The Savage Dead, page 12
He didn’t have much time either.
Forward and out, he told himself.
He aimed for what his sniper friends called the kill spot, that little indentation between the bottom of the nose and the center of the upper lip. Put a bullet there and the medulla oblongata vaporized in a pink spray that went out the back of the head and ended the victim’s life before they could even blink an eye.
Both of the men in front of him went down with a single shot and a badly shaken Juan Perez staggered down the hallway until he found an exit.
He pushed the door open and blinding white lights hit him in the face.
Men were yelling.
He put up a hand to shield his eyes, his other hand holding his weapon down by his thigh.
A familiar voice yelled, “Hold your fire!”
The next instant, Detective Jason Rowe was at his side, saying something Juan didn’t quite catch.
It felt like the world was swirling all around him.
“Hey,” Rowe shouted into his ear, “you okay?”
Juan slowly shook his head.
He hooked a thumb back toward the building. “Nobody goes in there,” he said, surprised at how smooth, how calm he sounded. “Not yet.”
CHAPTER 11
Paul Godwin woke to the morning sun on his face. After spending the night drunk his head ached horribly. With a groan, he turned away from the light. Tess was there beside him, dressed in a white T-shirt that during the night had climbed up enough to show her black panties and a little bit of her smooth white belly. Very nice. He tried to remember if anything had happened between them. He had flashes of her laughing; of the two of them tumbling through the cabin door on a wave of liquor; of her changing into the T-shirt she now wore, blushing and then giggling when she realized she’d just gotten naked right in front of him. He couldn’t remember anything else though, and his head hurt too badly to worry about it.
He spilled out of bed, bleary-eyed and ill, and staggered toward the bathroom. His iPhone was on the dresser, but he didn’t bother to look at it. He’d have to meet with the senator before breakfast to go over the day’s business, but he sure as hell couldn’t do it like this. Not feeling like this. It felt like he was still drunk.
A moment later, Paul was swaying over the toilet in the dark. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror and saw a dark patch at the corner of his mouth. Leaning closer, he saw it was a bruise, crescent shaped, brightening to an inflamed-looking red just below his bottom lip. There was a little bit of dried blood there, too.
He touched it and it hurt.
“Hey, Tess?” he called out. No answer. He stepped back into the cabin. “Hey, Tess, do you know how I got this?”
She groaned. Opened one eye. Closed it. Groaned again.
“You still sleeping?”
She lifted her head from the pillow, her eyes glassy and rimmed in red. “Of course, I’m still sleeping. Oh, God.” She dropped her face to the pillow. He heard her mutter, “I’m never drinking tequila again.”
“Is that what we were drinking?”
She groaned again.
He was surprised at himself. Spring break his sophomore year at Yale, down in Panama City, there’d been what he diplomatically referred to these days as a “tequila incident.” For years after he hadn’t even been able to stand in the same room as a bottle of tequila without getting queasy. “I haven’t had that stuff since college,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. You kept saying that. You told the whole bar that.”
“I did?”
“You don’t remember?”
He shook his head. “No, not really.”
“Do you remember trying to get me to sing karaoke?”
“No. Please tell me I didn’t do that.” He paused, then said, “I didn’t sing, did I? Please tell me I didn’t.”
“You kept trying to get me to sing ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.’ You said a good Southern girl like me should know it by heart.” She groaned again. “Oh, God, I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t mention it.”
After a pause, he said, “Hey, do you remember how I got this?”
She turned her head just enough to look at him. He pointed to his busted lip.
“You hit yourself with the door when we came back here last night. Do you remember that?”
“I think I remember you laughing.”
“I was laughing at you.”
“Oh.”
She rolled over onto her back and put a hand over her eyes. “How about aspirin? Do you have any?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. I sure could use some though. You want to go get some with me? They’ve got that mall. Should be able to find something there.”
“No,” she said. “I just want to stay here and throw up.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“But if you’re going get some Alka-Seltzer, too.”
