by Jake Bible
“How many rebuys?” Tony asked.
“Really?” Nick laughed. “Third hand and you’re already thinking of rebuying?”
“My money,” Tony said. “Gives you suckers more chances to win.”
“You do know we’re here to have fun, right?” Nick asked. “This game is so you all can have a look at the yacht, have some drinks, eat some good food, and play the night away until you’re so in love with the Lucky Sucker that you want to take it off my hands by morning.”
“It’s a nice boat,” Tony said. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to win.”
“Not why you’re here?” Nick asked. He started to say something else then shook his head. “Buy in as many times as you want. I know you’re good for it, Tony.”
“Yeah, I am,” Tony said and glared at Ben. “Your bet, Blogger Boy.”
“I know,” Ben said. “Just didn’t want to interrupt you two while you worked things out.”
“Nothing to work out,” Tony said. “Bet or fold. Pick one.”
Ben lifted up his cards and looked at a pair of twos. It was a crappy hand, barely better than a high card, but sometimes those twos paid off. He looked up to see Tony still watching him and he knew his play instantly.
“Fold,” he said as he tossed the cards away.
“That’s what I thought,” Tony said. “I raise one hundred thousand.”
Everyone folded.
The play went around and around a couple times, giving everyone a chance to deal, to lose, to win, to start to hate Ben. It was obvious from the rows of chips who the cards favored.
“Can I get another?” Ben asked after draining his glass and holding it up for Manny to see.
“What ya drinking?” Tony asked.
“Bourbon,” Ben replied.
“That so?” Tony asked, sniffing the air. “Smells fruity.”
“Does it? It has very heavy vanilla notes,” Ben replied. “Maybe that’s what you’re picking up on.”
“You saying I don’t know the difference between fruit and vanilla?” Tony asked.
“What would you like to drink?” Nick asked Tony. “Is that a gin and tonic? Need a refill.”
Manny set a glass down next to Ben and picked up the empty. He smiled at Tony.
“Would you care for another one?” Manny asked.
“I think I’ll switch it up,” Tony said, nodding to Ben’s glass. “Gimme a sip of that so I can see if it’s what I want.”
“A sip of my drink?” Ben laughed. “No offense, but we’re not that close. And I’ve been fighting off some bug this past week. You don’t want to drink after me.”
“You haven’t taken a sip yet and that’s a fresh glass,” Tony said.
Ben couldn’t think of an excuse. So he picked up his glass, looked at it for a second, then handed it over to Tony. He gripped the arms of his chairs, ready to jump up and get the hell out of the room the second Tony took a sip. He wanted to look at Nick, but he knew that would be a dead giveaway.
Tony took the glass, swirled the liquid around, then looked at Ben’s hands.
“You going somewhere?” he asked as he sniffed the glass.
“Just need to piss,” Ben said and stood up.
“Hold on,” Tony said. “Let me have a taste before you go. Don’t be rude.”
Tony took his sip and his eyes narrowed.
Ben honestly thought his fake excuse to piss was actually about to happen for real, right then, right there.
“Vanilla, eh?” Tony asked. “You either have crap for taste buds or Manny over there is dumber than I thought and poured the wrong drink.”
“Oh, uh, why’s that?” Ben asked.
“This tastes like caramel, like a real bourbon should, not like vanilla,” Tony said. “Kinda smokey too. Not peat smokey like a scotch, but burnt smokey.”
“That’s the barrels,” Manny said. “They burn the insides of the barrels to—”
“I know how bourbon is made, asswipe,” Tony said. “Do not interrupt the adults when they are talking.”
He handed the glass back to Ben. Ben took it and stood there.
“I think a pee break is a great idea,” Nick said to fill the silence. “I know I need to. Also, if anyone wants to join me, I’m going to smoke a fat joint up on deck and get some fresh air. How about we sit back down in thirty minutes? Everyone cool with that?”
There were plenty of agreements, but none too enthusiastic as Tony continued to glare at Ben.
“You going?” Tony asked.
“To smoke?” Ben asked.
