Across the chopper sat the three Marines Coleman had chosen as provisional candidates for his Critical Response Team. Privates Craigson, Myers and Easterbrook were all first-class Marines.
He studied the three new candidates.
Today could make or break them.
The pilot called back, ‘Two minutes!’
Chapter Three
Neve Kershaw had one wish.
She wished her son was off the ship.
He looks more like Geoffrey every day. Justin had inherited her dark hair and eyes, but at fourteen he already stood as tall as Geoffrey. He would be handsome like Geoffrey.
I can’t let my son die on this ship.
He’d avoided the infection, but that was only the start.
A nightmare was engulfing the ship.
Should I tell him?
He sat watching her, waiting for her explanation.
He’s a young man now. He just saved a woman’s life. He deserves to know what is happening.
‘Well?’ prompted Justin. ‘What the hell is happening out there?’
Neve took a deep breath. ‘Around 11pm last night the bridge detected a distress signal.’
‘From who?’
‘Unknown. It wasn’t a message. It was a beacon.’
Justin nodded, prompting his mother to continue. ‘And?’
‘The Captain sent a boat to help. They found the emergency beacon inside an inflatable life raft.’
‘Were there any people?’
‘Just one. A woman.’
‘Is she alive?’
‘Barely. They brought her back around midnight. Only the bridge crew and doctors know about it so far. Other problems suddenly became more important.’
Neve waited for Justin to make the connection.
‘She carried the disease on board!’ he blurted.
Neve nodded. ‘It seems that way.’
Justin sat silently a moment. ‘What was she doing in the middle of the ocean?’
‘That’s what the Captain tried to discover. But then he fell sick.’
‘The Captain has this?’ asked Justin, standing up and pointing outside their cabin.
‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Neve. ‘Yes. The Captain and a great deal more.’
Justin began pacing their small kitchen area.
‘Who’s sailing the ship then?’
‘First Officer Bryant. He’s the Acting Captain now.’
‘Can she speak?’ asked Justin. ‘The woman on the raft.’
‘No. The doctor doubted she’d survive the night. I’m not sure if—’
Brrrng...Brrrng!
Justin spun toward their cabin phone.
‘Get it!’ hissed Neve, but Justin already had the receiver.
He listened and then pointed the phone at her. ‘It’s the hospital.’
Neve rolled to the phone. ‘This is Neve Kershaw.’
She recognized the voice.
‘Neve, this is Doctor Reeves. We need you in the hospital right now.’
Neve sighed into the phone, frustrated. ‘I can’t reach the hospital. I can’t even leave my cabin. People are killing each other up here.’
‘I know,’ replied Reeves. ‘That’s why we need you. I’ve run the tests you wanted. You won’t believe it. It’s...it’s incredible.’
‘Just tell me what you’ve found,’ insisted Neve. ‘Or email me the results. Why do you need me in the hospital?’
‘Because we need your help. I can’t even describe it. You need to see it. You won’t believe me otherwise.’
Neve lowered the phone a moment.
Doctor Reeves plainly needed her help, but today she wasn’t a scientist. Today she was a parent. Her son came first.
She had an idea.
The hospital had better security than their cabin.
Maybe I can protect Justin and help Reeves at the same time.
‘Listen,’ she told Reeves. ‘I want an armed escort to the hospital for Justin and myself.’
‘Yes. Okay,’ agreed Reeves quickly. ‘Expect them soon.’
Neve hung up, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake.
Justin watched her. His face looked white.
‘Have a glass of water and sit down, Justin.’
‘I’m not thirsty.’
‘Do it for me.’
Justin obeyed. His hands shook while he filled the glass.
The shock of what happened is hitting him, Neve realized.
As Justin turned, the glass slipped from his fingers and shattered on the tiles.
Smash!
‘Damn it,’ said Justin, stepping back.
‘Quiet,’ hissed Neve. ‘Keep your voice down.’
Thump!
Neve and Justin both jumped in fright.
They looked at their cabin door.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Someone was bashing on their door!
Oh, God no, thought Neve. One of the crazies heard the glass break! They’re trying to break in here!
Neve indicated for Justin to be silent.
Justin nodded and stared at the door.
The intruder began launching his entire body at the door.
The door jolted on its hinges.
Neve heard the sound of cracking wood.
‘It won’t hold,’ Justin hissed. ‘They’re breaking in!’
Erin’s team tore off their headgear, exhausted from the constant fighting.
This is ridiculous, thought Erin. We can’t keep this up.
In her peripheral vision she glimpsed movement in the corridor. She spun, hyper-alert.
It’s just an old man.
‘Go back to your cabin,’ ordered Erin. ‘It’s not safe out here. Just stay in your cabin.’
The man wore long blue pajamas with a gold letter ‘L’ monogramed on his shirt pocket. Lonely tuffs of white hair sprouted above his ears. His slippers matched his pajamas.
He began ambling toward them.
Erin shook her head, frustrated.
He broke into a jog.
‘No,’ yelled Erin. ‘Go back to your cabin or up to deck ten.’
