by Sarah Lotz
Tap, tap, find the vein, it’s just a little prick, it’ll be over in a second, trust me, I’m a doctor. A faint feeling of nausea and then . . . It had rolled in on him, a gentle surge of warmth and calmness and utter, absolute peace. All of it had faded: the worry about the virus, about their situation, the gut-twisting regret about Farouka. The pethidine oozed through his veins and soothed and caressed and worked its magic. He should have given into it ages ago.
It even numbed the guilt.
After that first hit, he’d returned to his cabin – grateful, at least, that he was housed on the passenger decks, and not one of the lower ones – and for the first time since it had all kicked off, he slept, waking at around four p.m. feeling refreshed and almost . . . almost happy. He rubbed toothpaste over his teeth – noting that his gums were numb, a side effect that he remembered from the old days – swilled his mouth out with bottled water, and decided, fuck it, he wasn’t going to bother shaving.
Damien’s voice crackled over the intercom. ‘G’day, ladies and gentlemen. We appreciate how patient you’re being.’ Jesse laughed. Damien sounded almost bored. As if he didn’t give a shit. As if he’d given up. As if he’d finally found some self-awareness and become tired of the platitudes and bullshit and the sound of his own voice. ‘. . . and just to let you know, we’ve decided, for your convenience, to open the bars and we will be serving complimentary drinks from now onwards.’
An open bar! Brilliant idea. Add alcohol to an explosive situation – that will help.
Jesse made for the door. He’d need some caffeine to counteract some of the wooliness. Or, he could just stay in his cabin until help finally arrived (it wasn’t coming, nobody was coming for them – they’d be here by now if they were), and drift. But that would mean leaving Martha and Bin to deal with the evening’s horrors, and he might be a doos, but he wasn’t that much of an arsehole. He wafted his way down to the officers’ mess. Two white-trousered men were having a harsh whispered conversation with another officer – one of the assistant pursers, he thought. They barely glanced at him. The bread was stale, and he helped himself to a few slices of tomato, a handful of olives and a warm can of Coke. He could afford the calories now he was back on the old pethidine diet. The crew member serving the food looked like she’d been crying. Jesse was attempting to formulate something comforting to say to her (like what, dude? If in doubt, take drugs?), when the floor dipped and he staggered. The ship’s movement, which he’d become accustomed to, was more pronounced. It wasn’t bad, but he was definitely aware of it. Rough weather. Could a storm be brewing? Perhaps the captain’s ‘bad weather on shore’ spiel wasn’t bullshit after all. Perhaps it had made its way across the ocean to their position.
But he could handle it. He could handle anything now. People talked all the time about how drugs were bad for you and fucked up your life, but no one ever really said that in some cases drugs could actually make you a better person. Martha was a case in point. She was a high-functioning alcoholic. It put her on an even keel.
Jesse cracked the can of Coke, and headed towards the medical bay, hesitating when he came to the entrance to the corridor that led to the laundry room. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know if the malletje fuckers had been back, but he had his pethidine shield to protect him, so he decided to make a quick detour to the morgue. There was no sign that anyone had tried to break into the storeroom. It looked like the circus had moved on.
But that wasn’t true. It may be quiet here, but Celine del Ray was no doubt still putting on her show, wasn’t she?
Nope. He wasn’t going to go there.
He opened the storeroom door to double-check that all was kosher. The morgue door was firmly closed, and the storeroom’s dark depths looked oddly inviting. He could hide in here. Zonk himself out and sleep forever. No one would look for him here.
No. Bin and Martha needed him. He shut the door with a slam and got moving.
Baci was waiting for him outside the medical bay. Jesse cursed under his breath. He’d meant to tell him about seeing Alfonso in the Dare to Dream Theatre, but that business about the morgue had wiped it out of his mind. Baci’s pristine male-model exterior was becoming tarnished. Yellowish sweat moons stained his shirt; two-day-old stubble shadowed his cheeks. ‘I have been looking for you, doctor.’
‘How can I help?’
‘Alfonso is back at his station.’
‘Oh. Well that’s good, isn’t it? He fixed the ship yet?’ How droll.
