“You need to get it right up against the door,” Jack shouted, pointing to one of the tables Claire and the old couple were adding to the barricade.
Claire glared at him, and suddenly her intentions became clear. She did not trust Jack, and didn’t want to help him. She had other ideas.
Jack let go of the chef and shouted. “Claire, don’t!”
His plea went ignored.
Claire unlocked the doors and pushed aside the nearest table, tipping it onto its side, and then she opened up the restaurant to the crowd outside.
One of the eyebleeders spotted Claire immediately and raced towards her. It was an older man, and he pounced on her viciously, grabbing her in a tight embrace and tearing at her throat with his teeth. Claire’s body was already limp and dying as a thick torrent of blood exploded from her jugular and filled the air with a fine red mist. More eyebleeders flowed into the restaurant. The elderly couple were the next to be attacked.
The old man stood in front of his wife protectively, but his defiance was ignored as the flesh of his cheek tore free between the teeth of an infected teenager. Both the old man and his wife were dead within minutes, ripped apart like two leathery fillet steaks. The eyebleeders moved on to other victims.
Jack had backed away to the far side of the room by then. His instincts urged him to help the screaming, scared victims, but he didn’t have any idea how. He’d tried to protect the people in the restaurant, but they had turned against him. They weren’t his responsibility anymore.
He looked around the room and searched for a way out. A throng of thrashing bodies blocked the restaurant’s entrance, but the area behind the buffet train led to a staff area or kitchen. There was no telling what was behind the door, for sure, but it was the only viable destination, so Jack sprinted through the restaurant, barging aside anyone who got in his way. He managed to make it to the door behind the buffet train.
It turned out that there was a kitchen inside. It was a simple and confined area, with no other exits or ways out. If the eyebleeders found him hiding inside, there was nowhere to run. He’d managed to corner himself.
Jack began ransacking the room, looking for a weapon. He yanked out drawers and pulled open cupboards, but found only crocks and useless cutlery. Just when frustration and despair started setting in, his eyes fell upon what he was looking for. In the centre of the room was an island, and hanging above it was a selection of industrial knives. Jack grabbed the largest one he could find: a 12-inch chef’s knife. It felt good in his hand. Hefty.
He crouched in the centre of the room, eyeing the doorway anxiously. His breathing threatened to become a loud pant, so he concentrated on slowing it down.
The screaming outside begun to fade.
And then stopped.
The sound of silence took hold and a sense of foreboding took its place.
Jack waited in silence. Waited and waited.
Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him and he crept towards the door, knife held out in front of him. He reached the door and stopped still, listening for anyone who may be standing on the other side. The first person to attack him would get the knife in their groin, but he didn’t know how he planned on dealing with the second and third.
He placed his hand against the door and pushed it open gradually and, when it was several inches ajar, he peered out through the gap. The narrow view he had of the room showed nothing but overturned chairs and table. He began edging himself through the gap in the door, keeping the knife out in front of him. The room was covered in blood and bits of flesh – there was even a severed hand laying on one of the buffet carts – but there were no bodies. Several tables and chairs were tipped over and the pools of blood grew thicker the closer he got to the entrance of the restaurant. The puddles were deep enough that whoever shed so much blood must certainly have been dead. But still he could see no bodies. Where the hell was everybody? Was it possible that the situation had been dealt with? Jack didn’t know what sort of security a cruise liner employed, but it had to be somewhat competent with so many passengers to protect. A brief flash of memory reminded him of what had happened the last time – the first time he’d been through this madness. Security had failed miserably to control the chaos in High Spirits; he held little hope they had done any different now.
The double doors of the restaurant were closed again. Blood and dirty handprints smeared the frosted glass. He opened the doors carefully, stepping into the hallway outside where he found more blood. It was all over everything. The entire ship had turned into a scene from a horror movie massacre.
Jack headed away from the Lido Restaurant and towards the Sport Deck, which was located at the front of the ship. He passed by the upper level of the Broadway Lounge, with its balconied seats looking down on an empty theatre stage. There was less blood in there, but it was also deserted like everywhere else.
Jack’s stomach churned, his senses telling him to get the hell out of there, even if it meant jumping in the sea.
Outside of the Broadway Lounge a short hallway led to staircases on either side. Jack knew it led to an area outside with tennis courts and a 5-v-5-football pitch inside a Perspex enclosure. Technically, he had never visited there before, and shouldn’t know a thing about it, but he remembered it in perfect detail from the – dream? – he’d had. The first time he’d lived through this day, he had explored the ship, and now he remembered all of it.
He stepped out onto the Sports Deck and was horrified. It was laid out exactly as he knew it would be, with two tennis courts, a basketball D, and the enclosed football pitch, but this time the tennis courts were swamped with a seething mass of bodies. All of them were eyebleeders, hundreds of them in total, both passengers and staff. The entire mob as focused on the Perspex enclosure of the football pitch. They clawed and bashed at it with their bloody fists.
