“That… is like the most simple-minded idea ever… but I like it”. The two young women laughed and began discussing what they would do and how they would react if they won the lottery. Eventually Lakshman returned to serve them and before long they were eating heartily.
Night fell and the two made their way to the bow of the ship, where they remained for hours in embrace, kissing and whispering sweet nothings to one another.
9:21am - 1 Days until outbreak
Day 4 and they decided to hit the gym together bright and early. For an hour they worked up a sweat before rewarding themselves with a nice cool swim, sauna room sweat off and finally a massive lunch where they met Wendy and her friends again.
Together with Wendy and friends, they went bowling, the cinema and finally the arcade, before concluding with the bars, but the evening was cut short when they encountered someone they knew well.
“Dad?” Rachel exclaimed, stopping dead in her tracks.
He slowly looked towards them, a grisly unkempt, lazy shell of his former self, a dishevelled man who had certainly seen better days. He was almost entirely unrecognizable with his vomit stained shirt and torn trousers.
“Ah… my daughter… tell this… lowlife… to get me another drink”, he begged of her, falling clumsily off the stool and dragging his feet towards her. His words were slurred and barely intelligible. The disgusted look engraved upon Rachel's face could tell stories.
He reached out to her and Lori could tell that it took every bit of Rachel's willpower to not flee, or at the very least step back.
As he embraced Rachel, that stench emanating from him was enough to make even plants in the vicinity shrivel up. What the heck was he doing like this?
“Do you know this man?” The bartender snapped.
“Yeah… he’s my dad”, Rachel replied.
“He’s been here the past fifteen minutes being a nuisance, I was just about to call security. He’s already been kicked out of several bars, he’s been drinking all day, smells atrocious and is scaring away customers ranting on about women being untrustworthy. Get him out of here, I don’t care where you take him, just make sure he doesn’t come back”.
“Err…” Rachel replied, completely stumped.
“Fuck you, man… you don’t know… anything about me, you’re just… some bartender… who can’t even… do his fucking job!” Edward snapped back.
“Fuck off”, the bartender spat and returned to serving his customers.
“Want some? I’ll fight you… right here and now!” Edward proclaimed, making towards the bar counter. Rachel grabbed his wrist and held him back.
“Lori! Help me!”
“Me?” Lori replied, not exactly enthralled by the premise of having to go anywhere near Rachel’s father.
“Yes, who else? Is there another Lori here?”
“Aw man, I like this top too”.
“Fuck the top, help me here”.
“Okay, okay”, Lori conceded and helped her girlfriend restrain her father.
They managed to drag Rachel's rampant father away from the bar and to a quieter part of the ship, where they found a vacant bench and sat him down.
“Can you get him some water please, Lori?” Rachel asked of her girlfriend.
“Will do, I mean I'm already covered in his puke… I think… so I guess a little water can't hurt”, she replied sarcastically and disappeared to get a glass of water.
“Dad? Are you hanging in there?” Rachel asked, turning to her father.
“I'm… just peachy… I dunno… I think I am. Been throwing up last few days… so alcohol… is helping, y'know?”
“No… I’m pretty sure it'll just compound the problem”.
“Well… least I can forget about... that whore!”
Rachel suddenly felt guilty. She did want them to feel some of the pressure of the burden they put on her, but had she gone a step too far?
“Yeah…”
“I'm not lettin’... her destroy me… I’m gunna rise above it all”.
“Uh huh, this is your way of rising above it, is it?”
“You have to climb the mountain before....” His words slurred and trailed off into something unintelligible again.
“Dad, what have you been doing since yesterday and where?”
“Fucking drinking… since yesterday… those bars kicked me out… some woman called me a vagrant”.
Rachel chuckled. She had to admit that was kind of funny.
“Have you seen mum since?”
“No… don’t want to see that whore!”
“Stop shouting that, people are looking at us. Dad, you two need to talk it out. She was lonely and he was kind of there for her, a little too much so. Yeah, sure she's a grown ass woman and should have known better, but she was vulnerable and hurting. If anything, that son of a bitch took advantage of her. She's a cow at even the best of times, but please try to find it in your heart to forgive her. Maybe not now, but with time”.
He stared up at her, swaying unsteadily.
“You're a good girl… Rachel. Do you know that? I… wasn’t the best… father to you, so I don't blame… you if you hate me. I was a coward… and just went along… with everything your mother… believed to keep… the calm. I didn't really have any particular… gripes about you being… you know… into girls. I just… wanted the best for you… whatever that even fucking means. You have… a good heart. I should have been more supportive than I… was”.
“It’s okay dad, none of us are perfect”.
He placed his sweaty, God-only-knew-what covered hand on her cheek and she shuddered with disgust, trying her very best to put up with it, it was only temporary.
As the two of them chatted, Lori returned with tissues and water in hand. She passed the water to Rachel to sober her father up with.
“Do you need to puke, dad? Might help”.
“No… I haven't slept properly… because I haven't been back to the cabin… so need sleep. I'll sleep it off”.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah”.
