But the woman whose eyes are running down her cheeks tries to get back up again. She is never going to stop.
Just an injured animal. Don’t think of her as human. What is the most humane thing to do to an injured animal? Kill it.
Pia looks around the cabin. Almost everything is bolted down. The lamps have cords. Would she be able to yank one out and use it to strangle the woman? But she hasn’t breathed
she hasn’t breathed
this whole time.
Not once.
The realisation makes Pia dizzy.
She considers the chair by the desk. It is far too light to cause any real damage, but she could use it to break the mirror and try to stab the woman with a shard.
But no, she can’t do it. Not after what she has already done. It is too personal, too intimate.
You are such a fucking coward. So fucking weak. You can’t even finish what you started.
The woman takes a tottering step towards her, whimpering again. Her arms are extended, her hands feeling the air in front of her. She sniffs and turns straight to Pia, as if she can see through her empty eye sockets, following when Pia moves towards the corner with the old-style TV.
Pia yanks and tugs at the steel wall mount, then hangs from it with all her weight. The wall buckles and the big bolts give way with a deafening crack. She catches the TV as it falls and holds it in her arms, mount and all.
It is heavy. Her arms shake when she lifts it above her head. She is using the last of her strength now; she is aware of that.
One chance. One chance only.
The Baltic Charisma
The thumping from Club Charisma’s dance floor seeps out to the afterdeck. People are smoking, laughing, kissing, taking pictures with their phones. No one notices the little boy in a red hoodie hiding further down the promenade deck. He is waiting patiently, ready to take care of as many people as possible trying to escape that way from the dance floor. Any time now. He can feel it in every part of his body.
His mother senses it too. Disaster is upon them. She is standing at the prow with her back to the sea, watching the Baltic Charisma loom over her. The radar spins on top of its mast, round and round, a whisper in the wind. She removes her locket and pushes her thumbnail into the crack; it opens with a hollow click. Two grave faces look back at her, stiffly holding their poses so the long exposure time back then wouldn’t blur their faces. A man with high cheekbones and penetrating eyes. A boy with blond, neatly combed hair. Her son is still the same, but she has lost him for ever. She lost him a long time ago, even though they haven’t left each other’s side in all these years. She looks at the man, remembering the shock on his face when their son ripped his throat open. She has closed her eyes to the truth about her son ever since. The Old Ones warned her he was too young to undergo the change, that he would forget what it is like to be human, but she ignored them. Once she realised she should have heeded them, it was too late and now she must pay the price.
Rivers of blood will flow tonight. And every last drop is on her hands.
*
The other woman looking for her missing son is still sitting in her wheelchair by the information desk. She too is blaming herself for what has happened, for not realising sooner that it was inevitable. The man behind the counter has disappeared into the back office with two of the security officers. They looked frightened. They asked her to return to her cabin. They claimed they would keep looking for Albin, but she doesn’t trust them. She knows something is going on and that whatever it is has a higher priority to them than her beloved son.
*
The red-haired man in the drunk tank can’t bear the hunger any longer. He puts his mouth to his wrist. His teeth tear at flesh and sinew. His dead blood has started congealing in his veins, but at least it fills his stomach.
Pia
‘Don’t come in here,’ she says into her radio, barely recognising her own raspy voice. ‘I won’t let you in anyway.’
Pia has managed to barricade the door with the desk chair. She is sitting on one of the beds watching the drizzle fall against the window. She has turned off all the lights in the cabin. It feels good. Restful for the eyes.
She needs to rest. Soon.
‘What’s going on?’ Mika says. ‘Pia, you have to tell me what’s going on. I don’t know what to do.’
He is talking fast, much too fast. She presses the hand holding the radio against her forehead, trying to figure out a way to explain. To think through the pain.
She glances at the dark shadows on the bed opposite. She has laid them out there: Jarno, the elderly couple, the woman who killed them. Victims and perpetrators. Or are all four of them victims?
The TV with its smashed screen is sitting on the floor, blood and hair on the broken glass that gleams faintly in the dark.
She has noticed the old man’s fingers moving, even though he was dead a moment ago. Even though his throat has been ripped out.
The best thing she can do, for everyone’s sake, is to stay here and guard them so no one gets back up. She’ll take care of it if they do. She has fetched a heavy fire extinguisher from the hallway and used it to finish the job with the woman with no eyes. She almost threw up when she saw the result, but the woman has been motionless ever since.
‘There’s some kind of contagion on board,’ she says. ‘It makes people violent. Extremely violent.’
It turns them into monsters.
‘They bite. That’s how the contagion spreads. They may look dead at first, but they’re not.’ A chill runs through her. ‘Or maybe they are. But they wake up anyway.’
