Sea Sick: A Horror Novel (6 page)

The man shrugged away from Jack’s touch, his movements erratic and aggressive.

“Hey, calm down.  I’m just trying to help.”

The man swung his arm around in a wild arc, swiping his pint of beer across the bar and onto the floor.  The man glared at Jack and his eyes suddenly began to leak dark fluid down his cheeks.  He snarled like an animal.

Everything came back to Jack at once, like bullets lodged in his brain.  He’d been here before.  Not exactly like this, but he’d lived this day before.  He remembered the attacks;
the crazed passengers ripping each other apart like cavemen as they bled from their eye sockets.  He remembered with pixel-clear clarity.

Everybody was
dead.

“Oops, looks like someone’s drunk too much over there,” said the comedian from the stage.  “Don’t worry, mate.  Rehab is for quitters anyway.  Give my regards to the floor.”

Jack put his palms out to the
sick man and tried to calm him down.  “Snap out of it!”

The man rushed forward.  Jack sidestepped and kicked out his leg.  The man hit the floor in a heap.

For a second, the sound of laughter flittered across the gathered audience as the comedian made another joke at the sick man’s expense, but then Jack’s ears picked up a scream.  He examined the room, trying to seek out its source.  He wasn’t surprised by what he saw. 

Conner stood amongst the crowd, lashing out at a nearby woman.  Thick pools of blood seeped from his eye sockets.

The sick man that Jack had tripped had
started to climb up off the floor.  Jack kicked the arms out from under him and sent him sprawling back down onto his face.  Conner was still attacking the woman in the crowd, oblivious to the bystanders fighting to pull him off.  Jack knew he needed to get out of there, right now.  Things were about to get worse – he remembered.

Jack ran.

As twisted, confusing memories came back to Jack, the layout of the ship became familiar.  He now knew that the corridor leading away from
High Spirits
would take him down some stairs to the
Lido Restaurant
.  Claire would be in there along with some other people.  There was no way he should be able to know that, but he did.  He knew it for sure.

As Jack fled further down the corridor and eventually down the stairs, he discovered he was right.  Set into the wall were the double doors of the
Lido Restaurant
.  He skidded to a stop and waited outside, wondering whether or not he should go inside.  Things inside the restaurant hadn’t turned out so well for him last night –
or tonight?
I’m living the goddamn same day all over again.

Or had he dreamt it all?  Was it all just some freaky premonition, or was he actually repeating the day?
The more he thought about it, the closer to insanity he verged.  Neither answer was comforting.  He made a decision and barged through into the restaurant.

The same people were in there from before.  They were not yet fully riled-up as the commotion in
High Spirit
had only just begun, but they were beginning to look anxious.  Jack didn’t waste time speaking to any of them. He immediately turned the latch on the frosted-glass doors.  Then he dragged the nearest table over and placed it as a barricade.

“What are you doing?” asked the burly chef he’d met before and yet, at the same time, hadn’t.

“We need to make sure this door stays closed,” Jack explained. “There’s been an outbreak.”

The assembled group
panicked, but it wasn’t enough to stop them standing around uselessly.  Jack remembered how the people had previously refused to help him when he needed their assistance.

“Claire!”  He shouted out at the crowd, not seeing her but knowing she was there somewhere.

The group parted and she came to the front.  “You’re that guy from earlier?”

“Yes, I am.  I’m a police officer and I need your help.  We need to get every table we can in front of this door.  We’ve got about ten minutes before people start trying to smash their way in.”

“What people?” the chef asked, looking at Jack like he was a madman.

“The infected passengers.  Whatever is wrong with them has made them psychotic.”

“You’re the one’s that’s psychotic,” said Claire.  Jack was surprised at her opposition.  “You were acting like a weirdo earlier as well.  Going on about déjà vu and knowing Conner’s name without him even telling you.”

“Yeah,” said the chef.  “I think you need to sit down, sir, while we get security.  Whatever is going on out there may just as well have been
your
doing.”

