Day Four (33 page)

Before she could stop him he joined Baci in the corridor, and accompanied him to the entrance to the lower levels. They headed down past the garbage-sorting room, and through the areas of the ship Martha dubbed the sweatshops. The metal ceilings seemed to press down on him, and the smell down here was deeper, thicker, like breathing in shit soup and diesel. The floor dropped again. Whoopsie. His stomach tried to push itself into his throat.

Down another level, around a corner, past a deserted workshop, and then on into the engine control room. It looked exactly as he expected it to. A wide desk strewn with buttons and knobs, screens on the walls, clocks, dials, charts, a plan of the ship’s underbelly. Who knew what it all meant? Not him.

Alfonso was sitting on a chair behind the desk, staring straight ahead, his mouth half-open, crusty flakes at the corner of his lips. Jesse hoped he wasn’t dehydrated.

‘You see, doctor?’ Baci said. ‘He has not moved from there.’

‘And he hasn’t spoken?’

‘No.’

‘Remember me, Alfonso?’ Jesse moved behind the desk to join him. A Ferrari badge was stuck on the display directly in front of him.

No response. Jesse took out his penlight and shone it into Alfonso’s eyes, although he’d checked there was no sign of any abnormal dilation when he’d first been brought to the medical centre. Whatever it was that was causing the catatonia, Jesse was certain it wasn’t a head injury. The ship fell again.
Christ
.

‘Careful, doctor,’ Baci said. He rode out the movement with ease, transferring his weight from foot to foot like a dancer. ‘Rough weather. Not good for us with no stabilisers.’

‘We’re in danger?’

‘If there is a rogue wave,
si
, of course.’

Thanks for that.
Jesse concentrated his attention on Alfonso. ‘I’m going to change your dressing now, Alfonso, okay?’

Alfonso didn’t flinch as Jesse carefully removed the burn pad, examined the wound without touching it – it was progressing well, and the weeping had stopped – and after riding out another of the ship’s dips, pressed a new one in place.

‘What else can we do for him, doctor?’ Baci asked.

‘That’s it.’

The ship rolled again, seemed to hang, then dropped. Jesse held onto the desk. He prayed that the pethidine would help prevent him from getting seasick, but if he stayed down here for much longer, not even a lorry-load of Dramamine would be enough. ‘Alfonso? I am leaving now.’

‘I am waiting,’ Alfonso said in a loud, clear voice.

‘Waiting for what?’

With a dying hiss, the fluorescent lights blinked out.

The Keeper of Secrets

It was spreading. The panic was spreading.

The staff had abandoned the bar next to the pool, and a cluster of passengers, male and female, were clambering over the counter, lashing out at each other, the ship’s increasingly violent rolling motion doing little to slow them down. A deckhand wheeling a trolley laden with fresh red bags clocked the chaos, shoved his trolley away from him, and ran for the nearest service entrance. A couple of passengers tried to follow, but he made it through in time and had the sense to secure the door behind him. Down on the Promenade Dreamz deck, the shops were being looted, and a guest was using the statue of a cherub to smash through the Sandman Disco’s glass doors. A small group (one of the men looked familiar) was attempting to prise open the service hatch behind the Guest Services desk. The only oasis of peace was the Dare to Dream Theatre. The doors were shut, with several darkened figures parked outside them.

Devi clicked back to the screens showing the main deck. A woman with wet hair plastered across her cheeks was waving frantically at the camera, lurching as the ship yawed to the side. There was no doubt the wind was increasing. Sudden squalls were common in the Gulf, and the rough weather had come upon them with no warning. Devi knew enough to know that without power to manoeuvre the vessel, a rogue wave could flip the boat as if it were made of matchsticks. If it got much worse, he had little doubt that the captain would order an evacuation.

If he wanted to find his prey, he didn’t have long.

He tried radioing for assistance once more. ‘Come in, control. Come in. Pran? Madan? Ram? Come in, please.’ It was an impotent gesture. He hadn’t seen his superior since their altercation last night, Madan was drinking himself to death, Ashgar was still sick, and Ram had instructed Pran to join him on the bridge. Pran said that Ram had caught a group of passengers roaming the crew area behind the stage, and the captain had ordered that the service doors be secured at all times.

He couldn’t go up to the main deck alone. He would be able to subdue four men at the most. The only choice would be to deploy the MRAD, but it was probable that he would need back-up to keep the passengers at bay while he reached the box in which it was housed.

It would be suicide.

And Devi had to prioritise. Gary Johansson had to be on the ship somewhere. He’d eluded him on the main deck yesterday, after Pran had pointed him out, but Devi was almost positive that Kelly’s assailant and the violent passenger who’d escaped the medical bay were one and the same man. He’d scoured each cabin on the lower decks last night after Pran had alerted him to the open doors, but he’d seen nothing untoward. No hands covering camera lenses, no Ladies in White. And no rapists and murderers. He’d swept the common areas twice, including the bathrooms and alcoves, and had scoped out the passengers holed up in the Dare to Dream Theatre early this morning. The set-up in there had impressed him. The area was tranquil, clean, the fug of bad air kept at a minimum thanks to frequent cleaning.

He clicked through to the lower decks again. Could Johansson have thrown himself overboard? He sat back and rubbed at his temples. It wouldn’t be long before the generators ran out of stored power. The emergency lights would be extinguished, and so would the screens.

He couldn’t stop the yawn – he’d been awake now for forty-eight hours.

Breath on his cheek. He flinched, craned his neck, saw Rogelio standing behind him. He didn’t feel any trepidation that they might be caught together – all he cared about was that he had been stupid enough to doze off; he’d lost time that he could have used to track down the monster. ‘What time is it?’

‘Devi, I have something to say to you.’

