by Ben Farthing
He cut her off. “I would like the entire story from your mouth.”
Riley again considered whether she needed a lawyer. The internet had warned her never to talk to a cop without a lawyer. Did this situation count?
First Officer Bengtsson placed his phone on the chair’s arm. He tapped a button, and the phone beeped. “What time did you leave the Cloud Club?”
Riley answered his questions, walking him through how they’d walked across the deck in the dark, then Marjorie had heard a splash, and they’d spotted the body. She told him how Marjorie had jumped in while Krystal went for help, and then she’d helped get the body out of the pool. She was honest in saying she’d been so spooked from it all that she walked away.
Her interrogator cleared his throat. “Your pink-haired friend, she said someone swam away from the corpse before you pulled it from the water. Did you see this?”
She’d left that out. It wasn’t a person. No one could swim that fast. But if Bengtsson thought she was making up a story, he might think she was lying to cover up her own guilt. She couldn’t bring up the clinging thing.
“I don’t think anyone swam away. It was a trick of the light.”
“The power was out.”
“My flashlight.”
He was built like a stone, and he kept his thoughts behind a stone face. “Your friend said you got a better look at the assailant than her.”
“Assailant?”
“This person who swam away—it’s reasonable to assume that they attacked this boy, no?”
She should have matched Marjorie’s story. She was a terrible liar. But no turning back now. “I’m not sure I saw anyone at all. There was movement, but it was too fast to be someone swimming. Probably just my flashlight. I was freaked out. I was probably shaking the light.”
“What do you think moved that quickly?”
The thing on the hull, she wanted to say. “Nothing. Like I said, I think it was a trick of the light. The guy didn’t look beat up at all, did he?”
“The professionals will determine that. Why did this spook you enough to flee? Surely you would expect we’d want a statement.”
“I’m sorry. I was a little drunk.”
“It looks suspicious.”
And there was Riley’s cue. If they suspected her of anything, she wasn’t saying another word.
She stared at the ceiling. Exhaustion made her body ache.
After a moment, Bengtsson asked, “You don’t think it looks suspicious?”
Riley looked him in the eyes. They were deep green. Under his buzzed white-blond hair, they looked like dark emeralds. She decided she must still be a little drunk. Otherwise, staring this brick of a man in the face would be intimidating.
“Here’s another question neither of your friends could answer: what was the splash? You heard a splash and then looked in the pool and saw the body. But he was already drowned. Not kicking or struggling like he would be if he had just fallen in with a splash. What was the splash?”
Riley squeezed the armrest. That was a good question. Had the thing from the hull jumped in as they’d arrived? Had it drowned him somewhere else and then jumped in with the boy?
“Did you hear the splash, or did your pink-haired friend only tell you she heard one?”
Riley opened her mouth, then bit her tongue. She didn’t remember. She could imagine a splash. But had she heard one? Or had Marjorie only gasped and claimed to have heard one?
“Whose idea was it to walk along the upper deck rather than through the ship with the other passengers?”
Riley was surprised. Bengtsson wasn’t suspicious of Riley—he thought Marjorie was involved.
“Your friend suggested it, didn’t she?”
Riley barely knew the old woman, but she wasn’t a murderer. The thing on the hull had been in the pool. Marjorie wasn’t involved. Riley wasn’t about to throw her under the bus. “Marjorie was with us in the Cloud Club for two hours before the power went out.”
“You never let her out of your sight?”
Riley chewed on the inside of her cheek. Marjorie had slipped away for a few minutes right before the power went out. But she walked with a cane. She couldn’t have snuck outside, overpowered a 20-year-old to drown him, then snuck back inside. Plus, her clothes would have been wet. And Riley was almost certain they hadn’t been.
And again, she reminded herself, the thing from the hull had been in the pool with the body. That was the culprit. She just couldn’t tell Bengtsson that.
Riley looked at the security chief. “Marjorie was with us for two hours before we found the body. You shouldn’t be wasting your time questioning us. You should talk to the group he was with.”
Bengtsson raised an eyebrow. “You knew the deceased?”
Ah crap. She’d stuck her foot in her mouth. “I saw him at dinner.”
“There are five hundred people in each seating. Why did you notice him?”
Riley didn’t want to link herself to the investigation by admitting to Nathaniel being her uncle. “There’s not many guys here close to my age. He stood out.”
“Why are you on this cruise? You aren’t retired. How can you take six weeks' vacation?”
“I’m here to give a statement about how we found a body. That’s an off-topic question.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’ve given my statement. It’s two in the morning. If you want to chat about how many PTO days I get each year, let’s do it tomorrow.”
Bengtsson stared at her, then cracked a smile. “Don’t go out of town for a few days.”
Riley didn’t feel obligated to laugh. She stood up. She was so exhausted that her legs had gone stiff just in the five minutes she’d been sitting. “I’m free to go?”
“You are not being detained.” He walked her to the door. “My next interview should be here already.”
Outside the interrogation room, the hallway’s embellishments were a stark contrast to the bare room behind Riley. The elevators and stairs were around the corner. “I thought you’d already talked to Marjorie and Krystal.”