The old man began sprinting toward them. His slippers flew off.
No man that old can run like that.
He sprinted like a teenager being chased by hungry lions.
Erin and her fire team realized at the same time.
‘He’s hot!’ yelled one of her team.
‘He’s got a knife,’ yelled another.
Erin was closest.
The knife sped toward her neck.
Clang!
She barely lifted her arm in time.
The knife collided with her fire extinguisher.
The man collided with her.
Erin felt like she’d been struck by a charging bull.
Tangled, they hit the deck and slid on the carpet.
The knife flew from his hand, but he still landed on top of her. Erin covered her head as the old man began pounding on her like a deranged ape. Between his blows Erin saw spittle foaming in the corners of his mouth.
Why aren’t they helping me?
Then she saw why.
They were under attack too.
While they had been watching the old man, no one was watching their backs.
Erin heard smashing glass and yelling, but didn’t have time for anything but fighting for her own life. Red liquid splashed all over her. She tried to kick the man away, but her shoes slid off his hips. She scrambled backward, desperate to get out from under him. He lunged back onto her, pinning her again, but now trying to push his fingers into her eye sockets.
Erin thrashed her head around, avoiding his eye gouging, fighting back with every bit of strength she—
Clonk!
A big red fire extinguisher swung through Erin’s field of vision and collected the man’s head on the way past.
The impact knocked the man clean off Erin and into the corridor wall.
From the sound alone, Erin knew he wasn’t get
ting up.
She rolled away from him, just in case, but she’d been right.
The man’s head rested at an unnatural angle.
His neck is broken.
Erin suddenly remembered the red liquid splashing all over her.
She staggered to her feet, panting, bracing one hand against the wall.
‘Who’s hurt?’
Neve’s cabin door appeared only seconds from busting open.
Justin dashed from the kitchen. He grabbed a chair and wedged it under the door handle.
He threw his weight against the door.
‘Fuck off!’ he yelled.
Neve spun her wheelchair 180 degrees and zoomed backward toward the door.
Her right tire hit the door. She shoved down on her brakes.
The door stopped jumping on its hinges.
Neve heard a furious roar from outside their cabin.
The door shuddered three more times and then stopped.
Neve and Justin kept perfectly still, listening.
It could be a trick, thought Neve.
‘I think they’re gone,’ whispered Justin.
‘Look under the door,’ pointed Neve.
Justin crouched to peer through the crack under the door.
‘I can’t see anyone out there,’ he whispered.
Quietly, they retreated from the door, careful not to make any noise.
The chair stayed wedged up against the door handle.
‘That was close,’ said Neve. ‘They almost broke in here. I thought they couldn’t get through the doors?’
Justin pointed at the door hinges. ‘The cabin doors open inwards. Anyone trying to bust out has to smash through the lock and the doorframe. To get into a room, they only need to smash through the lock.’
‘So it’s easier to break into a room than to break out?’ his mother asked.
Justin nodded and pointed to their door, all the proof they needed. ‘But how are they escaping their cabins?’
‘Chasing their cabin mates probably,’ answered Neve. ‘Maybe climbing out their balconies.’
‘We’re not safe in here, Mom. No one is safe on this ship.’
‘Most of them are still confined,’ said Neve. ‘Things could be much, much worse.’
Justin pointed at the door. ‘What the hell is even wrong with them? What disease is that? Is it like rabies? Human rabies?’
‘One question at a time,’ said Neve. ‘Clean up that glass first. Quietly.’
As Justin knelt to collect the glass shards, Neve recalled everything she’d learned and shared with the senior crew just a few hours ago.
‘This isn’t like any disease I’ve heard of,’ she started. ‘The crew developed symptoms an hour after exposure. The first symptom is a headache, then fever, and then intense disorientation. They become unconscious, and then after three to four hours they wake up. Some wake up having convulsions, some don’t. Either way, they all wake up irrational and violent.’
‘Can’t the mainland send a vaccination or something?’
‘Vaccinations take years to develop, Justin. You know that.’
‘So there’s no medicine or treatment or anything?’
Neve shook her head.
‘Can the sick people recover? Can their immune system fight it?’
‘No,’ answered Neve. ‘A person can’t recover from such a sustained high body temperature. The fever will be causing irreversible brain damage. The disease likely destroys the immune system in the first hour. What else it does is a mystery, but every single person wakes up profoundly different.’
‘Killers,’ said Justin.
‘Very violent,’ agreed Neve. ‘But with a greatly diminished mental capacity.’
Justin quietly put the broken glass in the trash can under the sink. ‘And very good hearing.’
Justin stood on his bunk.
‘Why is it so hot in here?’ He placed his hand over the air conditioning vent. ‘Nothing. No air is coming from the vent. They’ve turned the air conditioning off.’
‘I told them to,’ explained Neve. ‘Shutting down mechanical ventilation reduces infection rates. But we were too late. The disease has already spread through the entire ship. It’s everywhere.’
Justin pulled his shirt up over his nose. ‘Shouldn’t we be covering our faces then?’
