Day Four (42 page)

And where was he?

MG
: He was standing in the doorway of what had to be the bedroom, staring down at something. I touched his shoulder and he screamed. I told him once again that we had to get the hell out of there, and this time he listened to me and headed for the stairs.

What was it that he was looking at?

MG
: The room was empty but for a mattress with a lumpy duvet piled on top of it. Look, I can’t be sure or anything, but it was possible that there was something . . . God, someone – okay? – under there. All I know is that the window frame was black with dead flies.

Did you investigate further?

MG
: No way. Do I look insane? No. I got the hell out of there. Can I get some water, please? My throat is aching.

[Interview suspended]

>>Fall, Helen/ Interview #3/ Page 2

It was Althea who came to find me. She was kind, I’ll give her that. The whole time we were on that ship, she was kind to me and Elise. She said Celine wanted to see me. She said Celine was waiting for me in the spa.

Did you go and meet Ms del Ray, Ms Fall?

HF
: Yes. I was reluctant to leave Elise. Probably you’re thinking I’m some dotty old woman, but even though I knew she was gone, that there was nothing else I could do for her, I didn’t want to leave her. But I did.

I was curious. I suppose I wanted to hear what Celine wanted to say to me.

I wasn’t shocked at the damage inside the ship. I’d been expecting it. And as for the spa, do you know, Elise and I hadn’t even been in there the whole time we were on the ship. It was relatively untouched. Smashed bottles, which made the whole place stink like a prostitute’s boudoir, and it had clearly been looted, but it was quiet.

She was waiting for me in the hair salon. Sitting in her wheelchair, flicking through a magazine – yes, really! – as if she was a client waiting for her stylist.

She greeted me like an old friend. It was . . . it was . . . and I don’t like to use this word . . . but there is no other. Surreal. Two old women at the beauty salon or the hairdresser’s, swapping small talk.

Please continue.

HF
: She thanked me for coming. I asked her why she wanted to see me. She said she’d taken a shine to me. That I had proven myself to her. She said . . . I do have an excellent memory, but . . . hold on. Yes. She said, ‘It gets dull after a while. Going round and round and round again. Far better to be a puppet master than a puppet. Tearing down worlds then building them up again. Setting wheels in motion to see where and how they’d roll.’

She went on like this, talking clichéd nonsense, for quite a while. It was all rather annoying, if you want the truth.

Do you know what she meant by that?

HF
: I assumed she was talking about her parlour tricks.

>>Smith, Xavier L/ Interview #3/ Page 2

and then there are those medical tests you did. Have you tested us for drugs? Hallucinogenics?

Mr Smith, to confirm, you state that you never returned to your house?

XS
: I never went back to my house! Ask my fucking neighbours.

I was never off the fucking ship.

The captain and crew ditched us, people panicked and fled, only to lose their lives in the storm. And the rest of us . . . Celine convinced us that we were experiencing something we could never have experienced.

[Subject is shown the e-reader that Madeleine Gardner states she collected from his residence]

Can you please explain what this is, Mr Smith?

XS
: It’s a Kobo. You can read books on it. It’s like a Kindle, only more ethical.

Mr Smith, would you mind reading the content list from it? Just the first page.

XS
: Yes, I would mind.

[Subject is shown the list of books stored on the device purportedly taken from his apartment:
From Crash to Conspiracy
by Elspeth Martins,
Beyond Black Thursday
by Carter Edwards,
The Truth About Black Thursday
by Ace Kelso, and
Dangerous Belief
by Michael Shermer.

NOTE: It has been ascertained without a doubt that the authors of the books named have not written or published this material]

XS
: I’ve never seen those before.

[Subject refuses to comment further]

[Interview suspended]

>>Gardner, Madeleine/ Interview #4/ Page 7

drag him back to the boat. By now I was absolutely exhausted. Xavier kept saying ‘it isn’t happening, it isn’t happening’. I didn’t bother to argue with him. My back was sore, I was dying of thirst.
The Beautiful Dreamer
had drifted further out, and I remember this weird panic that we wouldn’t be able to get back on it. After what we’d been through on it! . . . God . . .

Devi was the next one to arrive. He’d been at the cordon, the place that I said looked like some kind of military blockade. He said he’d tried the radio and they had satellite phones and all sorts of equipment, but there was nothing. No signal.

None of us said the obvious. That this damage couldn’t have taken place over five days. The damage we’d seen would have taken months.

The doctor came back alone.

[Subject requests a ten-minute recess]

[Interview suspended]

>>Trazona, Althea/ Interview #4/ Page 2

she told the old woman that she could have her husband back. That there were ways. That she could have everything she wanted. That someone like Helen could learn to do what Mrs del Ray did. We all could. It was hard to make sense of what she was saying. For example, I heard her say that we could all learn to come back again and again in a vessel of our own choosing. It sounded like religious nonsense to me.

How did Ms Fall respond?

AT
: She was staring at Mrs del Ray as if she was mad. Perhaps she was. Or is. I liked Helen and Elise. Very good guests. Clean. Quiet. I was sorry that Elise died. Then Mrs del Ray said I could leave them alone. So I did.

Where did you go?