The chef moved towards the doorway and Jack stepped in his way.  Jack was the smaller of the two men, but he knew he could easily take the other guy down.  Still, he would prefer to avoid any fighting if possible.  He was trying to help these people, whether they deserved it or not.  Something bad was coming their way.

“Step away from me,” Jack told the chef calmly yet firmly.“If we don’t get this door secured, people are going to get hurt.”

“Is that a threat?”  The chef was inching closer, his body language clearly hostile.

Jack sighed and put his hands up in supplication.  “No, it’s not a threat.  Just please trust me, okay?”

“Sorry, I can’t do that, sir.  Please move aside.”

Jack kept eye-contact with the man and said, “No.”

The chef made a grab
at Jack, but was
quickly surprised to find himself being
twisted into an armlock.  He hissed with pain.  “Let go of me!”

“I can’t do that,” said Jack.“I need that door barricaded, right now.  Claire?  Start dragging tables over here.  Anyone that fancies being useful should help her.”

Claire huffed, but did as she was asked.  Together with an elderly couple that Jack recognised as the lovers from the pool balcony, she started sliding a table across the floor.  It was unbelievable that the rest of the group were still standing around and doing nothing.

When Claire and the old couple reached the doorway, they placed the table down in front of it – but they did so several feet short.

“You need to get it right up against the door,” said Jack.

Claire stared at him and he saw the distrust in her eyes.  Her intention wasn’t to help him.  She had other ideas.

Jack shook his head at her, still restraining the chef by twisting the man’s wrist behind his back in a basic hammerlock.  “Claire, don’t!”

His pleas went ignored.  Claire unlatched the doors and pushed aside the table, tipping it over.  Then she opened both doors wide.

One of the eyebleeders spotted her and ran towards her.  He leapt straight for her, grabbing her in an embrace and tearing at her throat with his teeth.  The two of them fell to the ground in a heap.
Claire’s body was
already limp and dying as a thick torrent of blood exploded from her jugular.  More eyebleeders flowed in through the doorway.  The elderly lovers were the next to go down.

The old man stood in front of his wife, meaning to protect her, but his defiance was made weak as the flesh of his cheek was torn free by the teeth of a crazed stranger.  Both
of
the old man and his wife were dead within minutes, ripped apart like two leathery fillet steaks.  The eyebleeders moved on to other victims. 

Jack had backed away to the far side of the room.  His instincts urged him to help these people, but he didn’t know enough about the situation to risk taking action.  He’d already
tried to protect everybody in the room, but they’d turned against him.  They weren’t his responsibility.

Screw them.

Jack looked around the room and tried to find a way out.  The main entrance was blocked by a throng of thrashing bodies, but
the space behind the buffet train looked like it led to a staff area.  There was no telling what was behind the door, but it was his only viable option.  Jack sprinted across the restaurant, barging and flipping any bodies that dared get in his way.  He managed to reach the staff area in one piece.

There was a kitchen inside, simple and confined. There were no exits or ways out of the area other than where he’d come in.  If the eyebleeders found him inside, he would have nowhere to run and
his only option would be to stand and fight them.  He’d cornered himself.

Jack began to ransack the room, looking for a makeshift weapon.
He yanked out drawers and pulled open cupboards, but found only crocks and useless cutlery.  Just when frustration and despair started setting in, his eyes fell upon what he was looking for.  In the centre of the room was an island, and hanging above it was a selection of industrial knives.  Jack grabbed the largest he could find: a 12-inch French chef’s knife.  It felt good in his hand.  Heavy.

Jack crouched in the centre of the room, eying the doorway.  He was aware of his own breathing and tried to slow it down to keep from panicking.  Infected or not, the attackers outside were just people; and he’d spent most his life dealing with people.  This was nothing he couldn’t handle.

Just an ordinary day.

Jack hardly noticed the screaming anymore – the sound was quickly becoming commonplace – but he did notice
when it started to die down.  The sound of silence
took hold and suddenly there was
a
sense of foreboding in the air
.
Jack waited for something to happen.