‘No. He is only sitting there at his station, doctor.’
‘Is he speaking?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing about the dark man?’
‘No.’
‘I am worried about him. I do not know what to do.’ Well, you could take some lovely lekker pethidine and you won’t actually give a shit. Not true. Jesse did give a shit about Bin and Martha. ‘You will come and see him, doctor?’
‘Now?’
‘Si.’
Jesse thought about it. It would be a way of killing two birds with one stone. Alfonso’s burn pad needed to be changed. He had to do it sometime. The engine room wasn’t the perfect place to do it, but where was? The whole ship was a festering pile of faecal matter.
‘Let me get my bag. Wait here.’
‘Thank you.’
Jesse hurried to the pharmacy cabinet. A fresh burn pad, forceps and what else? Stupid question. He slipped another three ampoules and another injector pen into his pocket just in case. And maybe just a soupçon of morphine too. Why the fuck not? They were supposed to sign for it, be accountable for every cc that was used, but hey, he was accountable. It’s going straight into my fucking bloodstream.
‘Jesse.’
He jumped guiltily at the sound of Martha’s voice. How long had she been there? He hadn’t heard her entering the room. Had he seen him helping himself?
‘Bin’s sick, Jesse.’
Fuck. ‘Where is he?’
‘In his cabin. I took him some . . . some rehydrate.’
Her words were stilted and her eyes were bloodshot. She was drunk. But who was he to judge? In some ways he was relieved. She was sharp, intuitive, if she wasn’t impaired she’d probably pick up on the fact that he was spacing out big time. Or maybe not; it had taken the other doctors at his old surgery six months to figure it out. ‘I’ll go see him when I’m done.’
Her eyes were half-lidded and puffy. She really was off her tits, as she would say. ‘Jesse. There’s something going down. I’ve been hearing things.’
He didn’t need to know about another round of superstitious crap right now – the staff burning an effigy in the casino or whatever. ‘Ja? Hold that thought. I’ll be back now-now. Alfonso is back at his post.’
‘He is?’
‘Ja. But it sounds like he’s still out of it. I’m going down there to change his dressing.’
Before she could stop him he joined Baci in the corridor, and accompanied him to the entrance to the lower levels. They headed down past the garbage-sorting room, and through the areas of the ship Martha dubbed the sweatshops. The metal ceilings seemed to press down on him, and the smell down here was deeper, thicker, like breathing in shit soup and diesel. The floor dropped again. Whoopsie. His stomach tried to push itself into his throat.
Down another level, around a corner, past a deserted workshop, and then on into the engine control room. It looked exactly as he expected it to. A wide desk strewn with buttons and knobs, screens on the walls, clocks, dials, charts, a plan of the ship’s underbelly. Who knew what it all meant? Not him.
Alfonso was sitting on a chair behind the desk, staring straight ahead, his mouth half-open, crusty flakes at the corner of his lips. Jesse hoped he wasn’t dehydrated.
‘You see, doctor?’ Baci said. ‘He has not moved from there.’
‘And he hasn’t spoken?’
‘No.’
‘Remember me, Alfonso?’ Jesse moved behind the desk to join him. A Ferrari badge was stuck on the di
splay directly in front of him.
No response. Jesse took out his penlight and shone it into Alfonso’s eyes, although he’d checked there was no sign of any abnormal dilation when he’d first been brought to the medical centre. Whatever it was that was causing the catatonia, Jesse was certain it wasn’t a head injury. The ship fell again. Christ.
‘Careful, doctor,’ Baci said. He rode out the movement with ease, transferring his weight from foot to foot like a dancer. ‘Rough weather. Not good for us with no stabilisers.’
‘We’re in danger?’
‘If there is a rogue wave, si, of course.’
Thanks for that. Jesse concentrated his attention on Alfonso. ‘I’m going to change your dressing now, Alfonso, okay?’
Alfonso didn’t flinch as Jesse carefully removed the burn pad, examined the wound without touching it – it was progressing well, and the weeping had stopped – and after riding out another of the ship’s dips, pressed a new one in place.
‘What else can we do for him, doctor?’ Baci asked.
