Sea Sick: A Horror Novel
Iain Rob Wright
Day 1
The bus came to a screeching stop at the end of the pier, deposited Jack and the other passengers, then quickly drove away, spluttering a noxious black exhaust cloud behind it. The driver had seemed in a hurry since the moment he picked everyone up at the airport. The excited group’s next destination was just twenty feet away. It filled the horizon proudly like a steel monolith.
The Spirit of Kirkpatrick currently occupied more than nine-hundred feet of Palma’s dockland, sitting majestically in the Majorcan waters despite its gargantuan bulk. Its multiple decks seemed to climb endlessly into the sky, while portholes lined its red-painted hull like hundreds of staring eyes. It was Jack’s first time on a cruise-liner. He wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
Most people would have been excited to spend a week on a four-star passenger ship, hugging the beautiful coastline of the Mediterranean, taking in the sights, but not Jack. For Jack, relaxation – and even the very notion of enjoyment – was a function he’d lost the use of long ago. The only reason he was even here at all was because he had to be. The choice had been made for him.
An overly-tanned holiday rep approached the group. Her skin was leathery and loose and she spoke with a Spanish accent. “Good afternoon, everybody! I hope you all are ready for your holiday. Are you very excited?”
The group cheered.
Get on with it, Jack thought to himself, eager to get away from the bustling holiday-makers surrounding him: leaky-nosed children and fondling lovers, all of whom stole quick glances at Jack as they wondered what a middle-aged man was doing there alone. Honestly, Jack wondered the very same thing. Once aboard, his plan would be to find the quietest part of the ship and spend the entire week there, reading novels and drinking whisky. The other thing Jack intended to do was sleep – or at least try to. Rest wasn’t something that came easily to him.
“If you’d just like to come this way,” said the leather-skinned holiday rep as she ushered the group inside a small vestibule on the dock. It contained a flight of narrow steps leading up to an enclosed gangway which ran alongside the ship. When Jack reached the top of the stairs, he saw that at the end of the gangway was a row of tables and more olive-skinned holiday reps sitting behind them. Jack and the other passengers were told to form an orderly line while they waited for their next instructions. Everybody complied, bright smiles on their faces, eager to be herded like cattle.
A cheap-suited gentleman came to greet the group. There was a sycophantic smile slapped across his smug, moisturised face. “Hello, everybody,” he said. “Welcome to the Spirit of Kirkpatrick. My name is James. I’m a member of the customer service team. If you could all get your boarding passes ready, please, you will find a passenger number at the top. Can all passengers with a number beginning 02 or 03 follow Karen over to the far desk? Everyone else, please follow me to the near desk.”
Jack pulled out his boarding pass and checked the number: 0206606-B. The passengers were splitting into two groups and he joined the one belonging to the woman introduced as Karen. They reformed a loose line and funnelled along the gangway. The desk up ahead was filled with bright blue squares and as Jack got closer he saw that they were credit card-sized pieces of plastic.
“Can I see your boarding pass, please?” one of the reps asked him. The name badge on the man’s sky-blue shirt read: Brad.
Jack handed over his paperwork and waited while it was examined. Eventually the young man smiled, plucked up one of the plastic cards from the table, and offered it to Jack. “Welcome aboard, Mr Wardsley. Someone will take you to your room once you are on board.”
“Thank you,” said Jack, moving away to re-join the queue. A wide hatch in the ship had been opened up and people were now beginning to move inside one by one. Queuing directly in front of Jack was a group of three young men. They talked loudly and impatiently amongst themselves. They seemed to be quite drunk. One of them, Jack noticed, sported a ridiculous haircut, full of shaven lines and childish squiggles. It made his skull look like a hedge maze. He was the loudest of the three and every other word was laced with profanity. Jack took a deep breath and tried to keep his calm.
I came here to get away from cretins like this.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the queue started moving again and the three young men disappeared up ahead, barging their way, impolitely, to the front. With a bit of luck, the ship would be big enough that they wouldn’t cross paths with Jack again.
They better bloody hope so.
Now in front of Jack was a little girl with her parents. The mum and dad were muttering to one another as if engaged in some kind of spat, but their little angel was oblivious to the tension. She was playing with a life-sized baby doll and pretending to feed it with a miniature bottle. With her golden pigtails and rosy-red cheeks she was the picture of innocent and adorable youth.
The queue started moving again. Jack could see through the hatch entrance into the ship’s interior. Well-trodden red carpeting led down a narrow corridor before entering into a wide-open area beyond. Midway down that corridor was a Filipino woman, checking people’s passes as they walked by. Before that, however, standing just outside the hatch, was a scruffy, bearded man with a plastic container. It seemed to be full of rubbing alcohol and the man was squeezing a small amount into every passenger’s hands before they entered the ship. Jack sighed. The paranoia of swine flu, bird-flu, and a whole host of other overblown health scares were obviously not yet forgotten. Jack wondered what good, if any, a tiny dose of alcohol could really do against a super-virus. It seemed like a na?ve precaution.