Neve shook her head. ‘We’re already exposed, Justin. The people who haven’t fallen sick must be immune.’
‘Immune? How?’
Neve shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘How many people are sick?’ asked Justin.
‘A lot.’
‘How many is a lot?’
Neve hesitated.
‘Tell me, Mom.’
‘About half the ship,’ Neve confessed.
‘Half!’ hissed Justin. ‘Half the ship has turned into homicidal maniacs?’
Neve nodded.
‘We need to get off. We need to evacuate or abandon ship or whatever it’s called.’
‘That’s what I told them,’ said Neve. ‘As soon as possible.’
‘So why aren’t we?’ asked Justin.
‘They can’t.’
Neve pointed to a metal bar above their door. ‘When they trigger the evacuation, all the cabin doors automatically open on every deck.’
Justin studied the metal bar above their door. ‘I thought that just stopped the door from slamming.’
Neve shook her head. ‘The bridge crew can’t bypass it. If they trigger an evacuation, all the sick and healthy passengers will be released into the corridors together. All at the same time.’
‘So what are they going to do?’
‘I don’t know, but every minute they wait is making it worse.’
Erin’s team had been taken by surprise.
While they were watching the old man sprinting toward them, they didn’t hear the woman charging barefoot up the corridor behind them.
She didn’t have a knife.
She didn’t have a belt.
She had a bottle of red wine.
That’s what splashed on me, realized Erin. Wine, not blood.
Although there was plenty of blood flowing now.
The deranged woman had clubbed the first man she’d reached. The exploding bottle had felled the man instantly, gashing open the back of his head. Had he been alone, she would surely have killed him with the jagged glass bottleneck. Instead, she thrust the broken bottleneck straight into another man’s shoulder. After that she attacked with her teeth, like a savage dog.
Erin didn’t know if she lay dead or unconscious. She certainly wasn’t moving.
The two wounded men sat slumped against the wall.
Erin pressed her handkerchief hard against the wound on one man’s head.
‘Hold that down. Keep the pressure on it.’
She turned to help the other man.
He sat staring in shock at his hand. He seemed more concerned with his hand than the broken wine bottle protruding from his shoulder.
‘She bit me,’ he said. ‘Her teeth broke my skin.’
He looked up at Erin. ‘Am I infected?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Erin. ‘But you have half a wine bottle sticking out of your shoulder. You’re both going down to the hospital.’
Only one of Erin’s team remained on his feet.
He had delivered the blow that saved Erin’s life.
He opened the first aid kit and quickly took bandages, wound dressings, sterilizing wipes and a pair of tweezers.
He held up the tweezers. ‘For the glass. In case any broke off in your shoulder.’
‘You can’t do that here,’ objected Erin. ‘He needs a doctor.’
‘We’re not going to the hospital,’ replied the man flatly.
‘Then where are you going?’ asked Erin.
‘To the lifeboats. It’s only a matter of time before this ship is overrun, and then everyone will be scrambling for the lifeboats. We’ve done mo
re than our share to help people, Erin. We’ve done more than anyone else. Anyone still sane needs to get off this ship right now.’
Erin couldn’t argue with the truth.
He was absolutely right.
‘If you’re smart, you won’t be far behind us,’ he added. ‘This place is about to become a floating death trap.’
Erin watched them stagger off toward the aft stairs.
They’re right, thought Erin. The plan to transfer the healthy passengers and crew to a military ship will never happen in time. Too many infected people are waking up. Too many are escaping their cabins.
Erin looked at the red wine and the darker red, the blood red, staining the expensive carpet around her shoes and both bodies.
She didn’t recognize the man who attacked her, but she recognized the woman.
Her name was Julia. She had treated herself to this cruise for her fortieth birthday. Erin remembered arranging a birthday cake two nights ago. The dining room staff had surrounded her table to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ until she blew out the candles.
She had looked delighted.
How can a person go from that to a homicidal maniac overnight? It just didn’t seem possible.
Erin made a decision. She lifted her radio.
‘Bridge, this is Erin on deck 8. My fire response team has been incapacitated. I need a replacement team immediately.’
The reply came back instantly.
‘Erin. This is Bryant. We don’t have anyone else to send you.’
Erin knew Ben Bryant well. Ben’s wife, Karen, was Erin’s closest friend. Erin had been a bridesmaid at their wedding just months ago. If Ben couldn’t send her help, things were truly getting desperate.
‘I still need help!’ Erin blurted into her radio. ‘The medical team hasn’t returned and my fire team was taken down by one crazy woman with a bottle. You have no idea what these people are like, Ben. They’re psychotic! They’re savages. One almost gouged my eyes out!’
‘Can you reach the bridge?’ Ben asked quickly.
‘But you’re locked down!’
‘I’ll open it.’
Ben meant to break the rules and let her in.
But Erin didn’t want to retreat. She wanted to help people. It was her job. Her responsibility.
‘Ben, just look on your cameras,’ implored Erin. ‘Look in the hallways. We have dead people lying in the hallways.’
HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2) Page 4