‘That’s it.’
The ship rolled again, seemed to hang, then dropped. Jesse held onto the desk. He prayed that the pethidine would help prevent him from getting seasick, but if he stayed down here for much longer, not even a lorry-load of Dramamine would be enough. ‘Alfonso? I am leaving now.’
‘I am waiting,’ Alfonso said in a loud, clear voice.
‘Waiting for what?’
With a dying hiss, the fluorescent lights blinked out.
The Keeper of Secrets
It was spreading. The panic was spreading.
The staff had abandoned the bar next to the pool, and a cluster of passengers, male and female, were clambering over the counter, lashing out at each other, the ship’s increasingly violent rolling motion doing little to slow them down. A deckhand wheeling a trolley laden with fresh red bags clocked the chaos, shoved his trolley away from him, and ran for the nearest service entrance. A couple of passengers tried to follow, but he made it through in time and had the sense to secure the door behind him. Down on the Promenade Dreamz deck, the shops were being looted, and a guest was using the statue of a cherub to smash through the Sandman Disco’s glass doors. A small group (one of the men looked familiar) was attempting to prise open the service hatch behind the Guest Services desk. The only oasis of peace was the Dare to Dream Theatre. The doors were shut, with several darkened figures parked outside them.
Devi clicked back to the screens showing the main deck. A woman with wet hair plastered across her cheeks was waving frantically at the camera, lurching as the ship yawed to the side. There was no doubt the wind was increasing. Sudden squalls were common in the Gulf, and the rough weather had come upon them with no warning. Devi knew enough to know that without power to manoeuvre the vessel, a rogue wave could flip the boat as if it were made of matchsticks. If it got much worse, he had little doubt that the captain would order an evacuation.
If he wanted to find his prey, he didn’t have long.
He tried radioing for assistance once more. ‘Come in, control. Come in. Pran? Madan? Ram? Come in, please.’ It was an impotent gesture. He hadn’t seen his superior since their altercation last night, Madan was drinking himself to death, Ashgar was still sick, and Ram had instructed Pran to join him on the bridge. Pran said that Ram had caught a group of passengers roaming the crew area behind the stage, and the captain had ordered that the service doors be secured at all times.
He couldn’t go up to the main deck alone. He would be able to subdue four men at the most. The only choice would be to deploy the MRAD, but it was probable that he would need back-up to keep the passengers at bay while he reached the box in which it was housed.
It would be suicide.
And Devi had to prioritise. Gary Johansson had to be on the ship somewhere. He’d eluded him on the main deck yesterday, after Pran had pointed him out, but Devi was almost positive that Kelly’s assailant and the violent passenger who’d escaped the medical bay were one and the same man. He’d scoured each cabin on the lower decks last night after Pran had alerted him to the open doors, but he’d seen nothing untoward. No hands covering camera lenses, no Ladies in White. And no rapists and murderers. He’d swept the common areas twice, including the bathrooms and alcoves, and had scoped out the passengers holed up in the Dare to Dream Theatre early this morning. The set-up in there had impressed him. The area was tranquil, clean, the fug of bad air kept at a minimum thanks to frequent cleaning.
He clicked through to the lower decks again. Could Johansson have thrown himself overboard? He sat back and rubbed at his temples. It wouldn’t be long before the generators ran out of stored power. The emergency lights would be extinguished, and so would the screens.
He couldn’t stop the yawn – he’d been awake now for forty-eight hours.
Breath on his cheek. He flinched, craned his neck, saw Rogelio standing behind him. He didn’t feel any trepidation that they might be caught together – all he cared about was that he had been stupid enough to doze off; he’d lost time that he could have used to track down the monster. ‘What time is it?’
‘Devi, I have something to say to you.’
‘Wait.’ He scanned the screens again. The passengers had moved on from the bar and were now gathered in clumps next to the entrance to the indoor buffet seating area, clutching at each other as the ship rocked. The pitch was getting worse. Devi swallowed. He could not allow himself to get sick now.
Rogelio gripped the back of the chair. ‘Devi, I can help you.’
‘Help me do what?’
