Blood Cruise by Mats Strandberg
‘Abbe,’ Lo mumbles drowsily, ‘it’s not cold enough for us to freeze to death here, is it? Because I’m going to sleep now. Don’t you fall asleep before you freeze to death?’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘but you’re okay.’
‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’
‘Of course I won’t.’
‘I think I’m a little bit tipsy.’
A gust of wind finds its way in under the stairs. He pulls the cords of his hoodie tighter, giggling as he imagines himself as the one who always dies in South Park.
‘Abbe?’ Lo says again. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch for so long.’
‘You’ve probably been busy with school.’
She shakes her head. Sniffles. ‘I’ve been a really crappy cousin,’ she says. ‘Things were just so bad with Mårten and Mum and everything, but that’s no excuse.’
‘It’s okay,’ he says. He is happy they are not looking at each other right now.
‘Promise we won’t ever be like them,’ she says.
‘I promise.’
‘At least you don’t have their genes. What if I become like Grandma and Mårten?’ She suddenly sounds frightened. ‘What if it’s hereditary? You have to tell me. We’re going to be honest with each other. You have to promise.’
‘I promise,’ he says again. ‘For real.’
Because, here and now, he feels that is a promise he can keep. They will be grown-ups in six years. It sounds like an eternity. It is half of the life he has lived so far. But for a moment it is as if he is looking into a wormhole in space, seeing them in the future, where they can do things their own way. They are more than family; they are friends.
The Baltic Charisma
The staff captain is standing on the bridge, staring at the door. The security officers are pounding on it from the outside, shouting, but he has promised not to let anyone in. He has sealed the door from the inside and smashed the handle. That was what Dan and Adam demanded in return for letting him live. Behind him, the bridge is trashed. The bloody corpses of his colleagues are scattered across the floor. He can’t look at them.
*
The two children hiding on the sun deck have fallen asleep. They don’t notice Dan and Adam, who are almost done with their preparations. They are going to destroy the radio equipment in the lifeboats and rafts and throw the flares overboard. Once that is done, there is no way off the ship and no way to contact land. The Charisma is going to run on autopilot all the way into Åbo Harbour. By the time she gets there, all the people on board will be dead or newborn, and no one outside the ship will suspect a thing until it is too late. Dan breathes in the smell of sea and oil and wet metal as he thinks about Captain Berggren and the others on the bridge, how they must have regretted not respecting him more. The wind tears at his hair. He wonders if it is going to keep on growing. Don’t hair and nails keep growing after death? He looks at his hands and smiles. Before the night is through, hundreds of mobile phones and cameras will be full of photos and videos. He will make sure they spread around the world. The revolution will be televised.
*
Pia and Jarno step into the public area of deck six, amidships. They exchange a nod before splitting up. Pia takes the portside hallway, Jarno the starboard one. They see nothing unusual and start walking sternwards.
*
On the bridge, the staff captain hears something moving behind him. He turns around and notices that Berggren has opened his eyes. He runs to the captain, kneels down next to him. And Berggren blinks his eyes, reaches a hand out towards his face, pulls his lips back. Groans with pain. It hurts to be born anew.
Pia
Curious faces peek out of a couple of cabins in the long hallway.
‘It’s been bloody loud out here,’ a man with an enormous moustache tells her.
‘So I’ve been told,’ Pia says over her shoulder. ‘We’re looking into it.’
Sometimes she is surprised by how self-assured she can come across.
She looks down one of the short side passages as she passes it, glancing down at her radio every now and then. She just wants Mika to contact her, to tell her that … Yes, tell her what, exactly? That everyone on the bridge happened to go on a coffee break at the same time?
Pia reaches yet another side corridor. This one is bigger, widening in the middle to make room for one of the Charisma’s two largest staircases. From here, she has a straight shot through the ship to the starboard hallway, which is identical to the one she is in. She waits until Jarno appears on the other side. He waves at her and disappears from view once more. They continue sternwards on their respective sides.
Her headache is getting worse. It is the worst pain she has ever had in her sinuses. She refuses to think about strokes and tumours.
A door flies open without warning right next to her. The woman who steps out into the hallway is dark-haired, pretty, the same age as Pia’s oldest daughter. She is naked aside from a pair of turquoise lace knickers. A Minnie Mouse tattoo decorates her upper arm. Little droplets of vomit sit in her hair.
‘I need a cleaner in here,’ she slurs. ‘Someone has gone into my cabin and barfed all over it.’
Pia can’t help but smile. ‘Is that right? Well, that’s not very considerate, going into someone else’s cabin to throw up.’
‘What, are you saying it was me?’ the girl says, raising her thin, felt-tip eyebrows combatively.
‘I honestly don’t care either way,’ Pia says. ‘I just want to—’
‘Don’t think you’re better than me just because you’re wearing some cheap fucking uniform.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Pia spots Jarno at the end of the corridor; she waves for him to come over.
‘I can make sure a cleaner stops by,’ she says, ‘but first I need to know if you’re the one who’s been walking around here knocking on doors, because we’ve had a number of complaints.’
