The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  The window was small, a far cry from some of the vast offerings in the penthouse suites, no doubt, but the sea view was breathtaking, and for a moment, Dan simply stood and took it in, letting himself feel relaxed and happy for what felt like the first time in two years.

  Two damn years.

  The attack had come out of nowhere. One of those random acts of violence that you heard about on the news, and which made you tut at the state of the world these days. It was the sort of thing that happened to other people, those that lived on the other side of the TV screen, or in the pages of newspapers.

  Until it happened to Dan.

  Until he found himself standing at a cashpoint one minute, withdrawing ten pounds to pick up some milk, and lying on the floor the next, blinking at the handle of the blade that protruded from just above his eye socket. Stabbed in the head for a pittance that would barely cover a six-pack of beer.

  That was another thing that wasn't supposed to happen to ordinary people: Dan had seen pictures on the internet of crazy injuries that people somehow survived, so he knew it was possible to have a knife embedded in your brain and keep on ticking, but it didn't happen to people like Dan. Couldn't.

  The physical damage took months to recover from, and the doctors warned that Dan would always be prone to seizures and occasional memory loss, but the mental scarring ran far deeper. Dan suffered catastrophic blackouts that followed intense panic attacks. Each and every time, he thought that he would die.

  Gradually, he learned to spot the indications that an attack was impending: the rushing sensation that felt like he was being carried along by a mighty river; the dry mouth, the shaking and sweating. The dark certainty that his heart was going to rupture as it beat like it had received a huge injection of adrenaline.

  After a while, the terrible river became a reality in his mind. He could actually see it, and when he did, he knew an attack was imminent, but he was powerless to stop it. Carried along by the awful current.

  When he was finally allowed to leave the hospital, Dan made his way to the safety of his home and his young fiancé. He hadn't intended to cordon off the rest of the world—not consciously, anyway—but that's how it turned out. Stepping beyond his front door became an exercise in cold, all-consuming terror, because all of a sudden Dan knew that the world was full of ordinary people; that everyone was ordinary, and terrible things happened all the same.

  He didn't leave the house once for a full fourteen months, and only when the concern on Elaine's face became heartbreakingly obvious did he agree to attend therapy.

  The therapist who treated Dan taught him how to withstand the attacks, and eventually how to recognise situations that could cause panic, along with techniques to defuse his anxiety before it overwhelmed him. Slowly, the sessions moved toward the subject of Dan’s reintegration into society.

  After spending the better part of a year in regular therapy, Dan had mastered small trips to the local shops and, though crowds and talking to strangers still terrified him, he hadn't seen the black river in his mind for months.

  And now here he was, miles away from home, in the middle of the ocean and in the middle of a sea of people that he didn't know.

  Staring out of the window, and thinking about just how far he was from the safety of his home, Dan became aware of his nerves jangling, and he forced himself to breathe deeply and evenly until it passed.

  When he felt calmer, he moved back to the bed and threw on some clothes, fishing in a bag for his medication and dry-swallowing two tablets, grimacing at the chemical punch they delivered to the back of his throat.

  He glanced at his watch. It looked like he and Elaine had been asleep for around three hours, and he wondered if he should wake his wife up, but decided against it. She looked so peaceful there in the bed, and the wedding must have taken more out of her than anyone.

  Let her rest awhile longer.

  Dan stepped out of the bedroom and into the main living area. The cabin was on the small side, which Dan figured was to be expected from the second-cheapest option the Oceanus offered, but it was plush.

  When they had first entered, a flatscreen TV on the wall had burst to life, and a recorded message delivered by a smiling woman informed them that everything in the room worked by voice control. Lights, curtains, entertainment; even the kitchen appliances were patiently awaiting instruction.

  "Coffee," Dan said quietly, and marvelled as the machine on the tiny kitchen counter began to drizzle dark liquid into a pot, and the cabin filled with the aroma of what smelled like an exotic blend. When the machine finished its duty with a hiss, Dan retrieved the pot and poured himself out a cup, blowing off the steam and taking a sip.

  The rich smell hadn't deceived him: the Oceanus didn't skimp on the quality of the coffee. It was delicious.

  He took the cup with him, and stepped past the small living room and through a pair of sliding glass doors that offered an incredible view of the Atlantic, moving out onto the narrow balcony.

  Immediately the roaring of the ocean and the stinging cold wind hit him, and for a moment Dan simply stood there, letting other senses drink in the moment, and trying to commit the feel of being there to memory.

  That was something he had been doing ever since he was a kid; maybe a habit that all artists indulged in; storing up visual memories that would help to fill the canvases of the future. Dan couldn't be sure about that, but it had always worked for him in the past, before the fear and the subsequent inability to paint.

  Committing moments to memory, taking mental notes that he could refer back to when he was sitting in his studio; the technique hadn’t helped him to paint a single stroke in the two years since the attack, but it would work again. It had to.

  At least he had started to sit in the studio once more, even if the canvas in front of him remained stubbornly blank.

  He sipped at the coffee and scanned the sky. Dark clouds were gathering overhead, preparing to squash out the last remnants of the sunset. It looked like the weather was about to turn, and maybe Dan would get a chance to see just how the Oceanus really dealt with choppy waters after all.