“No, to piss,” Tony said. “You said you needed to piss, so are you?”
“He is,” Maggie said, taking Ben by the arm. “In our cabin. I have to go too and need to talk to him about a text from his daughters.”
“A text?” Ben asked. “It’s late for them to be texting.”
Maggie smiled and her fingers dug into his arm.
“Must have been before they went to bed,” Ben said.
“Must have been,” Tony echoed. “Get along now. I’m sure you’re dying to know what Tanni and Norma have to say.”
19.
Ben’s veins turned to ice and the only way he was able to walk away from the table was because Maggie was pulling him along. By the time they reached their cabin, Ben was close to hyperventilating.
“This is why I got out,” Ben said as he collapsed on the bed. “I can’t do this, Mags! People like that! Crazy mobsters and thugs that do their homework before they sit down. Did you hear what he said? He knows my girls’ names!”
“I heard,” Maggie said, her voice solid and sober. Ben frowned. “But that’s not the real problem. Scary as shit, but not what we need to talk about.”
“Huh? What’s wrong?” Ben asked.
“You did get a text, but not from Tanni or Norma,” Maggie said. “It was from Bobbi. I’ve been texting back and forth with her all night.”
“Bobbi? What’s wrong?” Ben asked. “And while you’re drunk?”
“Tanni snuck out and has been missing all night,” Maggie said, “and I’m not drunk. Well, not too bad.”
“Tanni and I talked about her going out,” Ben said. “She probably didn’t tell Bobbi because she didn’t want to deal with the grilling.”
“She told Norma that she wasn’t coming back,” Maggie said. “But I think she said that because of what we said earlier about taking Norma with her.”
“Maybe,” Ben replied and got to his feet. “Probably. Is she still gone?”
“Yes,” Maggie said. “That’s why we’re talking.”
“Does Bobbi have any idea who she’s with?” Ben asked. “Did you try texting her from your phone? She listens to you, Mags. She’ll respond because she knows you won’t bust her ass.”
“Bobbi doesn’t know who she’s with,” Maggie replied. “But I do. And, yes, I have been texting with Tanni on my phone. She’s at a party, but doesn’t want to be there anymore. Everyone is too drunk to drive and she’s afraid if she tells her mom then Bobbi will try to go pick her up, make a huge scene, and embarrass her in front of Alex.”
“Alex? Is that who’s she with?” Ben snapped. “Well, tough shit if she gets embarrassed! Maybe that boy of hers needs to see what happens when he takes my daughter to a party with alcohol and gets her drunk! Bobbi’ll rip him apart, trust me.”
“I know she will, but that’s not the real issue,” Maggie said. She fidgeted and Ben saw it right off, his observation skills at their full power due to hours of poker.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Ben asked and sat down without being told to.
“Alex isn’t a boy,” Maggie said. “Alex is short for Alexandria and she’s your daughter’s girlfriend, not boyfriend.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Oh. Oh…”
He looked up and Maggie shook her head.
“No, it’s not just an adolescent phase,” Maggie said. “This is Tanni’s third girlfriend, Benjamin. She’s gay. Your daughter is gay and i
s terrified to tell you or Bobbi.”
“That explains the sulky attitude,” Ben said. “More than just usual teenage BS.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said, sitting next to Ben on the bed. “You okay?”
“I have no idea,” Ben said. “Not a clue. I’ve been faking this parenting thing since I was nineteen and Tanni was born. God, we were so young and stupid, but Bobbi was rich and I was playing poker, so we learned to handle it. I haven’t done the greatest job as Dad, but at least my girls wanted to live with me after the split, so I always thought I’d done okay since they chose me over money. But now this?”
“How does this reflect on your job as a parent?” Maggie asked.
Ben sensed her anger and shook his head, placing a hand on her leg.
“No, I don’t mean that my parenting could have changed this at all, just that I should have known,” Ben said. “I should have seen the signs or something and been there to support her. It breaks my heart she is scared to tell me. Bobbi, I get. That woman would embrace it to the extreme and try to sign Tanni up on gay dating sites and crap.”
