Day Four

by Sarah Lotz

  Ram shot the man a warning glance.

  ‘Many of the crew are superstitious. It is to be expected,’ the captain said. ‘There is no basis for this . . . unusual phenomenon.’

  Like dead girls banging on the inside of the morgue? Or maybe stroke patients who can read minds.

  ‘Can we at least ask passengers not to congregate in large groups?’ Jesse turned to Damien. ‘The performance in the theatre should be cancelled immediately.’

  Damien shook his head. ‘No no no. It’s keeping people busy and occupied. We can’t disrupt that.’

  ‘They’ll be busy enough when they’re puking their guts up.’

  Damien shook his head again. A goat. A little goat. Ja, that was what Damien reminded him of. Cloven hooves and bulging wicked eyes. ‘Absolutely out of the question. We can’t cancel any of Celine del Ray’s shows. Or our other events. The passengers depend on them.’

  The captain held up his hand. ‘Enough. Dottore, of course we are appreciating your concern. We will tell the kitchen staff to be vigilant. We will increase the chlorine levels in the, ah, fluid for cleaning. We will put out additional hand sanitisers.’

  Jesse’s face was growing hot, and a trickle of sweat tickled the back of his ear. ‘Captain, I must insist that—’

  ‘That is all we can do for now. Thank you for your time.’

  The captain turned away from him, and Jesse was left staring at his back. Ram took a step towards him, and not sure what else to do, he left the bridge, the door clanging behind him.

  He’d barely made it to the entrance to the I-95, when there was a beep and Damien’s voice oozed through the speakers:

  ‘G’day, ladies and gentlemen, Damien your cruise director here. Just to let you know that we’re continuing to endeavour that you’re as safe and as comfortable as possible at the present time, and we really value your patience. A little reminder to please use the hand sanitisers that are placed at the entrance of all of the common areas whenever possible. And don’t forget that Celine del Ray will be appearing in the Dare to Dream Theatre in five minutes. That’s five minutes, folks.’

  Bastard. It was almost as if the fucker wanted people to get sick.

  It wasn’t good enough. If they weren’t going to do anything, he would. At the very least he could have a word with Celine del Ray or whoever was in charge of the event, and try and make them see sense. Neither the captain nor Damien the Goat could stop him doing that.

  Without stopping to fill Martha in on the meeting with the captain, he flew along the I-95 and up the stairs to the atrium, increasing his pace every time a passenger appeared and putting on his ‘medical emergency’ face. The lower doors to the theatre were locked, so he headed up to the next floor. Only one side door was open, several seniors milling about in front of it. Two women and a man dressed in a fantastic tweed suit and violet tie gave him a friendly greeting.

  ‘Hello, doctor,’ the dapper fellow grinned. ‘Are you coming for the show?’

  ‘No.’ Jesse explained his concerns about the virus spreading through the theatre.

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about us, doctor,’ the man said. ‘None of Celine’s group are sick. We’re being very careful. The bathrooms we’re using are scrubbed twice a day with chlorine solution and we all use the hand sanitisers.’

  ‘We know what to do,’ a Hispanic woman in her fifties broke in. ‘I’ve been on a cruise before that was hit by a virus, doctor. We even have extra waste bins for the bags.’

  He’d had patients like this woman. Know-it-alls. Convinced they knew his job better than he did.

  ‘That’s all wonderful, but I’d really like to speak with Mrs del Ray.’

  ‘She’s communing with Spirit right now.’

  ‘I’ll just go in and see, shall I?’ Jesse smiled and shoved past her.

  It took a second to acclimatise to the theatre’s shadowy depths. The atmosphere was so heavy and sombre, it was like walking into a cathedral. He made his way slowly down the aisle. The place was almost full, passengers and several low-level members of staff filling the booths and chairs, whispering amongst themselves and staring expectantly at the stage. He could only imagine how fast the virus could incubate in here. Someone familiar caught his eye, and he paused. Alfonso was sitting slumped in a seat halfway along a row. The elderly woman next to him was clutching his wrist and whispering into his ear, but he stared straight ahead and made no response. Jesse thought about approaching him, but that wasn’t why he was here. He’d inform Baci where to find his missing father figure after he’d spoken to the del Ray woman. Alfonso wasn’t a prisoner: he couldn’t make him go back to work and fix the bloody ship, could he? Several people sitting on the edges of the rows gave him welcoming smiles, and Paulo, his steward, who was standing next to a crate of water bottles and a box of bananas, gave him a wave.

