by Sarah Lotz
More fool her.
She stood up and stretched. Xavier was fast asleep on the couch, his mouth open, his laptop on the floor next to him. The bruise above his nose was turning yellow. She almost hadn’t let him in last night, but she hadn’t wanted to be alone. And it felt good – reassuring – to have someone with her, even someone she hardly knew, and certainly didn’t trust. She’d rummaged through his things earlier, unearthing nothing more incriminating than a driver’s licence showing a photo of him with blond hair and an address in South Beach, Miami.
A beep, and then another bullshit message from Damien: ‘G’day, ladies and gentlemen. It seems that bad weather at home port is delaying any rescue operation at this time . . .’ She tuned him out. She could detect the insincerity in his voice. Celine had taught her that skill.
She needed to shower. Her skin was clammy after last night’s panic attack, and she’d kill for some fresh gear. She could always ask Xavier to bring her suitcase up from the lower levels, although maybe that wasn’t a great idea. The smell might have infested her clothes. He’d been down there last night, and when he returned to the suite, his shoes reeked of sewage. She’d made him put them out on the balcony.
She padded into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
She couldn’t get her brain to accept it at first.
There was a woman in the bath.
There was a woman lying in the bath wearing a shift dress – a Gatsby-style dress – beaded with tiny white pearls. Her skin was as white as the dress, the pores clogged with dark matter, like black pinpricks.
‘How did you get in here?’ Had Celine given someone her key-card, perhaps? But no . . . After she’d let Xavier in, she’d drawn the security bolt across the door.
The woman opened her eyes wide – and God, oh God they were white as well – and bared her teeth. They were tiny, pointed and quite dark. She snapped them together with a clearly audible ‘click’ and then started humming, softly at first, then louder and louder until it was all that Maddie could hear.
A woman in 1920s garb, like Lizzie Bean, Celine’s Lizzie Bean, Celine’s roaring twenties cliché, was lying in her bath.
Maddie understood that she was having a nervous breakdown. She’d always wondered what one felt like, and now she knew. She reached for the door behind her, fumbled for the handle, and backed out. The humming stopped abruptly. Her whole body was shaking. A distant part of her mind noted that pure terror really was icy.
She ran over to the couch and shook Xavier’s shoulder. He woke with a start, his mouth snapping shut.
‘Xavier. There’s someone in the bathroom.’
He sat up, took one look at her face and jumped to his feet. ‘Huh? Someone’s in here?’
‘In the bathroom.’
‘Who?’
She pushed him roughly towards it. Xavier gave her a look, walked over and flung open the door.
‘It’s empty.’
‘What?’
‘There’s no one here, Maddie. C’mon. Take a look.’
Digging her nails into her palms, she peered past him. The bath really was empty. ‘Look behind the shower curtain.’
He ripped it back. Nothing.
‘She was there. Lying in the bathtub. A woman. A . . . a dead woman.’ No one alive had skin that colour.
Xavier snorted. ‘Are you fucking with me?’
‘Do I look like I’m fucking with you? I know what I saw.’
‘A dead woman in the tub? Like in The Shining?’
‘It was . . . I think it was Lizzie Bean.’
‘Huh?’
‘You know, one of Celine’s spirit guides.’
‘Maddie . . . seriously. You hit your head or something?’
Hysteria surged, but she forced it down. ‘Maybe Archie and Papa Noakes will show up too.’
‘Who the fuck is Papa Noakes?’
Maddie hesitated, the old loyalty kicking in. But sod Celine. ‘Spirit guide number three. He was around in the seventies and eighties.’
‘So tell me about this . . . what’s his name again?’
‘Papa Noakes.’
‘He’s an ex-slave.’
He laughed. ‘Oh Jesus. Really?’
‘Listen . . . I know how it sounds, but I saw her, Xavier. I know what I saw. And you said people were seeing things on the lower decks.’
‘I went down there, Maddie. It’s just a bunch of guys fucking with everyone. All that was down there was a really, really bad smell.’
