Sea Sick: A Horror Novel(49)
“Not stopping time-“
“Yeah, yeah, resetting it. I know.”
“By resetting the day, I am not directly altering events. I am just allowing the possibility for them to play out differently. You are the X factor that will decide where the future will lead.”
Jack stood up and stretched his legs. The backroom was tiny and featured only the sofa-cube and a side-table, so he walked up to the wall and rested his forehead against it. “Why me?”
“Because you’re alone.”
Jack turned back around. “What?”
“If you had a family onboard, you would not be willing to do the things you have done to find answers. You would have been focused only on their safety. Slowly, over time, you would have become broken by their inability to break free of the spell.”
“So the only reason I’m in this hell is because my life was already a tragic mess?”
“In a way, yes, but I also sensed that you were a protector: someone that values human life.”
Jack laughed. “Guess you don’t know that the reason I’m here is because I killed a bunch of people?”
Joma nodded. “Oh I know, Jack. When a man takes a life it colours his soul. I saw death on you the moment you boarded. Did they deserve it?”
“Yes,” said Jack without hesitating.
“Then that only proves that you are a man willing to do what is necessary. My assessment of you was correct from the very beginning.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
Joma stood up and walked over to Jack, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Save the world, my friend. That is what you are supposed to do. How exactly, I do not know, but once you find a way all will become clear.”
Jack was about to ask what the hell that meant, when a body came crashing into the room. It was another waiter from behind the bar. The terrified man was bloody and wounded, a wide gash running down the side of his neck. He tried to speak but could only manage to gargle on his own fluids before falling to the floor, dead.
“Shit,” said Jack, looking at his watch and seeing that it was twenty-four minutes past eight. “The infected have turned.”
We need to get somewhere safe,” said Joma. “I didn’t realise we’d been talking for so long. I should have locked the door.”
Jack looked at the splintered frame of the door and then back at Joma. “Well, I think that option’s come and gone now. We’re going to have to go out through the bar area.” Jack peered out through the gap in the doorway. “But there are a couple of infected people.”
“I can’t go out there,” Joma said.
“You’re going to have to. If we stay in here then they will eventually get in. Plus this dead waiter on the floor will be back on his feet again soon. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“You need to get them out of the lounge, Jack, and barricade the doors.”
“It will be easier if we just run.”
“I can’t take the risk, Jack. I can’t.”
Jack pushed the broken door as closed as possible and put his back against it. He looked across the small room at Joma. “Why not? Why can’t you leave?”
“Because if I die the spell is broken.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Then you want to be careful I don’t kill you myself. There’s nothing I want more than for this goddamn day to end.”
“If I die, then this is exactly how the day will end. Everyone onboard will become infected, and then it will get a whole lot worse. I’ve seen it, Jack. That’s what this whole thing is about. But if I die tonight then the spell is broken and there will be no hope left at all.”
There was no time for Jack to ask questions. One of the infected in the lounge had already spotted him peering out from the doorway and was coming over. It was an overweight man with a torn belly hanging out of his shirt like raw hamburger meat. He ran at Jack as soon as he rounded the bar.
Jack braced his back against the door, which shuddered as the fat man smashed against it. The door was broken, but secure so long as Jack stood up against it. He looked at Joma for answers. “So, what the hell should I do?”
Joma glanced around the room, but only ended up shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe, they will go away if we just keep them out of this room.”
The infected behind the door began to shriek like animals and Jack’s body was jolted as the weight against the door increased. The other infected passenger in the room had joined the fat man in trying to break in. Jack wouldn’t be able to hold the door against both of them for long. Joma ran up to help him brace it, but it was awkward for them both to find space and leverage.
“This isn’t going to work,” said Jack. “They’ll be in here as soon as we start to tire.”
“Maybe they’ll get tired first,” Joma suggested.
“I don’t think they’re like us. I think they can just keep going until something tears them apart. They won’t stop until we’re like them.”
The conversation became irrelevant when the dead waiter in the middle of the backroom floor began to twitch. The man’s fingers clawed at the carpet and a low moan started to escape his lips.
Jack felt his skin tighten up in terror as he realised they were about to be surrounded by infected on both sides of the door. “Your colleague is going to be on his feet any minute, Joma. We need to deal with him right now.”