  Jesus. They were really set up here.

  There was a click, and then lights bloomed on stage. As Jesse moved nearer he could make out what looked to be a complex set-up of car batteries – possibly from the forklifts on the loading bay – attached to standalone halogen lights. Clever.

  With no fanfare, Celine del Ray wheeled herself into the middle of the stage. She cleared her throat, beamed at the audience and said: ‘Just a little bit of housekeeping. I’d like to welcome all our new friends, especially those who’ve been working very hard to keep our space clean and comfortable for us. Let’s help them out by doing our bit.’ Jesse was amazed at how well her voice carried without a microphone. ‘Now. While we’ve all been dealing with this stressful situation, I want to ask you, old friends and new, have I let you down?’

  In unison, the audience murmured a long, drawn-out ‘noooo’. Unnerved, Jesse crept to the side of the theatre.

  ‘Have I lied to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No. I haven’t. Some of you say that you’ve been seeing strange things on the ship and are frightened. There’s no need to be frightened. Know this, you are simply experiencing Spirit drawing you to me so that I can help you come together and get through this. Some of you want to know where I get my gift from, and how it is that I’m able to connect with Spirit. Know this. What I do is not evil. I am as in tune with God, whatever your conception of Him – or Her – is, as you are. You all come from many faiths and I urge you to lean on them now. Look into your hearts, ask your own guides and your own loved ones who have passed on for support.’

  Celine paused for breath, cocked her head, and Jesse had the skin-crawling impression that she was staring straight at him. ‘Wait . . . I have to interrupt myself as Archie’s coming through and letting me know there’s a message for someone here. I’m getting . . . yes, a young girl is stepping forward. She’s crying.’ Celine touched her throat. ‘Ooh. There’s a pain in my belly, she’s saying. A bad pain. I’m getting . . . She’s wearing some kind of uniform. A school uniform. Blue. Does that make sense to anyone?’

  Now he was absolutely certain she was staring right at him.

  ‘She’s saying . . . she’s saying that how she died, it was avoidable. She’s saying it wasn’t an accident.’

  The crawling sensation on his skin was getting stronger. And for a second, just for a second, a snapshot of the girl’s face jumped into his mind. She’d come to see him straight after school. She’d sworn that she wasn’t sexually active, but how could he have known she was lying? He should have asked her mother to stay with him in the consulting room, or instructed the nurse to sit in. He hadn’t been thinking clearly; he was well into his pethidine habit by then.

  Jesse reeled up the aisle, almost colliding with a heavy-set guy who was now standing, his arms crossed, outside the door.

  ‘Hey, careful there, buddy.’

  Face hot, Jesse walked blindly back to the stairwell, shrugging off the passengers who tried to harangue him en route. When he reached the atrium, he clung to the railing and breathed in deeply through his nose.

  Chill the fuck out. But there was onl
y one thing that really chilled him out, wasn’t there?

  No.

  He was just letting the day’s shit-fest get to him, that was all. Celine could have gotten the story off the Internet. Only there was no Internet, was there? Perhaps she’d googled him before she even came onto the ship, investigated as many of the crew and passengers as she could. Dug out their stories.

  Unlikely – but he had to hold onto something. It was more feasible that she’d just been fishing for information, casting around until she hit on a target. Ja. That had to be it. Every doctor had something dodgy in his or her past – a misdiagnosis, a patient who’d died unexpectedly. And just how precise had she been, exactly? Not very. A school uniform. Big deal.

  That was all it was.

  Or maybe he was looking for an excuse to break down so that he could give into the lure of Lady Demerol. No. He’d just got spooked and fallen for an old woman’s con-tricks.