The enclosure was filled with screaming children and a handful of terrified adults. The doors were locked from the inside and the hard plastic walls were withstanding the assault for now, but it would only be a matter of time until the sheer weight of bodies uprooted it. Even now, Jack could see the structure swaying to and fro as its bolted foundations began to loosen.
There was nothing Jack could do. He was a capable fighter, but no man could effectively take on a hundred crazed attackers. There was no choice but to get the hell out of there; no choice but to leave the children to their fate.
He started backing away slowly, not wanting to gain the attention of the infected mob. If a single one of them turned around and saw him, he was done for.
As Jack crept backwards, his back hit against something.
The equipment rack, full of tennis racquets, went crashing onto its side. Jack froze.
Up ahead, each of the infected people began to turn around, one by one, until two hundred bleeding eyes were staring right at Jack.
The mob let out a screech.
Then it came for him.
Jack sprinted and barged his way back inside the ship, colliding with the walls as his panicked run played havoc with his balance. He took a right turn and leaped down a flight of stairs, heading back towards the Broadway Deck. He had to find help, or at least somewhere he could hole-up until rescue arrived. His instinct to fight was non-existent and he wanted only to find somewhere he could curl up on the floor and close his eyes until it was all over. Jack had never been a coward before, but right now he was as full of fear as a human being could be.
Jack reached the bottom of the stairs and flung himself forwards so hard he almost fell down. He was forced to stop before he’d even taken a few steps.
The foyer was filled with infected passengers, as many as had been upstairs. Blood covered the carpets and walls like thick industrial paint.
Jack shook his head in desperation. He was in hell. He had died in the line of duty, stabbed by some drug dealing scumbag, and was now on a boat to hell.
The infected passenger looked upon Jack and let out a collective screech. Ja
ck fled back towards the staircase, taking the steps two at a time as the screams of a hundred demons followed behind him. Halfway up, Jack was met by the infected passengers from the Sports Deck. They stumbled down the stairs towards him, tripping and rolling together like a grizzly snowball. Jack found himself trapped as attackers came from both above and below him. A rat caught in a corridor.
There was nothing he could do as the bodies began to envelop him, teeth ripping into his flesh and rending it from his bones. He wouldn’t have thought it would take so long to die, but it felt like hours.
Day 4
Jack woke up screaming. The day ended the exact same way.
Day 5
Jack stayed in bed all day, afraid to leave his cabin. At midnight he fell asleep…
Day 6
…and woke up at 1400hrs. The day was still the same.
Day 64
Jack threw himself overboard.
Day 65
He woke up in bed. The day was still the same.
Day 77
Jack killed himself a dozen different ways.
Day 89
But he always woke up in bed. The day was always the same.
Day 99
Jack prayed to God.
Day 100
His prayers went unanswered.
Day 101
Jack rose out of bed, woken by his luggage falling against the wardrobe for the hundredth time. The clock read: 1400 as it always did. Like a robot he walked across the room, went for a shower, and then got dressed. Some days he just stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours and hours until, inexplicably, he would fall asleep at midnight exactly. There was never any fighting it. Some days he made the effort to get up and do something, but no matter what he did, the day would always end in the same agonising way.
Being ripped apart by a mob of snarling lunatics.
The eyebleeders appeared every night, always between eight and nine. The High Spirits lounge was the first place to turn bad. Conner and the little girl with the dolly were always the first to attack. Very few places held out for long. Jack’s investigations had proven that Carlo’s Casino on the Eagle Deck became overrun with infected passengers at around the same time as High Spirits and the two infected mobs would quickly converge on the other places between. The safest place to be, Jack discovered, was in the lower decks of the ship, where frightened passengers remained locked up in their cabins. He had no idea how the infection had gotten onboard, but it was clear from the moment he woke up each morning that it was too late to help anybody. As soon as he left his room and explored the ship, he would always notice people sneezing and coughing, growing pale and sickly. The little girl with pigtails seemed to be the worst, a little further ahead in her condition than everyone else. Perhaps she was the originator. Patient Zero or whatever they call it.
Jack had once disgusted himself by almost throwing the little girl overboard one morning, but had soon found that he lacked the ability to commit such a heinous act. He doubted it would help, anyway. The virus had already taken a firm hold on the ship by the time he woke up. The passengers were doomed, and only he knew it. In a way, that made him the most doomed of all. He was alone in the misery of knowing what was to come each and every day. He could not warn anybody or be taken seriously until it was too late.
Today, as Jack stepped out of the elevator onto the Broadway Deck, he stared scornfully at the room service cart to his right. He hated that goddamn cart. Its mere, expected presence offended him.
He walked towards the entrance to the Promenade and braced his legs as the ship rolled suddenly. He hardly noticed the sudden movement anymore, so ingrained was it in his routine. The ship’s movements had become as predictable as his heartbeat.