“I have. You were on the right track with your suggestion to talk to the boy’s friends.”
Footsteps from the stairs above, heading down.
It had to be Nathaniel.
The hallways suddenly felt like an animal trap, and the hunter was on his way.
19
Leather-soled shoes clacked down the stairwell.
Riley took an unconscious step away. That had to be Nathaniel. Who else from his group would take the time to put on dress shoes for a middle-of-the-night interrogation.
Bengtsson raised an eyebrow at Riley. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Riley looked around for an escape route. The stairs, the elevator, or down the hallway of Deck Three.
“I’ll call the elevator for you.” Bengtsson walked across the hall to press the button.
Voices from the stairwell. It was Nathaniel. Riley was out of time. “I need to stretch my legs a bit. It’s been a strange night.”
She turned and walked down the hallway.
Bengtsson called after her. “You should not be alone.”
But as she turned the corner, she heard Nathaniel greeting the security chief.
The dim hallway stretched far ahead of Riley. With it being so late, the bright overhead lights weren’t on. Only the dimmer yellow lights on the walls positioned every ten feet.
“Miss?” Bengtsson called. “Wait a moment.”
Riley hurried along the soft carpeted floor.
She passed doors labeled with letters instead of numbers. The doors were farther apart than up on the decks with the passenger cabins. These must be conference rooms.
But in practical terms, it meant long stretches of this hallway felt empty and abandoned.
Something splashed under her feet.
The carpet was soggy with liquid.
It could be a leak, Riley told herself. But she was directly above D
eck Two. Down on Deck One, those silvery strands of liquid dripped down from the ceiling. The same gritty goop that’d been on the dead boy’s body.
Riley didn’t want to know if she was standing in that spillage now. She wanted to find the next staircase and go back to her cabin to sleep.
But Deck Two was connected to Nathaniel’s plan to destroy the ocean. Riley was convinced of that. Any evidence she could gather would be helpful. It’d feel great to shut down not just his watch theft but also his money-making, ocean-destroying scheme for the Aria.
Riley turned on her flashlight. Silvery liquid mixed in with carpet fibers. The green and red art deco pattern in the carpet was overtaken by the reflection of her light off the liquid.
She wished she had something to collect a sample with. She wasn’t going to scoop it into her pockets. Maybe that’s what the dead boy had done. But she could at least take a picture.
A better one this time, where you could actually see what she was trying to capture.
She took several, with and without flash. They weren’t perfect, but you could at least tell it was a shiny liquid soaked into the carpet.
Soft footsteps behind her.
She’d almost forgotten about Bengtsson. He must have got Nathaniel situated and then come to check on her.
Riley turned around.
A mass of wriggling darkness framed the hallway.
20
Riley staggered backwards, away from the wriggling darkness.
Along the walls, floor, and ceiling, emerged squirming black fingers. They looked like thumbs without nails or creases and moved together like a photographic negative of something from a coral reef. Rather than stick to the shape of the hallway, they bulged inward in spots. It framed Riley’s view of the lobby with a shuddering mass of small appendages.
Riley’s throat went dry. She couldn’t process what she was seeing.
Wet, scraping sounds as the swarm of black tubes rubbed against each other. It smelled of saltwater and sour mud.
Riley stepped backwards. The wriggling blackness shifted towards her. The straight lines of the hallway devolved into organic bumps and valleys.
She froze. It stopped.
This was impossible. She couldn’t have just walked through this area. This thing couldn’t exist. Not even at the bottom of the ocean, and certainly not on a cruise ship.
She tried another step away. Again, the colony of black tubes edged along the surfaces of the hallway, closer to her.
The shiny, structureless thumbs all leaned toward her. If they surrounded her, enveloped her, what would it feel like? Oily flesh flicking over every inch of her skin.
Riley screamed for help—Bengtsson was only around the corner—but it came out raspy and quiet. Fear choked her.
But fear didn’t paralyze her. She took another step away.
The black mass followed her. It shuddered harder than before, a centralized earthquake that she felt spread through the carpeted hallway floor. A bump of tubes stretched upwards. It was a single bulge emerging from the floor.
The oily blackness dripped away from the top of the bulge, leaving behind dusty orange appendages.
Riley steadily walked backwards. The intruding area followed her. The wriggling hill grew even more, slipping off its black topcoat.
The bump of waving orange thumbs squeezed itself together, stretched higher, grew lopsided, and tumbled over. It separated from the floor with a juicy “pop.”
It reminded Riley of videos of a calf being born.
The thing unfolded, and five appendages stretched out, each as thick as her waist. The thing jerked itself upwards, flopping around on the black tubes still wiggling out of the floor. It flipped itself over.
Uneven, bulging orange flesh that looked a rough as a sidewalk.
It was the thing from the hull.
From this clearer view, it looked like a deformed starfish. Five thick limbs reached out from a central body as big as a kitchen table. It was cramped in the hallway, surrounded by the field of black tubes that had birthed it. Its limbs bent up and against the walls.
