Sea Sick: A Horror Novel(47)

Jack lay down on the room’s uncomfortable cot and closed his eyes.

He awoke a few hours later to the sound of screams and chaos. From the bowels of the ship, the noise of passengers being torn apart was clear. The eyebleeders were doing their thing on the upper deck. Jack closed his eyes and went back to sleep.



Day 236

Security took Jack away again. He ended his night in the cell as he had the night before.



Day 245

For over a week now, the ship’s guards had come to arrest Jack, and every day he had gone with them peacefully. His intention was to see how long Tally – if she was in fact responsible –would keep it up. It appeared, however, that she was content to have him detained indefinitely. For some reason she wanted his movements aboard the ship restricted.

But why?



Day 246

Jack got out of bed quickly and hurried to get dressed. He selected some jeans and a white t-shirt from deep within his luggage, along with a baseball cap. He hoped that the change of clothing would allow him to move undetected by whoever it was making accusations about him.

He slipped on his trainers and rushed out of his cabin. It had been only a matter of minutes since he’d awoken and Jack was quick enough to get out of there before the Security goons came for him. How long he could evade them, he did not know, but hopefully it would give him some time to find Tally and ask her some pretty serious questions.

Jack took the elevator down to the Orlap Deck, intending to make absolutely sure that Donovan was dead, but also planning to give the area a more thorough search to see if he could find anything helpful.

When he stepped out of the elevator, the cloying smell crept over him immediately, fingering at his nostrils. Jack knew the odour was death, he’d come across it many times before, mostly at the homes of lonely pensioners left to perish in their ice-cold flats with no one to check on them. It was the smell of a corpse settling into the fabrics of its surroundings.

Donovan still lay dead at the back of the cargo area and had now started to decompose. His flesh was waxy and mottled and his lips had started to fall away from his gums leaving behind a sneer. The stink coming off of him was putrescence mixed with faeces and it made Jack’s eyes water. He stepped over the body and examined the floor beyond.

There was nothing noteworthy that Jack could see, but from the way Donovan’s body was angled it seemed that he had been doing something with one of the metal footlockers. When Jack tried to open the nearest one he found that it was locked. He searched Donovan’s pockets, cringing at the feeling of the gelatinous flesh beneath the clothing, and eventually found a set of keys in the breast pocket.

Jack tried the keys one after another until he found one that fitted the nearest footlocker. The lid was heavy and he had to use both hands to lift it up. Once it was open, Jack couldn’t believe his eyes.

The crate was full of military grenades, packed into a bed of foam. They looked like standard NATO-issue HE grenades. Jack checked some of the other footlockers and found that they too were full of explosives and, in several cases, assault rifles and side arms.

What the hell is the world coming to, when a US pharmaceutical company is gun running for African Governments? This is madness.

Perhaps this is what I’m supposed to do? thought Jack. Maybe I’m supposed to stop these weapons reaching Tunisia.

Whether or not Donovan was a bad person, or just a man doing his job without asking questions, nothing good ever came from giving people guns. If these weapons were to reach Tunisia then they would most certainly result in people’s deaths.

But do these guns have anything to do with the virus? Or everything else that has been happening on this godforsaken ship?

Jack’s head had begun to ache again. It was time for a drink. Time to think things through.

***

Jack had chosen to visit the Voyager’s Lounge. It was obvious that Security was searching everywhere for him, and out of all of the places onboard, this was one of the quietest. So far Jack’s low-key disguise had managed to keep him undetected. He’d even managed to walk past a guard on the Promenade Deck without being noticed. It was likely that his accuser had described the clothing that he usually wore – red t-short and shorts – and not the clothes he was actually wearing now.

Jack had been in the Voyager’s Lounge now for a couple of hours and had downed enough whisky to make his body feel warm and content. He had made good use of the peace and calm to think about what his next move was. It was now pretty clear that the only person who truly had the answers was the elusive pathwalker. Jack still had no idea who it was – or even what it was – but he was going to make it his only priority from now on to find out. It was something that would probably be easier said than done, though, with Security on his back every day. There was even a chance that Tally had made the whole thing up just to mess with him.

Joma turned up for his shift, signifying that evening had arrived. Jack went up to order another drink. Thankfully it didn’t seem that the friendly bartender knew that Jack was wanted for arrest.

“What can I get you?” he asked, smiling.

“I think I fancy a pint now, please.”

Joma nodded. This time he didn’t offer to pour the drink on the house. Obviously, he didn’t recognise Jack with the baseball cap on. Joma stepped in front of the lager tap and began to pour the frothy draught into a spotless pint glass. It was then that Jack noticed something a little weird.