The Final Outbreak: An Apocalyptic Thriller

by ML Banner

  She didn’t tell him the entire purpose of the cruise or the number of times she was meeting up with Jean Pierre. She couldn’t yet.

  He suspected some of this, but he had to admit he was a little disappointed. Yet none of that really mattered. Regardless of the reasons behind their trip, or TJ’s long disappearances, or the secrets, both they and the ship had far greater concerns.

  He told her everything he knew, and as he did, he became more and more convinced that he had predicted the crazy animal crisis they were experiencing today. He felt the need to hold back some of the details, because he didn’t want to scare her too much, but she needed to know what was basically happening, and talking about it out loud helped him to see if there were holes in his theory. To TJ’s credit, she accepted everything in a very measured manner, treating every point logically and not emotionally as he expected. It was after all an animal apocalypse, and she was frightened of animals.

  “So why volcanoes? I mean, what do they have to do with the spread of this disease that makes animals crazy?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out yet. But they have to be connected.”

  “But you think most animals that came in contact with the discharge from a volcano could be affected?” TJ took a final swig of her Stella Artois. She wished she’d plunked down another twenty for two more.

  Ted was tapping away on his iPad, almost as if he was ignoring his wife’s question. “Yes, I believe so, if my theory is correct,” he said without looking up. Finally, after a minute of silent scrutiny of his screen, Ted looked at his wife. “Um, sorry. I just had a thought. I wondered where the trade winds would blow the discharge from the Iceland and Mount Etna volcanoes.” He swung his tablet around to show TJ. “This is a picture of the ash cloud over eleven days during the 2010 eruption, and remember this was just from the one volcano, from Iceland.”

  “That’s all of Europe,” her eyes followed the progressive lines of the ash cloud. “...half of Asia, and part of the US.”

  “And again, that’s just one volcano...”

  “The Canaries look like they may be in the covered area. Did you check to see if there were any reports in La Palma?”

  “There was nothing as of a few minutes ago.” Ted rose from the couch and stretched. They’d been sitting the entire time. “I need to take a bathroom break and I think I hear our room steward. I’ll drop our dishes outside for him.”

  “Cool, do you mind if I do some searching?” TJ pulled the iPad onto her lap. “And see if you can get him to bring us some more beer.”

  “Sure, on both.” Ted gathered up the tray of dishes and their two empties. He padded to the door, balancing the tray in one hand and opening the heavy door with the other. A whoosh of wind whined through the cabin. It was a wind-tunnel blaring from their back slider—they’d cracked it open a few minutes earlier to get some air movement—through the open front door. Ted let the door close with a deep thump, forgetting for a panicked moment whether he had his key on him. Then he remembered it was in his back pocket.

  He looked in both directions and didn’t see Jaga’s cart of supplies, so he leaned over and set the tray down by the door. He’d call room service for the beers and ask that they pick it up. His head snapped to his right toward a rapid motion, and he froze, still holding the tray.

  “Hey there,” he said to what he at first thought might be a very large rat, and then he realized it was a ferret. He figured someone must have brought it on board and it got free.

  He froze.

  The ferret didn’t move, and just gazed at him with blood-red eyes.

  Ted was still bent over. His face and neck were completely exposed to this animal, if it attacked. His heart beat a countdown to what he thought would be the ferret’s eventual strike.

  Ted’s fingers softly glided across the tray’s surface where he remembered seeing a metal fork, which he could use as a weapon. He felt his chest pound, as he remained frozen. Nothing else on him moved, other than the tips of his fingers, brushing slowly across the tray. When his hand found the fork, the ferret popped up onto its haunches and made sniffing sounds with its nose.

  Ted thought that was the signal, and he waited for it, freezing in place and bracing for imminent impact. Instead, the ferret lowered itself to the carpet and then raced past him, down the hallway. It turned right and dashed down another corridor.

  He let out a long series of puffs and lifted himself up, clutching the fork in his left hand. Then he considered the ferret’s behavior.

