by Meg Mundell
Fast falls the eventide … Come not in terrors, as the King of Kings. But kind and good, with healing in thy … healing in thy wings …
The hymn we’d sung at Grandma’s service. Mum’s shoulders shaking in the pew beside me, Dad clasping both her small hands in his large one. Rosa in her black funeral dress, mascara all down her face. My parents, my sister. Oceans away, unreachable.
The children’s voices swelled, the choir drawing closer. Now I could hear their footsteps scuffling outside the schoolroom door, could pick out individual voices from the harmony.
Before delirium swept me away entirely, I had a moment of clarity: this wasn’t drug withdrawal. I was running a fever.
Then static fuzzed my thoughts. I heard the children again – or thought I did. Giggles and whispers outside the schoolroom door.
Don’t come in! I shouted. Stay outside, it’s not safe!
I knew one child had already fallen ill: Mia, our resident spelling whiz, a quiet girl with a ready smile and an adoring younger brother who shadowed her everywhere. I’d watched in horror as her unconscious form was lifted from the deck and carted away, crewmen holding back her sobbing mother.
Stay out! I ranted, terrified I would contaminate them all. I’m sick! Don’t come in here!
Had I locked the door? I must keep the children away, protect them from the danger I now harboured.
A parade of cartoon objects marched across my vision: pens, cups and cutlery, taps and handrails, soap and shavers. An old paperback, a backgammon screen, the sweat-slicked broom handle brandished by that crazed passenger – the object I’d blithely picked up and moved out of harm’s way. Mia’s red sunhat, dropped on the deck. All those things I’d touched.
A loud crash as the door splintered inward on its hinges. Then everything went black.
7
CLEARY
Each day Cleary taped a new note to the ceiling above his bunkbed. The second he woke, her words were there waiting for him. At night he read them over and over, the lines burning like embers in the dark long after lights-out.
Your ma says she loves you. Also: make sure you follow all the san rules.
She’s feeling a bit better today.
Your ma says you’re her brave boy. Don’t forget to brush your teeth.
She’s sorry she can’t see you just yet. She says not to worry.
They had been moved in here a few days ago. A small room, six double bunks, all women: the nurses. There was strain in their eyes, a weary tension in the set of their shoulders, and Cleary tried to soften himself in their presence – looking away as they undressed, stepping softly while they slept, trying not to stare or get underfoot. The bunks in this new cabin had no curtains and his mattress smelt of man-sweat, but he felt safe in here. A pink scarf was tacked over the porthole and a breeze filled the room with flickering light.
Billie was asleep in the bed below, hair splayed across the pillow in dark tangles. Gone most nights, busy caring for his ma and the other sick ones, she often went to bed at dawn and slept until afternoon. The other nurses’ comings and goings did not rouse him, but when Billie returned to the cabin he always woke, however briefly. She’d find one of his feet through the blanket, give it a squeeze. Then the ship would rock him back to sleep. In the morning there’d be another note tucked inside one of his runners.
Today’s note, penned in Billie’s scratchy handwriting: Your ma says you’re her darling rascal. He read the words over and over. Sure, that was how his ma talked. But had she ever called him that exact name? Had these messages truly come from her?
His yearning for his mother was constant, an ache that flowed through him like blood. Before this, they’d never spent a single night apart. When he closed his eyes, there she was: calm and solid, always ready with a hug, quick to offer praise or reassurance. Reading his moods and guessing his thoughts. The warm scent of her skin, like spiced milk, a smell you could fall asleep to. The smell of safety, home, protection. Being separated from her, knowing she was sick and alone, was a kind of torture.
The fear, when it came, struck without warning, a sharp blow to the throat: what if his mother died? What if she was already dead, killed by the bug – or by a knife, slashed across her neck as she slept? Heart slamming, chest pulsing with the force of it. He’d try to slow his breathing, wait for the wave of panic to pass. He’d even tried praying, but you never knew if you’d got the wording right, if anyone was even listening. Most of his prayers went straight to her: Please get better. Please be well again. Please come back to me. She must be alive. He’d kept Blackbeard’s secret. And Billie saw her every day.
