by Mark Woods
That the only reason Wilfred was here, the real reason, was because he had come here to secretly blow up the ship.
The less people who knew about the plan ahead of schedule, he thought, the better and even if he tried to explain to her his motives, there was no way, he thought, she would ever believe him.
No, much better just to lie – at least for now.
“I should go,” Jaqueline told him, finishing her drink – a whiskey like his, but much more watered down as she didn’t have much of a head for hard liquor. “I’m supposed to be singing at the Halloween Ball later tonight, and need to go and finish off rehearsing before the stage director starts having kittens. I only stepped out for a little while just to come grab a drink and some fresh air away from him for a while – I’m surprised he hasn’t come looking for me by now.”
They had been sitting here, talking for almost an hour, Wilfred suddenly realised. They had been getting on so well, he’d no idea just how much time had passed…
Jaqueline got up to leave, and that was when Wilfred knew he simply had to say something. He couldn’t just let her walk away and off into danger, he suddenly decided. No, he needed to try and warn her about what was going to happen -later on, and right in the middle of her performance as well if all went to plan – even if he didn’t tell her the whole truth.
Since arriving on The Bellastaria a couple of hours ago, Wilfred had quickly realised just how impractical it would be to try and save everyone on-board, but if he could not save everyone human, the least he could do, he thought, was try and save her.
“Wait,” he said, stopping her in her tracks and making her pause for a moment. “Before you go, there’s something I need to say to you. It’s probably going to sound crazy, but I need you to listen to me, okay?”
“Oh-kay…” Jaqueline said hesitantly, not sure exactly where this conversation was headed. “Go on, I’m listening…”
“I know we’ve only just met, but I need to ask you something; something very important – do you trust me?”
“I’m sorry?” Jaqueline said, momentarily confused. “Do I…do I trust you?”
“That’s right,” Wilfred confirmed. “Do you trust me? I mean…it’s like…I know we’ve only just met an’ all, but talking to you, I kind of feel like there’s some kind of special connection forming between us, do you know what I’m saying? Some kind of bond? Like this, all of this, our meeting this way, us getting along, it was always supposed to happen, you know? Like, I dunno, fate or something – almost like the two of us were always supposed to meet. Does that make any sense?”
Wilfred saw the way she was looking at him, and realised he was starting to lose her.
“Don’t say anything, just bear with me for a second – hear me out,” he said, continuing. “It’s like, sometimes, just sometimes – not always – I get these…feelings, kind of. Like…I don’t know, visions or something. That’s how I knew that grenade was going to explode and take that boy’s life back on the frontline. Sometimes these visions come true, sometimes they don’t – but over the years, they’ve ended up turning out right more times than they have wrong and I’ve come to always trust them, you know? Like some kind of in-built early warning system or something.
“Anyway, last night, I kind of had a dream that something bad was going to happen on this ship. I don’t remember what exactly – for my memory of the dream started to fade upon waking like dreams often do, I just remember people running around screaming – but I do remember waking up with a strong sense that something bad was going to happen. At first, I kind of just put it down to bad nerves, as I don’t particularly like travelling by sea if I’m honest, but ever since I’ve been on-board, I’ve started recognising and seeing little things, inconsequential things, that remind me of my dream.
“Things I couldn’t know about any other way unless what I dreamt last night is going to come true.
“I’m not saying anything will happen, and hopefully it won’t, but just the sheer coincidence of it all has kind of left me with a bad feeling, you know?
“So I guess what it is I’m saying, what I’m asking you, is that if I come to you later and tell you that we need to leave – that we need to get off this ship and quickly – do you think you might be able to trust me? Trust me that I’m telling you the truth and just come along with me, no questions asked?”
“You really think something might happen?” Jaqueline asked. “You really believe that? You’re not just telling me lies and spinning me a yarn to try and get me into bed with you? This isn’t some kind of elaborate ruse? You really, genuinely do believe there’s a possibility we might be in danger?”
“I don’t know,” Wilfred confessed. “Hopefully I’m wrong and nothing will happen, but I just couldn’t bear the thought that if something did happen, I might lose you.
“I’ve know that I’ve only just met you – and that we only met, like, just over an hour ago – but I already feel like I want to get to know you better, spend more time with you, and I’d hate for anything to happen that might possibly jeopardise any future the two of us might possibly have together.
“Like I say, I’ve had these feelings before and they’ve not always come true, but just in case…just in case...”
“You want to know if I can trust you,” Jaqueline said, finishing his sentence. “So that when the time comes, you can keep me safe.”
She smiled, a little embarrassed.
If this was nothing but a come-on, it was certainly an original one, she thought. “I believe you,” she said. “Or, at the very least, I believe that you believe what you’re saying – that we might be in danger. I think you might be crazy – believing in clairvoyance and visions of the future – but you seem like a genuine and honest enough person, a good person with a strong heart, and it’s enough for me that if you truly believe something might possibly happen then yes, I guess what I’m saying is yes, I suppose I trust you.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” Wilfred said.