  Martha was out when he returned to the medical bay, but there was a can of Coke, a sandwich and a note on the reception desk: ‘Another one.’

  Great.

  He cracked the Coke can and slung his feet up on the desk. He should really return to the theatre and prise Alfonso out of there. That whole scene had reminded him of some sort of cult activity. At the very least he should get a message to Baci. If Alfonso was well enough to leave the treatment room and find his way into the clutches of that creepy old woman and her acolytes, then he was well enough to get his arse down to the generator room and fix the fucking ship. Get all of them out of this situation.

  ‘Doc?’

  Jesse turned to see Bin hovering in the doorway. His skin was tight on his bones, his eyes hollow. Christ, Jesse hoped he wasn’t getting the noro. ‘We have a problem, doc.’

  How many times had he heard that today? ‘What is it now?’

  ‘The girl in the morgue. They—’

  Oh, for fuck sakes. ‘Not this again. It was just the metal expanding in the heat.’

  ‘Doc. Jesse – they are saying they are going to throw her body overboard.’

  The Keeper of Secrets

  With Ashgar now sick and confined to the cabin, Devi was the only security presence on the main deck, and the passengers’ resentment and fear boiled around him. The guests either refused to look in his direction or stared at him with open hostility, and the other staff were receiving much the same treatment. There were fewer cleaning crew on duty than usual, and the filth and rubbish was piling up. Some worked their way vigilantly around, picking up the plastic cups and smeared plates, but they received no thanks and were forced to field endless questions about when the bars would be open or when they could be expected to be air-lifted off the ship. Thankfully, there had been no major altercations for a couple of hours, although Devi had had to caution a group of young men – part of the singles group he’d spoken to after the girl’s death – for smoking marijuana on the exercise deck. Several passengers were now using the children’s fun room as a makeshift lavatory, and he’d had to ask several guests to desist from urinating over the side of the ship. Ram had instructed the security staff to only intervene in serious incidences; in these conditions they could not consign the perpetrators to their cabins and spare the manpower to guard them.

  He passed a group of people crouched around a plastic table, holding hands, their heads bent, and made his way towards the buffet area. The pool was turning a sickly green, but this hadn’t stopped passengers from using it. In the Jacuzzi (which should really have been cordoned off as there was no power to circulate the water) a woman, whose bikini top had slipped to reveal a brown nipple, was sleeping with her mouth open. She jerked awake as the PA system beeped:

  ‘G’day, ladies and gentlemen, this is Damien your cruise director here. Again, I’d like to thank you for your patience while we sort out the issues we are still experiencing. The captain will be addressing you all again shortly. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you to use the hand sanitisers whenever possible, and to please let a crew member know if your tummies are feeling funny at any stage. On a brighter note, Keri and Jason, two of our brightest stars, will be showing you how to do the rumba on the Lido deck stage in a few minutes, and the wonderful Celine del Ray will be holding another show in the Dare to Dream Theatre this evening, if any of you would like to join her.’

  While he patrolled, Devi kept an eye out for anyone who resembled the body type of Kelly’s assailant. Devi had already decided to visit the medical bay when his shift was over to ensure that the passenger who had attacked the steward couldn’t be the same man.

  ‘Hey! Over here!’ A man standing at the top of the stairs that led down to the Tranquillity deck was waving him over as if Devi was a servant. Devi sighed inside. The fellow was one of those over-confident American men, of which there was never any shortage on the ships. Grumpy if there was a long queue on the embarkation ramp. Brimming with self-righteousness. The type who treated the security guards as if they were invisible unless they had to wait more than five seconds to be allowed back on the ship after the day trips.

  Devi took his time walking over to him, taking the opportunity to lean over the railing and assess the group gathered on the deck below. He estimated there had to be around fifty people or so, and they looked to be well organised, with mattresses neatly lined up. He scanned the men he could see – he was unable to look beneath the overhang – but none fitted the profile of Kelly’s attacker.

  ‘Hey!’ the man shouted. ‘Hey. I’m talking to you.’