His ma was a strong person, said Billie, but she was very sick. A bad dose. He might not be reunited with her until after they reached land.
The memory of his own illness was hazy: too weak to walk, limbs gone boneless, Granda carrying him up to bed. Vomiting all over his favourite pyjamas, the ones with the rocket ships. Dropping off for a few minutes, then waking to find a whole day and night had passed. Gran pressing a cool wet cloth to his face; his ma stroking his hair, sleeping on the floor beside his bed. No memory of being taken to hospital, just waking up there, conscious of something missing. At first he’d thought it was the sheer white stillness of the place, the lack of colour and activity. Then the slow realisation: people’s mouths were moving but no sound was coming out. Pure silence.
He’d regained some hearing in the aftermath, but not enough to be useful: just faint echoes, rudimentary sketches. Shadow-noise, remote and muffled, like an afterthought. We’ll get it back one day, his ma had written. Find a fancy doctor. But he knew that would cost money, and he’d learnt to get by without it: had taught himself the art of watching, of reading people’s faces and eyes; how they held their bodies, moved their hands. The signals they gave off without realising it.
Cleary dressed himself, put on his mask. Pocketed her last note, looped Teach’s binoculars around his neck.
He cracked the door open: coast clear. Outside the nurses’ cabin ran a long dim passage that seemed to pass right through the guts of the ship. The light down here was reddish, like the inside of a whale, filtered from hatches far above, and locked doors led off to unknown rooms. Feet wide for balance he trod the centre of the passage, not touching the handrails. Swiped the lock with his wristband and shouldered the door open.
Moving around the ship, he kept an eye out for his navigation aids: the green sticking plasters marked safe routes to familiar areas. The red ones were warnings, signalled zones to avoid: crew-only sections, blind spots, lonely passages that culminated in dead ends.
His wristband gave him access to this new part of the ship: the nurses’ cabin, the adjoining jacks and washroom, the small kitchenette where they ate, no need to brave the mess-room. But it held no power over other doors. Not the one that led down to the sick room, now manned by two guards, alert for small boys hovering nearby. He wouldn’t get near her again.
Outside, the sky hung down like the belly of some huge dead fish. Cleary surveyed the upper decks: no sign of Blackbeard. The man could be anywhere. Beyond Cleary’s cabin walls, the sanctuary of the nurses’ area, nowhere was safe. His watchfulness was now dialled up to maximum: he kept his back to walls, more alert than ever to the threat of someone sneaking up behind him; tuned in to faint vibrations, the tremor of approaching boots; constantly scanned for figures in his peripheral vision; remained on guard, always ready to flee or melt soundlessly away.
It wore him out: always checking over his shoulder, always tensed to run or fight.
Billie would not be up for hours. Later they’d eat together, come up top to watch the clouds. But he couldn’t follow her everywhere: what if she got sick of him? The other kids no longer roamed freely around the ship. Their parents kept them within reach, whole families dissolving like ghosts if Cleary got too close. Declan always waved, but they were furtive waves, and wa
ving did not tell you very much.
Witnessing this, Billie had tried to explain it away – It’s not you, they’re all just scared of getting sick – but their withdrawal left him feeling stranded and exposed. Reminded him of other times, other people who had turned away: lost friendships, failed conversations, kids who feared that silence might be catching. But here, isolation carried a far greater risk: it was hard to make yourself invisible without the sheltering presence of a crowd. Now he loitered on the edge of family groups, close but not too close, a lost moon orbiting some indifferent star.
He found a gap in the rail and lifted his binoculars to survey the restless ocean. Bright as blue ink, the sea was now, not a scrap of rubbish to be seen, no other vessels within sight. Seabirds jostled in the rigging. A smaller bird, a juvenile with speckled plumage and a crooked leg, was being harassed by a gaggle of adults. Sidling away from their beaks, the young bird lost its footing and slipped off the perch.
A feather zigzagged down to the deck, and Cleary ran to retrieve it. A beautiful white curve, delicate but strong – a knife for slicing air. A good-luck charm, still warm from the bird’s body. He’d keep it for his ma.