‘But—’
‘Listen, Maddie. You haven’t been sleeping well. None of us have. You ever heard of lucid dreaming?’
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I’m not. But what you’re saying . . . what’s the most logical explanation? That Celine’s spirit guide was hanging out in the tub, or you had a nightmare that felt so real you were convinced you actually saw a ghost?’
‘It was so real.’
‘Maddie. Listen to me. It was only your imagination. You of all people should know this.’
‘Maybe I should go and talk to Celine. Maybe . . . maybe she was sending me a message.’
‘Hello? Earth to Maddie. You know she’s a fraud. How can you even be saying this?’
Maddie paced, avoiding looking at the bathroom door. And hadn’t Helen and Elise said they heard humming as well? Yeah. She was losing it. ‘I just want to see her.’
‘After what her henchman guy did to me?’ Xavier looked almost childishly aggrieved.
‘I just . . . I think I should talk to her. I’m not the only one who’s—’
‘Bad idea. Listen, I know what’s going on here. You’ve been affected by the stress of what’s going down and Celine’s taking advantage of it. I’m talking about mass hysteria. Mass psychogenic illness. The only explanation for why people are seeing things is that Celine is feeding some kind of shared delusion.’
Maddie paced again. ‘I know Celine. I know how she does what she does. It’s all bullshit. But some of the things she was saying on the day after the ship stopped . . . she couldn’t have known them.’
‘And that other dude, Ray? He couldn’t have told her? It’s all cold reading, Maddie. People believe what they want to believe. People are scared. This whole situation is weird. They’re flocking to someone who seems to know what they’re doing.’ He drew breath. ‘She’s taking advantage of the situation, Maddie. After all this is over, she wants to be seen as the big hero.’
‘I want to talk to her.’
‘Seriously, Maddie . . . You think her goon Ray will let you in to see her?’
‘I can talk him round.’
‘And then what?’
Yeah, then what? ‘I don’t know, Xavier, okay?’ She risked a glance at the bathroom door. ‘But whatever happens I’ve got to get out of this cabin.’
‘Maddie, there’s nowhere else to go. It’s fucking awful out there.’
‘There must be someone we could go. The gym, maybe. The spa.’
‘Nope. Been there. It’s a mess.’
‘I don’t care! I have to get out of here.’
Xavier assessed her for a couple of seconds. ‘Okay, okay. If you want to see Celine, we have to play this carefully.’
‘We?’
‘Yeah. We.’
A wash of relief. She didn’t trust him, but at least she wasn’t alone. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘We can’t just go in there all guns blazing.’ He gingerly touched the top of his nose. ‘I could do without getting whacked in the face again, it’s not a good look for me. I’m thinking, how about we try and get to the crew area through one of the service doors?’
‘You think we can?’
‘We can try.’
While Xavier collected his shoes, she wrapped the scarf around her neck and pulled on her gloves. Xavier was probably right about her mind playing tricks on her. He had to be right. Fear did strange things to the brain.
But it had seemed so real.
They stepped
into the corridor. She hadn’t been out of the suite for hours; the least she could have done was check up on Helen and Elise again. She promised herself she’d do that later. Maybe. Xavier attempted to open Althea’s service door, but it was tightly sealed. ‘No go. Hey . . . maybe we can try down on my deck.’
‘Doesn’t it stink down there?’
‘Yeah. Bad. But that means there won’t be any crew down there to stop us. When I was down there last night the place was deserted. Well, I saw a security guy, but he didn’t stick around.’
‘Okay.’
A man and a woman were lying snoozing on a naked mattress outside the elevators, crusty plates and soda cups littered around them. God. At least she hadn’t had to go through that. She followed Xavier down the stairs and onto the Promenade Dreamz deck, gagging as the smell of vomit wafted her way.
Talk. Speak, take your mind off it. ‘What’s with your obsession with Celine, Xavier? Do you have some kind of personal history with her or something?’
