The Turning (Book 1)

by Micky Neilson

  “Ginny,” she answered, and now all the fatigue came crashing back down on her.

  “I saw the woman in the other room. Do you know what happened to her?”

  Too exhausted to continue speaking, Ginny simply nodded and walked past the man toward the room she had left Vera lying in.

  ***

  It only took a few minutes from the time Alexander heard the crew talking about the boarding team to see a helmeted man with a vest proceed down the hall and pass outside his cabin. The man held a shotgun before him, and under the vest he wore drab coveralls.

  Within moments of the guardsman passing his door, Alexander’s satellite phone rang. Alexander’s father was quite diligent about following up in the absence of his son’s reporting in.

  “Yes.”

  “Report.” His dad sounded even more uptight than usual.

  “The target has not been acquired. Coast Guard is conducting a sweep,” he answered.

  “There is a further complication.” So that was why Daddy Dearest sounded peeved. “Homeland Security is denying entry at Ketchikan until the situation is resolved.”

  Interesting. Customs Services reported up to Homeland Security. His father had used his connections to allow the Rapture to depart Juneau, but now that all had gone pear-shaped, Homeland was putting its foot down.

  This no doubt infuriated Father because if Alexander could not disembark the ship, the pills could not be delivered. That was one consideration; however, it vexed Alexander because it meant he currently had no practical exit strategy. Again, adjustments would need to be made. Adapt and overcome.

  “I may have a solution,” the hunter offered.

  “Explain.”

  “If it works, you’ll know.” Alexander ended the call and replaced the phone in his pocket. He could practically hear his father’s fuming, feel the old man’s unmitigated dissatisfaction. Such thoughts brought the hunter immense joy.

  Alexander stripped his bed of sheets and blanket. From the bathroom he retrieved all towels. He laid the lot of it on the floor and rolled them into a bundle.

  A voice came over his stolen radio and announced to all crew that stage one of the Coast Guard sweep was complete, that they would now initiate stage two, and for all crew to continue keeping all common areas clear.

  The hunter quietly opened his door and stepped into the hall. He had the duffel bag on his back, the silver-coated blade tucked behind his jacket, the radio clipped on his belt, and the laundry under his right arm.

  From here he could see that the fire door at the end of the hall had been shut. Good. Halfway down the hall sat a flat push cart with a full laundry bag atop it. He walked to the cart, loosened the string to open the bag and added his linen to the soiled whites already there. Then he pulled the string taut and hefted the bag before crossing to a door marked Crew Only. A desolate stairwell awaited him on the other side. He didn’t think there would be cameras where he was going, but he wasn’t sure. He lifted his hood just in case.

  The hunter then made his way to a landing which opened onto the long crew hallway that ran the length of the ship. He peeked out to the walkway and saw that no one was about.

  With measured urgency he pushed on, down into the very bowels of the vessel, out into a barren hall and around one corner where he found a large schematic of the ship fixed to the wall. Alexander studied it for a moment until he found the aft engine room access, at which point a smile lifted the corners of his lips.

  Perfect.

  ***

  At least the Rapture had made it through the worst of the storm. They were now a half hour out from Ketchikan, where winds were mild. The local harbor pilot was on the bridge, waiting along with everyone else for the go-ahead to dock, permission that would not be given until the threat was neutralized.

  Yes, the storm was behind them. But looking back, Tony would remember this as the calm before another kind of storm, a storm of blood and terror. It began with a call from Lorenzen, who was in the infirmary.

  “This is Alpha One. Ship’s physician and nurse are both deceased.” Before the lieutenant could respond, Lorenzen continued: “I have a code blue: elderly female, Vera Spears, possible heart attack. She has a pulse but it’s weak. Over.”

  The lieutenant answered, “Copy last. Wait.” He then relayed to the Liberty: “Cutter Liberty, this is Away Team. We have a possible heart attack, over.”

  The answer was immediate: “Roger, Away Team. Will request an ambulance on scene at Ketchikan. Out.”