Riley’s lungs burned. She’d been holding her breath. She gasped.
The monstrous starfish swung around. One limb reached for her.
She ran.
Heavy, wet noises behind her.
Riley imagined the monstrous starfish’s limbs slapping against the carpet, but she didn’t dare turn around and slow down.
That thing had killed Nathaniel’s friend. Drowned him or killed him and then dragged him into the pool.
Riley ran as fast as she could in flip-flops. She cursed the tennis shoes that she didn’t bother to pack.
The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. Where were the next stairs? Where were the next elevators?
Thousands of waving black tubes spread over the walls and ceiling, overtaking her. Her feet slapped down onto their springy flesh.
The thing was right behind her.
She left her flip-flops behind, stepping out them as gracefully as when she came home from a long day.
Rubbery fingers pressed against her bare feet, slid up between her toes. The unnaturalness of it shrieked at her. She was fleeing something impossible.
Something thick and rough swiped the back of her neck. It stung.
She sprinted harder than she ever had before.
The carpet under her feet had never felt so good. She was outdistancing it.
But the wet smacks of the starfish’s strides were still close behind.
Ahead, the hallway curved to the left with the ship. She’d ran past midship and now headed towards the bow. There should be stairs… there they were—double wood doors with the image of a staircase above.
Riley threw everything into running. Her thighs burned, and she feared they would cramp and leave her collapsed on the floor as the starfish left on top of her, its hundreds of wriggling fingers crushing her body.
She reached the double doors, flung them open, and started up the stairs. She’d done it. She’d outran the terror that couldn’t possibly exist, that had emerged through the floor.
The starfish and its localized environment followed her into the stairwell.
Momentary triumph crumbled back into panic.
Riley took the stairs three at a time. Her quads tightened to the cusp of cramping.
She didn’t know where to flee. Nowhere on this ship felt safe. But if she could find other people, the nightmare would end. That’s always how it was in nightmares and horror movies. Run to the crowd. Then it’s either all in your head, or the public scares away the monster.
But it was two in the morning. The power was only recently back on.
She raced past the Deck Four landing.
Behind the door would only be guest cabins with sleeping guests.
The wooden banister cracked behind her. Riley risked a glance backwards. The stairs slowed the overgrown, deformed starfish, but it kept after her. It flung its limbs forward, one at a time, using them to yank itself upwards.
The space covered by the black fingers had shrunk. Now that the starfish had made it through, it didn’t need the invading environment.
Riley stumbled but caught herself.
There would be people all the way at the top of the stairs, nine decks up. But Riley’s legs would give out before then.
She neared the landing of Deck Five. She heard the most welcome sound of her life: slot machines.
Through the doors and down the hallway was the casino. Riley heard the whirring and jingling of the spinning wheels, the jangle of promised payouts, and the musical beeps of the electronic games.
Riley flung open the doors with her shoulder. The casino sounds grew louder. The ceiling hung low and the lights stayed dim. The hallway ahead emptied into a wide room lit mostly by the colorful screens of electric slot machines.
The doors to the stairwell crashed opened behind her. The starfish scuttled at her like a contained mudslide.
Riley sprinted into the
casino. “Help!” She looked for anyone in authority.
A plump old lady with thick glasses looked up at her from a slot machine. A man in his sixties leaped up from his own games.
The card tables were closed at this hour. The only Aria staff was a woman Riley’s age in a red vest.
Apart from the two gamblers, the casino was deserted.
The attendant and the man hurried to meet Riley.
“What’s the problem, little lady?” The man wore a black shirt and white string tie. He spoke with a Louisiana accent. Riley suspected that anywhere else, he’d be open carrying an old west revolver. She wished he was now.
“Call security!” Riley grabbed the attendant by the shoulders.
“Ma’am, please do not touch me.”
“Christ on a cracker!” The man pushed Riley and the attendant behind him.
The attendant went white-faced. “What is that?”
The starfish bowled through the casino doors, knocking over the center support beam.
Screaming, the plump old woman fell back from her slot machine, directly into the monster’s path.
The old man rushed to help her, and he was carrying, a black pistol no bigger than his hand, which he fired at the starfish as he ran for the woman. “Debbie!” he shouted for her. The loud barks of the pistol drowned out his cries.
Riley’s ears rang.
The attendant tugged Riley by the arm. “Run!”
The pistol rounds struck the approaching creature. Orange wriggling fingers popped into pus. Tiny holes appeared in the bulges of sandpapery skin. But the starfish wasn’t stopped.
It reached Debbie just as the man did. It reared up and collapsed overtop them both. Limbs curled in like a squid drawing its prey to its beak.
The pistol barked twice more, and then both victims started screaming.
Riley let the casino attendant pull her through the aisles of loud and garish slot machines, past the empty gaming tables, and into a booth.
She shut the door behind them and flipped two deadbolts. “All the chips are in here. It’s as secure as anything.”
Riley looked out the thick glass window, but flashing lights and whirring cherries blocked her view of the starfish. “Can we call for help?”