by ML Banner
He’d been running for the last five minutes in the vain attempt to make sure all the food and supplies were secure. Who is going to make sure that I and my fellow crew members are secure?
He’d lost track of time and wasn’t sure how much time was left, but it felt like there couldn’t be very much.
A wet blob from above him landed on his forehead with a splat.
Hugo slipped his fingers over the wetness, closing his eyes in the process, and rubbed it. It’s slimy.
His vision instantly shot upward. The ceiling lights were blotted out by red and brown... and it was panting.
It was a large German shepherd spotted in red-brown, like dried blood, as if it had been in a dogfight. The dog was shivering, and there were other dogs behind it, connected to it.
“Hey there, dogs, what you are doing in the liquor supplies... having a drink?” He smiled at his humor. Then his smile slid off his face when he remembered the staff captain’s warning to the whole crew about crazy dogs on the ship.
Hugo spider-walked backward, his butt sliding. After a little distance, he pushed himself onto his knees. He kept his eyes on the dogs the whole time and tried to remember what had been said about them. Animals were going mad on the mainland, and they were to watch out for several dogs that attacked some of his fellow crew and passengers. He couldn’t remember their breeds or how many. But when he was eye level with the shepherd, he remembered the most crucial trait. He remembered his skin crawling at the thought, just like it was now.
Their eyes were red. Red like the color of fresh blood.
~~~
“One minute, twenty seconds,” TJ called out, as she stretched out each stride like a gazelle. Ted huffed and puffed behind her, his heavy footfalls clobbering the grotesque carpeting into submission. He sounded much heavier than someone who weighed two hundred pounds.
She held up, just before their cabin. Ted stopped beside her, hands on the wall, struggling for air. Clattering sounds pulled at their attention, where their hallway T’d and connected with an outside doorway. On the threshold were two feet, wiggling, and their owner was groaning.
Ted arrived first, leaning over the elderly woman, whose walker had skidded outside across an open deck. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Oh, aren't you sweet,” she replied.
“I’ll get your walker,” said TJ, who slipped past them as Ted tried to attend to the woman.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
“Oh, mercy no. Just my pride is a little beat up, and my shins.” Her voice was all Southern belle.
“Where is your cabin, ma’am?”
“Only two floors from here. Just wanted to see the giant wave.”
Ted helped her to her feet and steadied her against the door frame. “Well, you’re going to have to stay with us until this passes. There’s not enough time to get you up two...”
Ted’s voice trailed off as he fixated on his wife, who had just unhooked the elderly woman’s walker from the railing and was gazing forward, toward the horizon. Her mouth was agape, as if her jaw no longer had the will to hold it closed. Her face tensed, her brow furrowed. He’d seen this look only two other times: when she was almost attacked by a pit bull, several years ago, and when they were almost attacked by the German shepherd, three days ago. She was terrified, and now so was he.
From the distance a deep rumble like a Cape Canaveral rocket launch tumbled through their hallway. The salt air felt motionless and heavy.
“Ted... Run!” she yelled.
Ted was already moving the elderly woman, slowly at first and then picking up speed. TJ blasted through the hatch and pulled it shut behind her. Before it clicked closed, the rumble outside had already built to a terrifying crescendo, and now the muffled roar vibrated under their feet.
TJ discarded the walker in the hall and caught up to them, grabbing the woman’s free arm. The three of them pushed themselves the last few feet: the last leg of a three-legged race.
The three-member team from Tucson and someplace South fell over the finish line of their open cabin door just as the tsunami struck.
29
The Tsunami
“Withdraw the stabilizers,” the captain stated in an almost matter-of-fact way. His eyes drilled forward. He no longer needed binoculars to see what was about to hit them.
Second Engineering Officer Niki Tesler, brought on the bridge because of Intrepid’s power problems, touched the control that immediately withdrew the two mid-ship fins. “Done.”
“We’re at twenty-one-point-five knots, sir, and rising,” declared Jean Pierre, while lowering his binoculars.
There was not much more they could do. The ship had been straightened and was headed in a perfectly perpendicular angle to the giant surge. All power from the ship’s four engines pushed the ship’s two screws to their limits. They hoped to coax them up to twenty-five knots, which was well past the ship’s rated maximum. If they could only gather enough speed, they might be all right. Might.
Only minutes before, they had regained helm controls after Buzz found and corrected the electrical outage problem: some odd wiring problem with the alternators. And it was deliberate. But learning who the perpetrator was and what their criminal intentions were would have to wait for after. If there was an after.
The important thing was that they had control. And for the next few seconds, they could steer the ship precisely. That was, until the moment the wave reached them. Then their fate was in the hands of the sea and God.
That moment was now.
It took only milliseconds for the one-hundred-fifty-eight-foot wall of water to travel from bow to stern, but like an old reel-to-reel film, the individual images of this movie flashed by each actor one by one, as if slowed down to the speed of a slide presentation.
