“Mr Heart? We’re here, we’re okay… sorta”.
“Thank god, where is Rachel? What do you mean sorta?” Edward replied.
“We just… we’re just shaken up is all”.
“Stay strong, girls. Where are you? We need to reunite and from there find a way off this ship, most likely the bridge. We’re not exactly swamped with options but we’ve gotten this far and I’ll be damned if we don’t all get out of here alive”.
“I don’t know exactly, we’re with a group of survivors and they…”
“They?”
“Never mind. We’re with a man named Adam”.
“Adam?” Why did that name sound familiar? Edward decided not to pay it much mind, he knew too many Adams, it wasn’t exactly an uncommon name.
“Yeah… we’re going to make for the bridge or find someone who knows how to operate the lifeboats”.
“We’ll meet you at the bridge then. Do you have a weapon?”
“Not much, we have a fire axe”.
“Fire works well, they don’t seem to be fazed by physical assaults”.
“We’re already talking about them as though they’re not human”.
“You saw them, that violence, that ferocity was anything but human. Think about your own safety now, lose sight of that and you’ll end up one of them or dead like the corpses littering the ground”.
Lori went silent on the line, giving Edward enough time to hear the commotion in the background.
“We’re going to get to you, head to the bridge, okay?”
“Okay”.
“Oh and Lori”.
“In case something happens and I don’t get a chance to talk to you again, do you love my daughter?”
“Huh, oh, erm… yeah, I do, very much. I’ll make sure she’s okay, I promise”.
“I trust you. Tell her we’re all okay and I guess we’ll see you on the other side”.
“Okay, I will do”.
“Be safe, keep us in the loop”.
“You too”, she hung up.
3:55pm - 2 hours, 45 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
“Someone you know well?” Adam asked Lori.
“My girlfriend’s father”, one of the two new women replied, nervously looking around. Having barricaded the door, the survivors were now left contending with the fire exit door on the opposite side of the room before those crazies broke through.
One of the girls shielded the two children from harm, whilst the other stood guard of them all. Would they be able to trust him given the recent circumstances? Clearly not all the members of his group had made themselves trustworthy, especially if like they had all seen, a person could just go swinging a fire axe around without regard for whether or not it was a sane person they were swinging at. It was already difficult enough just trying to survive, the last thing they needed was an aura of distrust amongst their own.
“We got the door open, let’s get the hell outta here”, someone shouted from across the room, grabbing the fire axe and keeping it well away from the man with the nervous disposition.
“We should get going. You’ll be safe, I’ll personally make sure of it”, Adam assured them.
His prime concern was those two children, thrust into a world of danger and violence at such a tender age. They reminded him of a daughter, wife, three rabbits, a cat and two fish he had left behind in Cardiff. He wanted to make it back to them alive at any cost.
He outstretched his hand in order to help them and they simply disregarded him, fair play, they still didn’t trust him, but at least they were listening, having gathered the children and hustling them towards the fire exit door.
Following behind, Adam’s gaze kept darting back towards the door they had barricaded. How long would it hold and would they get far enough away before it could no longer do so?
Only last night he had been laughing and serving drinks to happy punters, tequila shots, double vodkas and whiskeys on the rocks.
Adam had been a barman long enough to recognise that a drink said a great deal about a person, their personal circumstances, their frame of mind, heck, even the experiences they had faced. There were happy couples young and old, singles drinking alone to focus on or to drown out emotions, long term friends and even relatively new ones. All of that meant nothing now, for in but the blink of an eye they were ensnared by this never ending nightmare.
Shutting the emergency exit behind them and obstructing the door with a trolley - it certainly wasn’t much, but time wasn’t on their side - they found just a few metres away, they followed the emergency corridor around to another door that led to a different room overlooking the deck below from a balcony with a metal staircase that led down to it.
As they peered through the window they could see that the weather had drastically deteriorated, with higher waves and a dismal overcast sky. These passing tropical storms weren’t unusual at this time of the year, but they were something of a nuisance, making it more difficult to abandon ship and for aid to reach them, at the worst possible time too.
“We need to make our way down to the lower deck, someone is lowering a lifeboat”, a woman in their group informed the others.
“Can you be sure the pathway down to it is safe?’ Another older man replied.
“Of course not, knowing our luck, we’ll probably get jumped the very moment we poke our heads out. They’ll gut us like fish and leave our corpses lying across the floor”.
“Fucking morbid and there’s kids here too, scare them to shit why don’t you”, someone else replied.
“Just being honest, might as well face facts”.
“None of us want to hear that shit, keep it to your fucking self”.
“You might not want to hear it, but wake up, this is fucking reality right now. An innocent man just got his skull caved in by a motherfucking axe, that's our fucking reality now!”
“It was an accident, an accident! I’m not a murderer!” Darren cried.
“You killed a man in cold blood! If not a murderer, what the fuck are you?” The woman snapped.