“Okay. Lori, help me take him back to his cabin”. Before she could even sigh hesitantly, he only added more problems to their list.
“No! Not my cabin… I can't fucking go back there… not with those women… no… not yet… not like this”, he protested.
Rachel looked over towards a bewildered Lori as though seeking guidance, before returning her gaze to her father.
“So what then, dad?”
“It’s okay, just leave me here, I'll sleep on this bench… I’ll be fine”.
“Fuck that! I'm not leaving you on the bench, then you'll seriously look like a vagrant, not to mention how uncomfortable and cold it'll be. You need a shower and proper sleep. Lori, help me”.
“Where are you planning to take him?” Lori enquired.
“Our cabin”.
“What? Are you serious? He's a mess!”
“Exactly, which is why I'm not leaving him here. He's my father, Lori and while we may not have always seen eye to eye, I'm not some heartless bitch. Anything could happen to him out here”.
“But… what about the infirmary?”
“I'm not dumping him there either, Lori. Please, it's just for one night and he'll be out of our hair”.
Frustratedly, she ran her fingers through her hair and sighed.
“Fine, but you owe me big time!”
“You can count on it”.
“Let's get this over and done with”. She grabbed his arm and swung it around her shoulders. “The things I bloody do for love”.
Rachel laughed.
They carried Rachel’s father back to the cabin and dumped him on the bed. Even with two females carrying him, for one man he was tremendously heavy. Their shoulders were in agony by the time they reached the cabin.
He merely touched the bed and already he was snoring like a bear in winter.
“Well guess it's too late to get him to have a shower”, Rachel muttered.
“Aww man, we're going to have to change all of those bed sheets now… maybe even burn them… and fumigate the fucking place”. She ran over to the corner of the room to grab her perfume, spraying it quite literally everywhere. “Where are we supposed to sleep now?”
“Hmm. We could sleep on the floor, like the good ol days”.
“Festivals and party days? They weren’t exactly comfortable days, I don’t recall ever getting much sleep, which is something I would relish right about now”.
Rachel approached her and placed her hand on her cheek.
“Bear with me, I know I’m being a selfish cow right about now and I’m sorry. He’s my dad, y’know. Regardless of how much they get right under my skin, they’re still my parents and I can’t change that. I’ll convince him to talk to my mum tomorrow, but he needs to sober up and have a shower first”.
Lori sighed.
“When I signed up to a life with you, it included all your annoying baggage, so I might moan, but I’m with you every step of the way”.
“Thank you, baby”, Rachel replied, planting a kiss on her lips. “How about we take a shower together, I’ll treat you”.
“What? Your dad is just there”, Lori replied, startled by the proposal.
“And he’s in cloud cuckoo land, if we’re quiet, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides, your aggressiveness has had me thinking about you all day. I’m horny and I don’t care who is in our cabin right now, I’m going to get some tonight”.
“Well when you put it like that who am I to say no? Besides, you stink”.
“Oi! That’s fucking rude, so do you!” The two burst out laughing, before Rachel leaned in to kiss her.
Giggling, they slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind them.
CHAPTER 13 - CHRISTINE & LORI
11:11am - Outbreak
. . .
. . .
Lori groaned as she rolled over onto her side. What a horrible night. Everything fucking ached, these floors were horrendous, even with the extra duvet they requested over at the supplies unit and lain out on the ground to lie upon. So much for thinking it would offer even the slightest semblance to the comfort they had in mind. One night though it may have been, her back would probably remind her of this for the rest of the week.
Rachel lay besides her lost in a world of blissful slumber. At least she looked fine with this arrangement.
Up on the other side lay her dad snoring away on the bed, sprawled across it stomach down and his right arm hanging off the side. If Lori had been told that there was come a night when she'd be sharing a room with her girlfriend and her dad, she would have laughed it off, and yet ironically, here she was lying between both father and daughter.
She sat and stretched, not that stretching was doing anything to alleviate the aches and pains, or pins and needles in her foot.
The cabin was pitch black as per usual, one of the many perks that came with a cheaper windowless option, so time was impossible to determine without checking her phone.
11:13, they had slept in late again, she thought as the bright screen from her phone filled the cabin with light. Her throat was parched and she had no desire to lay back down on that uncomfortable floor and stare aimlessly into the darkness, so instead she decided to use the excuse of buying a few bottles of water and snacks just to escape and go for a walk.
They were getting closer to the Caribbean now, it would be getting a great deal warmer outside soon and what an exciting premise that was.
Having put on a pair of jeans and t-shirt, whilst recovering from banging her toe on the side of the small table, a pain that anyone who knew it could agree was one of the worst pains in the world, she slipped on her shoes and stepped outside, yawning as she did so.
The corridor was brimming with light, artificial light, but light nonetheless.
She made her way down the corridor towards the stairs and descended to the floor with the shops. There didn’t appear to be as many people hustling and bustling about as usual days, was something going on?