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  ‘Yeah. I need to see the captain.’

  ‘Sir, I do not have the authority to make that happen.’

  ‘Well who the hell does? I paid good money to be on this ship and you treat us like this?’

  Devi let the man’s words roll over him. At the far side of the Tranquillity deck, a skinny woman with sun-streaked skin was crouching next to a bucket. The woman next to her was stroking her back, and holding her hair back while she vomited.

  The man finished his diatribe. ‘Well?’

  ‘There will be an announcement soon, sir.’

  The man shot him a look of disgust and swore under his breath. Devi headed back towards the indoor area. At the front of the buffet line, a passenger was screaming that the lettuce was brown. Eyes averted, the server was apologising over and over again in a toneless voice. Devi readied himself to get involved, but with a snappish: ‘Whatever,’ the passenger backed down.

  His radio crackled, and Pran’s tremulous voice sputtered: ‘Need assistance . . . crew . . . Laundry.’

  Devi waited for someone else to respond – he was reluctant to leave the main deck – but there was nothing but silence and static. He’d have to check it out. He ducked through the service corridor next to the buffet kitchen, and hared down to the crew decks.

  A crowd of about twenty men, the majority Indonesian, but with a smattering of Eastern Europeans among them, were pushing and shoving in the corridor outside the laundry. Pran, who was attempting to force his way through them, was being roundly ignored, and Devi spotted the doctor on the edge of the crowd, yelling at the men to ‘get the hell away from here’.

  A door slammed, a cry went up and then the mob drew back. Through the gap that had opened up, Devi saw that two men were hauling a large black bag out of the storeroom.

  A body bag.

  Pran elbowed his way through the mob to join him, his face etched with relief. ‘They want to throw the body into the sea, Devi. They say the dead woman is the one haunting the ship.’

  Devi had seen and heard his share of superstition in his months on the ships; it didn’t surprise him, but he was angered at the lack of respect they were showing the girl. She had been through enough.

  ‘Hey!’ he yelled, projecting his voice. ‘Hey!’

  The men looked up, and several peeled away from the group and tried to make themselves less visible. The two dragging the bag were clearly the core instigators. He eyed the m
an he judged to be the leader – a fellow with a round belly, his name tag reading ‘Benyamin’. ‘Step away.’

  Benyamin muttered something and gestured at his now reluctant cohort to continue.

  ‘Anyone who touches the bag will be taken off the ship,’ Devi said, keeping his voice low and authoritative. It was an empty threat as things currently stood. ‘If you do not desist, I will personally ensure that you never work on the ships again.’

  Several of the men ducked their heads and hurried away. They couldn’t risk losing their jobs. Most of them would be supporting extended families.

  ‘We cannot stop!’ Benyamin yelled. ‘She is doing this! We will never get back to shore if she stays here!’

  ‘It is not the girl,’ Devi said. ‘The ship stopped before she died. Is that not so, doctor?’ Devi gave the doctor a pointed look, and thankfully he played along.

  ‘That is so.’

  Another few men peeled away.

  Devi tried a different tack. ‘How would you feel if this was your mother, or the body of your wife or sister?’

  ‘We have all seen it. What she is doing . . .’

  But Devi saw he had won. Benyamin was running out of steam. ‘This will be over soon. If you continue, you will have no job. You will have to go back to your family with nothing. You know what the agency will do. Do you still owe them money?’

  ‘Yes. But . . . no one is coming for us.’

  ‘They will come.’

  Benyamin stared at him resentfully for a few seconds, then his shoulders dropped. Without a word, he walked away, the others following.

  ‘Thank you,’ the doctor said. The male nurse with him – who Devi hadn’t taken note of before – bowed his thanks. ‘How can we stop them from coming back here?’

  ‘They will be back. We can’t stop them. We can’t post a guard here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We don’t have the manpower.’

  The doctor nodded tiredly. ‘Come on, Bin. Let’s put her back.’

  The doctor and the nurse each took one end of the bag, and shuffle-walked into the storeroom.