He looked at Maggie.
“Are there gay dating sites?” he asked.
“Yes, babe, there are,” Maggie laughed. “It’s the 21st century.”
“Right, yeah, of course,” Ben said. “Wow. Gay. My little girl is gay.” His brow furrowed. “Is Alex cute or kinda dykey?”
“Should I pretend I didn’t hear that question?” Maggie asked as she got up and walked away.
“Where are you going?” Ben called after her.
“I really do need to pee,” Maggie called back from the bathroom. “You should go back and find Nick. Have a toke to calm down so you can get back to playing.”
“Good call,” Ben said and stood up.
He was out of the cabin, down the passageway, up a set of stairs, and through most of the ship before it all hit him again.
“My daughter is gay,” he muttered.
“That so?” a woman asked from a chair in the corner of the lounge Ben was walking through. Ben jumped and steadied himself against the wall. “Sorry. I apologize.” The woman stood up and offered a hand. “Ashley Mulgrew. Can we talk?”
“Ashley? The hostess?” Ben asked. “Uh, you haven’t exactly been hostessing much.”
“No, not so much,” Ashley responded. “Listen, before you go back to the game, I think you should be filled in on something. Nicholas didn’t want you to know, neither did Manny, but this is my op and I get the last say.”
“Oh, okay, what is it?” Ben asked then shook his head. “I’m sorry, did you say op?”
Ashley smiled and nodded then gestured towards a chair.
“Have a seat, Mr. Clow, we have a lot to cover in only a very short time.”
20.
The ship rose with the swells and crested the tops of the good-sized waves then dove down into the trenches. Over and over it did that as it moved across the open ocean. Nothing unusual, as it would have been the strategy of any good captain to aim into the waves and keep the ship from capsizing.
Except the NCDC ship no longer had a captain. Not in one piece, at least.
The navigation system was running on autopilot, and being a ship in the fleet of a major defense and tech contractor, that autopilot was an exceptional piece of programming. It could sense the changes in weather patterns and adjust to the expected changes in the sea. It knew when to adjust the rudder and when to increase or slow the engines.
The ship could handle navigating the waters all on its own. Which was a good thing since every human being onboard was ripped to shreds and being fed upon by the massive creature that had returned to the safety of its tank. Despite the thing’s incredible strength and ferocity, it was still a member of the octopodidae family and shy by nature.
It preferred to be safe and comfortable. At least until it sensed prey. Then nothing was safe and or comfortable.
It supped on the femurs of half a dozen men, sucking the marrow straight from the bones, savoring the flavor as it passed through its incredible beak. Not that it needed the beak to taste. Its tentacles and suckers had the ability to taste food as well as any human’s taste buds. It knew what it liked and what it didn’t before the food even got close to the sharp, parrot-like beak.
Having finished off the femurs, the creature slid from its tank and hunted around for something new to eat. Its hunger was never sated; the creature lived in a perpetually ravenous state. Something in it, a part of that uncanny octopus intelligence, knew that its hunger was not natural. It knew that it didn’t need to eat anywhere near as much as it was. But it couldn’t stop. Once it had tasted blood, tasted the flesh of humanity, it couldn’t stop the urges. Or, more accurately, the urges that had been built inside it.
As the thought sped through its complex and fairly alien mind, the creature came upon the corpse of Dr. Glouster. It hesitated, its tentacles waving slowly, lightly, over the man’s body. Its hunger told it to grab the corpse up and eat, eat, devour, but it couldn’t do it. The man raised it, the man cared for it, the man taught it many things and showed only kindness. The hardest part of the creature’s impossible life had been watching Dr. Glouster bleed out on the vault’s floor.
The creature couldn’t quite come to terms with the event and one of its tentacles settled on the man’s body, nudging it carefully, gently. When there was no response, it started to withdraw the tentacle then thought better of it. It grabbed up the corpse and walked it back to its tank. There was a rattling in the man’s pocket and the creature hesitated. Before dumping Dr. Glouster’s body into the saltwater, it plucked something from the dead man’s pocket, looked it over, then threw it aside. The corpse bobbed up and down in the tank and the creature stared at it for a minute before it went back to gathering more food.