‘We’ve had a number of complaints,’ the girl mimics in an obnoxious voice. ‘Not on my account anyway. I haven’t done anything.’
‘Just like you haven’t thrown up, you mean?’
The girl’s eyes narrow. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you? Gone too long without getting laid, or what? Is that why you’re walking around here acting like you’re everyone’s fucking mother?’
It is as if the basement inside Pia has a trapdoor she didn’t know about – a chasm, a darker darkness hidden in the dark – and she plummets straight into it.
She imagines herself killing this girl. Tearing her to pieces. Turning that taunting, pretty face to pulp. Her head is roaring, as though all her blood has rushed there, filling it until it is about to explode …
Pia wobbles. Everything goes dark. When the attack passes, she realises the girl has backed into her cabin and is looking at her with fear in her eyes.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she says.
I don’t know.
‘Pia!’ Jarno shouts. ‘Pi-i-a-a!’ There is panic in his voice.
And when she checks the corridor, he is nowhere to be seen.
The skin of her neck contracts. She calls his name into the radio, but hears nothing but the rustle of static in response.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ the girl says.
Pia shakes her head. ‘Go back inside and lock the door.’
The girl hesitates. ‘But it stinks in there,’ she whines.
‘Close the door and lock it. Now.’
Pia starts jogging towards the stern, her footsteps thudding softly against the carpet, the keys on her belt rattling loudly. A few doors open. Sleepy faces peer out.
‘So bloody loud out here!’ the moustachioed man yells, far behind her now.
‘Go back inside your cabins!’ Pia shouts. ‘Lock the doors behind you!’
Her hand is sweaty and slippery, frantically clutching the radio to keep from dropping it when she pushes the button. ‘Mika,’ she hisses, ‘has Bosse seen anything?’
No re
She starts when the radio crackles much too loudly. She turns the volume down and looks around.
‘Yes, I can hear you,’ Mika says. ‘Bosse hasn’t responded for several minutes. And I still haven’t been able to reach the bridge.’
What the fuck’s going on? She tries to keep her mind from careening off wildly. It is not the first time Bosse has vanished without a trace, after all.
Useless git, she thinks to herself. He’s probably taking a dump with one of his fucking crosswords on his lap. Or beating off over something he saw on one of his screens. Doesn’t he realise he’s putting our lives at risk?
Her fury with Bosse, his sluggish eyes behind the invariably greasy glasses, is so fierce she can cling to it. It gives her strength. It silences the familiar voice inside her telling her she is worthless, that putting her in charge of other people’s safety is a bloody joke.
‘I don’t know what’s happened to Jarno, but I heard him screaming just now,’ she whispers. ‘He was near the stern, portside, and now he’s gone. I’m on my way.’
‘Should I send Henke or Pär?’ Mika says.
Pia slows down. She has almost reached the end of the hallway. Just ten, twelve yards, then it turns left at the stern. This is where she last saw Jarno.
Door number 6518 is ajar.
‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘We need to know what the deal is with the bridge.’
‘Okay,’ Mika says. ‘Give me a shout if you need backup.’
Pia’s eyes bounce between the cracked door and the sharp bend of the hallway. She hesitates for just a fraction of a second, but that is enough to let the voice back in.
You’re so fucking useless. Bloody good thing you didn’t become a police officer.
She pushes the button on her radio and calls Jarno’s name. Her own voice echoes back at her, crackling and breaking from just inside the slightly open door.
Pia steps closer. She believes she can smell something inside 6518 that both revolts and attracts.
It is so quiet. She looks back down the corridor behind her; everyone seems to have obeyed her instructions.
‘Pii-i-a-aahhh … Donnn … nnnn’t … commmme … iiinnnnn.’ The wet moan is coming from 6518. It echoes out of her radio.
Pia. Don’t come in.
And suddenly the fear dissipates and all the critical voices in her head fall silent, because something has happened to Jarno. He needs her.
She pushes the door open.
Dan
The music in Club Charisma is thumping through Dan’s body. The baseline vibrates in his bones, in his new teeth. The lights are flashing around him, making the humans’ movements jerky. He notices a few of them staring at him, whispering.
They think they know who he is, but they have no idea. Not yet.
His euphoria grows, making it feel like someone has filled his body with helium, as though there is, in fact, some truth to the myth that vampires can fly. In this moment it feels like all he would have to do is spread his arms, get a running start and jump.
He is finally free. All the desperate urges pulling him this way and that are gone. There is only one urge left, brilliantly clear and pure. One need, at the heart of everything from now on.
This is what he has waited for his entire life. This is right. This is him. Everything up until now has just been marking time. Something he had to get through. Everything that has happened to him, every decision, every act of chance, has led him to this point. It is almost touching to think that he believed he could achieve immortality through some pathetic Eurovision songs that were doomed to fade into oblivion. But what they are about to do, here and now, won’t fail to leave a mark on this world.
Pia
Jarno is on his back, looking straight at her with eyes that are shining brightly in his bloody face. His mouth is opening and closing, but no more sounds are coming out. His uniform jacket is open, his shirt ripped to shreds.