“Okay, sure.”
He got dressed—khaki shorts, a Yale golf shirt, and Birkenstocks—grabbed his phone and his room card and headed out. He almost knocked on the senator’s cabin door to tell her where he was going, but thought better of it. She was probably still sleeping. God knows she needed it. The night before, at dinner, Dr. Sutton was complaining of a bad stomachache. He looked pale and he was sweating a lot. Paul and Tess had helped the senator get him downstairs to the cabin and after they put him to bed, she’d come to the door with Paul and Tess and urged them to go out and have fun. He’d earned that much, she said, and she’d be all right. But she’d looked tired. There was a haggard air about her he hadn’t seen since they were working so hard to get the International Asset Seizure Act passed. He remembered those days, when she first started to get beat up in the press, and how much bitter resistance she’d gotten from her own party’s leadership. She’d weathered all that though, and she’d come out on top, but it had been really rough on her, and on her marriage. Perhaps, as they stood there in her cabin, whispering so as not to disturb Dr. Sutton, she’d known what he was thinking because she’d smiled—forced the smile, he thought—and said, “Really, I’m fine. You kids go have a good time. Enjoy yourself.” She’d even joked with Tess about it. “Agent Compton, would you please make sure he enjoys himself?” Tess had nodded and wandered back out into the hall. “Go,” she told him. “I’ll be fine.”
That was the last clear memory he had of the night, and it bothered him as he wandered down the hallway to the stairs. The cruise line had an iPhone app that was supposed to help him get around the ship, schedule dinners and shows and shore excursions, everything he needed, but it was hard to use. And apparently not working this morning. All he could get was the map, and even on that the You Are Here feature wasn’t working. He’d never been good at maps, and he felt lost trying to use this one without the little red dot to guide him. He’d been wandering for twenty minutes before he realized he didn’t know what deck he was on.
Then he noticed that he hadn’t seen anybody else since leaving his cabin. He was standing on a patch of marble tile outside of one of the ship’s restaurants. It was closed now and so it didn’t surprise him that it was empty. But when he walked around the corner to a long hallway that ran nearly the entire length of the ship, he didn’t see anybody either, and that seemed wrong somehow. It was early, but it wasn’t that early. There should be people, right? At least one or two heading up topside for breakfast. But there was nobody, and the silence unnerved him.
He started up the hallway, growing more and more uncomfortable with every step. What was going on here? Paul tried to tell himself to keep calm, there was nothing to this, but when another five minutes went by and he still hadn’t seen anyone, he couldn’t make himself believe it anymore.
Paul was rounding the corner to the main stairs when he heard someone shouting in what sounded like a mixture of Italian and English.
He stopped at the mouth of the hallway, listening down the stairs.
Whoever was doing the shouting was coming up the stairs.
And fast.
“Hello?” Paul said. His voice sounded strained, the fear held in check, but only just.
The next instant a crewman rounded the landing below him at a full sprint. He glanced once at Paul and though it was only for a fraction of a second it was enough for Paul to see the fear in his eyes.
“Hey!” Paul said. “Wait.”
But the man ran right on by him, rounded the corner and kept running upstairs.
“Hey!” Paul called after him.
Nothing.
He was gone.
Paul looked around, knowing he didn’t want to stay where he was, and went up the stairs hoping maybe to run into someone else.
He didn’t find the crewman. He did find the mall, though, and he thought for sure that there’d be people here. The place was always crowded. The shops were supposed to open early and stay open past midnight, but they were all closed. Paul glanced up, scanning the balconies above him. Nothing. The mall was four-stories high, every level lined with balconies for sightseers to look down on the action. Somebody should have been at one of the railings.
He walked through the garden at the center of the mall, too scared now to worry about the ringing in his head. Where in the hell was everyone? At the opposite end of the market, he stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned around, scanning once again the stillness of the ship, the hideous and unnatural quiet of it. Then that quiet was broken by the soft patter of footsteps on the carpeted stairs behind him.