The silence continued. 

Eventually his curiosity got the better of him. He crept towards the door, knife held out in front of him in a standard, right-handed combat stance.  It wouldn’t be the first time Jack was prepared to kill somebody.

He reached the door and stopped still, listening for anyone that may have been standing on the other side.
The first person to attack him would get the knife in their groin. But there were no blood channels in the blade,
it would probably get stuck.  If that happened, he would have to defend himself against anyone else with his fists.

Here we go.

Jack placed his hand against the door and pushed it open gradually.  When it was several inches ajar, he peered out through the gap.  The narrow view he had of the room was empty.  The table
s
and chairs of the dining area lay undisturbed.  It seemed safe.  Deserted.

Jack edged himself through the gap in the door, keeping the knife in front of him.  The room was covered in blood and bits of flesh; there was even a severed hand lying on one of the buffet carts.  But no bodies.  Further into the dining area, several tables and chairs were tipped over and the pools of blood were thicker – thick enough that those who shed it must certainly have been dead.  But still there were no bodies.

What the hell?  Where is everybody?

Jack bent at the knees and tensed himself, ready to react to the first sign of danger.  Yet there seemed to be none.  All was quiet.  Almost serene.
Was it possible that the situation had been dealt with?  Jack didn’t know what sort of security a cruise liner employed, but it had to be somewhat competent with so many passengers to protect.  A brief flash of memory reminded Jack of what had happened the last time – the first time he’d been through this madness.  He suddenly recalled the efforts of security to control things in the
High Spirits
lounge.  They had failed miserably then, so why would they succeed now?  Jack had little faith that the danger was over.  It just wasn’t here in the room with him.

The double doors of the restaurant were closed, blood and dirty handprints smeared all over the frosted glass.  Jack wondered whether he should go through them.  The restaurant was now empty and possibly safe.  But staying there and cowering went against everything he stood for.  He was a protector, a man of action, not a coward.
Jack opened the doors and entered the corridor outside.

There was more blood, over everything.  The whole hallway seemed like the scene from a horror-movie massacre.  Jack headed forward, away from
High Spirits
and the
Lido Restaurant,
and towards
the Sport Deck at the front of the ship.
He passed by the upper level of the Broadway Lounge, with its balconied seats looking down at an empty theatre stage.  There was less blood in here, but it was still deserted like everywhere else.  Jack’s stomach was churning, his senses telling him to just get the hell out of there.  It was the first time in his life that his body was choosing to flee rather than fight.

But flee from what?  What the hell is wrong with everyone and where have they all gone?

Outside of the Broadway lounge was a short hallway with staircases on either side.  He knew it led to an area outside with tennis courts and a 5-v-5 football pitch
inside a Perspex enclosure.  Technically, Jack had never been there before and should not know a thing about it, but he remembered it from the…dream he’d had last night – or whatever it had been.  The first time he’d lived through this day, he had explored the ship, and now he remembered.  If that had actually happened in reality, rather than his imagination, then the Sports Deck would be exactly as he expected it to be.

Jack stepped outside and was immediately horrified.  The Sports Deck was laid out exactly as he knew it would be: two tennis courts, a basketball D, and the enclosed football pitch at the back.  The tennis courts were swamped with a seething mass of bodies, bleeding and shedding flesh like waterlogged corpses.  They were all eyebleeders, hundreds of them, including staff.  The focus of their attention was the football pitch.  They clawed and bashed at it with their bloody fists, trying to get at the contents inside.  It was the contents inside that made Jack’s stomach turn.

The Perspex enclosure was filled with children and a handful of adults.  They all screamed, terrified by the hellish ghouls trying to get at them.  The enclosure’s doors were locked from the inside and, so far, the hard plastic glass was withstanding, but it would only be a matter of time until the sheer weight of bodies against it sent it crashing.  Even now, Jack could see the structure swaying to and fro as its bolted foundations began to come loose.