The captain glanced at their speed. He blinked once at the odd number.
“-190.2.”
The controls were supposed to be reading the ship’s speed compared to the water around them. Now it read the leading edge of the currents generated from the wave.
Jean Pierre blinked at the sea and sky becoming one, as if some leviathan of unfathomable size—too large to even see—had appeared from the depths and swallowed all in its path.
Their bow. Eaten.
Followed by their open forecastle. Gone.
Urban squinted at the bridge windows. He wanted to ask if they’d handle the force of the impact. Even if he had the time to ask the question, it would have been pointless: none of these officers, not even the captain, had ever experienced this before. Urban’s vocal cords and oral cavity got as far as forming “W—” before the rumbling monster ate the bridge too.
Jessica flashed an image of her ten-year-old son, who was waiting for her with her husband back home in Iceland, after her contract was up in two months.
Niki reflexively shut her eyes, in anticipation of the water’s impact.
It was so quick, none of them could even register its breaching the farthest port-side window of the bridge, left unlatched earlier by Urban when he didn’t believe the frigid outside temperature reading, wanting to test it himself.
The immense pressure from the unstoppable surge buckled the window, cracked its hinged panel, and then broke free, shot inward along with thousands of gallons of salt water through a one-foot by three-foot opening. It stormed through the captain’s ready room, destroying everything in its path, including the captain’s favorite Uffda coffee mug. The to-scale model of the Intrepid broke free from its glass case, and rode the wave. With nowhere else to go, the water was diverted inward, a mini tidal wave that rocketed through the bridge, catching each of the officers mid-gape and sending them to the floor to scramble for traction.
And then it was all over.
Had this enormous swell hit land, its immeasurable power would have leveled anything standing in its way. Every structure would have been scrubbed away, without exception. But Regal European’s Intrepid, just like a surfer diving into the
full force of an oncoming curl, pierced the towering crush and came out the other side mostly whole.
The damage was still substantial.
The monster took with it all the ship’s antennas and satellite dishes, disconnecting it from the rest of the world.
The single smokestack listed backward, like a giant scab about to come off, barely covering an open wound, which now bled its black exhaust from its exposed base.
Two of the three zip lines were torn from their moorings; their steel cables had been cast forward, driving their bulky connectors, with whip-like precision, through the pool area’s glass windows and walls at nearly the speed of sound.
Her decks had been scoured of the few remaining tables, chairs and loungers left top-side, gobbled up like the leftovers from a Thanksgiving meal—the deck crew had stowed away the rest.
It was miraculous that there were only a few fatalities, and much of the credit was rightly given to the assistant safety officer’s efforts to button up the ship. But it would take a day to do a head count before they knew the final number.
The fatalities seemed odd at first, but were clear upon closer examination: the occupants of two forward cabins failed to close their outside balcony sliders.
In one of the deluged cabins, the newlywed occupants had been too busy with their lovemaking to bother heeding the ship’s multiple warnings. During one breathless moment, the new bride said, “What’s that rumble?” To which her spouse quipped something about the power of his loins, but was interrupted by a large portion of the Atlantic crashing through their cabin. At least they’d drowned in each other's arms.
The other cabin, just starboard of the bridge, on deck 8, and therefore partially protected, sustained only minor water damage from a slider being left ajar. Its occupants were already under investigation by the FBI, but their whereabouts were unknown and no crew had been inside the cabin for the last two days.
Not until the next day would the horror of what was behind the door of cabin #8500 be seen and understood.
30
After Effects
The announcement blared through the ship’s loudspeakers—at least those which were still functioning.
“Attention crew and guests. This is Staff Captain Jean Pierre.” His Belgian accent was thicker than normal.
“The tsunami struck, but your ship, the Intrepid, fared quite well. Now you’ll have something exciting to tell your grandchildren: the wave that hit us was almost fifty meters high, or over one hundred fifty feet.
“Although there was some damage, what concerns us most are your injuries. For everyone’s safety, please stay in your rooms until further notice. All restaurants and guest areas are closed until we’ve had a chance to check on every passenger, and then assess the damage.
“If you have minor injuries and you can walk, please go directly to the Wayfarer Lounge on deck 6 and our medical staff will treat your cuts and bruises.
“If your injuries are more serious, please report these immediately from your cabin phone. Just dial zero. To assist us, please do not use your cabin phone for any other purpose. We have limited staff to attend to your calls. So again, please use the cabin phones only for extreme emergencies.
“Additionally, our crew will be making a room-by-room check to make sure everyone in your cabin is safe and uninjured. To assist us, if you’re not going to the Wayfarer Lounge, please prop your cabin door open with one of your life preservers. That way, we’ll know you’re in your cabin. We will check on all the open cabins first.