He gave her a half-smile. ‘No. I just don’t like what she does. I don’t like what she did to Lillian Small.’
‘Yeah. That was . . . That wasn’t like Celine, either. She usually stays away from anything that can be proven.’
‘So what was her motive for that, you think?’
She shrugged. ‘Publicity, maybe. Notoriety. Perhaps she just wanted to be part of the whole Black Thursday circus.’
‘Figures. By the way, it isn’t just Celine. I don’t like what any of them do. Vultures. Predators. Telling the parents of missing children their kids are still alive. It gets to me.’
‘How did it start? Your interest in all this, I mean.’
He hesitated. ‘I wanted to be a magician when I was a kid.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ He grinned self-consciously. ‘Didn’t have the patience. But I got into Ouija boards, messed about with the arcane. You know. A stage. And I saw how easy it is to fool people.’
They’d now reached Deck Six. The smell of mildewed carpet coated her nostrils. ‘So what do you do for cash?’
‘I have my blog.’
‘Yeah, no offence, but I’m guessing that doesn’t keep you in champagne and caviar.’
‘My grandfather left me some money.’
‘You’re a trust-fund kid?’ No wonder he had so much time to devote to chasing down Celine.
‘I hate that word.’
‘You’re rich?’
‘I’m not rich. I’ve got enough to live on.’
The smell on Deck Five’s landing was just as bad as she’d expected, and the entrances to the passageways housing the cabins were hidden in darkness. She hesitated on the bottom step. She hadn’t realised just how dark the interior of the ship could get. A velvety blackness – no, that was bullshit. There was nothing soft about it.
‘Wait here. I’ll go see if any of the doors are unsecured.’
‘How are you going to see down there?’
He grinned and held up a mini flashlight attached to a keychain. ‘I’ve got it covered.’
Gripping the railing with a gloved hand, she watched as he was swallowed up by the shadows. The fear was dissipating; she couldn’t maintain it.
A spirit guide come to life. Ridiculous. Now she was out of the suite, had some distance, she could see that. She was even becoming used to the shitty smell down here. The light came darting back towards her. ‘We’re all set. There’s one open down here.’
She followed him down the passageway, keeping her eyes on the beam of the torch and holding a hand over her mouth. And God, the carpet was wet, squishy. Her feet seemed to sink right into it, as if the ship was trying to inhale her. Xavier held the door open for her, and she stepped through, crossing a small landing and moving down towards a narrow stairwell. She moved aside to let Xavier squeeze past. Grubby white walls hemmed them in; the fluorescent emergency lights on the ceiling flickered. It was a different world from the passenger areas: utilitarian, stripped back to the ship’s skeleton, and the air felt twice as heavy.
Xavier stopped abruptly, and she almost crashed into his back. Footsteps were clumping towards them. A small Filipino man was running up the stairs, halting when he spotted them. ‘You shouldn’t be down here. No passengers down here.’
‘We need help,’ Xavier said.
‘You need a doctor? You must go back.’
Maddie peered around Xavier to read his name tag: Angelo.
‘Not a doctor. We need to get to the stage. The Dare to Dream Theatre?’
The man frowned. ‘Why not just go around the front?’
‘We have . . . reasons.’
‘It is that woman? Mrs del Rio?’
‘Del Ray. Yeah.’
‘You know her?’ Maddie asked.
‘No. But I know about her. How does she do what she does? A trick?’
‘Yes,’ Xavier said.
‘So why is it you want to see her?’
‘Tell you what, if you show us how to get there, I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘How much?’
Xavier took out a hundred-dollar bill, and the guy made it disappear. ‘I will show you. But if we see any security, then you are to say that I didn’t try to help you.’
‘Thank you. We will. We won’t get you into trouble, I promise.’
The man backtracked, and waved at them to follow him down another two flights of stairs. He ushered them through a heavy metal door, and they emerged into a low-ceilinged corridor that stank of paint, cigarette smoke and worse. The floor was scuffed, the red paint worn down.