A blow: an object slamming into his leg.
A football lolled at his feet. Across the deck stood a kid from his class, face expectant. Cleary and the boy punted the ball back and forth, building up a rhythm on the tilting deck, until a sailor darted forward to poach it off them. The man dribbled the football away, grinning at the boys, then shot it down the deck with a playful kick. The ball stopped short, trapped beneath a heavy boot.
Blackbeard teetered, stork-like, one boot planted on the football, balancing against the swell, surveying the boys in turn as he steadied his weight against the leather. Then, with a slow smile, he fired the ball straight down the main deck at Cleary, who stood frozen, powerless to move.
The ball struck him hard in the chest, knocked the air from his lungs. As the other boy scampered to retrieve it, Cleary broke from his daze and stumbled off in the opposite direction, the pressure of the man’s gaze heavy on his back.
~
Taking refuge in the crowded passenger saloon, he waited for his breath to slow, his blood to stop pounding. Surely Blackbeard could not hurt him with people all around. But what would happen if the man caught him alone? How easy would it be to slash his throat, to pick him up bodily and throw him into the sea? He must never let his guard down, not for a second.
Trapped in the sick room, his ma knew nothing of this danger. Cleary prayed she would be safe down there, protected by Billie and the other nurses until they all reached land. Prayed that Blackbeard could not reach her, could not pass beyond that heavy metal door.
A screen on the wall tracked the ship’s slow course. Last week Madagascar had dropped off the edge of the picture, leaving them suspended in a wide stretch of blue. But now a new shape was entering the frame, a blunt red wedge intruding from the right. Cleary waved his hand before the image, swiping at the air. It was fiddly, the program’s calibration clumsy, and it took him a full minute to zoom out to the wider view.
People gathered to watch him tinker, keeping a safe distance. A woman pulled her daughter close, arms clasped across the girl’s chest, as the image settled into clarity: a small white blip edging towards a large red mass. Australia. Time to destination: 13 days, 4 hours, 21 min.
You could see the seconds blinking down, witness a whole hour vanish if you stood there long enough. Cleary turned away. He knew exactly how much longer this would take: a new note every day, his mother’s words, recorded in Billie’s handwriting. Thirteen more notes.
BILLIE
She bent over her patient. Pale and semi-conscious, still hooked up to a drip, the woman had stopped vomiting, but remained weak and barely responsive. Not out of danger yet, by any means. No more or less important than any other patient, this one, but a stark reminder of the cost if all their efforts failed.
Billie spoke softly, used the woman’s name. ‘Cate, let’s check your pulse and blood pressure. Then I’ll give you a wash down.’ She doubted Cate could hear her, but Billie always talked to her patients, conscious or not, sought to treat them as responsive on some level. To remind them, and herself, that she was not dealing with mere meat, that they could still return from wherever they had retreated to. Her voice a thread, however faint, a line back out if only they could grasp it.
Cate’s head was still sheathed in plastic wrap, a bid to contain the mess and keep infectious droplets from lodging in her hair. Billie checked her pulse: fast and weak, shock a risk. She adjusted the IV flow rate and began setting up the oxygen. The wash could wait.
‘Hey, Cate,’ she said, close to the woman’s ear. ‘Cleary’s not had a shower in three days, the little grotbag. Says he doesn’t have to. That true?’
The woman stirred – a frown, a murmur – but did not surface.
‘Don’t worry,’ Billie whispered. ‘I’m looking after him, I promise.’
Twelve people now seriously ill, crammed into this narrow room on rough-hewn beds, languishing in various states of consciousness. Cold air gusted in the open porthole but the smell was vile, took her straight back to the death wards. Near the wall lay their first child patient, fading in and out of consciousness, her body fighting an internal war: Mia, eleven years old. When Billie first saw that small figure laid out on the bed, a jet of fear shot through her. Someone’s sick child, now in her hands.
‘Can I give him more pseudopiate? He reckons it’s not working.’ Lauren, as always, a feckless English rose, asking yet another question to which the answer should be obvious. Occupied with changing an IV bag, Billie tried not to show her irritation with the girl.