  IF we neutralize the animal so that Rapture’s entry to Ketchikan will get approved, Tony thought. If not, he would request medevac, but not until he could get a more detailed assessment of the woman’s condition.

  “This is Alpha Zero. Alpha Four, do you copy?” Tony radioed.

  “This is Alpha Four,” came the reply.

  “I want you in the infirmary, now,” Tony ordered. “Alpha One, resume clearing once Alpha Four is on scene.”

  “This is Alpha One. Copy last, wilco,” came Lorenzen’s reply.

  ***

  The man who had just radioed (to his commander?) and reported a possible heart attack left just after the new guy showed up. The new guy identified himself as Hospital Corpsman First Class Taormina and asked Ginny a series of questions. These were similar to, but more in depth than, those asked by the other guy, who had said his name was Lorenzen. Taormina informed Ginny that he was a trained EMT, and that he was here to assess the woman’s condition. As he checked Vera’s vitals he asked Ginny what her name was, what the woman’s name was, about how old the woman was, if Ginny knew what medications Vera was on (she didn’t) and the circumstances surrounding the incident.

  Ginny spoke of finding Sal, and of Vera’s reaction upon seeing her mutilated husband. She spoke of the old woman’s heart stopping, her sloppy CPR, and Vera’s heart starting again. Finally she relayed her journey to the infirmary. Taormina asked if she saw what killed Vera’s husband.

  Brandon did that.

  She said no, and fought not to say more. What could she say, really? What did she know, for sure? Only that they were now faced with something that was no longer human. But how could she say even that without sounding like a complete lunatic?

  Taormina poked around the infirmary until he found certain items that he was looking for, including a bag with a tube and mask that he put over Vera’s face. Oxygen, of course. That’s why he was the pro. He asked Ginny to squeeze the bag every few seconds while he put some small device over Vera’s right pointer finger and observed that it gave no reading. Next he unbuttoned Vera’s pajama top and used a stethoscope to listen to her lungs. Ginny was amazed at how calm the man was throughout all of this. Inhuman creature attacking people on a cruise ship; heart attack… just another day at the office.

  After leaving the room for a moment, Taormina returned with something on a wheeled stand. It looked like a small fax machine with long tentacle-like cords coming off it. He rolled it next to the bed, sat on the small chair and started attaching leads to Vera’s bare chest. Ginny was continuing her job of ventilating. Taormina looked at her, his eyes the color of deep ice. “You’re doing great,” he said. “Just like a pro.”

  Ginny offered a weak smile.

  “This could be a heart attack,” Taormina continued. “But based on what I’m seeing and what you described, I think we’re looking at stress cardiomyopathy.”

  “Oh,” Ginny answered as if she had any idea what the hell that meant.

  Taormina continued his work. “We won’t know for sure until she gets to the hospital and has more tests done. Stress cardiomyopathy is also called broken heart syndrome. Weakness of the heart brought on by sudden shock or stress or grief… in this case, the cause of it seems obvious.”

  Ginny felt her own heart breaking for the poor old woman. Vera and Sal had been through so much, so many years together, only to have it all ripped away in an instant.

  “If it is what I think it is,” Taormina continued, �
��then her prognosis will be good. Most victims of stress cardiomyopathy have a full recovery. Very low recurrence, very low mortality.”

  Ginny wondered: could it really be that easy? Would Vera have a full recovery and just go on with her life? She wasn’t convinced. Even if she lived, Ginny suspected Vera wouldn’t ever be the same.

  Taormina finished attaching the leads. His crystal-blue eyes returned to her, held her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You brought this woman all the way down here, by yourself, with some wild, deadly animal running around the ship?” His eyes never left her.

  Ginny simply shrugged and nodded.

  Taormina smiled. “That took a lot of balls,” he said.

  ***

  Alexander continued down another staircase, through a few more twists and turns and then at last to his destination: the access hatch to the aft engine room. Here he encountered a watertight door. He set aside the laundry bag on the vibrating floor, cranked the wheel and opened the door to be met immediately by a loud thrumming noise.

