“I can’t do that,” said Jack.“I need that door barricaded, right now. Claire? Start dragging tables over here. Anyone that fancies being useful should help her.”
Claire huffed, but did as she was asked. Together with an elderly couple that Jack recognised as the lovers from the pool balcony, she started sliding a table across the floor. It was unbelievable that the rest of the group were still standing around and doing nothing.
When Claire and the old couple reached the doorway, they placed the table down in front of it – but they did so several feet short.
“You need to get it right up against the door,” said Jack.
Claire stared at him and he saw the distrust in her eyes. Her intention wasn’t to help him. She had other ideas.
Jack shook his head at her, still restraining the chef by twisting the man’s wrist behind his back in a basic hammerlock. “Claire, don’t!”
His pleas went ignored. Claire unlatched the doors and pushed aside the table, tipping it over. Then she opened both doors wide.
One of the eyebleeders spotted her and ran towards her. He leapt straight for her, grabbing her in an embrace and tearing at her throat with his teeth. The two of them fell to the ground in a heap. Claire’s body was already limp and dying as a thick torrent of blood exploded from her jugular. More eyebleeders flowed in through the doorway. The elderly lovers were the next to go down.
The old man stood in front of his wife, meaning to protect her, but his defiance was made weak as the flesh of his cheek was torn free by the teeth of a crazed stranger. Both of 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. His instincts urged him to help these people, but he didn’t know enough about the situation to risk taking action. He’d already tried to protect everybody in the room, but they’d turned against him. They weren’t his responsibility.
Screw them.
Jack looked around the room and tried to find a way out. The main entrance was blocked by a throng of thrashing bodies, but the space behind the buffet train looked like it led to a staff area. There was no telling what was behind the door, but it was his only viable option. Jack sprinted across the restaurant, barging and flipping any bodies that dared get in his way. He managed to reach the staff area in one piece.
There was a kitchen inside, simple and confined. There were no exits or ways out of the area other than where he’d come in. If the eyebleeders found him inside, he would have nowhere to run and his only option would be to stand and fight them. He’d cornered himself.
Jack began to ransack the room, looking for a makeshift 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 he could find: a 12-inch French chef’s knife. It felt good in his hand. Heavy.
Jack crouched in the centre of the room, eying the doorway. He was aware of his own breathing and tried to slow it down to keep from panicking. Infected or not, the attackers outside were just people; and he’d spent most his life dealing with people. This was nothing he couldn’t handle.
Just an ordinary day.
Jack hardly noticed the screaming anymore – the sound was quickly becoming commonplace – but he did notice when it started to die down. The sound of silence took hold and suddenly there was a sense of foreboding in the air. Jack waited for something to happen.
The silence continued.
Eventually his curiosity got the better of him. He crept towards the door, knife held out in front of him in a standard, right-handed combat stance. It wouldn’t be the first time Jack was prepared to kill somebody.
He reached the door and stopped still, listening for anyone that may have been standing on the other side. The first person to attack him would get the knife in their groin. But there were no blood channels in the blade, it would probably get stuck. If that happened, he would have to defend himself against anyone else with his fists.
Here we go.
Jack placed his hand against the door and pushed it open gradually. When it was several inches ajar, he peered out through the gap. The narrow view he had of the room was empty. The tables and chairs of the dining area lay undisturbed. It seemed safe. Deserted.
Jack edged himself through the gap in the door, keeping the knife in front of him. The room was covered in blood and bits of flesh; there was even a severed hand lying on one of the buffet carts. But no bodies. Further into the dining area, several tables and chairs were tipped over and the pools of blood were thicker – thick enough that those who shed it must certainly have been dead. But still there were no bodies.
What the hell? Where is everybody?
Jack bent at the knees and tensed himself, ready to react to the first sign of danger. Yet there seemed to be none. All was quiet. Almost serene. 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 Jack of what had happened the last time – the first time he’d been through this madness. He suddenly recalled the efforts of security to control things in the High Spirits lounge. They had failed miserably then, so why would they succeed now? Jack had little faith that the danger was over. It just wasn’t here in the room with him.
The double doors of the restaurant were closed, blood and dirty handprints smeared all over the frosted glass. Jack wondered whether he should go through them. The restaurant was now empty and possibly safe. But staying there and cowering went against everything he stood for. He was a protector, a man of action, not a coward. Jack opened the doors and entered the corridor outside.
There was more blood, over everything. The whole hallway seemed like the scene from a horror-movie massacre. Jack headed forward, away from High Spirits and the Lido Restaurant, and towards the Sport Deck at the front of the ship. He passed by the upper level of the Broadway Lounge, with its balconied seats looking down at an empty theatre stage. There was less blood in here, but it was still deserted like everywhere else. Jack’s stomach was churning, his senses telling him to just get the hell out of there. It was the first time in his life that his body was choosing to flee rather than fight.
But flee from what? What the hell is wrong with everyone and where have they all gone?
Outside of the Broadway lounge was a short hallway with staircases on either side. He knew it led to an area outside with tennis courts and a 5-v-5 football pitch inside a Perspex enclosure. Technically, Jack had never been there before and should not know a thing about it, but he remembered it from the…dream he’d had last night – or whatever it had been. The first time he’d lived through this day, he had explored the ship, and now he remembered. If that had actually happened in reality, rather than his imagination, then the Sports Deck would be exactly as he expected it to be.