A woman in a soiled hot-pink top is squatting next to him. Her black hair hangs in sticky tangles over his chest, hiding her face. Behind the woman are two more bodies, one flung on top of the other. An older man and woman. At least that is Pia’s impression, but she can’t say for sure.
So much blood everywhere. Spattered across the bed. Forming continents on the carpet. Her mouth fills with saliva; she can’t tell whether it is because she is about to throw up or because she wants to
fall on my knees across from the woman, put my mouth to Jarno’s throat.
No. She tries to fight the craving, tries to be disgusted by it.
Lick the blood off the walls.
Jarno’s staring eyes blink a few times.
Pia takes a step into the cabin, stands on something soft and lifts her foot up, revolted. She has to force herself to look.
A clump of used bandages is stuck to the sole of her boot. She scrapes her foot against the floor until it comes off.
When Pia looks back up, the woman’s eyes meet hers. Her gaze isn’t human but that of a hungry, desperate animal. A few wet strands of hair fall heavily from her shoulder when she tilts her head. Her fingers are buried deep inside Jarno’s ribcage.
Her lips draw back. Pia recognises her.
From where, from where, from where?
She has seen this woman before, earlier tonight.
At the karaoke bar. When Dan Appelgren was attacked by the ginger bloke who is locked in one of the drunk tanks now.
The one who sucked the blood from Dan’s hand.
The blood.
The man called Tomas Thunman, according to his ID.
The snapping teeth. The burning eyes. No thought behind them. Just
hunger
instincts.
Like an animal, him too.
Injured starving thirsty mad rabies.
And he tried to bite me.
She checks her wrist. There’s a small red cut in the soft skin below her thumb. It’s barely visible. When she touches it, it is not even tender any more. She washed it straight away, used hand sanitiser.
But it was after that I started feeling sick.
She looks at the clump of bloody bandages on the floor and knows that they belonged to Dan Appelgren.
The woman sniffs the air, appears to decide that Pia doesn’t interest her; there is nothing about her that can tempt her.
Because I am like her – any moment now that will be me.
The woman frightens Pia, but nothing is as frightening as the thing she can’t think about, absolutely mustn’t think about.
The thing that would explain the inexplicable.
And what it would mean.
She quickly goes to the woman and hits her on the head with her nightstick, so hard the impact reverberates all the way up her arm into her shoulder. The woman pulls her lips back further, gurgling wetly at the back of her throat.
Pia brings her nightstick down again, and this time the woman throws her arms up to cover her head. The nightstick lands on her wrist, something breaks and the woman hisses, struggling onto unsteady feet. She steps over Jarno’s body, wobbles. Pia notices that she has big, smooth scars across one thigh. They look like long-since-healed bite marks.
Bite marks the size of a human mouth.
Jarno’s lips try to form a word. The muscles around his mouth are working uselessly. Pia thinks she knows what he wants to say; she can see it in his eyes. Run. Run. Run. But she can no longer fight the realisation. She is already lost. And so is he.
Before she has a chance to raise the nightstick a third time, the woman’s hand shoots out, wrestles it from her grasp and tosses it aside. There’s a flash of pure hatred in the empty eyes: a crazy animal in its lair, guarding its prey, not wanting to share it with a rival. She snaps her teeth, closing in.
Pia can’t move. Terror has drained her muscles of strength.
What is the point of fighting it? What difference w
The woman’s bloody fingertips dig into her hair and smash Pia’s head against the inside of the door, again and again, and everything goes dark, black holes merging in front of her eyes, devouring everything for a moment.
With her other hand, the woman claws at Pia’s collar. A tearing sound. One of the buttons goes flying. The collar is immediately looser. The woman grunts, rips at the shirt more violently. Yet another button comes off, exposing Pia’s neck.
She can hear Jarno inhaling. It’s faint. Rattling. Gasping. And she realises she has to fight. She has to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
She tries to keep the woman away from her, but her arms are trembling with the effort. She doesn’t have a lot of strength left and the woman has noticed. Her teeth snap. Her twisted face with its burning eyes bows low.
As Pia feels lips graze her throat she gropes across the woman’s face, finds her eyes, braces herself. Pushes her thumbs in.
The gently curved eyeballs are surprisingly resilient. They try to slip away from the pressure, but there is nowhere for them to hide in their sockets.
Don’t think about what you’re doing, don’t think, don’t think, just do, just …
She presses harder and her thumbs slide through
eggs breaking, just warm yolk running down my wrists
and continue into her skull.
The woman howls, falls to her knees, holding on to Pia’s collar. Pia is almost pulled off her feet before she manages to wrench free. Her thumbs leave the woman’s eye sockets with a sucking sound she knows she will never forget, if she survives this.
She glances at Jarno. His eyes are still open, but they are unseeing now.
The woman has grabbed hold of Pia’s trousers by the hips and is trying to get back on her feet. Pia knees her in the chin, making her jaw snap shut with a crack. She manages to land a kick square in her chest, sending the woman toppling backwards and landing with her head on Jarno’s shoulder.