‘Tom can hear you loud and clear, Lauren. Check his chart. When was his last dose?’
She watched Lauren examine the chart and prep another dose of pain meds for the teacher. The blonde nurse, Holly, came close to rolling her eyes. Most of the nurses – and that’s what they were now, designated if not qualified – had the drill down pat, were more or less coping. But Lauren seemed unable to retain simple information, prone to fretting over trivial things – and, more worrying, being lax about the crucial stuff.
As if on cue, Billie caught the girl dropping a shit-smeared rag in a corner of the room.
‘Lauren!’ she snapped. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
The girl turned, gloved hands aloft.
‘The rag,’ said Billie, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘Biohazard. Category A infectious waste. Double-bagged, sealed up, immediate disposal – remember?’
Lauren offered no reply, just bent to tear off a plastic bag. Billie observed her, unsure how much further to press it. Decided the stakes were too high to tiptoe around the bleeding obvious.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘This is basic stuff, disease-containment protocol. You know what happens if we don’t stick to it.’
‘Sorry,’ said Lauren. ‘I was going to pick it up in just a sec.’
Billie felt anger rise. ‘Just a sec won’t cut it, Lauren. You’re putting us all at risk. You know the protocols. Follow them.’ She didn’t add an ‘or’ – or what? No death talk in front of patients. Remove the nurse from duties? They’d all jump at the chance. Imprisonment, as Cutler had promised? That wasn’t Billie’s verdict to deliver. She’d already drummed home the message: carelessness kills. If that didn’t register with this girl, she couldn’t imagine what would.
The male nurse on duty was stealing looks at Lauren too: Ruben, the guy who’d tried to resist being press-ganged into service. A former evacuation assistant, he’d turned out to be one of her most reliable workers, a steady and competent presence with a talent for soothing agitated patients. Lauren drove him mad as well.
Billie surveyed the row of bodies under sheets. A rare lull, most of the patients dozing. Holly was pressing a cool cloth to the child’s forehead while Ruben d
id the rounds with fluids, propped up woozy heads and held drink straws to lips, urging each person on by name – Just a sip, Sarah, come on, love; one more, last one – as if coaching reluctant charges through a gym session.
Handwritten charts were taped above each bed. Billie scanned the names, the meds and dosages, the scribbled vital signs. So many blank spaces, so much information missing. Caught off guard, their recording systems primitive. She could hardly read her own handwriting, let alone the others’ scrawls.
Whatever this virus was, it had an ugly profile. Picked up by the twice-daily fever scans, new patients were placed in an observation room in the slim hope they were febrile for some harmless reason. The next stage – soaring temperatures, nausea, joint pain, cracking headaches – saw them admitted to this makeshift clinic, where the vomiting and diarrhoea soon began, followed by respiratory distress, nosebleeds and a creeping rash.
The fever was difficult to manage, scarcely responding to standard doses of analgesics or antipyretics, and as it climbed, the patients became confused, agitated, delirious. Some needed to be restrained and sedated. Thank god there was just the one child sick so far. No medics either, despite Lauren’s best efforts.
Billie adjusted Cate’s oxygen, then stepped aside for the cleaner, one of the swaddled figures who kept a regular vigil, removing waste, wiping surfaces, swabbing up spills. To cover the clock Kellahan had rostered his shifts around hers and Owen’s, putting each in charge for an eight-hour stretch. The doctor’s reliance on Billie made her uneasy. With scant equipment, untrained staff and no real knowledge of this virus, the responsibility was risky and unwelcome. Mistakes would inevitably be made, and blame would surely follow.
Jim Kellahan was a decent man, but their plight had exposed his medical limits. He’d done time as a navy medic, and before that he’d been a public GP in Birmingham. But all that was pre-pandemic: his incident experience was close to zero. Billie’s own background meant she’d been assigned to crash-course everyone in containment protocols: hand hygiene, PPE donning and doffing, waste disposal, decon. Kellahan deferred to her on that front, but she’d had several run-ins with Owen, who clearly resented her borrowed authority.