  He dropped his eyes, watching the rolling waves of the sea far below him.

  And froze.

  What is that?

  Dan squinted. The cabin he stood in was on one of the upper decks, a long way from the sea, but as he looked down he saw something else; something that emerged from the ship directly below him, many decks down.

  The object was bright orange, and looked like something wrapped in a tarp.

  Something that was being slowly pushed out from the hull.

  Pushed through a window.

  What the hell is it?

  When the object was far enough out, and almost entirely visible, Dan saw exactly what it was.

  A body.

  Being ejected from the Oceanus like waste material and dropping into the freezing water of the Atlantic with an inaudible splash.

  Any doubts Dan might have had were dispelled instantly as he watched the object tumbling, and saw a crooked leg popping out of the tarp as it hit the water. A human leg.

  Dan watched in mute astonishment, and saw the back of someone's head poking out of the space the tarp had been expelled from, staring down at the body just as Dan did; watching until it sank beneath the waves and disappeared from sight.

  And then the head disappeared, pulled back inside the ship, and Dan stood still for a long time, unaware of the coffee going cold in his hands, his muscles locked in place and his mind racing under gathering storm clouds.

  8

  Mark Ledger leaned on the rail and stared down at the sea tenderly kissing the vast hull of the Oceanus far below him. Down there, at sea level, and even at deck level, everything looked tiny and sort of serene. For Mark, things were a little more...turbulent.

  He was standing on the highest point of the Oceanus, a narrow maintenance walkway that wrapped tightly around one of the gigantic twin funnels that vented the engine exhau
st hundreds of feet up into the sky. Mark knew from experience that when you got a certain height above the deck of any ship, the wind became a savage monster that howled and buffeted relentlessly.

  The wind made the walkway a terrible place to take a cigarette break, but the complete lack of Steven Vega made it perfect, and worth the long climb up the ladder and the difficulty in keeping his lighter flame alive for more than a half-second.

  Vega was in charge of security on the Oceanus, and it was a job the ex-marine took very seriously indeed. He was Mark's boss, well, his immediate boss at least, and Vega clearly revelled in the role of commanding officer.

  Vega was fresh out of the military; new to cruise ship security, and Mark had clashed with him immediately. Every time Vega barked orders like he was some drill sergeant preparing his troops for war, Mark felt an irresistible compulsion to either openly mock the man, or dissolve into a fit of giggles.

  The simmering feud between the men might not have escalated, if it hadn’t been for Vega insisting that behaviour in the crew bar on deck four be nothing less than exemplary. Any sign of misconduct among his team would, Vega insisted, be a disciplinary offence. That appalled many of the staff, and Mark more than most. What happened in the crew bar stayed in the crew bar. Everyone knew that. It had been the same on every ship Mark had ever worked on, and he let Vega know it.

  Let him know, too, that maybe the sizeable stick up Vega's arse would fall right out if he'd just join the party and indulge in some less than exemplary behaviour himself.

  In hindsight, Mark thought he probably shouldn't have said that in front of the whole staff.

  Vega, by way of response to what he called Mark's attitude problem, had clearly vowed to make Mark's life hell, and to land him with every shit job the Oceanus had to offer.

  That was exactly why Mark was standing alone, far above the deck and out of Vega's reach, rather than reporting for duty in the security suite.

  Mark drew in the last lungful of smoke the cigarette had to offer, and lit another. Chain smoking made him feel a little queasy, but the prospect of finding out what Steven Vega had in store for him made him feel a whole lot worse.

  The ship had been travelling for three or four hours, Mark figured, putting them somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. He saw nothing but featureless ocean for miles in every direction and dropped his gaze to the crowds of people milling about on the deck far below.

  Most of the passengers, having settled in to their cabins, were venturing out to see what entertainment the Oceanus had to offer, and discovering that the answer to that question was plenty.

  In addition to all the shops and eateries, there were numerous ways to idle away time on the ship; everything from movies and theatre shows to rock climbing and surfing on a huge artificial wave machine. A handful of celebrity entertainers had been booked for the maiden voyage, and when dusk fell, the Oceanus came alive: bars, casino and nightclub drawing the passengers in and ensuring that there was no chance of getting bored on the journey.

  Unless Steven Vega was calling the shots.

  Mark's first shift—predictably—had been standing guard outside one of the busier men's toilets. Mark had asked what could possibly need guarding, of course, and Vega had simply smiled serenely and asked if Mark was disobeying a direct order.

  The guy thought he was still in fucking Fallujah, or something. It wasn't Mark with the damn attitude problem.

  Still, Mark was forced to comply. He had a feeling that Vega would jump at any excuse to have him fired, and a job working security on the Oceanus was too good a gig to throw away—even if it did come with a built-in problem like Vega.

  Mark inhaled deeply, letting the anger at the memory of Vega's smug smile build as the smoke filled his lungs, and the combination of the two made him feel a little sick.

  He tossed the half-smoked Marlboro away just as the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt crackled loudly.

  "Ledger. Where the fuck are you? Over."

  The man himself.

