The Last Passenger

by Manel Loureiro

  She repeated the name several times.

  It did not ring any bells. But on the other hand, she had yet to learn all of the scientists’ names let alone all of the names of the crew. In total, there were some seventy people on board, and she barely knew a dozen of them. It could belong to any of them.

  With the hat in her hands, she entered the dining hall and served herself breakfast from the buffet. Barely a dozen others were dining at that moment, and nearly all of them were crew members apart from a couple of scientists. There was no trace of Feldman, Moore, or Senka. Of course, there was nobody in a plaid suit.

  Kate was tempted to ask if anyone knew a Schweizer, but she restrained herself. She had already acted foolish enough in front of Carter. She would have to find the owner of the hat another way.

  She finished her breakfast as quickly as she could and then headed toward the Gneisenau Room. They had pushed the couches and rugs to one side and arranged a long table with several computer terminals. It looked like a cybercafe from the 1990s.

  Only two people were using the stations, a middle-aged woman and one of the chemists who had wooed her so gallantly the night before. Each was absorbed in the numbers and readouts on their screens and taking furious notes. They hardly looked up when Kate took a seat to connect to Usher Manor.

  The screen blinked a few times as a series of numbers rushed across the bottom. A few minutes later, little had changed.

  Confused, Kate figured she must have made some mistake. Then, the screen flashed to life, and Anne Medine appeared with Usher Manor in the background. The young woman looked somewhat shy but also exhausted.

  “Good morning,” she said. “We’ve been having some communication problems for a few hours now. I apologize for the wait. What can I do for you, Miss Kilroy?”

  Kate blinked, surprised that the woman knew her name, but she supposed Feldman had supplied her with a complete file for each one of the participants on board.

  “Good morning, Anne,” she said, adjusting her headset. “I need a favor. Could you tell me who Mr. or Mrs. Schweizer is? I have to speak with him or her about something. But I’m not sure if they’re one of the scientists, crew, or security.”

  The video distorted and then cut out for a few seconds. When the signal returned Anne had a full passenger list in her hands.

  “Schweizer, you said? Could you spell it for me?”

  Burning with impatience, Kate spelled out the name. The connection cut out again, and the screen went black. She could hear a kind of distant banging in her earphones, almost like a hammer against an anvil wrapped in rags.

  “. . . not on record,” Anne Medine said, reappearing. “I’m sorry, Miss Kilroy. There is no one aboard the ship by that name.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No one on board has that last name.”

  Kate thanked her and ended the call, dejected. As she left the room, hat in hand, she glimpsed a tiny detail. A small rust-colored spot marked the edge of the hat’s sash. It was like a smudged fingerprint, as if someone had quickly picked up the hat with something on his fingers before setting it down for the last time.

  Kate was not sure why, but she would have bet anything the spot was blood.

  She could have sworn it had not been there a moment ago.

  XXIV

  Tom McNamara’s troubles were piling up. For starters, he had lost one hundred quid the night before playing poker with the boys. Afterward, he had decided to drown his sorrows in more liquor and ended up passing out. For that reason, he overslept the next morning and proceeded to get lost twice in the hallways of the ship before arriving late to the changing of the guard, panting and distraught. To top things off, Moore had been waiting for him with fury in his eyes.

  Tom was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, as were most of the men Moore had recruited. Of course, the pay was much better than in the army. Plus, the chances of getting blown up on the side of a dusty road or coming across a town bustling with hate-filled, bearded fanatics were far lower. Overall, working for Feldman was a fairly cushy job as long as you did not rub Moore the wrong way. Oversleeping was one of the many ways to do just that.

  That was how Tom ended up pulling guard duty and how he found himself draped in shitty fog like a thick puree that seeped to the bone while everyone else leisurely strolled inside the Valkyrie, warm and sheltered.

  Tom fished out a wrinkled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one, but after a few puffs thousands of microscopic droplets of water infiltrated the tobacco until it no longer stayed lit. Furious, he tossed it overboard. As he was about to turn away, he noticed something move out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned back, more fascinated than scared. A young woman of around thirty was walking on the deck, heading inside. She was wearing a black skirt that went to her knees and a red sleeveless blouse. Her hair was elaborately styled, reminding Tom of the actresses from the old black-and-white movies his mother used to watch when he was a kid. The woman wrapped her arms around herself. She looked as if she were freezing. She was walking quickly yet absentmindedly, as if lost in thought. Her high heels clicked rhythmically as she walked on the wooden planks of the deck.

  “Hey,” Tom shouted. “Hey.”

  The woman stopped and looked in his direction. The guard could see her eyes were puffy and red like she had been crying. Her mascara was running, and she had dark streaks down her cheeks. She watched him closely as if wondering what the hell he was. Her expression was blank like a tomb. Then, as if she were making a colossal effort to remember how, the woman’s smeared lips curved up in a tragic imitation of a smile.

  The effect was horrifying. With her makeup-streaked face and an amorphous, blank smile, she looked like a demonic clown.

