Sea Sick: A Horror Novel Part 9

"His mates? None of yours?"

Claire shifted in her seat. "I don't really have many friends. I spend all my time with Conner."

"Your boyfriend?"

She nodded.

"I bet you did have friends, though? I mean, before you got with him."

Claire didn't answer, just shrugged.

"Well, listen up, Claire. You seem like a nice girl, so I'm going to give you a little bit of advice. I'm older than you, and a police officer, so I've seen it all. I've seen a lot of nice girls get isolated from their friends and family by a controlling boyfriend. It always happens gradually, so slowly that the girl doesn't even realise what is happening. My advice to you is to get away while you still can. Find your friends and tell them you're sorry. They'll forgive you. Then tell this guy to go take a hike."

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said, but there was a slither of doubt in her voice.

Jack looked her in the eye. "Am I wrong?"

Claire went silent for a while, but eventually let out a big sigh and nodded. "No, you're not wrong. He's horrible to me. Doesn't let me do anything. But I love him. He's just young and acting tough in front of his mates, you know? He'll change, I know he will."

Jack laughed but he didn't mean it to be cruel. "You know how many women have said that before you? And how many have regretted thinking it? You shouldn't have to wait for a man to treat you right. You're a nice young girl, Claire. One day you'll see the big differences between men and boys. Not all guys will treat you like Conner. You're just wasting your life with him."

The girl seemed close to tears. "But...I can't leave him."

"Yes, you can."

"No, I can't. I'm...we're..."

Jack was about to respond to Claire, but before he could, Conner appeared.

Right on schedule, Jack thought ruefully.

The lad tilted his head towards Jack and scowled. "How you doing, mate?"

"I'm good," said Jack. "Claire and I were just in the middle of a conversation."

"Oh, really? Well, the conversation's over, mate."

Jack stared at Conner, not breaking eye contact for a single second. "Why is that?"

"What you mean, why is that? Because I f.u.c.king said so."

"Can't Claire make up her own mind? Is she not allowed to have a conversation unless you allow it?"

Conner looked down at Jack as though he was a new species of ape. "You crazy or something? I'll f.u.c.k you up, mate."

"I'd very much like to see you to try."

Claire jumped up off her lounger and rushed in front of Conner. "Honey, just leave it. I don't even know the guy."

"She's right," said Jack. "She doesn't know me at all. But I know you, Conner. You're a sad, pathetic, little bully that controls women because you're so scared of them leaving you. The reason you think like that is because you're a piece of s.h.i.t and you know it. No girl would ever stay with you unless you forced her to."

Claire fought to restrain Conner who looked as though he might lift off like a rocket. She glanced back over her shoulder at Jack and shook her head at him. "I thought you were a police officer. Why are you causing trouble?"

"Police officer?" Conner grunted. "Come on, baby, let's leave this pig alone. He's messed up in the head, innit. Not worth getting arrested for."

The two teenagers headed down the stairs and disappeared. Jack turned his attention to the elderly lovers kissing against the railing for few moments and wondered what their story was. Had they been in love for decades or were they both widowers who'd met each other later in life? Who knew? Jack thought they were sweet either way.

He lay back in his lounger, smiling. The altercation with Conner had been pointless, but had given him a small sense of satisfaction anyway. It was enough of a break from the usual doom and gloom to re-motivate him. As soon as Tally arrived, Jack would be ready to go back down to that cargo hold and make Donovan give them the answers he demanded. Until then, he was going to lie back and enjoy the sun.

Jack awoke in the dark, alone and shivering. The moist, salted air skimmed across the deck and brushed his face.

d.a.m.n it. I must have fallen asleep.

He had often fallen asleep on the Sun Deck on previous days, but he'd a.s.sumed that this time Tally would have arrived to wake him up. For some reason she hadn't turned up at all.

Maybe Donovan shot her in the head and she's dead really dead.