  He had been sure the ferret would go all honey-badger on him when he first saw the red eyes, but then he realized the animal wasn’t crazed, like the other animals. It was thinking, considering. The mad animals seemed to lack all reason: they just attacked.

  “Mr. Williams?” asked their room steward, Jaga, “can I get you something?”

  Ted was startled, completely lost in his thoughts and what he thought was going to be his violent end. “Ah, hi! No, we’re good, thanks.” He turned, slid the key into the door, and let himself inside their cabin. With a whoosh and a thunk, the door slammed behind him.

  “Thought you dropped into a black hole. Come here and look at this.” TJ pointed to the iPad. “Never mind, I’ll just tell you about it. There are still no reports about animal attacks in the Canaries, at least not recently. However, there were a rash of attacks in the 1700s. There’s a book on Google, a history of the Canaries, and it talks about one period—which by the way was days after a volcanic eruption—where, and I quote, ‘a dark period fell over the islands, where people and animals were said to have gone crazy.’ Coincidence or harbinger?”

  Ted had found his place back on the couch, while he listened to TJ’s findings. “Good find. By the way, do you know anything about the typical eye color of a ferret?”

  She looked at him like he was the one who had gone crazy, especially with what he held in his hand. “Ah, no. And what’s with the fork?”

  He glanced down and saw that he was still unconsciously clutching the damned fork he had been about to brandish at the ferret.

  He hesitated and then decided to tell her about the ferret he’d encountered when a double pulse-tone reverberated throughout the cabin.

  It felt to them like the dreaded phone call often received in the middle of the night, carrying with it the news of a family member’s illness or death. Both TJ and Ted glowered at the phone, feeling their chests leap and their stomachs turn over at once. It rang again, but neither of them budged.

  Being closest to the phone, TJ finally picked it up.

  “Hello?” she answered, her face steely and serious. “Oh hello, Jean Pierre,” she said, now much friendlier.

  She nodded, looking down at the desk, where the phone was located. “Ted too?” She looked over to him. “Both of us?” Once again, she looked away. “Okay, thank you. We’ll see you shortly.”

  20

  Taufan, the Ferret

  Taufan finally zeroed in on the source of the scent it had first gotten wind of.

  The ferret had never been outside of the three-meter by two-meter chamber its owner shared with the other roommates, so every square meter of the ship was new to it.

  Taufan didn’t understand what was going on, and certainly couldn’t comprehend why. It was a ferret, after all. It only knew that it was confused, lonely, and very hungry, all at once. These feelings were as foreign as the hectares of ship it’d already explored. Until today, it’d only experienced its little belly being filled when it wanted food, and the love of its owner and its owner’s roommates.

  Now it had felt the pain of hunger all day long and was unable to find any food. Twice, it thought it had a chance of getting fed. Earlier, a big man tried to feed it, but a larger animal chased it away. And then a man looked like he might offer it something on a tray, but then Taufan smelled something far more appetizing.

  A crew member had left a restricted doorway open. And through that doorway, down a stairwell,
is where it caught wind of the glorious smells of fish. Lots of fish, along with other foreign but equally tasty aromas. Taufan wasn’t finicky. It only knew the taste of fish, and it was so hungry right now. Even the humans it raced by looked like food, though it had never thought of its owner and his roommates as food before. It was then that Taufan became frantic. It burst into the vast main galley where all the food was being prepared for the ship’s guests.

  Because the ship was missing half of its kitchen staff, and dinner was still expected on time, many of the kitchen crew found themselves working two jobs. And amid the craziness of everyone racing around the kitchen, no one even noticed the small ferret scurrying inside and then working its way toward the aromas it’d been attracted to the whole time: the fish prep area.

  Taufan had only experienced cooked fish, from the tidbits that Jaga and his roommates would bring it each day from their own dinners. Jaga was a fish fan himself and therefore so was Taufan. But the smell of fresh salmon was almost too much for the starving ferret. Like a guided missile, Taufan rocketed as fast as its little legs would accelerate it to its target, working its way around all impediments with ease.

