by M. L. Banner
“Are you hurt?” He thrust his hand out farther, palm up.
The officer seemed not to hear him. But he was definitely crying. Again, always being alert—that’s what kept him alive all this time—David became more convinced this man wasn’t a crazy, but someone ill-adjusted to a world where people kill other people.
David took another step toward the officer. Then another. Now standing over him, David knelt down a little.
“Sir?” David tapped Agust on his shoulder, causing the man to shudder.
Agust lifted his head slowly and eyed David.
David’s first reaction was to run.
He shuffled back the few steps to the door, not lifting his eyes from Agust’s.
Ted had advanced closer to the door, now holding a pen in one hand as a stabbing device and a clipboard in another. Ted’s face twisted from anticipation to confusion, now begging the question, “What is it?”
“Ah, folks,” David bellowed as he continued back-stepping out of the bathroom until he bumped into Ted. “We have a problem.”
Jean Pierre and Jessica both turned from their broken consoles. Jean Pierre had been talking on a handheld and he continued to hold it out in front of him, while they both gave David their attention and then the bathroom doorway.
Framed by the doorway, Agust was slightly hunched over, silhouetted against the bathroom’s bright lights. His hair was disheveled and sticking straight up, his shoulders hung low. And there was something else they couldn’t quite see. That was until Agust took a step into the bridge.
To the two officers who knew the man well, it was almost like a birthmark they’d never noticed before. Then it was obvious. And now it was the only thing they could see.
It was Agust’s eyes.
They were blood red.
24
TJ
The experience had been surreal.
TJ would have sworn it was someone else, not her. Someone without fear. Someone without anxiety. Someone who didn’t feel fatigue or pain. Someone fully alive. Someone—anyone—but her.
But it was her.
No, it was a new her.
She felt like some meta-human, chronicled in a graphic novel; this person who couldn’t be her had not only lived through the hard fall from the zip line, but the horde of crazies below. She didn’t feel injured. And somehow, she was surviving, even now.
No, big correction—she was thriving.
It seemed impossible, but the horde of crazy people had not hurt her.
She was covered in blood. But she knew, just as she did about so much more, it wasn’t her blood.
And yet, she couldn’t explain why, but the coat of blood she now wore felt to her like a new protective skin, a skin made from the blood of all of these crazy people.
She felt impenetrable as she beat and kicked and punched and elbowed every crazy around her. One by one, the crazies around her fell to the ground. And she did it all without a weapon.
And then there was the swearing.
Like a drunken sailor on shore leave, she was hurling profanities as rapidly as she landed each swing. And behind the profanities was her anger.
She didn’t know where any of this came from. She only knew that she was filled with the most putrefying outrage: she was angry at the line that broke and deposited her unceremoniously on top of these crazy people and then this deck; she was furious at these insane people, who at first seemed dead-set on killing her and now didn’t seem to care about her at all; she was resentful of her husband, for leaving her to deal with these crazies; she was irate at her weaknesses, or previous weaknesses; she was infuriated at her being angry. She was filled with an uncontrollable bitterness for everyone and everything. And with each crazy she slugged, her heated desire to cause more destruction to everything that affronted her grew, like a wellspring of hate that had pooled up from the darkest part of her soul.
Her fears were completely gone now; they were replaced with her bountiful anger.
Her fear of animals… gone—she hated them now; her fear of hurting herself… non-existent—her previous aches and pains pissed her off even more; her fear of being weak… history—she felt completely intolerant of all fear.
Instead, she had an uncontrollable need to hurt these crazy people, who were mindlessly flailing around her, keeping her from something she needed right now, but just didn’t understand.
The new TJ felt like for some unknown reason, these crazies were the cause of all her woes, previous and current. And so she took it out on them.
With even more fury, she pounded away at each crazy, leaving a trail of unconscious and broken people and sometimes the occasional bird still fluttering about. Everyone and everything in her path suffered her wrath.
Before long, she found herself inside the ship running.
It was as if she had blinked in the middle of her battle royal and transported herself seconds or minutes later to where she was galloping to her destination.
But what destination?
She had no idea where she was going, but without the hindrance of the crazies standing in her way, she only knew she had to get there.
With several possible routes to her goal, she turned and darted toward an open crew access stairwell she’d never been in before. Oddly, she seemed to know it was the shortest route to where she was going.
Another thought struck her, and it was odder still.
The new TJ felt as if she were being controlled—a marionette, and her master tugged at her strings, making her lurch in one direction, and then another, all setting her upon this unknown course. Yet she almost didn’t mind that she had little control over this. In a way, her life had felt out of control for a long time now. This somehow felt better, like she had a purpose. Whatever that purpose was.
Just as she blew in through the doorway, she held up momentarily to take in the most exquisite smell. She’d never smelled something as glorious as this before. And when she turned her head to examine the source of the smell, she was both shocked by what it was, and even more, her reaction to it.
