Finally. Finally, he knows his place.
‘I’m glad you made it out of the mess,’ Dan says. ‘I was too tired to take care of you then. I’m not now.’
Filip screams when Dan rips a big chunk of flesh from his neck. The blood is warm, enticing. Dan spits it out; he won’t make the mistake of overeating again.
‘Run!’ Filip shouts, and tries to look at Marisol. ‘I’m done for. You have to help the others, you have to—’ But his shouts turn wordless when Dan buries his teeth in his throat once more, encountering the gristly resistance of Filip’s Adam’s apple.
Dan pries and crunches until Filip’s cries are abruptly cut off. His blood gushes like a warm, sweet fountain straight into Dan’s mouth. He can hear Marisol crying and the crowd behind them screaming in panic.
He looks deep into Filip’s wide-open eyes. He knows he is going to die now.
Dan tears Filip’s shirt open and bites a big chunk out of his chest, working his way towards his heart. He is going to annihilate Filip. He is going to erase him.
Calle
Something has happened on the promenade deck. People are congregating outside the glass doors, several crying in terror. Some are trying to push back inside the ship and one man is screaming, ‘We have to get back to our cabin. Come on, Kerstin!’ Others stay where they are, straining to see what is going on up ahead.
A gust of wind brings in the cold air from outside. Calle is suddenly more afraid than he has been this whole time. All the things he has been trying to push down are catching up with him: everything that has happened; everything that can still happen.
And if they manage to get to the life rafts and Vincent isn’t there …
A couple of women barrel down the stairs, almost knocking him off his feet. One of them says, ‘Did you see him? It was the guy who works in the bar. It was, right?’
The cold wind chills him to the bone.
Albin’s eyes look lifeless again. The spark that flared in the stairwell has gone out. But his grip on Calle’s hand is surprisingly strong.
‘I’m just going to see what’s going on,’ Calle says. ‘Okay? I’ll be right back.’
Albin’s slender fingers squeeze his hand harder. Calle glances down at Lo.
‘Can you wait here?’ he says. ‘Just for a few seconds.’
She nods.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he says, and frees himself from Albin’s grasp. ‘Be careful.’
He climbs the last few steps, pushes onto the promenade deck, recognising the woman from the Finnish conference group at Poseidon. So many people are far too lightly dressed: pale faces, lips already turning blue. He walks around a group of people huddling together, hugging.
Albin was holding his hand so tightly he can still feel it, like a phantom.
The crowd is thinning out. He sees Marisol dashing up the steel staircase to the sun deck.
She is alone.
And Calle knows.
He pushes to the front and spots Dan Appelgren first. Dan is wearing Vincent’s jumper, the one he bought last winter.
The fire-axe Marisol found is discarded on the deck by Calle’s feet.
Nothing makes sense. Nothing at all.
Dan Appelgren is on all fours, straddling the body sprawled on the deck. And it occurs to Calle that Filip must be cold in his flimsy work shirt and waistcoat. The deck must be freezing.
But then Calle’s brain catches up with itself. Filip can’t feel the cold. He can’t feel anything any more.
It isn’t Filip lying there; it’s his body Dan is tearing into. His head is lolling, rolling from side to side, like a flower on a broken stalk. It’s his blood. But it is not Filip.
For a moment, everything is clear to Calle. He is suddenly completely calm, inside and out. If there is such a thing as a soul, it is no longer there. What Filip was is something Dan Appelgren can never take.
And then the moment passes. Calle staggers and falls to his knees.
Dan Appelgren looks up. Blood covers his face, drips from his chin. He spots something behind Calle, draws his lips back, baring his teeth. But he is not the Dan who swaggered into the mess.
He is afraid.
Calle turns around, watches her make her way through the crowd. Her shirt is torn and bloody. Her hair has come loose from her tight topknot; the matted strands with their grey roots are fluttering in the wind.
If you see me, run as far away from me as you can.
I love you, Calle. Promise me.
But he can’t. He can’t move at all.
The Baltic Charisma
Most people stay in their cabins, waiting for the help they have been promised. A little more than a hundred unharmed people all told have braved the hallways and are making their way up through the ship.
*
Antti has launched the ship’s fast rescue boat. He looks over his shoulder one last time to see the Charisma looming over him. He hears screaming on the promenade deck and sets off, letting the boat’s little engine and the wind drown out all sounds. He tries not to think about the children and everyone else still on board, tells himself he is doing them a solid. He will head towards Finland in the hope of getting close enough to land to use his mobile to call for help. But you could have brought the kids, a small voice inside him says.
He accelerates.
*
Albin’s father has left his cabin and is running down the long hallway on deck six. He trips over a dead body and is just about to make a turn towards the stairs when he hears screaming coming from that direction. He stops, breathing heavily, spots the shattered glass wall at the end of the hallway and instantly recognises the wheelchair lying on its side just beyond it. The lights next to the joystick are gleaming faintly in the dark, signalling that the battery is running low. But there is no sign of his wife.