  It hopped onto a bucket beside a haphazardly abandoned cleaning cart and followed the makeshift staircase up the cart and onto a counter, bringing it belly-level with the kitchen crew. It remained unnoticed.

  Without pausing, it scurried up several pots to a long shelving unit that stretched across the many stainless-steel food prep areas, almost the entire length of the kitchen. At the end of this shelf was the fish prep area.

  The kitchen crew took great pride in making sure that they followed rigorous safety procedures for handling food. That way there was no chance of contaminations, which could lead to infections or outbreaks. But with the short staff of this cruise, including the loss of their safety officer (who never made it back from Malaga), mistakes were being made. Those mistakes were like dominoes, which started a cascading effect of failures that not only allowed a ferret to find its prize, but something much worse.

  A bucket of dirty water, left by one of the short-handed cleaning crew who had to run to clean up a mess in the auxiliary galley, was precariously perched on the edge of the same shelf that Taufan was scampering over. This type of infraction was absolutely unheard of on cruise ships, especially those run by Regal European. During normal times, food would be discarded immediately if there was any chance that it touched the same place this bucket did. Again, these weren’t normal times.

  At the moment Taufan brushed past the bucket, which was partially blocking his route, a large ocean swell caused the ship to roll in the same direction, and the bucket started a long tumble to the floor. One-third of the way down, it hit another cart, also carelessly parked below. Because of the surge, this cart had also started to roll toward the opposite side of the main kitchen walkway and the produce prep area. The bucket struck in such a way that most of the blackish water—a disgusting combination of old fish parts, slop from the floor, and other sludgy unmentionables, all ripe with bacteria—splashed outward toward the table of leafy greens.

  Just before this, Samuel Yusif from Somalia, standing behind one of the prep tables, carefully adjusted his yellow scarf, earned from his two earlier contracts. He scanned his area for the green tub he absolutely needed for his next step. It was gone. He had already chopped up everything that would need to go into the special tub, which would be used to transport the greens to an area occupied by other yellow scarves to prepare that evening’s salads. Normally, the tub was brought back to him by another crew member, usually one of the green scarves. But several of the greens hadn’t made it on board in Malaga. He hmphed under his breath, knowing he’d have to find the darn tub himself.

  Leaving his area, Samuel barely acknowledged the sound of the crashing bucket behind him; he had just spotted one of his missing tubs and was focused on grabbing that and getting rid of his greens before his supervisor yelled at him for taking too long. As Samuel grabbed the tub, the falling bucket splashed its blackish contaminated water all over his freshly chopped lettuce, and then bounced unnoticed under his prep table.

  When Samuel returned and scooped his chopped greens into the tub, he never even noticed the little specks of food particles and dirt that peppered his lettuce. The wet floor was odd, but that only sharpened his focus on not slipping and dropping his Romaine.

  He quickly walked his tub over to the salad preparers who were waiting for it. They then assembled the leafy greens with other freshly prepped ingredients into each bowl. Another yellow scarf added the freshly made croutons. Each was beautifully presented, as always. Only one of the yellow scarves noticed what looked like pepper flecks, but she didn’t think to mention it, as their new head chef was always trying new things.

  Flavio breezed in from the service elevator, turned the corner into the main kitchen aisle, and pulled his cart over to the salad prep table. Immediately, without a spoken word, the yellow scarves loaded it with the freshly prepared salads. When his cart was full, he swung it around and pushed it quickly back toward the elevator.

  As he turned the corner, directly past the smelly fish prep area, he witnessed what he thought he’d never see in a clean kitchen: an odd-sized rat was gorging himself on one of the large planks of fresh salmon. He hated rats and thought he’d already taken care of the ship’s rat problem. This pissed him off.

  He looked to his left and right and didn’t see anyone in that area. So he decided to take matters into his own hands. He was tired of this ongoing issue.

