Blood Cruise by Mats Strandberg
Tomas checks his phone and notices the reception is back. He redials the last number he called. He doesn’t hear any signals, but suddenly the seconds start ticking by again on the screen.
‘Hello?’ he says. ‘Can you hear me?’
Silence. The line is completely dead, but the large digits keep ticking by. Two girls come out of a cabin. He would guess Syrian. They are so good-looking he can’t help staring. But they don’t even notice him.
‘Hello?’ he says into the phone. ‘Are you there? I can’t hear you but … but if you can hear me, then …’
He looks after the girls until they disappear around a corner.
The realisation slams into him. He is single. He is alone. And he knows what Åse is like. Once she has made her mind up, there is no going back.
‘Please,’ he snivels. ‘Please. I’m so goddamn sorry about everything.’
He has circled back to the stairs he came down. He studies the cabin numbers. 5318 … 5316 … and then he spots the door to the cabin he shares with Peo.
‘I’m so fucking lonely,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to be this lonely and I don’t want to be this miserable.’
Tomas pulls his key card from his back pocket. Glances at the phone. The call has ended. No reception. He shoves it back in his pocket. Puts his key card in the door just as another door opens further down the corridor.
‘Hello?’ a small voice calls.
A child. Tomas looks around the corridor, but it’s empty.
‘I need help,’ the voice says. ‘Please, can you help me?’
The voice is melodic and crystal-clear, strangely old-fashioned, like a puppy in a Disney animation, or one of the children in some ancient feature film.
Tomas pulls his key card out and the lock beeps. He hesitates. Puts his hand on the handle. Just wants to pick up his cigarettes and get back out there, drink himself senseless, forget everything.
‘I’m scared,’ the child says.
Tomas lets go of the handle and walks towards the open door.
Calle
‘Wow,’ Vincent exclaims when they step onto the bridge, and Calle is inclined to agree. He has only been here a few times but every time it has taken his breath away.
The view is almost the same as from their suite, but it is different seeing it from the Charisma’s control room. Countless screens illuminate the gloom: electronic sea charts and the classically green radar. The consoles are covered in what appear to be thousands of buttons and dials.
The half-moon hangs white in the sky outside the big windows. The dark sea reflects its pale light. It is so beautiful. It is perfect.
‘I’ve brought a couple of VIPs,’ Pia says.
Captain Berggren gets up. Normally, he wouldn’t be on the bridge at this hour, but Vincent doesn’t know that.
‘Good to see you, Calle,’ Berggren says. ‘It’s been a long time.’
There is an amused glint in his eye. He has clearly been looking forward to this. The staff captain eyes them curiously.
‘Too long,’ Calle says, extending his hand, apologising inwardly for its clammy state.
Berggren is broad-shouldered in his uniform, and his handshake is as warm and steady as you would expect from a ship’s captain. But he has grown older too. His chin has all but disappeared; it is little more than a speed bump between his face and his wide neck. They don’t know each other very well. The longest conversation they ever had was probably the one that followed Calle’s second failed breathalyser test. But Berggren is well liked and respected by the crew because he never hesitates to take their side in conflicts with the owners.
‘This is incredible,’ Vincent says as he shakes everyone’s hands. ‘Thanks for letting us visit.’
He asks questions, which Berggren answers enthusiastically. Calle hears every word but he is not listening, would probably not understand if he tried right now; his only focus is disentangling the box from the lining of his inside pocket.
Pia smiles at him, holds up her camera phone and gives him a tiny nod.
He gets the box out. His pocket turns inside out. The lining hangs out like a lolling tongue; he fumbles it back in.
‘I’m so glad you brought me here,’ Vincent says, his back to him.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ Calle says. ‘I’m so glad you exist, Vincent. You know that, right?’
It is time. He squeezes the box hard and gets down on one knee. Hears the click from Pia’s phone. Vincent turns around.
Tomas
Tomas is standing in the harshly lit corridor, peering into the gloom on the other side of the open cabin door. It smells weird in there: like menthol and lilacs and something musty, rotting.
A group of young men push past him on their way down the corridor.
‘What’s the matter?’ Tomas asks hesitantly, stepping across the threshold.
‘I am scared,’ the child says again, sobbing. ‘I am sick and my mother was supposed to get me food, but she has been gone for such a long time.’
The voice really does remind Tomas of old movies.
Darkness envelops him when he shuts the door behind him. The smells grow more intense. There must be a problem with the plumbing in here. The toilet door is ajar on his left, but the smell isn’t coming from in there, he realises as he moves past it.
Only one bedside lamp is lit. It is angled inwards, away from the room. Its beam strains halfway up the wall, almost touching the ceiling. The child is on the other side of the double bed, his back to Tomas.
A small backpack sits on the desk by the foot of the bed. On it, a smiling Winnie the Pooh digs into a jar of honey. A black wheelie bag sits on the floor below it. Next to the bag is a pair of high-heeled boots.
It would almost have been better if the bedside lamp were switched off. The angle of the light makes every shadow in the room droop downwards. The effect is depressing, as if gravity is so strong in here even shadows are weighed down. Tomas feels increasingly uneasy. His scrotum contracts.
