Vincent says.

  Calle swallows again and again to get rid of the lump growing in his throat. The whishing on the line sounds like the wind rustling through trees, like distant whispers.

  ‘Me too,’ he manages.

  ‘What’s happening to people? Do you know anything?’

  Vampires.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it safe where you are?’

  Hot tears begin to spill, rolling down Calle’s cheeks. ‘We’re going to try to get down to the engine room to stop the ship. Then we can launch the life rafts … and someone from outside is going to notice that something’s wrong, sooner or later …’ He trails off. It suddenly dawns on him that if people come to rescue them, they will be in danger too.

  He leans against the wall, trying to calm down, reminding himself not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. Focusing on one thing at a time is the only way to stay sane.

  ‘Can’t you stay where you are?’ Vincent says. ‘Please. For me.’

  ‘We have to try.’

  Vincent doesn’t respond. Calle just wants him to say something – anything – so he can hold on to Vincent’s voice just a little longer. But Vincent doesn’t say anything else.

  ‘Stay in the suite. Promise me you won’t leave,’ Calle says. ‘If we can’t stop the ship, I’ll get to you as quickly as I can.’

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Vincent says.

  Do that. I love you. Don’t let anything happen to you.

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ Calle says.

  ‘Yes. I’ll see you soon.’

  It sounds like Vincent has started to cry. Calle doesn’t want to hang up, but he mumbles goodbye and forces himself to put the phone back on its hook.

  ‘Albin? Lo?’ he calls, his voice surprisingly steady. ‘Come on, let’s try your parents.’ He wipes the last of his tears from his eyes and turns back to the others.

  Filip has found some plastic buckets, and duct tape, which he uses to attach a steak knife to a long metal stick that might be a mop handle.

  ‘Did you reach him?’ he asks.

  Calle nods.

  ‘Good,’ Filip says, and brandishes his makeshift spear.

  He looks so pleased with himself Calle has to smile.

  Vincent is safe. It is only now, when he knows, that he realises how dangerously close he came to giving up.

  Dan

  Adam is waiting for him by the arcade games on deck eight. Dan kicks past the bodies littering the hallway in front of Poseidon, placing his feet carefully. He can hear them slowly moving against each other. Some raise their heads, watching him as he passes.

  He is tired.

  If only he could have enjoyed what happened in the mess.

  But at least they all saw him. Everyone knew he was behind what went down. When they wake up, they will follow him, and when they regain their cognitive functions, they will know he was the one who gave them their new lives.

  He stands next to Adam and peers out of the window with him. A paler streak can be detected where the sea meets the sky. He wonders if his human eyes would even have been able to perceive it.

  A new dawn. A whole new world. And no one outside the Charisma knows yet.

  ‘Did it go well?’ Adam asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  Their reflections in the window are transparent. Dan’s face is puffy. The shirt is straining over his blood-filled body. He looks away. Meeting Adam’s gaze in the glass, he thinks about what his mother said: that Adam won’t submit to anyone ever again.

  And neither will Dan. Maybe he should kill Adam, right here, right now, venture into the new world without him. He’d be commanding an army of newborns by himself.

  ‘I haven’t found Mother,’ Adam says. ‘I haven’t even been able to locate her scent.’

  ‘She was there,’ Dan says.

  Adam turns to him, but Dan continues to look out of the window. The faint light is turning the sea into quicksilver.

  ‘She helped
some of them escape,’ he says.

  ‘And you let her?’ Adam says.

  Dan grits his teeth and turns to Adam. That tiny neck looks so easy to snap. But being fooled by Adam’s fragile appearance would be a grave mistake. He has to wait until he has recovered.

  ‘Who did she help?’ Adam asks.

  ‘Just a handful of losers. No one significant. And some kids.’

  The blood moves more effortlessly through Dan when he thinks about the blonde girl. So young. So fresh.

  ‘Children are one of her weaknesses,’ Adam says, and his dainty lips tighten. ‘Could the ones who escaped present a problem?’

  Dan shakes his head. What could a dud from the tax-free shop possibly do? Perfume them to death?

  Adam takes a seat on the window bench. His legs dangling, he kicks the heels of his shoes against the wall. His blue eyes bore into Dan. ‘Are you certain?’ he says.

  ‘They won’t make it anyway. One of them is about to turn. He didn’t have long. He’ll take care of them.’

  Dan pictures that hateful face with new teeth in it, the fear and hunger in the eyes, but he can’t manage to summon up any feelings.

  Behind Dan, one of the newborns grunts.

  ‘Maybe you should focus on all the ones who didn’t get away,’ Dan suggests. He avoids adding thanks to me, because he can tell he is sounding whiny, defensive. ‘We only have a couple of hours to go. There’s nothing your mum can do now.’

  ‘She’s going to try,’ Adam says, sounding like he is thinking out loud.

  ‘Then you have to make sure you deal with her.’

  Dan doesn’t want to talk about this any more. When he met Adam’s mother in the mess it was abundantly clear she wanted to kill him. He can’t have been given all of this just to lose it. He has so much more life to lose now. More years, better years.

  ‘Man the fuck up,’ Dan adds, ‘even if you do look like a toddler.’

  They lock eyes. Adam is the first to look away. ‘Don’t worry about Mother,’ he says. ‘I will take care of everything. You are right. Enjoy what we have achieved. You have done well.’

  ‘Cheers, thanks.’ Dan doesn’t need Adam’s validation, but he can’t be bothered to squabble any more.