Sea Sick: A Horror Novel(24)
Day 104
Jack woke up and smashed the room up again. He spent another night in the brig. It was safe there.
Day 198
Jack had given up hope. The last of it had disappeared the night Ivor and his family had died in the medical centre. It had made Jack realise that, no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop the infection. He couldn’t prevent the passengers from turning into monsters. Nor could he find out what was the cause of it all. Even if he did know where the infection had started, it wouldn’t do any good. It would still kill everybody just the same.
Jack had stopped trying to find answers, had stopped wondering why this was happening, or whether or not he was in hell. He just dragged himself out of bed at 1400hrs each day and went outside, performing the same rituals over and over. They had even started to become comfort him in some strange way. Jack looked forward to the seagull at his window, prepared himself for the boys racing down the Promenade Deck, and was beginning to feel ownership of the green towel on the lounger. The recurring elements of his day made him feel in control, made him feel that he was the master of his own existence. It was all he had.
The sun was out on the pool deck, as it always was. One of Jack’s few blessings was the warmth of its rays. It was the only thing that still connected him to the world. He was stuck on a cursed ship in the middle of a featureless sea, but he still shared the same sun as people in Mexico and Japan and England. He was still connected to them in some small way.
For a change, today, Jack decided to take a dip in the water. He took off his t-shirt and dropped it onto the floor. Then he stepped in front of a small boy running around the edge of the pool and caught him as he was about fall. The boy wouldn’t know it, but Jack had just saved him from a nasty knee-scrape. Jack received no thanks however; he never did whenever he saved the boy.
Jack sat on the side of the pool and dangled his legs in the crystalline water. Once he was ready to engulf himself in the cold kiss of the pool, he slid down beneath its surface. The water was cold enough to make him shudder at first, but after a few quick breast strokes, Jack’s body adjusted. The sun beat across his shoulder blades and the soothing sensation flowed down all the way to his toes. Kids swam and played all around him, splashing the water and throwing inflatable balls to one another. In spite of Jack’s usual depression, he actually found a moment of brief respite. The pool was relaxing and Jack started to feel happy. But he knew it was only temporary. The pool would soon lose its charm if he were to spend more than a day or two coming there.
Jack waded over to the edge of the water and placed his forearms against the cool cement of the pool’s coped edge. He let his legs float away behind him and closed his eyes, trying to blank his mind, to forget that he was trapped in a bottomless limbo. Stuck on a floating hell in the middle of the sea, removed from reality and forced to endure a never ending day of misery and despair. Jack wondered if it was his punishment. Was this what he deserved for what he had done? The murders he’d once committed?
Have my actions damned me to hell? Am I evil?
Jack had never thought of his actions that night as murder – more as justice that would not be rendered in any other way – but perhaps some celestial judge saw it differently. If there was a God, maybe He saw murder as a sin regardless of its motives. Jack could admit that he was a killer, but there was no way he would ever admit to being an evil man. In the grand scheme of things he was firmly planted on the side of good. Especially when compared to the countless wicked souls he had spent his entire life apprehending. He’d spent a majority of his existence trying to help others, trying to make the world a safer place. If this was his reward – damnation – then God could go straight to Hell.
If He thinks I could have done any better, I suggest He tries living on this rotten earth for a while. Then perhaps He’d understand what the few decent souls left in the world are up against.
Jack had never been one for contemplation or philosophical thinking, but he had found himself turning to it more and more lately, if only as a way of keeping sane. He would ask himself questions to try and occupy his mind and then obsess desperately over the answers. It was one of the few good ways to pass time. Jack knew, though, it would only be a matter of days now before his mind started to unravel from the strain of it all. The loneliness and isolation of his resetting world would eventually drive him mad. Eventually he would run out of questions to ask himself.
“Jack?”
The sound of his name shocked him. He glanced up to find someone standing at the edge of the pool looking down at him. The sun, shining behind, presented the figure as a silhouette, but Jack could still tell who it was. It was the brunette waitress.
Jack’s mouth dropped and he tried to swallow. Then he tried to speak, but failed.
The waitress smiled at him but she seemed weak and weary. She was not wearing the uniform she’d had on when Jack had originally met her. “I think you’ve been looking for me,” she said to him. “Come with me, Jack. I think I know what’s happening.”
***
Tally’s cabin was at the aft of A Deck, which she told him meant at the back. When Jack had previously searched for her, he’d knocked on just about every cabin door on the ship. Most did not open and there was no way to tell if anyone was inside simply ignoring him or if the rooms were empty. He’d eventually given up on finding Tally, and it seemed that as soon as he did, she found him.