‘Do you mind if I turn on the overhead light?’ he says, and reaches for the switch.
‘Don’t,’ the child pleads immediately. ‘I’m sick; the light hurts my eyes.’
Tomas lets his hand fall and reluctantly takes another step into the cabin, starting when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He realises it is his own reflection in the mirror above the desk and feels stupid, and yet the fear rumbles on inside him. The strange smell becomes more noticeable when he approaches the child’s side of the bed.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks, noticing he’s slurring.
The child doesn’t answer. He looks like a boy. His white, straight hair has fallen across his face. Tomas realises he is not even wearing a T-shirt. His thin, pointed shoulders stick up above the duvet, bare. What kind of mother would leave her child like this? Her sick child. And hasn’t he been taught not to let strangers into the cabin? Tomas shudders to think what could have happened here.
He sits down on the edge of the bed, right next to the boy.
‘Do you want me to ask them to call out for your mother over the speakers?’ he asks, focusing on keeping his tongue fully under control this time.
‘No. Mother might be cross. Can’t you just stay here with me until she comes?’
Tomas glances down at the high-heeled boots and doesn’t want to meet the woman who owns them. She might be a properly mental nut job. Someone who wonders what the fuck he’s doing in here, sitting on the bed with her son.
But how can he leave the boy here, alone and afraid?
The smell is pushing into his sinuses. ‘What’s your name?’ he asks again.
‘I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to make them call it out over the speakers. Mum would be cross. She’s always so cross.’
Tomas reaches for the boy’s shoulder. His skin is cold, rubbery somehow, under Tomas’ fingers. He wonders if the boy is contagious, and has to resist an urge to snatch his hand away. ‘I still think that would be best,?
‘You can’t leave,’ the boy declares.
Dips have formed in the skin of his shoulder where Tomas’ hand is resting, as if the flesh is loose underneath.
Tomas’ scalp feels like it’s shrinking. There is an internal telephone on the desk. He could use it to call the information desk. But he wants to get out of here. He wants to get out now.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he says. ‘Don’t open the door again, unless it’s me or your mum.’
He gets up, relieved not to be in contact with the boy’s skin any more. He wants to wash his hands.
In the mirror, he can see the boy sitting up in the bed behind him. The single light illuminates his hair from behind. It glows like a halo around his head.
There is something wrong with him: something very, very wrong.
‘Wait here,’ Tomas says.
He has almost made it to the door when he feels a small hand tugging at his jacket.
‘Stay,’ the boy says. ‘I need you.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Tomas replies, and realises he is lying. He has no intention of returning.
The boy lets go of his jacket and there is silence behind Tomas.
There is a tingling sensation around his coccyx; his entire skin seems to be shrinking now, tightening around his body.
He reaches for the door handle.
Suddenly there are arms wrapped around his neck. Kneecaps digging in between his shoulder blades. The boy has jumped onto his back and is clinging to him like a monkey.
The tiny arms press against his Adam’s apple. Tomas can’t breathe. He yanks at the boy’s forearms, trying to loosen his iron grip. His fingertips sink into the boy’s skin, the flesh parting until he can feel bone.
The boy’s skinny legs encircle his waist.
‘Let me go,’ Tomas wheezes on his last breath. The world is going dark. He can hear a snapping sound next to his ear.
He pitches forward, tries to throw the boy off, tries to tear free of those damn little arms. But he can’t shake him – the boy must be insane; that must be where he gets his strength from – and his throat hurts, hurts, hurts. It feels like his head is going to explode, and what is that horrible snapping sound, like a big fuck-off pair of scissors, a fucking hedge trimmer …
Tomas slams back against the wall as hard as he can. Squeezed between Tomas’ body and the wall, the boy’s grip slackens. Tomas wrenches his arms apart, forces his legs open, hears him crash onto the floor behind him.
His Adam’s apple aches. He greedily sucks in air; the pain is unbelievable. He forces himself to take another breath. The black smoke clouding his field of vision is dissipating.
A rapid patter of feet next to him, and suddenly the boy is between him and the cabin door. He is blocking the way out with his body, which is so pale it is practically fluorescent in the gloom.
Tomas reaches for the switch and light floods the room. The boy puts a hand over his eyes and lets out a yelp.
An involuntary moan escapes Tomas’ lips.
The boy is no bigger than a five-year-old, but his chest sags like an old man’s. His skin is baggy, as if it is a few sizes too big for his body. And his face: the bony cheeks; the grey skin; the flesh that dimples oddly when he winces at the light.
Does he have that disease that makes children age prematurely – what’s it called? Could it have messed up his brain?
‘You can’t leave,’ the boy says, lowering his hand. His unnaturally large eyes blink at the light. The boy
the creature
looks so small, so pitiful and frail, and yet Tomas is terrified of him.
He glances at the toilet door on his right, trying to think clearly, to formulate a plan. There is nowhere to run from the bathroom. But he could lock himself in. The mobile reception has to come back at some point, right? He can bang on the walls. Someone passing by outside will hear him. The boy’s mother might eventually return.