She jumped at the sound of voices. Angelo was striding ahead, and she and Xavier had to jog to keep up with him. The air was becoming hotter; her whole body was slick with sweat. The slam of metal against metal, a clatter. They passed several small tiled rooms. In one, two surly-faced men wearing plastic gloves were slicing green peppers, discarding the slimy pieces. They glanced at her with little interest.
‘How much food is left?’ Xavier asked Angelo.
A shrug. ‘Some of the fridges are still cold. There is cereal. Stuff that was frozen. We need the electricity to cook, but there are some hotplates we can use.’
They whipped through another passageway, and now she was completely disorientated. The air wasn’t getting deep enough into her lungs.
Oh God.
She couldn’t breathe.
Angelo opened another white metal door and pushed them into a wider, featureless conduit that appeared to stretch on forever.
Angelo pointed to the left. ‘So what you must do is to—’
Their guide froze. And then he ran.
A stocky figure was stalking towards them, barking into a radio. ‘Stop!’
‘Oh shit,’ Xavier muttered as a security guard, his hand on the baton at his belt, approached at speed.
‘You can’t be down here. How did you get down here?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Maddie tried. ‘We got lost.’
The man – Ram, according to his name badge – had the darkest, hardest eyes she’d ever seen. ‘How did you get down here?’
‘Chill out,’ Xavier said. ‘We were just—’
‘You cannot be down here.’
‘Look. You guys aren’t telling us anything. We have a right to know—’
‘If you do not lower your voice, I will be forced to subdue you.’ Xavier clamped his mouth shut. It was clear that Ram meant every word. ‘I will escort you out of here. If you are found here again I will make sure you are locked in your cabins.’
He motioned harshly for them to walk ahead of him.
‘Shit,’ Xavier muttered.
They weaved through another series of passageways, up another narrow metal staircase, and then the man flung open a door and pushed them through it. Maddie got her bearings: they were on the Promenade Dreamz deck. The air smelled like a fresh meadow after the depths of the ship.
Ram slammed the door behind them.
‘Now what?’ Maddie p
ulled off her gloves and wiped her hands on her jeans.
‘We could go up onto the exercise deck, I know some people there.’
She thought about it, remembering the woman in the Lido buffet queue, the crowds pushing and shoving. People pissing over the side. No. She couldn’t bear it. They wandered past the casino, where a small group of people had set up a mini corral of mattresses next to the slot machines. A woman with a stricken face and clutching a bucket was making for the blackened doors of the dining room. They rounded the atrium, and Maddie could make out the entrance to the theatre. Ray was at his usual post, and he stood aside to let a small man with black hair styled in a quiff and a woman in a steward’s uniform enter. With a jolt, Maddie recognised Althea. And she realised that the man with her was one of the assistant cruise directors. She’d liaised with him a few times about the technical details of Celine’s performances. She’d been charmed by his cheerful demeanour.
‘Don’t go there, Maddie,’ Xavier said.
‘I have to know, Xavier.’
‘Know what?’
‘Why Celine’s cutting me out. Why she’s . . .’
‘Let’s get out of here, Maddie. Go back up to Celine’s suite.’
She couldn’t. She couldn’t go back there. The tune Lizzie Bean had been humming drifted through her mind. She shivered. ‘Wait here.’
Ray gave her a broad grin as she walked up to him. ‘Hey, Maddie. Round two? Or you gonna try to bribe me with something else?’ Then his expression changed, became serious, and he leaned towards her, taking her off guard. ‘Listen, you’re better off, trust me. You don’t want to be part of this scene. They’re treating her like Jesus fucking Christ.’ His eyes locked on something over her shoulder and his face shut down.
Maddie turned to see Jacob walking towards them, a bottle of cleaning spray tucked under an arm. The purple surgical gloves he was wearing matched his bow tie.
He gave her a smile that appeared to be genuine. ‘Maddie! I haven’t seen you for ages. I hope you’ve finally decided to join us.’