  Mark couldn't help but grin at the sound of the disembodied voice that rattled from the walkie-talkie. Somewhere far below, deep in the ship, it sounded like Steven Vega was working himself up into a frothing rage at Mark's unscheduled absence.

  Mark depressed the button on his walkie-talkie.

  "On my way now, Steve-O. Just stopped for a smoke."

  He lifted his thumb off the button and smiled at the lack of an immediate response.

  Right now, Steven Vega would be riding a bubbling wave of repressed rage, and Mark knew the head of security would be struggling to decide which was the greater crime: the unscheduled cigarette break, the use of the hated nickname Steve-O, or Mark's continued refusal to end communications with the word over.

  The walkie crackled again.

  "Get back here pronto, Ledger. Vega out."

  Vega out, Mark thought, as he clipped the walkie back to his belt. Fucking ridiculous.

  He made his way to the ladder that would take him back down to deck level, and sighed. The new chief hadn't yet worked out that being part of cruise ship's 'security' never got much more demanding than shepherding drunk passengers back to their cabins or dealing with the occasional petty theft.

  Cruise ships were like floating gated communities; stuffed with the wealthy and the complacent, and working security on a ship like the Oceanus was practically a vacation in itself. It wasn't often, in Mark's experience, that life threw you a situation that it was so easy to make the best of.

  Nothing would go wrong on the Oceanus. Nothing could.

  Steven Vega needed to lighten up.

  *

  The security personnel on the Oceanus were neatly divided in two. The more junior of the staff had designated areas to patrol, and mostly their job was to check cabins or maintenance areas and ensure that there were no problems among the passengers. They were the beat cops, trudging endless circles around one part of the ship or another.

  The senior staff—numbering just twelve, with only six on duty at any one time—reported to directly to Steven Vega, and he had decided that they needed to be micromanaged.

  On all of the other vessels that Mark had worked, the security officials knew what their roles were and they just did them. By contrast, Vega insisted that his senior staff check in with him constantly, inserting himself into their day every couple of hours with meaningless instructions and abrupt changes of duty.

  It was a farce, and Mark thought it existed purely so that Steven Vega felt like he had something to actually do. Already the other senior members of the team were taking bets on how long Vega would last in his role. The guy seemed incapable of relaxing, and relaxing pretty much summed up the entire job. Mark thought the new security chief would drive himself mad within the first three voyages. Maybe sooner.

  As Mark sauntered into the security suite, he saw Vega glowering delightfully, while the remaining five members of security waited behind him.

  Four men; one woman, which made for a better ratio than every other ship Mark had worked on. Better still for the fact that Katie was attractive and single. Mark had already manufactured a couple of reasons to talk to her, and the conversations had been easy and fun.

  He winked at her as he walked in, and she smiled.

  Mark chalked that smile up as one more reason to talk to Katie when he got the chance.

  "Where the fuck have you been?" Vega snarled in a tone that Mark thought was just begging to punctuate the sentence with the word soldier.

  "Cigarette break, Steve," Mark responded amiably.

  "Shift breaks are scheduled, Ledger," Vega growled dangerously. "One every three hours. You know that just as well as—"

  "Won't happen again, Steve," Mark interrupted with a contrite smile.

  Steven Vega's face flushed a dangerous purple, and for a moment Mark wondered if it was possible to push the man so far that he might suffer a heart attack. Mark hoped not. Vega dying would ruin all the fun.

  From the look on Steven
Vega's beet-coloured face, Mark guessed that the head of security was busy breathing deeply and quite possibly counting to ten before he spoke again. Vega hated being called Steve. He had made it perfectly clear on his first day aboard the Oceanus that he answered to Mr Vega or, preferably, boss. Mark had immediately resolved to never use either monicker.

  "You're a fucking smartarse, Ledger," Vega spat at last.

  As comebacks went, Mark thought it was a little uninspired, if not exactly unexpected.

  "No surprise you can't hold down a job for more than five minutes with an attitude like yours, is it?"

  Mark blinked in surprise. Steven Vega took protocol extremely seriously, and his words had breached the confidentiality of the personnel reports that only he was privy to. Breaking the rules, even in such a half-hearted manner, had to mean that Vega was close to boiling point.

  Mark didn't much care about the dig at his employment record. Most of the other staff knew he had trouble staying in any one job for more than six months. They probably figured that his mouth got him in trouble sooner or later; usually sooner.

  The truth was that his mouth did have a role to play, but most ships had parted company with Mark Ledger because of his continuing determination to fraternise with the passengers. Cruise ships generally frowned on that, so Mark frowned on them.

  "What can I say?" Mark said with an ambivalent shrug. "I guess I haven't found my calling yet."

  "Your calling?" Vega repeated with a sneer. "What, you think you're a fucking poet or something, soldier?"

  Mark's eyes widened.

  Soldier. Vega had actually gone and said it. Gone full-on 'Nam flashback or some shit. Jackpot, Mark thought as a faint ripple of suppressed laughter washed through the room.

  Vega flushed again, brighter this time, and turned without a word and strode from the main room into the smaller adjacent room that served as his private office.

  Katie sidled up to Mark.