*
On the car deck, the petrol smell is so overwhelming that Adam’s head is spinning. It blankets all other smells, hiding her scent. But he can hear her footsteps, thudding and crashing, clucking and splashing. He finds her on the starboard side, near the prow. Hundreds of newborns are gathered in the gloom. They shift anxiously when they notice him, looking back and forth between him and his mother. Her dress and the sleeves of her cardigan are wet. Her hands on the ice-axe glisten with petrol. And he understands what she is planning to do.
‘Mother,’ he says, ‘you can’t. You are going to kill them all – the people too. The children.’
She looks at him. The flickering light casts deep shadows across her face. ‘It is better,’ she says. ‘I know that now.’
He shakes his head. ‘You’re going to kill me,’ he says, and runs up to her, nuzzles his face into her stomach and wraps his arms around her thigh. ‘Don’t you love me any more?’ He tries to sound like the little boy she loves so fiercely.
The newborns watch them in silence, hanging back, waiting to see who is going to lead them. He is going to take them with him when he leaves, up to the sun deck.
‘Don’t you see?’ he says, and takes a step back. ‘We can finally be free. The Old Ones won’t even understand what’s happening until it is too late. They won’t have any power over us any more.’
She just stares at him without responding. But he can see the doubt in her eyes. Her grip on the ice-axe has loosened. Beneath them, the floor rocks almost imperceptibly. He tries to find the right words. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. This is the start of something new – something much better. The humans are destroying themselves anyway. If we don’t decimate them, the world won’t survive for long. This way there might still be a chance for them and for us.’
Her features soften. Now, when things have come to a head, it seems he is finally getting through to her.
‘Don’t you understand I want to experience this with you?’ he presses.
She starts crying and it shocks him. He hasn’t seen her cry in so long.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I understand.’
He nods eagerly and holds up his arms
for her to pick him up.
The newborns are a silent horde.
The woman looks at her beloved son. She raises the ice-axe and crushes his skull with a single blow.
Pia
Dan. His name is Dan. She knows him. He is like her. She doesn’t like him.
She knows his name, but she doesn’t know her own.
Cold. It is cold here. She recognises everything. Home. This is home but it is all wrong. Too quiet. The deck still under her feet. The sea so grey. Everything is grey. She tries to hold on to her thoughts but they scatter in the wind. Still, it is better now. Not like before, when she was hungry. Her insides don’t burn now. Her wound is gone.
She is probably waking up. She has been dreaming for a long time. Time that has disappeared.
She kicks him in the head and he falls onto his side. She stares at him. This Dan person. She tries to fight through the fog shrouding her thoughts. He gets up on all fours. She looks at his injured hand. It has been injured before, another time. Something about the hand is important. There is a child as well. Does Dan have a child? No. The child is his father. She can’t figure it out. Everything started with him and the child. She will stop it.
She will stop him. It is her job. That is why she is here. She knows that.
She focuses on the body behind Dan. He has killed but not eaten. Things have been ripped apart. Everything has been wasted. Blood covers the floor, cold and dead. She recognises the smells coming from the body and memories flicker inside her. She can’t hold on to them, just Filip. The name sticks. She knows he is important. She has cared about him.
She kicks Dan in the head again and he falls backwards, lands heavily. He gets back up. He is bigger than her now that he is standing up.
He frightens her. He hates her too. He is afraid too. One of them must die.
He tries to grab her and she slaps his hands away. She knows what she is doing. In another life, she knew. It is enough. Her body remembers.
Her knee comes up between his legs. He bends down and her other knee rises up to meet his face. Something breaks. She hurls herself at him, using all her weight, trying to get him down on the floor.
But he is stronger, he resists, so she tries to bite him. Her teeth shut around his ear, cold in her mouth. She tears it off, spits it out.
He knocks her over. She is on her back now, he on top. Heavy. She tries to break free but can’t move.
‘You cunt, you fucking cunt.’ He slams her head against the floor. It hurts. He hates her. He hates everyone. He slams her head against the floor again. Her skull crunches.
Something is moving through the air, making it whine above her. There’s a wet thud. Dan blinks; no strength in his fingers now. Blood. Cold. Dead. Dripping into her face. He keeps blinking.
She pushes him aside and wipes her eyes.
There is a man there with no hair on his head but hair on his face. She recognises him. He is a friend. But he looks at her like he is afraid of her. There’s a fire-axe in his hand, blood dripping from it. She turns to Dan. There is a new gaping mouth in his throat, just above his collarbone. He is injured, but still strong.
Hurry up. She leaps on top of him, digs her fingers into his throat and tears open the gaping mouth that wasn’t there before.
Dan screams, his teeth snapping and snapping. She finds the hard, slippery column inside, grasps it firmly. He stares at her, trying to say something, but she doesn’t want to hear it. She braces her knee against the side of his throat and bends it until the column snaps.
Dan goes limp.
She pulls her hands out. She looks up at the man with hair on his face. There is a gash across his forehead. He is crying. It makes her sad.
They belong together. He is not like her, and yet they belong together. She loves him.
‘Pia?’ he says.
Yes: that is her name. Pia. Her name is Pia. She used to be a person. Someone gave her a name.