‘Wait.’ He scanned the screens again. The passengers had moved on from the bar and were now gathered in clumps next to the entrance to the indoor buffet seating area, clutching at each other as the ship rocked. The pitch was getting worse. Devi swallowed. He could not allow himself to get sick now.

Rogelio gripped the back of the chair. ‘Devi, I can help you.’

‘Help me do what?’

‘Find the man. The man you are looking for. The one who killed Kelly.’

A surge of hope. ‘You’ve seen him? You know where he is?’

‘No. But Devi, please. You must come with me to the theatre. She knows things, Devi. She can help you. I’ve spoken to her. She wants to see you. She says she knows what you want and she will give it to you.’

‘Who are you talking about, Rogelio?’

A flash of movement on the screen capturing the I-95 caught his eye. Three crew members were running along it, using the wall to steady themselves. They were wearing life jackets – had an evacuation already been ordered? No. He would have heard the alert. Perhaps they were just being cautious, pre-empting the captain’s decision.

‘She can help you, Devi. You want to find the man who killed Kelly, don’t you? She can help you.’

‘Rogelio, go to your muster station.’

‘The captain has not ordered—’

‘Just do it.’

‘I am not leaving you, Devi.’

‘Go!’

Rogelio winced.

Devi softened his voice. ‘I will join you soon. There is something I need to do first.’

‘Devi, we’ll be safe in the theatre. You have to trust me on this. And Celine can help you.’

Devi scanned the screens again. Out on the exercise deck, people were fighting to get down the stairs, presumably to get inside. Aft of the ship, water splashed up in an arc.

‘Rogelio. I will come and find you.’

‘You promise?’

‘I promise.’

Devi tried the radio again. Nothing. Then he scanned through the lower decks once more. He was zooming in on Kelly Lewis’s cabin door when the screen blipped and died. A second later the lights faded, leaving him in darkness. He removed his flashlight from his belt. The ship was really lurching now.

He stood up, intending to head to the bridge, when he saw twin lights bouncing towards him. He focused the beam of his own flashlight in their direction. Pran and Madan approached, flinching and blinking as his light caught their eyes.

‘Devi, what are you doing here?’ Pran asked. He sounded anxious, on the verge of panic.

‘Did you not hear me radioing for you?’

‘Devi . . . You have to get out of here. The crew is evacuating the ship.’

‘I didn’t hear the alert.’

A pause. ‘It . . . there was no signal. Perhaps it is broken.’

‘Have the passengers been alerted?’

‘We have to do something first,’ Madan said.

‘What?’

Madan gave him a savage grin, walked over to the back-up hard drive and fired the twin pins of his taser into it. A sputter of sparks erupted out of it as it popped and hissed.

Devi lunged for Madan. ‘What – why?’

Madan slapped his hand away. ‘We’re getting off the ship, Devi. I was ordered to do it.’ Madan did not sound inebriated. He sounded completely lucid.

‘Who ordered it?’

‘Ram, of course.’

The rage came. ‘You cannot destroy the equipment, Madan – it is a criminal offence! And there is proof on there that a crime has been committed.’

‘The crew are leaving the vessel, Devi. I told you I had to get off the ship. I thought you understood. Without power it won’t survive this storm. It could go down at any moment.’

And then he understood. ‘You are not planning on evacuating the passengers. You’re planning on just leaving.’ And if the ship survived the storm and was eventually recovered, they didn’t want proof of what they had done lying around.

‘You have seen the passengers. You have seen how they are behaving. We could not possibly organise them in time—’

‘You can’t do this, Madan. You can’t leave these people.’ He looked to Pran, but the boy had turned his head away.

‘The passengers can leave if they want to. They know where the lifeboats are.’

‘But they don’t know how to operate them!’

‘There is nothing we can do. Come with us, Devi.’

‘You cannot leave these people on the ship!’

‘The people are shit, Devi. They treat us like rubbish, what do you care?’

‘I will not let you go.’ Devi placed a hand on the stun gun at his side. ‘You cannot do this.’

‘Devi. Don’t do this, man.’

Now Devi couldn’t see Pran anywhere. The boy must have fled.

‘I am sorry, Devi,’ a voice said from behind him. Ram’s voice. With no warning, Devi’s muscles seized, agony sizzling and fizzing through his nerve-endings. Unable to control his body, he dropped, hitting his head on the hard floor, panic shooting sparks through his skull. And then, he knew. He knew what had happened: Ram had tasered him. His flashlight rolled away across the floor as the ship tilted.

‘I am sorry, Devi,’ someone said – he could no longer tell if it was Ram or Madan.

Devi tried to move; desperately, he fought to speak.
Don’t do this, I have something I need to do
. And then—

The Wildcard Blog

Fearlessly fighting the fraudulent so that you don’t have to

Jan 03

Predator’s group is growing. So far only met 2 or 3 people who have been to one of her shows and haven’t been taken in by her bullshit. Even Emma and Donna from the singles group are convinced their dead friend Kelly spoke to them ‘through Celine’. They said the usual, that Celine knew stuff she couldn’t have known. Got them to break it down fact by fact, none of which were that specific, or anything Celine couldn’t have picked up from ship gossip.

People are flocking to the theatre because it’s clean and they’re being fed and no one is freaking the fuck out. Pure cultish behaviour: make new arrivals feel special.

Unsure how Celine is influencing the rest of the ship. Auto suggestion? Must be. It’s that or a hysterical reaction to a stressful situation, hallucinations caused by electrical impulses, low frequency sound or suggestibility. Even Maddie, who knows for a fact that Celine is a fake, has been seeing things. (NOTE TO SELF: If we ever get out of here, must check up on Celine’s magical negro spirit guide. Figures she’d have one. Forgot his name – Papa Norris??) Maddie says she heard a humming sound before she hallucinated. Manifestation of The Hum on the ship?