Jack prodded at the bruising on his chest, huffed in pain. His gunshot wound was only a mere abrasion, but what if Tally had taken a bullet to the brain? Or even if she'd healed, would bruising on the brain be enough to stop her waking up? The possibilities were worrying.

Jack checked his watch and saw that it was a little after eight. It was almost time for the infected to attack. There were limited areas...o...b..ard that offered safety, but most would become overrun eventually, although the pa.s.senger cabins were mostly able to withstand the nightly terrors if they remained locked. Jack thought about going to his now. There was a bottle of Glen Grant in his luggage with his name on it. He couldn't risk getting hurt tonight, not now that he was waking up with residual bruising from whatever fate had befallen him the evening before.

Jack stood up and breathed in a deep lungful of sea air. The view from the ship was unending darkness, slithering away for a hundred miles in every direction. If Jack really was in h.e.l.l, then it was at night time that he truly felt it. The world was absent.

It would be happening soon, so Jack needed to hurry. His cabin was two decks below and the elevator was slow. He raced down the stairway to the pool area and headed for the Promenade Deck. It was deserted, which allowed him to sprint at full speed. There was probably less than five minutes left now until the attacks, but Jack was confident that he could make it to his room in time, just so long as nothing got in his way.

Jack hurried inside the corridor he used to get to the elevator and was grateful to find that it wasn't being summoned by anyone else. He stabbed the CALL b.u.t.ton and waited.

The elevator began to rise.

The doors opened.

Someone was standing inside.

The elevator's occupant had a gun and it was pointed at Jack. "h.e.l.lo, pardner. I was hoping to b.u.mp into you again."

Jack's eyes went wide. "Donovan?"

Donovan escorted Jack down to the Orlap Deck, the gun buried against the small of his back the whole time. If the weapon went off, Jack's spine would be shattered.

And it might stay that way, he thought grimly. I might never recover.

"Okay," Donovan said as the elevator doors opened. "Get out."

Jack stepped out onto the steel walkway and headed left under the direction of his captor. They were heading towards the blue crates and the other pallets belonging to the Black Remedy Corporation. The plastic boxes had been pulled free of their cargo areas and placed on the floor in parallel lines. All of the crates were open, displaying millions of dollars in US currency.

Jack whistled. "That is one big s.h.i.tload of money."

"Certainly something, ain't it?" said Donovan.

"What the h.e.l.l is it all for? Why have you gotten it all out on display?"

"In the interest of openness, Jack. Think you and I both want answers."

Jack nodded. "Okay. You think maybe we can be open without the gun?"

Donovan seemed to think about it, then decided to holster the gun in a leather slip on his hip. "Fair enough, but you just behave now, y'hear? You already know I'm not afraid to use it!"

Jack's eyes went wide. "What? You mean you remember-"

"Blowing your ribcage to pieces? Yeah, I remember, alright. Yet, here you are now, all alive and such. Ain't it the darndest thing?"

Jack was short of breath. He was excited to find yet another person in the same predicament as he was. "How long...how long have you been reliving the day?"

Donovan headed between two pallets and reached into the darkness. He came out with two foldable deck chairs. He handed one to Jack and the two of them took a seat opposite one another. "Let me see now..." The man let out a big sigh as he thought about it. "Guess it must be a good six, seven months now. How 'bout you?"

"I lost track, but I guess about the same. How come I've never seen you before? I mean, up until the last couple of days."

Donovan spread his arm in a wide semi-circle. "I have a job to do: to stay here and keep an eye on this here cargo. I take my profession very seriously, pardner."

"So you've just been sitting down here on your own for half a year?"

"That about sums it up. Figured whatever's gone wrong will right itself soon enough. Least I thought so, until I met you and your lady friend, that is."

"Tally? What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," said Donovan, looking ready to leap up at the slightest hint of aggression. "After I shot you dead, she backed off. We had ourselves a little chat and we discovered that we were in the same boat. Which is why I'm now happy to be more...cooperative."