“If your room is damaged and you feel you cannot stay there, you are also welcome to come to the Wayfarer Lounge on deck 6. Our crew will ask you about the damage to your room, and either schedule immediate repairs or get you placed into another room.
“For everyone else, please remain in your cabin until the morning, again with your cabin door propped open. There will be an announcement first thing tomorrow morning.
“Thank you!”
~~~
Right after the wave had passed, Al, the pet spa director, got a call from Hugo: his dogs had been found shivering in the giant refrigerated storage room that held the ship’s liquor. He rushed over to find all the dogs, calm but confused. He carried each of them individually to the pet spa, mostly because they wouldn’t respond to his commands, and some had sustained injuries. He breathed a hearty sigh of relief when he had them all behind their doors.
Two of them were pretty badly injured and had lost a fair amount of blood. He bandaged both and for one, he had to set up an IV. All the dogs were now heavily sedated. He was taking no further chances with their escaping or attacking one another.
Strangely, even though they had been exhibiting the aggressive signs of rabies earlier, none of the animals was aggressive now. If it was some strain of rabies, they’d still have been aggressive. Stranger still was their eyes.
Each of the dogs’ irises appeared crimson-colored, like the blood vessels had exploded. He had only heard of this affliction in albinos, who have extremely low quantities of melanin, and cursed his computer because he couldn’t connect to the ship’s Internet to research it further. He was sure that it was related to their rabies-like behavior, which now appeared gone. The other odd symptoms could be explained away.
Before being sedated, each dog was confused. That symptom could be a result of the stress each had experienced, as could the labored breathing. Each dog, although sedated and unconscious, was breathing heavier than normal, as if its metabolism was working overtime.
His original theory that each had come down with some sort of virus was knocked out when his initial tests indicated their body temperatures were below normal. Without a fever, his virus-borne disease theory had to be thrown out.
Al opened a document and started typing up the details. Without access to the ship’s intranet, he couldn’t open a new incident report, which he’d eventually be required to fill out for corporate to explain what had happened, not that he could state that with any clarity or certainty at this point.
As he typed out a chronology of events, he was coming to believe that whatever aggressive tendencies had affected the dogs must have passed, in spite of the eyes and the confusion.
He wiped the sweat from his head with a towel. The air wasn’t working—probably related to the tsunami—and it was starting to get hot in the pet spa.
Propping open the front door provided instant relief. Somewhere on the ship, there were windows and doors open to the outside, and this air was immediately cooling off deck 1. Lucky for him and everyone on board, the outside temperatures were cool enough that it did the job of their nonfunctional air conditioner systems.
When his radio called to him, he realized that he forgot to update the bridge regarding the dogs. They had asked him for updates on the hour.
He stepped back into the spa and snatched the unit from the charging stand. “This is the pet spa director. Hello, Staff Captain.”
Jean Pierre’s voice poured out in a fury. “Report on the dogs. We understand you have them. What’s their status?”
“I am very sorry for not reporting sooner, sir. All dogs are sedated and stable in their rooms. Sir, I believe the trouble has passed. They are no longer showing aggressive behavior. When I retrieved them a couple of hours ago, they were confused, but certainly not aggressive. I believe the incidence of aggression is only temporary. I am typing all of this up in detail, but I cannot file an incident report because there is no connection with the ship’s intranet.”
“That’s great news on the dogs, and better news on the Rage Virus.”
“Rage Virus, sir?”
“That’s what the news is calling it.”
“I don’t believe it’s a virus, sir.”
“Regardless, can I report to the captain that the danger is over?”
“I believe so.”
“Thanks, Second Officer. Staff Captain out.”
~~~
“Glenda Biggins, 82,” as she announced proudly in
their introductions, would not entertain having the medical crew look at her injuries, which she said were so minor, they didn’t warrant anyone wasting any more time over one foolish old woman.
After having thrown the kindly Southerner into their room just as the wave hit, Ted and TJ stayed with her until the announcement, minutes later.
She preferred to go back to her cabin and wait for the crew to come by and check on her. She did not want to trouble them any longer. Ted and TJ escorted the slight woman back to her cabin and said their goodbyes. She thanked them profusely for saving her life and invited them to come visit her at her home on the beach in South Carolina. Again, she apologized for her silly exercise of attempting to gawk at the huge wave.
Ted didn’t have the heart to tell the woman that her home on the coast of South Carolina was probably already gone, or at least severely damaged, one of the millions of tsunami casualties. He wasn’t sure TJ had considered this, either. That was fodder for another day.
On their way back to their cabin, they came across one person after another who needed some sort of medical help. Surprisingly, none of the injuries were bad: only cuts and bruises. But there were quite a few people who appeared in some state of shock. Some couldn’t remember their names and where they were, and some were almost completely non-responsive to Ted or TJ’s questions or to those of the crew.
Each injured or confused person was escorted to the Wayfarer Lounge to be attended to by the ship’s crew.