Where has she really got to?
He is convinced the woman who owns the shoes is in the bathroom, has been lurking there the whole time, letting the boy play a part in her sick game.
Tomas reaches out and pushes the bathroom door open. The light falls in across the same peach plastic vinyl that covers his and Peo’s bathroom floor, the same white shower curtain. It’s half drawn, but he can see there is no one behind it.
He hurls himself towards the bathroom, but the boy is faster. Hands grab his shirt collar and legs wrap themselves around his waist again, from the front this time. The horrifying face is so close to his now. A foetid stench of decay wafts from the boy’s mouth. Tomas staggers back into the room, stumbles and falls flat on his back on the floor. His head misses the edge of the bed by a hair’s breadth. The boy straddles his stomach. Pins his arms to the floor. Leans forward.
The bottle in Tomas’ inside pocket is leaking, wet and tepid in his armpit. He barely notices. The synapses in his brain crackle, relaying information about what his eyes see. Every detail is crystal-clear. It is as if time has stopped.
The boy’s eyes flash like blue fire, but the thin skin around them is saggy and lifeless. He opens his mouth and pulls back his chapped, broken lips; reveals yellowed teeth and gums that are grey with darker spots.
What’s wrong with him? What does this to a child? Could it be rabies? No, that’s a ridiculous thought, isn’t it?
The boy’s tongue slides out between his teeth like a grey, meaty slug. His mouth comes closer.
This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.
Tomas tries to squirm, to arch his body to throw the boy off.
He shouldn’t be this strong; it should be impossible.
The dry flakes on the boy’s lips touch the skin on the side of Tomas’ neck. Tickle the hyper-sensitised nerve endings. Then he feels the teeth, small and pointed. He shakes his head wildly, trying to get away.
The teeth bite through his skin. The pain almost makes him black out again. And the sound, the sound. He can feel the boy’s tongue darting along the edges of the wound. It laps at them gingerly, almost playfully. Gets slippery and wet with his blood.
Madde
She looks into her own eyes in the screen of her phone, trying to make her arm as long as possible while keeping her head tilted at the right angle. The wind on the afterdeck tears at her hair; she and Zandra laugh and raise their glasses in a toast to everyone who is going to see the picture. The waves in the wake of the cruise ship form the backdrop, a white fan set against the black. She presses the camera symbol with her thumb, testing a different pose with each click.
A group of guys is standing further down the deck. One of them is wearing a bridal veil: clearly a stag do. Madde can sense them watching her and Zandra, so she works the camera harder. Really gives them something to look at.
Zandra lights them a cigarette each while Madde studies the results. Quickly deletes any picture that doesn’t do her justice before Zandra has a chance to persuade her to post them because she happens to look good in them. But then she gets to the picture that blows the other ones out of the water, and Madde knows there is not going to be a debate. Zandra is smiling with parted lips in the picture, with eyes like she has just spotted something really sexy; one end of her feather boa has been snatched up by the wind and is soaring in the darkness behind her. Madde’s head is tilted back, her eyes half closed and her mouth pouting for a kiss.
She chooses a filter that makes everything soft and golden and turns the contrast up high to make their eyes and cheekbones pop. Zandra hands her a cigarette, and when shown the picture, nods contently.
‘No wonder those blokes can’t stop staring at us,’ she says.
Madde takes a few deep drags and dances to the music thumping out from Club Charisma while she attempts to upload the picture. No reception. There is supposed to be Wi-Fi on board, but it never works right.
She slips her phone into h
Zandra grins. Obviously knows exactly what she is up to.
But, in all honesty, Madde doesn’t care about those guys. They are just practice. She is going to make Dan Appelgren notice her tonight.
Dan
Dan is sitting on the unmade bed in his cabin, studying the four lines neatly spaced out on the mirror he has placed across his knees. The ritual itself is so comforting he already feels better. He bends over, sticks a cut-off straw up one nostril, meets his own eyes in the glass. Inhales one line. Swaps nostrils. Snorts up line number two. Pinches his nose. Feels the chemical flavour all the way at the back of his throat. Clears his throat. Swallows. Repeats the procedure. Then he wipes the last of the white dust from the glass with his finger, rubs it onto his gums. Digs around the plastic bag with his wetted finger to get the last remnants out of the corners.
His gums grow numb immediately. This is good shit. He puts another bag in his pocket along with a few Xanax, hangs the mirror back up. Studies himself carefully. Tilts his head back to make sure there are no tell-tale snowballs stuck in his nose hair.
Dan turns his head. His hair is freshly dyed, no traces of grey at the temples. He pulls his shirt up. Slaps his belly hard. No jiggle. Most guys in their twenties could only dream of looking this fit.
The soles of his patent leather shoes slap loudly against the floor when he energetically starts jumping up and down. He throws a few jabs at his reflection.
He puts on his silver rings. He is ready.
Tomas
He manages to buck the boy and sits up quickly. They get to their feet at the same time.
His neck is throbbing. The sound of teeth tearing through skin echoes in his head.