He turned, relief swelling up in him.
And just as quickly turning to shock.
A girl was standing there, a beautiful dark-haired girl dressed all in black.
“Monica?” He blinked, unable to believe his eyes. “Oh, my God, what are—”
But he didn’t get the rest of it out, for the girl’s eyes opened wide and she wheeled around, sprinting back up the stairs.
“Monica, wait!”
He ran after her, calling her name. She wouldn’t stop. He could hear her footfalls mounting higher above him, gaining ground on him. He made it as far as the second landing before his body rebelled. His legs turned to water beneath him. His head felt soupy. His stomach heaved.
Unable to keep it down, he vomited into a potted fern next to the wall.
When he could stand up again, his head was swimming. His skin felt clammy and cold with sweat. But he felt a little better. Just a little.
He turned to the stairs where Monica had disappeared and shook his head. That had been her. There was no question in his mind about that. And he was certain she recognized him. The surprise had been plain as day on her face. So why had she run? And what in the hell was she doing on this ship?
He tried to think of what to do next, but had no idea. The deserted ship, seeing Monica here; it was too weird. He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
Finally, not knowing what else to do, he went down the stairs to Deck 4. His map said the infirmary was there. Maybe he could get some aspirin there.
And maybe some answers, too.
Paul found the woman’s body a few feet from the elevators on Deck 4.
Her head was bashed in with something blunt, like a heavy piece of wood. Blood had puddled around her head, caking in her hair. She looked to Paul to be maybe fifty, maybe a little older. It was hard to tell because her face was all scratched up and her mouth was torn at one corner, the gash going almost all the way to her ear. Her clothes were torn, too, and there were more scratches on her neck and her arms.
He’d gagged, and nearly vomited a second time when he saw the blood, and now he was standing a few feet from her, shaking, sweating, his breath coming in short, ragged pulls. Paul closed his eyes and tried to get his head back together, and that was when he heard the sound of a man sobbing from a nearby supply closet.
He went over to the door as quietly as he could, careful not to step in any of the blood, and listened at the door. Whoever was on the other side of the door sounded more frightened than he was, if that was even possible. And in between sobs he could make out a prayer. “Guardia de mí, oh, Señor, de las manos de los malos, me preserve de hombres violentos, que han planeado hacer tropezar a mis pies.”
“Hello?” Paul said.
The voice inside the supply closet went quiet.
“Hello? Are you okay in there?”
Nothing but more silence.
“The door’s locked. Will you open it, please? Abre la puerta, por favor.”
After a moment, Paul heard the lock turn over.
“Voy a abrir la puerta ahora, ¿de acuerdo?” he said.
Paul didn’t get a response so he pushed the door open. Inside he saw a man in a uniform, but it was the uniform of one of the behind-the-scenes workers, the ones that cruise passengers weren’t supposed to see. Laundry, or Housekeeping, Paul wasn’t exactly sure.
And at the moment he didn’t care, for as scared as the man looked he was holding the broken end of a wooden broom handle—clutching it like it was the edge of a cliff, to be more exact—and it was covered with blood.
“Oh, my God,” Paul said. “What did you do?”
The man looked at him then, and his gaze was haunted. That was all Paul could think of to describe it. That was the gaze of a man who had seen more than he’d bargained for.
Far more.
“¿Qué has hecho?” Paul asked.
The man shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it himself.
“Ella me ataco,” he said. “Ella trato de mor-derme.”
Paul shook his head, certain he’d heard that wrong. She hadn’t tried to eat him. Certainly not that. “Mi español no es muy bueno,” Paul said. “¿Has dicho que ella trató de comer?”
“Sí,” the man said, nodding emphatically. The stick was shaking in the air between them, and Paul couldn’t help but see the bits of scalp and clumpy bits still clinging to the tip. “Yo no qué hacer. La golpeé con esto. Ella no iba a morir. La golpeé una y otra vez. Ella no iba a morir.”