  After slipping the linens back on his shoulder, he made his way into a small room where large pipes snaked up from the floor and curved into the bulkhead. A few steps away waited a second door, with “This Door Is to Remain Closed at All Times” written sternly across its face. The hunter fished from his pocket the key card he had lifted from the dead security man and inserted it into the reader. The green light flashed. He replaced the key in his pocket, turned the handle and stepped through the second doorway.

  Inside, the sound grew to a roar. He ventured onto a catwalk, around a bend, down steep narrow stairs to a maze of more pipes, tight steps, rails, hoses, gauges, ladders and polished steel.

  He emptied the laundry bag and piled the blankets, sheets and towels under a steep set of steps tucked in a corner. With this task complete he withdrew his trusty lighter, set the mounds of cloth aflame, and made his way back. Before reaching the catwalk, the hunter passed a closed tool chest. Inside, he found several instruments, but the one he chose to retrieve was a large pipe wrench.

  Once on the other side of the innermost door, Alexander gripped the base of the pipe wrench, leaned back, and swung it in a high arc, striking the door handle with a deafening clang! He repeated the motion twice, three times, until at last the handle broke. It hung down, useless. In the interest of thoroughness the hunter wedged the wrench beneath it and, using the door for leverage, popped the handle free.

  Right, then, let’s see if that gives things a boost.

  Soon after accepting his current mission, Alexander had familiarized himself with U.S. and International safety regulations for cruise vessels. His studies led him to understand that one circumstance above all others would provide grounds for a cruise ship to dock: a fire.

  And most especially, a fire in the engine room.

  ***

  They were fifteen minutes outside Ketchikan when the Bridge Watchstander reported a fire alarm.

  Tony rushed to join Chief Alisante and Captain Gentili at the fire alarm panel. The blaze’s location was identified as being in the aft engine room. Fire detection systems kicked in immediately. This meant the air conditioning and ventilation would be disabled. Next would come activation of the fixed C02 fire suppression systems. They would flood the engine room and deny the fire oxygen. There was, however, a time delay to allow any personnel inside the engine room time to evacuate.

  Chief Alisante got on the radio, announced the code for a fire and ordered any personnel in the aft engine room to vacate immediately. He then turned to Tony:

  “With your permission I’d like to continue delaying the C02 system so I can perform an on-site inspection with the fire team.”

  There was a side effect of fixed C02 fire suppression, evidenced by at least one incident that Tony knew of: it could result in the failure of anything in the room that ran on fuel, including generators and the engines themselves.

  Captain Gentili stepped up to Tony: “I would also request that we do not sound general alarm until we have a better understanding of the situation.”

  The general alarm would signal all passengers to proceed to their muster stations. If any of them made contact with this supposed animal during that time, chaos was sure to erupt, and any chance of containment would be lost. Still, this was a call that was above the lieutenant’s pay grade.

  He keyed the mic on his radio. “Cutter Liberty, this is Away Team. Rapture is reporting a localized fire in the aft engine room. Fire team is conducting an onsite investigation. Wait.” Tony let off the talk button, then pressed it again. “Animal threat here is not contained, repeat, not contained. Captain is requesting we do not sound general alarm at this time.”

  The Operations Specialist aboard the Liberty responded: “Copy last, Away Team. More to follow.”

  Once again Tony was hounded by the notion that the Rapture was falling victim to some form of sabotage. Was this a terrorist attack? There were cameras that provided limited views of the engine room. Tony crossed to the bank of monitors, watching the ones labeled Engine Room Aft. He saw one crewmember race past the field of view. On the other monitor he saw a thin veil of smoke.

  Unease had taken up residence inside the lieutenant. Something was very, very wrong, and he didn’t yet have a handle on what it was. One thing was certain: he needed to gain control of the situation, or not only would there be hell to pay, but more lives might be lost. It was then that an ominous message came through which reinforced just how far beyond Tony’s control the situation was.