"You mean you'll answer my questions?"

"If you'll answer mine."

"Okay, deal."

Donovan got up from the chair, making Jack flinch, but then stepped away and went over to the same pallets from where he'd gotten the deckchairs. He came back with a bottle of bourbon whisky.

Jack grinned. "I think we may have just gotten off on the right foot."

"You a whisky man, Jack?"

"Scotch usually, but what you have there is close enough for me."

There were no gla.s.ses, so Donovan took a swig and handed over the bottle. Jack took a swig of his own and gasped as the liquid burned his gullet. Then he glanced at his new companion curiously. "What time do you wake up every day?"

"6AM, same as I have my whole life. It's a sin to waste the day."

"I wake up much later than that," Jack said, his head aching as he thought about what the discrepancy could mean. "In fact, I wake up eight hours later than that."

Donovan whistled. "I'd expect as much from a listless teenager, but a grown man...? Now that's a crime."

"Well you could say that I had a few problems even before I came aboard this h.e.l.l-forsaken ship. Guess that's not really important now though?"

"I guess not. So what do you make of all this? Your pretty little angel said we were under some sort of spell, that some fella hiding onboard is pressing the cosmic reset b.u.t.ton every night."

"Every night at midnight," Jack added.

Donovan took another swig of the bourbon and then cleared his throat. "Well, I don't rightly stay up as late as that. I like to get my head down by ten each night. Sleep is what makes a man as strong as he is."

"Maybe that's why I feel like such a shattered mess all the time then."

"You got things on your mind, Jack?"

Jack took his longest swig on the bottle yet and lost his breath for a moment. Then he nodded, but gave no answer to the man's question. There was no way he was willing to trust Donovan quite yet. Not until he got some answers. "What is all this money for?"

Donovan glanced at the open crates and grinned. "From what I understand, it's a bribe. A harmless, run-of-the-mill payoff."

Jack wrinkled his brow. "To whom?"

"Tunisian Government."

"Huh? Why would Black Remedy be sending a load of US currency to North Africa?"

"Because the people there just overthrew their president. There's a new guy in town that's a little bit more with the times. He has plans to start a new Tunisian health service much like your National Health Service. Black Remedy wants to ensure that they get the contract to supply said service. Tunisia's currency isn't worth a d.a.m.n internationally, hence the US cash."

"Sounds like the new guy is just as corrupt as the old one."

"But at least this guy's a corrupt democrat. That's about as good as a country like that can hope for."

Jack huffed. "I guess. So what then, you're supposed to deliver the cash to someone?"

Donovan nodded. "After the ship finishes its itinerary of the Mediterranean, it's heading to Algiers, and then on to Tunis where the cash will be collected at the docks. There're a few pallets of pharmaceuticals as well to act as samples for the new health service, and some other bits and bobs, too."

"So that's it? All this money, the drugs, and you with a gun, is just down to a bunch of corporate corruption?"

Donovan set the bottle of bourbon down on the floor between his legs and leant his elbows onto his knees. He looked Jack in the eyes and grinned. "That's about the gist of it, pardner. Truth be told, I don't have any more of a clue about what's going on than you do. I've been sitting down here, day after day, thinking this whole thing was about me; supposing maybe I was in a coma or something. I figured I was just stuck in some weird sorta dream."

"I wonder why we haven't been affected like everybody else." Jack pondered."Tally said that I was probably chosen by whoever cast the spell. Why would he choose you as well?"

Donovan shrugged. "Now that I've met you, my best guess would be that whatever Hoodoo this practical joker has been casting doesn't extend to the cargo hold. I mean, why would it? There's not supposed to be anybody down here. My being here is a secret. I figure it takes a lot of effort to cast a spell that messes with time itself, so why stretch it further than you have to?"

"You really think that the cargo deck is unaffected?"

"In actual fact," said Donovan. "I can pretty much prove it."

"How?"