It was a small cowering Filipino crewmember, curled up and literally shaking in a fetal ball. His wide eyes glared at TJ, and then he reflexively shrank even farther from her. He was utterly horrified… of her.
But it was TJ who felt all at once horrified. Not of the Filipino’s reaction to her, but her reaction to him: she was possessed at that moment with a desire… no, a complete need, to kill him. To pummel him to death. To rip him to shreds. To bite and tear and to… drain him of his life-giving blood.
At that moment, the shock of these feelings was too much to handle. The repulsion of these desires was enough to push her away from this fearful little man.
She stutter-stepped back from the Filipino. And although her maddening desires were still there, just as pronounced as they were moments before, she could now gather herself and instead refocus on the other desire that still pulled at her, the one that tugged at her from the opposite side of the ship.
This other force she also didn’t seem to have control over. But this force seemed like a good one. With the almost uncontrollable urge to kill now gone, she followed the other urge, which gathered strength as she found herself dashing down a stairwell in leaps, three stairs at a time.
An old image filled her head. It was the Iron Rattler roller-coaster in Texas. She and… it was someone whose name she couldn’t remember, even though he was important to her. They were on this roller coaster. Their roller coaster soared down a multi-story drop, and she was momentarily flying—like now. A small part of her allowed herself to feel the fear she would have once felt, along with the desire to get off. But mostly the feelings were exhilarating: the feelings of not knowing where this coaster was going next. And the whole time, she screamed with joy. Like she did now.
She felt that same abandoned exhilaration of the unknown, as she popped out of the stairwell and dashed down the hallway. She sprinted by a group of crazies beating on a partially-open cabin
door. Its occupants losing the battle of holding these crazies back. The crazies screeched their desire to get in. And it was like she understood why, and she could have joined them.
But she had another desire.
None of the crazies turned their heads or even acknowledged her, even when she bumped shoulders with one of them, almost knocking it down—it was as if the new TJ didn’t even exist to them.
I’m not a threat to them, she thought.
Another crazy was feasting on the body of another guest. Her old self would have stopped, though she wasn’t sure why. The new TJ didn’t slow one bit. She leapt over what her old self would have thought was a gruesome sight. But now… she just didn’t care. Her puppet master seemed to be giving her two options. And this unknown path was the one she wanted to continue to follow, even though she still didn’t understand it.
And yet the hallway she was running through was very familiar. She didn’t think about the why. She was only aware and knew that finding out the why wasn’t important. Not right now. Only getting to her destination was important. And the not caring part felt so freeing. Once again, she screamed her joy to no one but herself.
She arrived at a door and reflexively pulled something out of her back pocket and slashed at the door with this object. The door opened and then it closed itself.
She turned, reached down and pulled on another door and leapt inside, where she hit the cool floor and a wall of what she instinctively knew was a bathroom.
She had come to rest, having found her destination and unfolded herself from the heap she had landed in. Breathing labored breaths now, she remarked at how rapidly her chest heaved, so much so she thought her lungs might explode.
Finally, after many minutes, she pushed herself up from the floor and pulled herself up farther by the counter. She glanced at the woman staring back at her. She wasn’t sure if this woman was the new TJ or the old one. This person looked like the victim of a horrendous homicide: every square inch of her was covered in blood, some dried and some bright red and dripping from places like her nose, chin and ears.
Her undone hair was no longer blond. Parts of it were sticking to one side; the rest looked ragged: a homeless wreck of a person.
She held herself up, elbows slightly bent, and scowled at her image for the longest time. And still her breathing was rapid and irregular.
A thought hit her and she reached up with a forefinger and hooked her sunglasses and gave a small tug; they didn’t want to let go. They were caked into her face and matted hair. She gave them a larger jerk, and they fell from the bridge of her nose, but still clung to a dangling lock of hair.
She ignored them and stared at her face.
To get a closer look, she pushed her nose up against the glass, smudging the mirror. Her gaze held onto the woman staring back at her. Her focus fell to one of her eyes: gone was the familiar blue ring of her iris resting delicately on a round white eyeball. Instead, the blue color was now replaced with a vibrant red; its color almost mirroring the blood seeping off her.
She pulled back a little and gathered in both eyes. One of her irises was the same color as the crazies she’d just battled with. It was the tell-tale symptom of what made the crazies crazy. She had the same crazy red eyes—well, one of them; the other was more pinkish. If she had the same eyes, she was now a crazy too.
At that moment, all the strength she had felt left her.
She collapsed onto the cool surface of the bathroom floor.
Everything went black.
25
Engineering
“It’s nonfunctional, sir,” Jean Pierre reported on his walkie, eyes glued on Jessica’s console, in case something changed.
“Have you tried…” Jörgen closed his eyes and went through a mental checklist of all the possibilities Jean Pierre had told them they’d tried, just in case there was something they might have missed. But Jean Pierre was always so thorough, as was Jessica. There was nothing else they could do. The only previously fully functioning console on the bridge was officially beaten to death by the crazies. And there was nothing they could immediately do to resurrect any of them before they ran into Sao Miguel Island. There was only one hope for his ship now.