Now she knows his name too.
She tries to say it, wants to show him she knows, but her lips won’t cooperate. Her tongue is thick and strange. ‘Call … eeeehhh.’
He nods and cries harder.
She touches her neck: no hole. But her skull has fractured and the edges are grinding against each other under her skin. Pain flashes across her vision like lightning.
Two children come running: a boy and a girl. She has seen them before. She tries to remember. The girl was afraid, pretending to be angry. It was so easy to see, to recognise herself in the girl.
There was a woman too: a woman whose blood fills her now. The blood made the pain go away but the hunger remains, and the smell of the children is so tempting.
She has to leave. Get away from them. She doesn’t want to harm them.
Has to help others.
She looks at Calle. He will help the children. She points to the staircase; she doesn’t recall where it leads. But it is where they are going. Along with everyone else.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘we are getting out of here.’
Out of here. She tastes the words. He means something beyond the grey light and the water.
She is not getting out of here. She has to help others. It is her job. It is why she is here.
She raises her hand to Calle’s face. He starts, still afraid of her. She strokes his cheek. His hair is soft against her fingers. She hopes he finds what he is looking for. There is someone important to him. She sees pink paper streamers. She can hear them rustling in her hands. Calle wasn’t there, but he was still with them.
She lets her hand fall to her side.
She has to leave, get away from the children.
There is screaming inside, by the stairs. That is where she is going.
People move aside when she passes.
She must help people get out. She must kill anyone trying to stop them.
Calle
There is no shelter from the wind on the sun deck and the people gathered by the life rafts are shivering. Calle scans their faces as he crosses the deck. There are maybe a hundred of them, all told, and another twenty or thirty in the group coming up behind him.
He can’t see Vincent anywhere.
He has picked up Albin; Lo is running next to them. Pia’s voice is echoing inside him.
Call … eeeehhh.
He has fought the urge to fall apart for so long now. The children are the only thing keeping him from losing his mind; the thought that he has to stay strong for them. Maybe they are saving him, not the other way around.
Marisol is standing by a davit, shouting instructions to a couple of passengers who are pulling on the lines to hoist the raft out over the water, then she runs on to the next one. She is deathly pale, determined; there’s dried blood on her upper lip. A couple of girls still wearing their cleaners’ uniforms are handing out blankets to anyone who needs one. A waiter from Poseidon is helping people put on life vests.
Calle does a three-sixty in the wind, gazing out across the water beyond the confines of the Charisma. There’s no land in sight but at least the Baltic is calm. And there is light now. After everything that has happened tonight, the world has, in spite of everything, reached out to them.
He puts Albin down on the deck and grabs blankets for himself and the children, thankful that they are wearing relatively warm clothes.
If they make it, at least he has achieved something.
They have to make it.
A fight has broken out over the life vests. The waiter from Poseidon tries to intervene, nervously assuring everyone that there are plenty to go around, but they ignore him. Calle is unable to suppress the thought that Pia would have resolved the situation in seconds.
Call … eeeehhh.
He glimpsed a part of the real Pia in the creature
the vampire
she had become. And Dan Appelgren: he could talk; he could think. He was a monster, but then, he might have been a monster even before he was infected.
They’re vampires. But they are. Don’t you
get it?
He wonders if they did the right thing not telling Albin about his mum. Can the infected be helped? Can they become themselves again?
Would the man he killed in the mess have been able to?
‘I’m going to help them with the rafts,’ he says, wrapping the blanket tighter around Albin. ‘And I want you and Lo to get on the first one you see.’
The boy barely reacts.
‘Mum!’ Lo shouts. ‘I can see my mum!’
Albin looks up for the first time as Lo runs towards a group of people who have just come up on the sun deck. Her blanket comes off her shoulders and flaps away in the wind. A woman with blonde hair throws her arms open, starts running towards her, screaming loudly.
Calle takes Albin’s hand. They walk towards Lo, who is burrowing further into her mother’s embrace. Calle can’t see their faces, but through the sound of the wind he can hear they are both crying.
Mårten
Mårten takes a swig from the bottle but can barely taste the alcohol any more. The broken glass crunches underfoot when he steps into the spa. There’s a faint smell of chlorine and spicy essential oils. It is dead quiet. In front of him is the reception desk and behind that a glass-brick wall. A pale greyness is seeping through; he realises there must be big windows behind it. A door is standing ajar. He walks forward, passing a sofa and some armchairs, a bowl of water on the coffee table, plastic flowers with fleshy, pink petals floating inside it. Glossy magazines in a rack on the wall show laughing women with their heads thrown back, all pearly white teeth, biting into apples. Their eyes seem to follow him as he walks past the wheelchair.
He hears a splashing sound somewhere up ahead.
He peers in through the door. A green plastic non-slip carpet lines a wide aisle leading to a hot tub. The edge is four tiles high. There are panoramic windows from floor to ceiling behind it. The lanterns outside are glowing faintly against the grey sky. The clouds are moving so quickly; when he looks at them it almost feels like the ship is flying, even though it is no longer moving at all.
Blood Cruise Page 40