Arms loaded to capacity, the creature entered its watery sanctuary once again and began to feed some more. It pressed itself up against Dr. Glouster’s corpse, feeling a slight comfort in having the man near even if the doctor was no longer part of the living. It paused only briefly in its feast to observe the corpse, a hope that the man would suddenly come to life.
The creature instantly began to grow from all the feeding, its enhanced genes kicking into over drive. The accelerated growth made the tank uncomfortable and the creature grew irritated. The irritation became frustration with the frustration quickly turning to anger, anger against humanity at allowing Dr. Glouster to be killed, to be murdered, to die.
The anger became rage and the creature took up Dr. Glouster’s corpse with four of its tentacles ready to tear it apart. But it couldn’t do it and instead it slowly, carefully, kneaded the body until the bones were nothing but dust and the corpse was soft and pliable. Just like the creature. It had changed Dr. Glouster just like the doctor had changed it.
But with that act it struggled with a feeling that grew alongside the rage. It didn’t know grief, but it knew it had lost something when Dr. Glouster had died. It also knew it had lost something when it was changed from what nature had meant it to be. It looked outside the tank and its eyes fell on the human remains scattered about the vault, falling on a body that it was surprised was still a part of the living.
Its grief could not be vented, but its rage could be.
The creature crawled back out of the tank and rushed over to the body of Wagner. It lifted two tentacles, ready to bring them down onto the unconscious man’s chest, but it stopped. Next to Wagner was the item the creature had thrown from Dr. Glouster’s pocket. A USB drive.
Instead of ending Wagner’s life right then, the creature undid two belts from the dead men on either side of Wagner and tightened them around his bleeding stumps for legs. The man moaned and the creature jammed an eye right in Wagner’s face, but Wagner did not wake up.
Once it knew the man wouldn’t die right away, the creature set the USB drive in the man’s hand. It did not know why, but the act felt like what it should do. It knew the drive had been important to Dr. Glo
uster. The drive needed to be saved.
The creature turned to face the vault and its rage still boiled. It crawled from the no longer secure space and began to collect body parts. It wanted to feed, but the hunger of its body could not override the hunger of its rage. A rage that began to create a new need with every body part it lifted into its tentacles.
A need for vengeance.
21.
The woman had asked Ben to take a seat while she explained the situation he was in, but he’d declined and said he’d prefer to stand, as most people do when presented with a suspicious scenario. As soon as she had finished talking, the idea of sitting down seemed like a very good one as Ben’s knees became weak and his legs started to tremble.
“This is a sting?” Ben asked then looked around quickly, alarmed that he had been overheard.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Clow,” Ashley said as she tapped the screen of her phone. “I have access to the ship’s entire surveillance system. I know where everyone is at all times.” She showed him her phone and the image of Tony Giraldi talking to a couple of his men at the bow of the ship. “His men are keeping watch over him. They’ve established a perimeter so that the bow is all Tony’s.”
“He’s the king of the world, eh?” Ben laughed then coughed then went silent as Ashley stared at him, her lips not even coming close to cracking a smile. “Sorry.”
“I need you to take this very seriously, Mr. Clow,” Ashley said. “We have been tracking Mr. Giraldi for months and know he has something planned. What we believe is that he’s going to intercept a ship that is en route now. I have satellites hunting the sea for miles around us, but so far, other than legitimate commercial vessels and a couple of cruise ships, there is nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Yes, okay, great,” Ben said. “So what does this have to do with me? You could have kept me in the dark. Nick has and he’s as close to a best friend as I have in this world. You sure didn’t need to spill the beans.”
“Actually, I did need to spill the beans because you are close to ruining this entire operation,” Ashley said. “That is why I have told you everything and why we are talking right now.” She leaned forward and the button-down white shirt she wore went tight across her chest. She adjusted her position and pulled at her shirt. “Stupid uniform. I guess being a hostess on a yacht like this means showing as much cleavage as possible. Degrading.”