Jack stepped outside and was immediately horrified. The Sports Deck was laid out exactly as he knew it would be: two tennis courts, a basketball D, and the enclosed football pitch at the back. The tennis courts were swamped with a seething mass of bodies, bleeding and shedding flesh like waterlogged corpses. They were all eyebleeders, hundreds of them, including staff. The focus of their attention was the football pitch. They clawed and bashed at it with their bloody fists, trying to get at the contents inside. It was the contents inside that made Jack’s stomach turn.
The Perspex enclosure was filled with children and a handful of adults. They all screamed, terrified by the hellish ghouls trying to get at them. The enclosure’s doors were locked from the inside and, so far, the hard plastic glass was withstanding, but it would only be a matter of time until the sheer weight of bodies against it sent it crashing. Even now, Jack could se
e the structure swaying to and fro as its bolted foundations began to come loose.
There was nothing Jack could do. He was a capable fighter, but no man could effectively take on a hundred crazed attackers simultaneously. There was no choice but to get the hell out of there. He had no choice but to leave the children to their fate.
He started backing away slowly, mindful of catching the attention of the mob. Luckily, their focus was, so far, transfixed on the terrified children in the glass cage. Not one of them had turned to face him. But, while Jack had his eyes on them, he was backing away without being able to see what was behind him. When his back hit against something, he almost let out a wail, his fraught nerves so close to snapping. While he managed to keep himself quiet, by that time it was too late.
The equipment rack full of tennis racquets went crashing onto its side. The contents went clattering across the ground as Jack watched in absolute horror. Then he turned his attention back to the horde of infected passengers. All of them had begun to turn, swivelling on their injured, clumsy legs. Slowly, one by one, a hundred pairs of eyes set themselves upon Jack.
They sprinted towards him.
Jack turned and smashed his way back through the door, back into the ship. He collided against the walls, his panic disrupting his balance. He turned right and leaped down the stairs in the hallway, heading back down to the Broadway Deck. He had to find help, or at least somewhere he could hole up until rescue arrived. His instincts to fight were now completely flattened and he wanted only to find somewhere he could curl up on the floor and close his eyes until it was all over.
Jack reached the bottom of the stairs and flung himself forward at full speed. He almost fell down a moment later when he skidded to a stop. The foyer was filled with as many infected passengers as there had been upstairs. Blood covered absolutely everything, like an industrial paint spill, and severed limbs littered the ruined carpets in every direction.
This is hell. I must have died on duty, stabbed by some drug dealing scumbag, and this is the boat meant to take me to hell. This is the River Styx and somewhere I’m going to bump into Charon ready to take me to the underworld.
The infected passengers seemed to notice Jack all at once and let out a simultaneous screech. Acting as a single entity they bolted towards Jack in unison, chasing him back towards the staircase. He took the steps two at a time, climbing as fast as he could, the screams of a hundred demons behind him.
Halfway up the stairs, Jack was met with the infected passengers from the Sports Deck. They stumbled down the stairs towards him, gathering bodies like a grizzly snowball. Jack found himself trapped as attackers came from both above and below him.
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 one-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. Other 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.
With everyone being ripped apart by a mob of snarling lunatics.
The eyebleeders appeared each night, always between eight and nine. The High Spirits lounge was the first place to turn from what Jack had gathered. Conner and the little girl with the dolly seemed to be primary vectors – always the first ones to attack. His investigations had also uncovered that Carlo’s Casino, on the Eagle Deck, also became overrun by infected passengers at around the same time. The safest place to be, Jack had discovered, was in the lower decks of the ship, where the frightened passengers remained locked up in their cabins. Jack 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 say.
Jack often considered throwing the little girl overboard, but had always found that he lacked the ability to perform such an evil act. He doubted it would help, anyway. The virus had already taken a firm hold on the ship. The passengers were doomed from the moment he woke up each day. And they didn’t even know it. Only Jack knew that death was coming for them. In a way, he figured that made him the most doomed of all. He was totally alone in the misery of knowing what was to come.
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. Then he walked towards the entrance to the Promenade Deck in the opposite direction. He braced his legs as the ship rolled suddenly. He hardly noticed the sudden movement anymore. The ship’s rocking had become like the predictable beating of his heart.
He opened the door and immediately turned right.
“Slow down!” he shouted at the two young boys sprinting towards him. They did as he told them, at least at first, but then accelerated back to their original speed as soon as they were past him, racing off towards the pool area. The little brats never took any notice of what he said.
On the Lido Deck the usual people were present: the same children swimming in the pool; the same parents disregarding them as they drank beer and read trashy autobiographies; the same smiling staff carrying overbalanced 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.
Jack forced a smile. “Yeah, great. 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. Are you here with your wife?”
“No,” said Jack. “Work sent me here.”
“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, knowing that it didn’t matter what the girl knew or thought about him. She wouldn’t remember a thing this time tomorrow.
To his surprise, she 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 her to see if she was genuine. “That’s a very compassionate thing to say to a stranger.”
She smile
d at him. “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 all 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, anyway. 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.
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 one minute…
Jack suddenly realised something. Today, everything was not the same. Something had changed. For the first time in the last one-hundred days, the brunette waitress with the dark eyes had not come to take his drinks order. She hadn’t turned up when she was supposed to.
Day 102
Jack had 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 no help; they were cagey and distrustful of him. But today he would have longer to look.
Sea Sick: A Horror Novel Page 5