Jack opened the door to the deck outside and immediately turned to his right.
“Slow down!” he shouted as the two young boys sprinted by him. They slowed down for a second, but then accelerated back to their original speed as soon as they were far enough away, racing towards the pool area. The little brats never took any notice. Jack had come to despise them.
On the Lido Deck, the usual people were present. The same children swam in the pool. The same parents drank beer and read their trashy autobiographies. The same smiling staff carried their precariously stacked serving trays.
Jack went up the steps to the sun deck and threw aside the green towel that covered the sun lounger he now thought of as his. Claire looked at him warily as he dumped himself down.
“You okay?” she asked him. “You looked upset.”
Jack forced a smile. “I’m fine. How about you? Missing Leeds?”
“Huh? How did you…?”
“Your accent,” he said.
“Didn’t realise it was that thick? You’re from-”
“Birmingham. Yes, well done.”
“Funny, how you meet all different kinds of people on holiday, isn’t it? Are you here with your wife?”
“No,” Jack said. “Work sent me.”
“Really? I wish I had a job that sent me on cruises. What do you do?”
“I’m a police officer.”
Claire seemed confused. “I don’t understand. Why would you be sent on a cruise?”
“Because I had a nervous breakdown,” Jack replied bluntly, for he knew that it didn’t matter what the girl knew or didn’t know about him. She wouldn’t remember a thing this time tomorrow.
To his surprise, Claire acted concerned. “That’s terrible,” she said. “My brother had one of those when he was younger. He has an anxiety disorder and has to take pills. I’m not surprised people struggle to cope with the world when it’s such a horrible place. I hope you get through it.”
Jack studied the girl to see if she was genuine. She seemed to be. “That’s a compassionate thing to say to a stranger.”
“Like I said, my brother has been through something similar. I know how horrible it can be. If we were all a little nicer to strangers then perhaps we’d be happier.”
Jack was wary, but couldn’t help but like the girl. Every time he spoke to Claire, they seemed to have a fresh conversation and he ended up learning something new about her. The more he got to know her, the more he found out what a caring and strong-minded person she was. What he didn’t understand, though, was why her boyfriend, Conner, had such a hold on her. In the various encounters Jack had with the couple, Conner would always order Claire around as if she were his slave. Claire was always nervous and let him. There was something going on there, but Jack hadn’t yet learned what. Trying to find out would be a waste of his time. It wasn’t as though he could change anything.
As if on cue, Conner appeared and did his little routine about the hotdogs and being ill. Claire followed after him and the two of them went downstairs. Everything was always the same, like clockwork. Events could vary somewhat, due to whatever involvement he took in them, but nothing was ever really different. The night would always end the same way and the morning would always start anew.
Jack decided to take a nap, knowing with certainty that he would wake up at 8PM, alone and in the dark, just before the attacks began.
Been there, done that. Got ripped apart by zom-
Wait a minute…
Jack sat up as he suddenly realised something. Today, everything was not the same. One small thing had changed. One thing had not happened today that always happened. Something was missing.
For the first time in the last one hundred days, the brunette waitress with the dark eyes had not come to take his and Claire’s drink orders. She hadn’t turned up when she was supposed to.
Day 102
Jack spent the entire previous evening trying to locate the brunette waitress, but he had failed to find her anywhere. Asking other members of staff where he could find her had been of no help. They were all cagey and distrustful of him. Today was a new day, though, and he would have longer to look.
He had awoken at 1400hr as usual. The seagull was at the window on time and the showe
r needed time to heat up. Everything was the same as it always was. The only thing that had changed was the waitress’s movement. And, of course, him. Jack didn’t stay the same, because each day took another chunk of his soul. He had begun longing for death, all his hope finally evaporated. But now things were different. There was someone else on the ship like him, someone who was not fixed in place or stuck in time.
Jack got dressed and headed outside. He decided to go and take the sun lounger next to Claire and wait for one hour to see if the waitress turned up at her usual time. It was probably the best place to start – the one place he knew where she was supposed to be.
Jack threw aside the green towel and sat down. Claire, as always, said hello.
“Hey,” he said back to her, glancing around the deck for the waitress. “How you doing today?”
“Good, thanks. The sun has been out most of the day, but I think it’s going in soon. Should have come earlier in the year. The days are too short in October.”
“Why didn’t you come earlier?” Jack asked her, before glancing around for the waitress again.
“Why do you think? Money. I’m a hairdresser. I could barely afford to come in October, let alone during peak time.”
“What about your boyfriend? You should have made him treat you.”
“Conner? How did you know I came with my boyfriend?”
“I saw you together. We boarded at the same time.”
“You couldn’t have. We arrived separately.” The girl seemed a little freaked out for a moment, but then she shrugged. “You must have seen us somewhere else, I guess. Anyway, Conner doesn’t earn much more than me. He’s a mechanic at a place his dad owns, but he doesn’t get paid a lot.”
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