AT
: I went out onto the main deck. People were clearing up the area. Most of them were helping with the work, but Mr and Mrs Lineman, who were guests on my station, were sitting by themselves at a table next to the Lido bar. Mrs Lineman called my name and asked me to go to their cabin and collect Mr Lineman’s medication.

How did you respond?

AT
: I was tempted to tell them to go and fuck themselves, but they looked so lost that I agreed. They had been punished enough. Mr Lineman had broken his arm, and she was very pale and tears were running down her face. On my way to their cabin, I met Rogelio, one of my paisanos. He was very worried about a friend of his, the security guard who had gone with the others to the mainland. I could see he wanted to talk. I let him.

He knew I’d found the body of the dead girl.

Kelly Lewis?

AT
: Yes. Rogelio told me that the man who had murdered her was locked in the morgue. He said that Devi, the security guard, wanted him to stay in there as punishment for what he’d done.

How did you feel about this?

AT
: I didn’t know the man. Rogelio said he was worried about Devi and how he would feel if the man died in there. He said Devi was sensitive and might blame himself and regret it, even though the man was a rapist.

I suggested that we should go and see if the man was still alive.

We went down to the morgue, and Rogelio banged on the door to see if there was an answer.

And was there?

AT
: Yes. A soft tap. Weak. I didn’t hear the man cry out or anything like that, but it sounded like he was still alive.

Then what did you do?

AT
: I told Rogelio to wait for me there and then went to ask Mrs del Ray what we should do with him. If we should leave him in there, or let him out.

What did she say?

AT
: She said it was Rogelio’s choice if we wanted someone like that to join them.

Did you question what she meant by that?

AT
: No.

Rogelio and I had a long discussion about what to do. Devi had given Rogelio his taser gun, and he held it in front of him while I opened the hatch. The smell! I thought I was going to vomit. The man had messed himself and he was moaning and sweating and talking all sorts of nonsense. He tried to climb out, and then Rogelio shot him.

The man jerked like a puppet, and then he seemed to pass out.

Moving him out of there was hard. We had to drag him part of the way. He was heavy. But when we reached the I-95, we were able to use a gurney from the medical bay.

Where were you planning on taking him?

AT
: I knew the crew members had opened one of the loading bays. It was simple. Rogelio took his legs, and I took his arms and we carried him to the edge. He moaned, and Rogelio thought that he would have to use the taser again, but then he was quiet. We rolled him into the water.

I would like to make it clear that we weren’t planning to kill the man. He was not dead when we put him into the water. He deserved a chance to live. Everyone does. He could have woken up and swum. But I will admit we didn’t check if he did. Perhaps we didn’t want to know. We weren’t far from shore. And at least that way, Rogelio said, Devi would not be haunted by the man’s ghost and his conscience. He said that Devi would assume he had escaped and had thrown himself overboard. That way he would not blame himself.

What did you do next?

AT
: I had something I had to do. I had someone I had to find.

Who?

AT
: Trining. One of the other stewards. I thought she might still be on the ship.

Did you find her?

AT
: No. But I promised myself I would keep looking. Mrs del Ray said that he – she – was no longer on the ship, but I didn’t always trust what she said. I needed to make sure.

>>Gardner, Madeleine/ Interview #5/ Page 3

Why did you not leave Miami and go overland to attempt to see if there was life elsewhere?

MG
:
Because we were running out of air. And anyway it was obvious that there was
no
life elsewhere. That level of destruction didn’t just happen in isolation. The extent of it was . . . I’ve told you how bad it was.

How did the other passengers react when you told them what you had discovered?

MG
: Not well. And it was up to me and Devi to do the honours. The second we got back to the ship, Xavier disappeared and locked himself in Celine’s cabin. He couldn’t cope with what he’d seen. Jesse also left us. He was gutted that he’d let the nurse go off by himself and he hadn’t tried to stop him. Yeah, so Devi and I did our best, but they didn’t want to hear it. They hadn’t seen what we’d seen, so they kept insisting that we were mistaken, that it’d happened recently, while we were at sea, and that was why no one had come to rescue us. A few of them – Jacob especially – got quite angry with us. Celine just listened, an infuriating smile on her face.

What is your explanation for what you saw in Miami, Ms Gardner?

MG
: There’s only one, and it’s batshit insane. That somehow we’d arrived in . . . I don’t know. Another version of reality. One where the world had been hit by a cataclysm. One with a history that had never happened. Celine – or the ship – had taken us somewhere else.

Yeah. Trust me, I know how that sounds.

What happened next?

MG
: Celine spoke up and gave another one of her speeches. She said that we must move somewhere where we could live until the dead bodies had had time to putrefy and wouldn’t be a health hazard. And, surprise, surprise, she knew exactly where we should go.

She had it all planned to a tee.

And where was that?

MG
: Foveros’s private island. Dream Cay. We’d stopped there on the second day of the cruise. Celine – the old Celine – had got drunk at the beach bar there.

Why there?

MG
: According to Celine, very few people lived there, so body disposal wouldn’t be too arduous. It was large enough for all of us and there were plenty of food sources. There were horses and chickens everywhere. A bar styled to look like a pirate ship on the beach. Fishing. And let’s not forget the enormous Duty Free shop. If you were going to spend eternity somewhere, that would be the place. All set up for you.