  A voice broke over the lieutenant’s radio and announced: “All stations, all stations, all stations, this is sector Juneau. This is sector Juneau. This is sector Juneau. Silence, silence, silence…”

  There were some confused looks among the officers. Captain Gentili at this point was openly sweating. The message concluded, and several questioning faces were turned in Tony’s direction. What it added up to, and what he told them, was that the Net Control Station at Juneau was imposing radio silence on the Coast Guard’s encrypted channel.

  But under whose orders? And why? Maybe there was a security issue Tony was unaware of; maybe their communications were compromised… maybe the lieutenant’s suspicions were correct, and there was much more to this distress call than an escaped animal. Whatever the answer to those questions might be, the immediate reality was this: the lives of all the roughly four thousand people on board were, for the time being at least, completely in his hands.

  Tony motioned for Captain Gentili to approach. “Permission to inspect the site, and to withhold general alarm is granted under one condition: the fire team must be accompanied by an armed escort.

  The captain looked confused. “But if you must maintain radio silence…”

  “I’ll be the escort,” Tony stated.

  The Chief, standing nearby, nodded and announced on his radio, “Red Parties to bridge.”

  Less than five minutes later the “Red Parties” crew fire team arrived. Outside the windows, the docks of Ketchikan were just now visible, though the snowfall was getting thicker. The small town was so close, yet it might as well have been a million miles away.

  Wish me luck, Jen, Tony thought as he joined the fire team and left the bridge.

  ***

  With radio silence being imposed, Petty Officer Ocampo was unable to check in. Once he completed his sweep of decks six and seven aft, he continued his search on deck seven in the next forward section.

  The first thing he saw when he rounded the corner and gazed down the port-side hallway was one pair of legs, belonging to a large person, toes up. Straddling these were the hind-quarters of a very large animal. The rear of it was covered in dark fur; a thick tail flicked back and forth. The body and whatever was on top of it were both half in and half out of a cabin doorway near the end of the hall. There were… chomping sounds coming from inside the room.

  To officer Ocampo, the hind end resembled that of a dog, the biggest dog he had ever se
en. All of a sudden he would rather have been anywhere but there. He would have much rather been at home, drawing pictures of his nude wife, Azalea. He would rather be continuing his quest to drink at least one of every tequila brand (there were nearly a thousand), or out fishing Crescent Lake with Dominguez. But there was nothing for it now.

  He wanted to report his finding, get the others here, but he would not break radio silence. He was on his own.

  Despite the churning in his gut and the raised hairs on his neck and arms, he continued forward, stepping slowly and silently, shotgun trained on the beast. Glancing to his left, he saw a doorway raked with gashes as if something had tried to claw its way in.

  There were sounds, two clicks as he continued forward. Looking back to the shredded door, he saw a girl, couldn’t have been any more than fourteen or fifteen, peeking out from the door that was open just a crack. Ocampo stopped, shook his head. The girl’s eyes were wide but she took the hint, closed the door and re-locked it.

  A few more steps, hugging the port bulkhead; Ocampo was nearly in line with the doorway and had a full view of... well, whatever in the name of the blessed Mother this was. The biggest dog he had ever seen was an Irish Wolf Hound that was as high as his waist. This thing made the wolf hound look like a Chihuahua.

  It was bent over and covering most of the body, and it was busily gnawing on something. Ocampo had never seen anything like this motherfucker. He had never been afraid of much, but this unnatural… thing scared him like nothing else, scared him because it must assuredly be some agent of the devil himself. Perhaps it was the Beast the Holy Scriptures spoke of. Ocampo began whispering a prayer.

  The thing stopped chewing. It turned, shifting its weight to one side of the large corpse. The first thing Ocampo noticed was that the man’s torso was almost completely gone. The animal had eaten him down to the bone. Ribs jutted out and up, and it was half of a rib bone that the beast held in its mouth as it gazed back at him now. It had cracked the bone to get to the marrow inside, and the stump of it stuck out from the clenched back teeth like a cigar poking out from the side of some character’s mouth in an old cartoon.