“Just one thing,” Jaqueline asked. “If you truly think something is going to happen, if you really believe that, why haven’t you warned somebody? The Captain perhaps, or one of the crew?”
“Because I’m not always right,” Wilfred said. “Sometimes my feelings are just that – just feelings. Sometimes my visions don’t come true and if I’m honest, I don’t want to make myself look a fool if I’m wrong.”
“I guess I can understand that,” Jaqueline reluctantly admitted. “And with any luck, hopefully this time around will be one of those times when you’re proven wrong, but for now, let me ask you something. Will I see you again later? At the Ball, I mean?” She asked. “Provided nothing else happens in between of course.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Wilfred said. “How could I possibly resist such an invitation – besides, I’m looking forward to hearing you sing.”
“Maybe I’ll see you later then, hero,” she said, and blew him a cheeky kiss.
“Maybe you will,” Wilfred said, and watched her as she exited the bar.
When he was sure that she’d gone, Wilfred finished up his drink, and then quickly headed off in the opposite direction.
There were things he still needed to do, he thought, if everything were to proceed as had been planned. He still had to plant the explosives he’d sneaked aboard earlier and that, for now, were locked away securely in his cabin, and the sooner he got started and put things into play, he thought, the sooner he could start working out a way of getting himself and Jaqueline safely off the ship…
***
Jaqueline was not entirely sure why she felt like she could trust Wilfred, she just knew that she did. If he said he had dreamt that something bad was going to happen on this trip then she didn’t know why, but she believed him.
She too had felt some kind of connection between them as they spoke – some kind of bond forming that she had no explanation for – and at the time had simply put it down to it just being nice to
speak to a fellow Brit for a change; someone with whom she could relax and be herself with, instead of always having to pretend she was something she was not.
But there was something more to it than that, she was sure of it.
Hearing him speak of how he thought it must be fate, or destiny, that had brought them together on this cruise – echoing her own thoughts - had convinced her that if nothing else, Wilfred at least believed what he was saying, and believed it enough to risk making himself look like a fool in front of her.
Someone he hadn’t even known until he had come to her rescue earlier, saving her from that boorish oaf who had been so insistent on harassing her.
He hadn’t had to do that, but he had chosen to when so many others in the bar had chosen to ignore what was happening, and for that reason if no other, Jaqueline believed that was a good enough reason to trust him.
She only hoped his premonition was wrong…
***
With the ship now well under way, Wilfred made his way down to his cabin and fished out the explosive device he had smuggled on-board earlier, carefully concealed in the bottom of his luggage.
With that done, and the explosives hidden about his person, Wilfred then quickly headed down towards the hold of the ship, being careful not to draw too much attention to himself.
In accordance with the plan devised by his superiors, Wilfred had had no communication with any of his fellow Hunters ever since first stepping aboard The Bellastaria and had no idea who any of them might be, or even who amongst his fellow passengers might even now be planting their own explosives. This was so that if anything went wrong and any one of them was caught, they could not betray any of their other fellow Hunters and the whole operation could still go ahead as planned.
Wilfred, himself, had waited until now to set his device.
They had been given no set timeline – only that the bombs must be all be in place and ready to go off in time for the commencement of the Halloween Ball much later on - but personally, Wilfred had just figured that once the cruise was fully underway, there was a much better chance the wolves might hopefully have relaxed their guard. This, in turn, would hopefully make it that much easier for him to sneak in and out of the hold – a part of the ship that passengers were not strictly supposed to have any access to.
It was not as though the wolves were exactly expecting any trouble but still, he thought, it didn’t hurt to take precautions. When you stopped allowing for the unexpected to happen, Wilfred told himself, then that was when plans usually went wrong – he had learnt that himself from past, bitter experience.
Wilfred and his fellow Hunters had all been given the same brief.
They had all been told to plant their devices at their earliest possible convenience, and to set them all to explode at exactly the same time - during the Halloween Ball. When the explosions started getting underway, and inevitable chaos ensued, that was when they were supposed to make their way to the lifeboats and from there, do their best to try and escape the ship.
The few innocent civilians on-board – supposedly invited as guests for The Bellastaria’s maiden voyage, but in reality lured aboard as bait for The Vampyre – would just have to fend themselves, they were told, and were to be regarded as low priority, it being deemed far more important The Hunters secure their own escape rather than needlessly risk their lives.
Wilfred had never intended to follow those orders, and now that he had met Jaqueline, he was even more certain than he had ever been before that the decision he had made was the right one. Even though it now looked as though it would probably prove impractical to try and save everyone human on-board, he knew he could not even so much as think of escaping the ship now without at least trying to take her with him, even if he couldn’t save anybody else.
