Sea Sick: A Horror Novel(3)
“This is very kind of you, sir. You need anything at all, you come see me. I work the bar in the Voyager’s Lounge. It’s very nice, quiet. You have a headache, you come to Voyager’s Lounge and it go away.”
It sounded nice. Jack thought there was a reasonable chance he could actually end up there most evenings, which made it all the better that he’d gotten off to an amicable start with the bartender.
“Thank you, Joma,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll see you there.”
The man nodded and smiled. “You settle in good. Have lovely week, okay?”
“I will.” Jack turned away and inserted the plastic card he’d been given into a slit in the door handle. He was pleased when it disengaged the lock on the first try.
I always thought these things were supposed to be a pain in the arse.
Inside, the room was spacious, with a private bathroom, and a living room separated from the bedroom by a pull-across curtain. Jack had seen smaller bedsits in his time and he was pleasantly surprised by the luxury afforded to him. He was also impressed by the fact his luggage had been delivered ahead of him. It sat on the floor in front of the room’s built in wardrobes. Jack had to admit the cabin was nice. There was even a respectably large LCD television, already switched on and displaying information about the ship. According to the text on screen, the Spirit of Kirkpatrick weighed 40 Tonnes and was powered by two Sulzer LB66 diesel engines. Its top speed was 22mph. Many more facts and figures also popped up on screen, but they weren’t interesting enough to prevent Jack from turning off the set with the small black remote he found on a table beside the snuggly-made bed.
The bed itself was what truly interested Jack. It was a double, seemed indulgently comfortable, and he intended to spend the next twelve hours there. Even before Jack had boarded a plane at 8AM, flown for two and a half hours from Birmingham Airport, and then taken a forty-minute coach ride from Palma airport to the dock, he still would have been weary. It had been two years since he’d last slept through the night. He was hoping with every scrap of his soul that if he could get anything out of his enforced holiday, it would be a decent amount of sleep. It felt like if he did sleep now he might never wake up again, as tired as he was. But that was what he’d been sent here for – to rest and relax – so he at least intended to try. Jack didn’t hold up much hope, though. All he wanted to do was get through this week as easily as possible. No thrills, no excitement, no nothing. Then perhaps he could get back to the miserable life he was used to.
The life I’m already missing.
Jack was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Day 2
Jack awoke with a start. The fuzziness that filled his head and covered the back of his eyelids was a feeling he had not experienced for some time. It was the feeling of deep sleep. I must finally have slept. Well, I’ll be damned. It must have been a very deep and embracing slumber because it had somehow left him feeling more exhausted than rested. His throat was dry and sore.
Jack sat up in bed, blinked his eyes. The room was dark. The light from the cabin’s window was blocked by the dividing room curtain. An alarm clock on the bedside table, shaped like a cube, displayed the time in glowing red numerals. It read: 1400.
Christ! I slept through for twenty-four hours. That’s insane. Maybe I would have slept even longer if something hadn’t bloody-well woken me up.
Jack pulled back the duvet and dumped his sweating feet onto the floor. He stood up, then shimmied around the edge of the bed carefully, mindful of the darkness of an unfamiliar room. The main light switch would most likely be near the cabin’s door, so he headed over, fumbling through the shadows. Sure enough, his probing fingers eventually found a set of knobs and switches set into the wall – the controls for both lighting and air conditioning no doubt. He fiddled about for a few moments and eventually hit upon the right switch.
The room lit up in a blink and everything came into colour. Jack’s eyes were still fuzzy and the sudden onslaught of light made them ache as well. Squinting through the pain and trying hard to focus, it became a little clearer what had woken him.
Jack’s luggage lay sprawled against the wardrobe door. It must have tipped over as the ship crested a particularly rough wave. As if to confirm his suspicions the ship listed again and the luggage bumped against the wardrobe doors once more. With the mystery solved, Jack stretched out his arms above his head and let out a long, overdue yawn. He had to admit that he felt better after such a long sleep, almost as though a cloud had lifted from his mind, allowing him to see things more clearly. The colours and smells had finally returned to his world. If not anything else, then at least the cruise had given Jack a brief respite from his insomnia. Maybe his bosses at the police force had been right about him needing a change of scenery in order to relax.
Who’d have thought it?
Jack pulled aside the curtain separating the middle of the room and padded over to the porthole window. A lifeboat partially obscured his view to the left, but he could see the wooden Promenade Deck outside and the blue-green sea beyond its railings. The Mediterranean was vast and soulful, every inch of it shifting and rolling beneath invisible forces. Jack knew little of the ship’s itinerary, but he supposed that today would be a day at sea. Which meant all the passengers would be onboard, reducing the amount of areas for quiet and privacy.
So much for getting some alone time. Hopefully tomorrow everyone will bugger off ,once we hit the coast of France or wherever it is we’re going.