“She wouldn’t die?” Paul repeated.
The man nodded. His haunted expression gave way suddenly to a desperate need to be understood. Yes, yes, he nodded. Yes.
Paul was frightened. It was finally sinking in that he was standing just a few feet from the man who had caved that poor woman’s head in. And he was still holding the stick he’d used to do it. He had to hold himself together. He had to get that weapon away from him and get him to a ship’s officer. But to do that, he had to look like he was in control.
“Give me the stick,” he said, holding out his hand. “Give it to me. Dame el palo.”
“No.” The man shrank back, clutching the stick to his chest. He was shaking all over. “Ellos volverán, los muertos.”
“Los muertos?” Paul turned his palm up and thrust his hand in the man’s direction. “Dame el palo.” He wanted to hand the stick over. Paul could see that in the man’s demeanor. He wanted someone to step in and take control. “My name is Paul,” he said. “What’s your name? ¿Cuál es su nombre?”
“Pedro.”
“Pedro, okay. Pedro, you need to give me the stick. Dame el palo, por favor.”
Neither man moved for a long moment. Then the man’s face went slack and he held the stick out for Paul to take.
“Thank you,” Paul said. He’d been holding his breath. He let it go now and stepped backwards into the hall. He motioned for the man to follow. “Come with me,” he said. “Let’s go get help. Ven conmigo.”
Pedro nodded and stood.
Paul took another step back. He put his hand on the door. “Come on,” he said, motioning for the man to follow.
The man stepped into the hallway and Paul closed the door behind him.
And there was another man standing there. Paul lurched back, stumbling over his feet and bumping into the wall. The man wore the white uniform of a ship’s officer, but the entire front of it was covered in what looked like bloody fish guts. His face was a ghastly mess, the lips bloated and torn, hanging from his mouth. Like the woman back at the elevators, his face and arms were laced with deep, bleeding scratches, and there were bite marks on his hands.
Paul didn’t even get a chance to raise the stick. Pedro had stepped out of the way of the closing door and right into the man’s arms. Both men tumbled to the ground, the officer coming down on top. Pedro pawed and slapped at the man, but the officer tore into him with the ferocity of a wounded animal. He pounded on him, scratched him, scratched at his eyes. Paul watched, horrified, as the officer clamped his teeth onto Pedro’s nose and tore it away.
Blood spurted onto the man’s face and onto the walls and Paul lurched again.
The officer looked up, locking eyes with Paul, blood dripping off his chin. Paul swallowed, and something inside him let go. His bowels turned to water. His legs felt like they could barely hold him.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said.
The man rose to his feet, a low, stuttering growl rising from his ruined throat.
“Stay back. Leave me alone.”
Paul could feel himself shaking so badly he thought he might fall apart. What he was looking at was impossible. People didn’t do stuff like this. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
But the man was coming after him.
Paul turned to run, but froze in his tracks. A woman, this one dressed like a passenger, was coming at him from the opposite end of the hall. At first it took a moment for Paul’s mind to take her all in, for there was no way in hell she should still be on her feet, not looking like she did. There was no meat left on her right thigh, only tattered flaps of pink skin and strings of tendons hanging from her femur. Her left arm hung uselessly at her side. She was supporting herself on the railing with her other arm, pulling herself along inch by painful inch. Her mouth was an angry, vacant hole, and though she seemed to be speaking, she didn’t make a sound.
Before Paul could move, the ship’s officer was all over him, his cold, blood-sticky hands clamping down on his shoulder.
Paul let out a scream and pulled away. He still had the broken-off broom handle he’d taken from Pedro and he jammed it into the officer’s face. Outside of the movies, Paul had never seen anyone so inexplicably violent. The man snarled and snapped like a pit bull, and though Paul had the pointed end of the broom handle digging into his throat, the man still raged.