He and Jaqueline, he and Jaqueline were meant to be together, he was sure of it.
He could just feel it.
Their meeting was more than just a random occurrence, he told himself, it was destiny – part of a much larger plan, he was sure of it - and Wilfred was determined he would do his best to save her, or die in the attempt…
Now…
As it turned out, Wilfred did not even make it to Jaqueline’s cabin.
Already, fires were breaking out all over the ship, and wolves and Vampyre likewise were running about in panic. The wolves, because they were not sure exactly what was going on and why the slaughter had begun early, and The Vamps, because too late, they realised they had been lured into a trap and suspected that all of this happening right now was part of the Lycanthrope’s plan.
Namely to blow up the ship with all of them on-board.
Obviously something must have gone wrong though, The Vamps thought, for otherwise why else would The Wolves all now be running around in panic?
As yet another explosion rocked the ship, Wilfred tried to work out in his head just how many bombs must have already gone off.
By his count, the latest explosion must be about the fifth or sixth by his reckoning. He had no idea how many bombs might be left – how many did it take to blow up a whole ship, he wondered – and no idea how many other of his fellow Hunters might be on-board, Wilfred not having been privy to that information just in case anything went wrong and he got captured – but knew that by now, time must be running out.
As he held onto a railing to prevent himself being thrown overboard, Wilfred spotted Jaqueline up on the upper deck, frantically battling with a Lycanthrope, unarmed, as she attempted to break free of his grip.
Having already been to her cabin, and found it empty, Wilfred had frantically begun his search of the rest of the ship and that was how he’d ended up here.
Wilfred called out her name and somehow, amongst all the other screams and cries of terror, somehow Jaqueline managed to hear his voice, turning her head towards him, almost as though the two of them were psychically linked.
Not willing to waste any more time – and sensing that time was well and truly against them now - Wilfred dashed up the stairs to the upper level, taking them three at a time. Turning the corner, with a shock, Wilfred suddenly realised he thought he recognised who her attacker was. It was Bruce Anthony Clarkson, the third - the rich business tycoon’s son - who had attempted to force his way upon Jaqueline earlier that evening, when the two of them had first met.
Only half-transformed, his facial features were still instantly recognisable, even if the rest of him had all but transformed into the creature’s obviously much more natural, lupine form.
Sensing someone coming from behind, Bruce Anthony Clarkson relinquished his grip slightly on Jaqueline’s arm, and turned to face Wilfred as he approached.
“Get away from her, you Lycanthrope scum!” Wilfred bellowed as he charged towards his intended target.
“Back off, cripple,” the wolf snarled back. “I warned you earlier, this bitch is mine…”
The eyes of the creature that had once been Bruce Clarkson, before his part-way transformation into a wolf, now burned with an unnatural fire, as his face began to ripple and change into that of a Lycanthrope even as he spoke.
My, what big teeth you have, Wilfred thought, and drew back his arm to strike.
Wilfred let loose with his fist and as the silver prosthetic connected, striking the Lycanthrope directly in the face, snapping his head back. He saw the wolf’s face starting to blister and lesion where he had been hit, almost as though the creature had been splashed with sulphuric acid.
As the ship rocked again violently, Wilfred watched as Bruce Anthony Clarkson the third, struggled to regain his feet, lost his balance and was quickly swept overboard, down into the icy, dark depths of the ocean beyond.
“Told you I had a killer right hook,” Wilfred said, grabbing hold of Jaqueline just in time to prevent her following her attacker over the side.
“Come on,” he told her. “We need to move, we need to leave the ship right now. I do believe we might have outstayed our welcome…what say you?”
Like now…
“Is this what you saw?” Jaqueline demanded, pulling him to a stop for a moment even as, all around them, the ship continued to descend into chaos. “In your dream, your vision, whatever it was you experienced, I mean? What was that thing back there? Was that the same guy from earlier this afternoon? What the hell is going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Wilfred lied. “But from my guess, it looked like he was some kind of werewolf. As to whether or not this is like what I saw in my dream? Some of it yes, but not all of it. I remember the explosions, the smoke, but nothing else…”
“But…but…werewolves don’t exist. They can’t…” Jaqueline insisted.
“Until tonight, I might have agreed with you,” Wilfred said, still lying through his teeth – for this wasn’t the time nor the place, he thought, to confess right now how much he knew or what part he’d had to play in these events. There would be time enough for that later, and recriminations no doubt, after the two of them were both safe.
“But here’s a newsflash for you: it looks like all the stories of Vampyre and Lycanthrope you might have heard are all real after all. Look back there…”
Wilfred pointed back behind her, the way they’d both come, where even now a lone vamp was ripping out the throat of an unfortunate passenger.
“By my best guess, that’s a Vampyre,” he said. “We need to get out of here, get off this ship, before any of them start coming for us. There’s a lifeboat waiting for us, just over here…”