As she made her way towards one of many small shopping areas aboard the ship, it became all too clear why there were so few people around, the TVs screens mounted on the walls, usually there for the sole purpose of advertising and information relative to the ship, cruise destinations and occasionally big sporting events, talent shows and more, were now all tuned into one thing, the news, with crowds huddled around each one. At the bottom of the screens were the bold text reading “Breaking news!: Possible terror attack in London”.
“What the fuck?” Lori murmured and approached one of the closest screens.
She had to squeeze through crowds to get close enough to see anything.
Earwigging those around, she managed to ascertain that this had been happening since 8 this morning, so 3 full hours had already passed and new reports still didn’t seem to have any clearer depiction of events.
Scrolling beneath the breaking news was a report that a helicopter had been mysteriously downed, on board were reporter Ellie Branning, cameraman Zachary Lincoln and pilot Steve Phillips. The chaos seemingly began at South Kensington and spread quicker than emergency services, special police forces and containment and evacuation unit teams could handle. This seemed to be multiple attacks in different locations, or something spiralling out of control from South Kensington, but what and who could answer that question if not the news?
It didn't help that the rumour mill was in full swing, churning out all manner of wild stories, with some suggesting that something large had lunged towards the helicopter, whilst others speculated that it was someone jumping from a building. So much chatter and no clear indication of what was happening; clips on the news of people fleeing, but fleeing from what? Did she want to know?
Then she saw it, humans mauling humans, quite literally chasing down one another, pinning them to the ground and ripping them to shreds. If this wasn’t primetime and on the news, she’d think it was a movie or at the very least the filming of a movie. One man was tackled through a shop window by two others, a woman and child were dragged screaming from their cars, people were falling through the top windows of double-decker buses, blood splatter covered grounds, corpses littered the streets, shops burned, and police were firing bullets almost indiscriminately.
“What… the… fuck…” Lori repeated, covering her mouth just like those around her who could bear to watch.
Lori stood there staring at the screen for at least twenty to thirty minutes, surrounded by the gasps and weeping of onlookers, trying to comprehend and process what she was witnessing in her home capital, all the while pinching herself to clarify it wasn’t a dream. When she had finally convinced herself that she wasn’t still asleep, she decided it best to return to her girlfriend and inform her of the news.
She opened the cabin door to find the lights on, Rachel’s father sitting up in the bed rubbing his eyes and the bathroom door closed.
“Something is going on in London!” She declared.
Edward looked up at her bemused, he didn’t appear to be fully awake, and so she repeated herself. “Something is happening in London, a terrorist attack or something”.
“What?” He replied, stunned by the suddenness of her news.
“I went to get water and snacks and everyone was huddled around every TV screen on the ship and every single one of those screens are tuned into the news, you can go have a look for yourself”.
“Slow down, slow down, what’s happening exactly?”
“I wish I knew. A helicopter was brought down by something or someone, people are running, whatever it is, is spreading across London fast. There was blood, debris, shooting, dead people… fuck!” She shouted, holding her head with both hands.
“A terror attack? Do they know which part of London? Who may be responsible?”
“I think that’s just what they are calling it, but that shit didn’t look like any terror attack I’d ever seen. I saw people literally… mauling each other like
feral animals”.
Edward stared up at her in disbelief. The bathroom door clicked open and Rachel stepped out in a towel and toothbrush in hand.
“Mauling each other?” She asked.
“Yes, mauling each other! Literally ripping each other to shreds with their teeth. The police don’t even seem to know what the fuck they are shooting at, they’re just shooting at anyone and everything that moves!” Lori stepped further into the room and crouched down to pull her phone from the plug socket. She connected to the internet as Rachel and her father huddled around curiously.
Once signed in, she opened up the aggregated news app to reveal every latest breaking news article and live video feed solely talking about the events occurring in London. She handed the phone over to Rachel, who sat down on the bed beside her father and read out aloud the first article.
“Between eleven and twelve GMT this morning, initial reports of a terror attack at South Kensington station began flooding in, including videos and pictures from witnesses on the ground. It has become increasingly difficult to establish the true extent to which the parameters of this disaster has spread, in what could quite possibly be described as the most widespread and devastating terror attack in recent memory. Police are warning the public to be vigilant, stay home if possible and to avert all areas surrounding South Kensington, also to report any suspicious objects and activities. Special Forces have been said to be currently overwhelmed by the sheer chaos, no sooner after dispatching units to address calls from one area, being bombarded with calls from another. Prime Minister Andrew Parlow, in a recent public inquiry, has condemned the violence and issued a statement warning all to not be immediately alarmed by the sensationalist tone of social media videos, messaging and more, to listen to and comply with regional law enforcement instructions and remain calm and orderly, but contrary to this statement, is said to have been spotted being driven away from houses of parliament presumably to safety shortly after his public statement. Numerous terror groups around the world have taken credit for the attack as onlookers wait on tenterhooks to hear if this is the work of NOMA, the nationalist operative movement allegiance or another terror group. There is currently no credibility that it was any of these groups. More news to come as events unfold”. Rachel lowered the phone to the bed, anxiety and shock etched onto her face.
Cryptophobia | Book 2 | Hell & High Water [Fear The Unknown] Page 12