  Flavio withdrew a steak knife from his sheath; in his position, he always needed a knife, and the steak knives were versatile and plentiful. It didn’t have the balance of the throwing knives he carried back home or his Morakniv carbon knives that he kept in his cabin, but it would do.

  In the rat’s direction, he hollered, “Hey rat!”

  Taufan glanced up at the yelling human, while it frantically chewed a mouth full of delightful salmon.

  The waiter paused just a moment—knife poised to be released—as he considered this odd-looking thing: its body was longer than a normal rat and the ones he encountered yesterday. But like the others, its eyes were as red as Ukrainian rubies. The red eyes were just too much to take. That momentary pause was all the creature needed.

  Flavio let loose the knife. It had the perfect speed and arc, and it was on target. But it hit right when the long rat had jumped from the table. The knife clattered off the surface, cleaving away an additional piece of the ruined plank of salmon.

  He humphed a momentary frustration at his miss before putting his weight again into the cart. Hungry diners were waiting for their salads. Somebody else would have to kill this rat. He reached under the cart and grabbed a replacement steak knife and sheathed it. He’d have to remember to sharpen this one. He hated dull knives.

  Just before he entered the elevator, he spotted the senior assistant chef, Jon. Just the man to whom he needed to report this egregious infraction.

  “Hey, Jon.” His Romanian accent and limited English vocabulary kept him from expressing the indignities he wanted to articulate, but his mind screamed them. How could you allow a rat to even exist in this kitchen, which up to now has been pristine? How could planks of fresh salmon be left unattended? And how could you allow a galley that was so well run go to shit?

  Flavio already hated this assistant chef because he was English, just like the head chef—he really hated English food. But this was all too much to stomach.

  He had served more contracts than this fool, and from the staff captain on down, he was very well respected among his crew because of his skill and work ethic. Still, the assistant chef was his superior.

  When he had Jon’s attention, he spat out, “You have a rat eating the salmon planks, and no one is there to see it. You need to take better care of your kitchen.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply.

  As he pushed the deck 6 button, which would lead right into the MDR, he wat
ched with both disgust and a little delight as the strange-looking rat scurried around the kitchen, chased by Jon and two yellow scarves.

  21

  The Rabid Toy Poodle

  “It was a blooming rabid toy poodle, I tell you!”

  Boris sat up from his infirmary bed, cheeks rosy with agitation. “The thing is vicious. And it had red eyes, like a little devil.” He pointed to his eyes and clenched his teeth to make himself look scarier. “You’ve got to warn the captain.”

  “Settle down, Mr. Thompson. We’ll tell everyone who needs to be told. Let’s make sure you’re fine first.” Dr. Chettle turned to his nurse, and whispered the order to take Mr. Thompson’s temperature once more.

  Her last reading was 97.02, which was far below normal. He assumed that she didn’t do it right the first time. She’d never served on a ship before, and at this moment he couldn’t remember her qualifications. But she should be able to take a damned temperature. At least he thought so.

  He suspected that Boris Thompson was in fact fine, other than very superficial puncture wounds from three dog bites and a few minor abrasions from the carpet, which broke his fall. There was very little tissue damage from the punctures, which hadn’t penetrated more than a couple of millimeters of epidermis. Infection was the biggest worry. Thompson’s blood pressure was slightly elevated, but this was normal considering his current level of agitation and his weight. They’d already cleaned and bandaged him up fairly quickly. Mr. Thompson could be released once Chettle had an accurate temperature for his records.

  More concerning to Dr. Chettle was that this was the third dog bite he’d treated in the last twenty-four hours, and it was only the third day of the cruise. So he’d tell his superiors about this incident, and even include Mr. Thompson’s colorful commentary. Not because he believed in the story of a rabid toy poodle; he believed that Al was not taking care of business at the pet spa. If Al allowed a toy poodle to escape, imagine what would happen if he didn’t keep the kennel’s larger dogs contained, especially next door to the ship’s clinic?