“Don’t you judge me, bitch! Don’t you fucking judge me!” He snapped back, “You were more than prepared to kill those crazy people as though they weren’t human anymore, that would make you a fucking attempted murderer!”
“One, intention or not, I’d have to had actually attempted to murder one of them to be an attempted murderer, jackass! Two, if they attack me first with the intention to kill, which they very much fucking were and still are, just in case you hadn’t fucking noticed, it would be considered self defence!”
“Okay, okay people, calm down. We’re all on edge, we all want to get off this ship, we all want to survive. What Bishop did was an accident, we all know that, he was terrified and with a fire axe in hand most of us probably would have reacted the same way. This is unusual, this is crazy and this is bloody scary, but if we stick together and keep our wits about us, we can get through this without losing another one of our own”, Adam interjected, trying to prevent infighting amongst the survivors.
“Well if we can get to that lifeboat down there before it sets sail for the open sea, we’ll at least have a lifeline”.
“Have you seen those waves? They'll capsize us”, the old man replied.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ll take my chances with the waves as opposed to being eaten alive”, she retorted.
“Well we still need a plan, out there we are vulnerable and we don’t know how those survivors will react to us”, Adam replied.
“The same way we reacted to those women who just joined us and their male companion most likely, one of us left with a particularly nasty headache”, the woman jested.
“Not funny”.
“What’s wrong? Too soon? Fuck off, don’t judge me. Everything is funny right now because this shit is straight out of a horror novel. This is all a bad dream I can’t seem to wake up from”.
Adam disregarded her, she was most definitely delusional.
&nbs
p; He glanced around the room to find objects lying about, whether they would make for effective weapons was anyone’s guess, but it was all they had to go on right now.
“Grab anything you can find and follow behind me, we’re going to make it down there in one piece”, Adam ordered, taking control of a broken group.
Whether for lack of other options or his assertiveness, they began hunting for makeshift weaponry, returning to their little huddle shortly afterwards with an assortment of different objects, from metal cupboard doors to use for protection, to a jade statue previously perched in a corner. The two women and the children seemed most reluctant to participate and it shouldn't have come as a surprise, trust wasn't exactly at the top of their itinerary given the circumstances. Needless to say, they weren’t left with many other options for escape from this ship.
“Okay, now we make a move. When I give the go ahead we open those doors and make our way down the stairs. Stay as tight as possible, keep the youngsters in the middle and have your weapons ready for any spontaneous attacks. We have to be ready and prepared for anything because anything is a possibility now, okay? Ready? Get tight and circle the children”. They followed his instructions, hustling the two children into the middle, with the new fire axe wielder taking front and centre stage. “Let’s hustle, we don’t stop until we reach that lifeboat”. With that they made for the door, opening it and stepping out onto the upper deck. They were immediately met with strong cold winds.
They descended the metal steps and made their way across the lower deck, passing by funnels and deck chairs, soon coming across unnerving scenes of bloodied corpses littering the floors, torn to shreds. With sheer fortune they made it to the survivors attempting to lower the lifeboat, intact and unharmed.
“Stay where you are! Come no closer!” Shouted a man holding a flare-gun in hand.
4:15pm - 3 hours, 5 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
With Edward leading the way, Martha found it a challenge trying to keep up. On top of his pacing to contend with, there was the added pressure of having to be an extra pair of eyes. Why was she even here doing this? She never asked for this, she would never in a million years have even considered getting on this ship and now having been on one and experiencing this never in a billion years consider getting back on one… if she survived.
Martha didn’t need all this fuss in the first place, they could have just as well discussed these issues on solid ground, away from this palaver and the open ocean and a contraption so difficult to now escape from.
She had witnessed more than she could ever want to, ironic given her job title, but there was something different about a bloodied body on an operating table and those sprawled across the floors here lying in pools of their own blood, their innards ripped open and out. Seeing those crazy people run at you screaming obscenities and twitching had a way of shaking a person to their very core, leaving them paralysed and vulnerable, furthermore, the very fact that Edward could set them ablaze without so much as flinching now, called his very integrity into question. Was this the same pathetic man that had stepped onto this ship?
Watching his back, it slowly became apparent how much he had changed, though how much for the better was another question.
“Do you know where we are even going?” She whispered once she had ensured they were alone.
“I hope so, I’m heading in one general direction, but of course I can’t be certain. They don’t exactly advertise the bridge on cruise ships, Martha”, he replied snidely.
Just as she was about to say anything further, the intercom clicked on.
“This is a public service announcement! Tai Amihan speaking. To anyone still attempting to make their way to the bridge, please don’t. The bridge has been compromised, I repeat, the bridge has been compromised. Attempting to reach this location will endanger your life, leave this ship by any means necessary, just don’t come this way. It has been the utmost pleasure sailing with you all on this voyage and I can do naught but wish you all the best. Fight on, live on and survive. God save our souls…”
As he concluded there was a loud crashing sound, followed by a series of screams, a scuffle and then the intercom clicking off.