  Then, the woman tilted her head like she could hear something he could not. Tom thought of how the kids in his neighborhood used to drive the local mutts crazy with a dog whistle. The woman suddenly seemed to lose all interest in Tom and turned in the direction of the superstructure of the ship.

  “Hey,” he repeated. “Stop. Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  The woman ignored him and disappeared into the fog. Without another thought Tom began running after her while he undid the safety of his AK-47. The woman was walking quickly toward an entrance on the bow, and she was about thirty feet ahead of him. Tom instinctively reached up to his shoulder where his walkie-talkie should have been to call for backup.

  His fingers, instead, swiped at the air. Only then did he remember that, in the rush of the morning, he had forgotten it in his locker.

  “Warning,” he shouted, hoping someone might hear him. “Here on the bow!”

  The fog swallowed his shouts. Like trying to shout under water, the sound was muffled and died out after only a few feet. Tom cursed under his breath. He was alone in this, and it was his fault.

  If he had not been so tired and hungover, he would have remembered to carry a whistle in his pants pocket. If he had not gotten so drunk the night before, his head would have been clear enough to realize that if he fired off a couple of warning shots, he would have immediate backup from half a dozen of his cohorts. If he were smarter, he would not have sprinted toward the dark door the woman had opened, and he certainly would not have gone in without first thinking it through.

  But Tom was not that smart.

  The doorway led to a hallway in the first-class service area. Those same hallways had been used by the crew in the thirties to attend to the needs of first-class passengers without them needing to spend more time than necessary in their areas. To one side, Tom noticed a staircase that led to the top floor. He hesitated a moment over which way to go, but then caught a glimpse of the woman rounding a corner just down the hall from where he stood. He ran after her.

  They were in a part of the ship that had been restored but was not in use. On this particular voyage, there were not enough crew members aboard to justify using this section of the ship. He sprinted past empty cabins, a small lounge, and
some bathing facilities. The air was rife with a heavy metallic scent, like that of an engine warming up.

  Rounding a corner, Tom stopped. In the middle of a landing was a staircase that went down to second class. He knew there must be a makeshift steel door blocking the way. Tom himself had been there just the day before, putting the finishing touches on it by placing a sticker that warned anyone from breaking the seal.

  But the door wasn’t there. There was no trace of it. Not one mark from the welding on the walls or a single scratch on the floor. Nothing.

  It was like the door had never existed.

  Tom swallowed and, for the first time, wavered. This was unsettling even for someone with as little imagination as Tom. But then he was reminded of how angry Moore had been that very morning and began thinking about the possible consequences of letting a rogue element loose in the depths of the ship.

  He shuddered at the thought. Perhaps this was just an elaborate test Moore had set up to make sure he was alert. A sort of trick. That bastard was capable of stranger things.

  Reassured by those thoughts, Tom began descending the staircase toward second class. Each step creaked beneath his boots with a sound that gave him away, but Tom remained unaware of that little detail. Just as he remained unaware that the metallic odor had become stronger and that the walls had begun to throb with a monotonous rhythm as he continued forward.

  A cloudiness, like the fog outside, entered his mind. He was unable to think straight. He felt like someone was forcing a thousand images into his head at once.

  This is not a good idea. Nein.

  He stopped, perplexed. Had he just thought something in German? He did not speak a word of German. What the hell was going on?

  Dizzy, he leaned against the wall. The vibrations ran up his body in waves, first through his hands and then up his arms and up into his skull, where they buzzed and reverberated with homicidal rage. A drop of black liquid fell on his forearm. He wiped his hand across his face and found his nose was bleeding profusely as if someone had turned on a faucet of blood.

  Tom.

  The woman’s voice was soft, sensual. Tom spun his head around slowly like he was trapped in a movie. The woman from the deck stood in the doorway of a cabin that was brilliantly lit and in perfect order. She beckoned him toward her.

  Come, Tom. Come with me. Let’s have a good time together.

  Almost catatonic, Tom stepped forward. One part of his mind was screaming in horror for him to get the hell out of there. He was vaguely aware that this area of second class was in perfect condition, not at all like the other areas he had seen in that sector. Had someone renovated without telling him?

  Come, Tom. We can be alone down here.

  The woman continued to beckon him forth, and he tried once more to come to terms with the travesty of a smile that was spread across her face. It was even more terrifying up close.

  Fear finally took over. Tom made a herculean effort to step backward, and he shook his head in defiance. Before he realized it, his gun fell and clattered to the floor.

  No. Nein. Nein.

  He turned around and began walking toward the staircase, each step quicker than the last. The walls began to pulsate more quickly, and that was when Tom knew there was something behind him. Something dark, malevolent, and voracious, watching him intently.

  “Nooooooooo,” he shouted with a mix of desperation and anger as he tried to run.

  The doors were a blur as he ran across the carpet. Darkness pursued him, getting closer by the second. Tom felt a cold, wet breath grazing the back of his neck. The mere touch made every hair on his body stand straight on end.

  It was then that something happened. It was still behind him, but Tom felt as though he were gaining some distance. Perhaps it had decided to stop for some reason. Hope flickered in him, however dimly. He was going to escape. He was going to get out of there.