‘Find the man. The man you are looking for. The one who killed Kelly.’
A surge of hope. ‘You’ve seen him? You know where he is?’
‘No. But Devi, please. You must come with me to the theatre. She knows things, Devi. She can help you. I’ve spoken to her. She wants to see you. She says she knows what you want and she will give it to you.’
‘Who are you talking about, Rogelio?’
A flash of movement on the screen capturing the I-95 caught his eye. Three crew members were running along it, using the wall to steady themselves. They were wearing life jackets – had an evacuation already been ordered? No. He would have heard the alert. Perhaps they were just being cautious, pre-empting the captain’s decision.
‘She can help you, Devi. You want to find the man who killed Kelly, don’t you? She can help you.’
‘Rogelio, go to your muster station.’
‘The captain has not ordered—’
‘Just do it.’
‘I am not leaving you, Devi.’
‘Go!’
Rogelio winced.
Devi softened his voice. ‘I will join you soon. There is something I need to do first.’
‘Devi, we’ll be safe in the theatre. You have to trust me on this. And Celine can help you.’
Devi scanned the screens again. Out on the exercise deck, people were fighting to get down the stairs, presumably to get inside. Aft of the ship, water splashed up in an arc.
‘Rogelio. I will come and find you.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’
Devi tried the radio again. Nothing. Then he scanned through the lower decks once more. He was zooming in on Kelly Lewis’s cabin door when the screen blipped and died. A second later the lights faded, leaving him in darkness. He removed his flashlight from his belt. The ship was really lurching now.
He stood up, intending to head to the bridge, when he saw twin lights bouncing towards him. He focused the beam of his own flashlight in their direction. Pran and Madan approached, flinching and blinking as his light caught their eyes.
‘Devi, what are you doing here?’ Pran asked. He sounded anxious, on the verge of panic.
‘Did you not hear me radioing for you?’
‘Devi . . . You have to get out of here. The crew is evacuating the ship.’
‘I didn’t hear the alert.’
A pause. ‘It . . . there
was no signal. Perhaps it is broken.’
‘Have the passengers been alerted?’
‘We have to do something first,’ Madan said.
‘What?’
Madan gave him a savage grin, walked over to the back-up hard drive and fired the twin pins of his taser into it. A sputter of sparks erupted out of it as it popped and hissed.
Devi lunged for Madan. ‘What – why?’
Madan slapped his hand away. ‘We’re getting off the ship, Devi. I was ordered to do it.’ Madan did not sound inebriated. He sounded completely lucid.
‘Who ordered it?’
‘Ram, of course.’
The rage came. ‘You cannot destroy the equipment, Madan – it is a criminal offence! And there is proof on there that a crime has been committed.’
‘The crew are leaving the vessel, Devi. I told you I had to get off the ship. I thought you understood. Without power it won’t survive this storm. It could go down at any moment.’
And then he understood. ‘You are not planning on evacuating the passengers. You’re planning on just leaving.’ And if the ship survived the storm and was eventually recovered, they didn’t want proof of what they had done lying around.
‘You have seen the passengers. You have seen how they are behaving. We could not possibly organise them in time—’
‘You can’t do this, Madan. You can’t leave these people.’ He looked to Pran, but the boy had turned his head away.
‘The passengers can leave if they want to. They know where the lifeboats are.’
‘But they don’t know how to operate them!’
‘There is nothing we can do. Come with us, Devi.’
‘You cannot leave these people on the ship!’
‘The people are shit, Devi. They treat us like rubbish, what do you care?’
‘I will not let you go.’ Devi placed a hand on the stun gun at his side. ‘You cannot do this.’
‘Devi. Don’t do this, man.’
Now Devi couldn’t see Pran anywhere. The boy must have fled.
‘I am sorry, Devi,’ a voice said from behind him. Ram’s voice. With no warning, Devi’s muscles seized, agony sizzling and fizzing through his nerve-endings. Unable to control his body, he dropped, hitting his head on the hard floor, panic shooting sparks through his skull. And then, he knew. He knew what had happened: Ram had tasered him. His flashlight rolled away across the floor as the ship tilted.