“I guess it’s up to us then,” Jörgen stated, his mind whirling.
“What’s your status, sir?” Jean Pierre crackled over the handheld.
Jörgen gazed at Wasano, Molly, and his two German troublemakers. Then he thought about what he’d say and clicked transmit. “We’re just outside the deck 2 crew entry. We’re still waiting on Deep to give us the all clear”—that was a reminder to him for an update—“and then we’re going in.”
“Sorry, sir,” Deep chimed in immediately, his voice solemn. “There are still three or four of them hanging around that entry.”
Jörgen rose from his crouch. “We don’t have any more time to wait, Deep. I’m going—”
“Hold on, sir,” barked Wasano. His heavy flashlight lifted, ready to strike at whomever or whatever they all heard, fast approaching them.
A large shadow arrived from a connecting hallway. Their skin crawled, until they saw the man attached to the shadow float in and then kneel in front of them.
It was Flavio.
“Let me go first, sir,” he huffed, breathing in long, measured puffs. Flavio looked like he was dressed for some macabre Halloween party. He wore goggles, rubber gloves taped to long-sleeved arms, and his ankles were taped around some sort of extra padding. Everything was coated in blood, as if he had just butchered a live animal. His eyes were serious and mostly dispassionate, except there was a hint of annoyance: as if the world was conspiring to keep him from what he should be doing, which was most certainly not this.
Adding further to his surreal costume, in one hand Flavio clutched what looked like a long work glove—the kind used with heavy equipment. Each of the glove’s black fingertips hung heavy, as if weights were inside. Upon closer inspection, recent splashes of blood cleft off the glove’s finger-tips sprinkling the floor below where he held it suspended. In his other hand, he clutched a two-foot long wrench, its heavy end also coated red. Two sheathed knives, one on each side, were tilted at the ready.
“I go in and distract them in one direction; you go the other, to engineering.”
Jörgen shot Wasano a look of disbelief, and then quickly studied Flavio; his immediate thought was, Isn’t this guy a waiter? Looks like he’s better suited to security. No, the military. “Yes,” Jörgen said and nodded. “You take them port-side, and we’ll go starboard, to engineering.”
“Roger-dodger, sir.” Flavio said. He leapt up, opened the door, burst through it, and mostly closed it, leaving a small crack so they could see through and know when to move.
“Hey, you crazy bastards. Come get some of this tasty Romanian meat,” the macabre ex-waiter taunted.
Even louder, “Hey crazies. Come herrrre.”
This deck 2 area had a reception-like desk just inside the door that separated two hallways: one going to the left to a couple of engineering offices and other equipment rooms; the hallway to the right led to engineering.
Several screeches and groans responded from both hallways: one crazy from the port side and two from the engineering side hollered their anger at his taunts. Flavio turned to the crack in the door. “When they’ve followed me down port hallway, you run to engineering. I can give you one minute. Don’t waste time.”
Flavio didn’t wait for a reply. His eyes were on a single crazy coming from his left, just turning the corner. He leapt toward that crazy.
Flavio’s movements were precise and fluid: he swung the weighted glove backhand with his left hand, connecting with the crazy’s head and knocking it sideways and off balance. Then almost simultaneously, with his right, Flavio brought the wrench down hard on the crazy’s Achilles’ tendon, collapsing it to the floor, where it screeched its absolute hatred at Flavio.
Flavio took a knee behind the writhing crazy, ignoring its screech
es, seemingly unconcerned with its movements toward him, while he glared at the other hallway. He rose up, standing tall, and waited stoically for the other two screeching crazies to arrive. He didn’t flinch as these two beasts burst out of the hallway, turned at the reception desk, and barreled toward him.
Flavio held his position, a statue of the ultimate bad-ass man: a rarity this day, for sure, Jörgen thought. Flavio’s gaze was fixed on the crazies, up to the moment before they were on him. The anticipation of their eminent conquest was almost too much for them to take. Each crazy groaned in anticipation.
Just before they reached him, Flavio stepped sideways. The crazies reached for him, missed, and tumbled over each other, entangled legs and arms clawing, colliding and one of them breaking with a loud crack.
Flavio immediately sprang down the left hallway, holding up after twenty steps. “Come on, you stupid crazies. You missed me. Now you got to kiss me,” he bellowed. He almost seemed to be enjoying this.
Jörgen’s group edged farther through the crack of the door, waiting for the right moment for their dash to engineering.
“I love this faucking guy,” huffed Hans, behind them.
“Shhh,” demanded Wasano. He didn’t even look at the German, not wanting to miss their opportunity.
“Captain,” stated Dr. Simmons, “did you see how they don’t think about their movements? They’re clumsier than children. Wonder if they’ll have to re-learn their basic motor skills?”
The doctor was almost mumbling, more or less talking to herself, like a scientist in a laboratory dispassionately studying a dissected animal, while dictating observations into a recorder for future study.