“God hear our prayer”, Christine began to repeat, clutching onto both their hands even tighter.
“Shit… shit, shit, shit!” Edward repeated, “What the hell do we do now? And the girls”.
“It’s hopeless”.
“Not yet, there are still lifeboats”.
“Which we don’t know how to operate, in the middle of a storm and that’s assuming we get off the ship at all, taking into account your quickly exhausting firepower. Even if you find another deodorant can, where are you going to find another lighter?”
“Maybe…”
“Please don’t get any heroic ideas in your head. We have to find the girls”, Christine reminded him.
“I hadn’t forgotten, but your mother is right, even if we all find a lifeboat, those things have all sorts of safety and security components that we’d need a manual just to lower it, let alone sail off into the sunset”.
“We can figure that all out when we find the girls”.
“I’ll text them”. Edward pulled out his phone and texted the girls while the two women kept an eye out. No more than a few minutes later, Rachel replied with confirmation that they were okay, on the starboard side of the ship and still with the group of survivors, the leader of which was trying to negotiate their way onto a lifeboat. Rachel however, wasn’t prepared to leave without the three of them, insisting that they were getting off this ship or not at all.
Edward texted her back demanding they use that opportunity to escape and if the three of them could, they’d try to reach them before they set off, they weren’t that far away from the girls now.
Feeling somewhat reassured, Rachel accepted under the condition that they made it there within the next fifteen minutes.
Despite all three knowing he couldn’t guarantee this, he gave her his word.
“We can’t assure them of that. What if we don’t get there on time?” Martha protested. “You’ve just given them false hope”.
“What would you have me do, Martha? Tell them that we won’t make it on time? Give them guilt on top of the fear they already have? All we have to do is quit wasting time talking and get fast walking”, he got up, leading Christine along, “let’s go”.
CHAPTER 22 - EDWARD & RACHEL
4:21pm - 9 hours, 34 minutes since outbreak in London.
3 hours, 11 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
. . .
. . .
Rachel, Lori and the other survivors had been held up by this new group standing by the lifeboats for a while now. There were only five of them, but they were all relatively well equipped. A security officer with a pistol, two staff members holding flare guns capable of lighting up the deck if fired and two doctors.
There was more than enough space for all of them on that single lifeboat and quite possibly more, but capacity wasn’t the issue here, trust was. It had only taken a few hours for attitudes to degenerate into a fierce game of self preservation. Arguing here achieved nothing but to slow things down, yet here they were making petty threats at each other when a mere few minutes ago a man was brutally murdered and his corpse left horrifically sprawled out on the floor. Rachel and Lori knew nothing about that man, whether or not he had a family, a wife, children, parents, absolutely nothing. They didn’t even get to find out his name and yet, so simply his life was snatched away from him and brushed under the carpet as an accident, the first person either of the girls had ever seen being killed and lying dead before them.
Traumatised though the two girls were, others were behaving as though it never happened and the one woman who seemed bothered by it at all at the time, even joked about it. What the fuck was this shit? Is this what people had become? Self serving pricks with no regard for human life?
The other group agreed to lower their we
apons and allow this group onto the lifeboat under the condition that they gave up their weapons, a condition Adam may have been more than happy to oblige, but that didn’t mean others were, so the situation only escalated before it got better, resorting to Adam having to appeal to individuals’ better natures.
Rachel kept glancing back looking out for danger, knowing that while the longer they spent arguing here may make it easier for her parents and grandmother to get here, coupled with the increasing volume of their voices, they were also more likely to have crazies pounce on their asses. Just thirteen more minutes.
4:23pm - 3 hours, 13 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
Edward, Christine and Martha rounded another corridor corner, picking up the pace, but in doing so, increasing the chances of getting caught. Martha was struggling to keep up and if it meant they had to run, there was no chance in hell she would be able to do so.
“Slow down”, she insisted.
“We can’t, please Martha, we don’t have much further to go. Stick with me, I’ll get you back to land and eventually home, I promise”.
She nodded and complained no more, probably for the first time witnessing a sense of conviction in him that overwhelmed her. Christine too nodded, having utmost faith in him.
Their newfound team confidence would be tested however, when they came across a bar, several twitchers not far away from them and the ground covered in shattered glass, of all inconvenient things.
Little did they know that the next fifteen minutes would be the worst moments of their lives and it all began with the split second decision to cross the glass covered floor, the shortest means to get to the starboard side of the ship, but also the most risky. They were exposed, hidden only by a mere waist high counter and metres away from twitchers feasting on a corpse.
A hair strand away from peril, this was the worst thing they could possibly attempt to do. There were gaps to step, but they were sporadic at best, requiring some degree of versatility. Christine might be able to get by, even with only her spa gown and slippers, it would however be a stretch for Martha.
Cryptophobia | Book 2 | Hell & High Water [Fear The Unknown] Page 22