  Turning the corner, he ran headfirst into someone. Both fell to the floor in a tangle and ended up rolling a few feet. When Tom looked up he was at the foot of a polished bronze clock running slow.

  Hysterical, Tom let out a bloodcurdling scream as he braced himself and tried to protect his body. He looked over at the person he had run into and breathed a deep sigh of relief that echoed from the depths of his soul.

  “It’s you, thank God!” he said choked with emotion. “You can’t imagine how glad I am to see a familiar face.”

  The other person helped him up and looked at him carefully.

  “What happened?”

  “Didn’t you see?” Tom shook his head in excitement. “The hall was shaking and that . . . that thing was chasing me, and the noise. Fuck, tell me you saw it!”

  “I didn’t see or hear anything. I just heard some screams, and so I ran to see what was going on. That’s when I ran into you.”

  “But I swear—” Tom stopped, furrowing his brow. “Just a second. What are you doing in this section? Nobody’s supposed to be down here. Mr. Feldman has strictly prohibited it.”

  The other person shrugged and gave an ambiguous smile.

  “We have to go. I need to tell Moore what’s happened,” he said, turning around and heading toward the staircase.

  For that reason Tom did not see his companion remove a small, sharp scalpel from a pocket.

  When the blade slit his neck and severed Tom McNamara’s carotid artery, the last thing to go through his mind was a feeling of profound dread for dying in that narrow hallway at the hands of another human being.

  With that shadowy thing on the loose below.

  Waiting.

  XXV

  Kate was in the middle of a particularly torrid dream when a knock at her door startled her awake.

  Since her husband had died, she had yet to remember him in such a vivid and explicitly sexual way. In her dream Robert had undressed slowly, removing the clothes from his magnificent body garment by garment until he was standing in front of Kate completely nude. The two were alone in her cabin, and Robert was looking at her with that playful half smile she knew so well, mischief dancing in his eyes. Without a word he approached her for a long, marvelous kiss. His tongue executed a complicated dance with hers that left her quivering. Then, he threw her down to the bed and began to undress her. First, he removed her top, exposing her breasts. He paused to enjoy her nipples with rhythmic movements of his tongue. Then, with a practiced hand, he began to undo her jeans while she breathed faster. He brought them down to her ankles to reveal a little thong that he loved. She took delight in Robert’s hard body rubbing against her own. He grew larger as his hand slowly moved down her abdomen, lower and lower, until he reached the thin lacy edge of her underwear.

  Then, someone began to pound on the fucking door, and Kate woke up, bathed in sweat and breathing hard.

  With the agility of a drunkard, she stumbled to the door and attempted to tie her hair back. She had fallen asleep rereading her file on the Valkyrie for the hundredth time, trying to get a head start on her story.

  Still dazed, she opened the door and found Senka with her fist in the air, about to knock once more. Senka looked very serious, but upon seeing Kate, a sweet, mischievous smile danced across her face.

  The bitch knows, thought Kate as Senka puckered her lips in a sensual pout. Kate’s flushed cheeks, her heavy breath, and the sweat on her neck—they were all clear signs to Senka, who was clearly delighting in the situation at hand.

  “Hi, Kate,” she purred in a playful tone, looking over Kate’s shoulder into the empty cabin. “Did I interrupt something important? Maybe I could be of service?”

  The innuendo hung in the air, thick and lewd, but Kate shook her head.

  “I’m just a bit groggy, that’s all. What’s up?”

  Senka shrugged, clearly disappointed. “Mr. Feldman would like to see you. Now.”

  It sounded more like an order than an invitation. Kate liked the idea of changing, but that was out of the question with Senka there, so she quickly put on her shoes
and strode out of the cabin following Senka.

  Feldman’s cabin was a suite located on the stern of the ship. It had enormous windows that would normally offer its occupants a magnificent view of the ocean. But given the density of the dark-yellowish fog, only a weak light filtered into the room and stained everything a sickly color.

  Feldman was seated. He looked worried. Moore was at his side with a jaw so tense he might as well have been chewing granite. His expression was a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

  Kate noticed that Feldman looked older, as if some of his energy had fled his fragile body in search of a better home in which to nest. A flicker of vitality twinkled in his eyes when he saw Kate enter. He gestured for her to have a seat, and Senka closed the door behind them. This was a meeting for just the four of them. The tension in the room swelled up like the tide.

  “Can I trust you, Kate?” Feldman asked.

  “You know you can, Isaac. We made a deal.”

  “I know, dear, I know.” Feldman shook his head. “The question is whether or not I can add one more secret to the list of little arrangements you and I have.”

  “My lips are sealed,” she said without hesitation, her pulse quickening. “But if it’s got something to do with the Valkyrie, I want to know everything.”

  “We have a serious problem,” Feldman said. “Twenty minutes ago one of Moore’s men was found dead, murdered.”

  “Murdered? Are you sure?”

  “Unless he decided to cut his own neck, I’m quite sure, Kate,” Feldman replied.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Moore has the details, but I believe it would be best if we go see it with our own eyes. We were waiting for you,” Feldman said, rising from his seat with great difficulty.