‘Pia, are you hurt? You’re delirious. Pär and Henke are here. I can send—’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve been bitten. I’m going to become one of them. I’ll try to hold on for as long as I can, but I don’t know how much time I have left.’
A new wave of pain in her mouth, then it fills with saliva that tastes like blood. She catches herself sucking her teeth to draw more out. A canine comes loose. She spits it out into her hand and puts it on the nightstand between the beds.
‘Pia …’
The radio hisses. Mika might as well be hundreds of miles away, thousands. It makes no difference. Everything outside this cabin is lost to her now.
‘What?’ she says.
‘What am I supposed to do? The engine room’s not responding. The bridge is not responding. Pär and Henke couldn’t get in. And Bosse is dead. Pia, they say he was completely butchered …’
A rivulet of blood trickles from the hole where her canine used to be. She is well aware she used to find the taste of blood revolting, but not any more. She is aching with a thirst for more, for someone else’s.
‘Pia?’ Mika says, sounding close to tears. ‘I need you.’
‘I can’t help you. I think I’m dangerous.’
‘No, you’re not!’ Mika yells.
‘You have to find Dan Appelgren – and the little boy he was with when I saw him before …’ She understands the child’s look now: recognition, not curiosity. He wasn’t wondering who she was. He knew exactly. ‘The child is one of them.’
‘This sounds completely fucking insane, Pia. All of it.’
‘I know. But you have to believe me. You are responsible for the lives of twelve hundred people now.’ She is cold. Her teeth are chattering and more of them are falling out. ‘And don’t let Tomas Thunman out of the drunk tank under any circumstances. I think it all started with him. If we’re lucky, that’s all of them …’
A guttural groan rises from the pile of bodies on the other bed. She closes her eyes and casts about for anything she might have missed.
‘I found a purse. There is an ID in the wallet. The girl who’s staying here is called Alexandra Karlsson. Check who her roommate is. It’s a woman, judging from her belongings. She might be infected.’
‘Pia, this is—’
‘And Raili was alone with Dan,’ she sudde
nly realises. ‘Talk to her, make sure she wasn’t bitten. And …’ Don’t start crying. Don’t. ‘… and someone has to tell her about Jarno. Don’t have Pär do it. Andreas, maybe. But I don’t want her coming here. Promise me you won’t tell her where Jarno is. If he wakes up …’
She can’t finish the thought. Another chill makes her shiver and she knows she doesn’t have long left. She pulls the bed throw over her head.
‘I have to go now,’ she says, ‘but you’re going to see this through. Announce over the speakers that people have to go back to their cabins. Call the club and Starlight and tell them to close. And then you have to get as many of the staff into the mess or, I don’t know, somewhere you can lock yourselves in properly while you figure out what to do …’
She has to force herself to breathe. ‘And tell them about the contagion. They need to know. You have to believe me: it must be contained. Think about Bosse. Think about what happened to him.’
The pile on the other bed moves.
The elderly woman’s body rolls down onto the floor with a heavy thud. Pia stares at it, waiting for it to stand up.
But it is the old man: he has shoved her aside to get out. He grunts from the exertion.
‘Good luck,’ she says, and turns the radio off.
She gets up and backs over to the desk as he struggles to a sitting position. She reaches for the internal telephone. Turning around, keeping an eye on him through the mirror above the desk, she dials the number to Filip’s cabin.
One ring.
Two rings.
The man is sitting up now, emitting a loud, plaintive moaning.
Three rings.
‘Hello?’ Calle says drowsily.
Pia’s eyes tear up. ‘Calle,’ she says. ‘Calle, it’s me.’
Jolts of pain from the roof of her mouth, red-hot steel rods straight into her skull.
‘Pia? Are you okay? You sound weird.’
She studies the dark shape getting to its feet next to the bed, nudging the body on the floor with its foot.
‘I’m sick,’ she says. ‘You have to promise me something … You have to …’
‘Pia? Pia, what’s going on?’
She inhales, but her lungs are too weak; she can’t get enough oxygen.
‘Pia? Where are you? Tell me and I’ll come and get you.’
‘I’m on six, but I can’t … It’s … It’s too … late …’
She has started hyperventilating. Dots of light dance in the darkness, like dazzling solar systems, stars connected by faintly luminescent threads.
She can hear Calle get out of bed. ‘Promise me …’ she says.
Gathering her thoughts is difficult now; she has to focus to be able to start again. ‘Something is seriously wrong on board, and if you see me …’
In the mirror, she watches the man take a step towards her. Her fingers stroke the fire extinguisher.
‘If you see me, run as far away from me as you can,’ she says.
‘What are you talking about?’
Her consciousness is struggling to claw its way out of the dark, like when a drowning person is only just able to get their nose above water.
‘I love you, Calle. Promise me.’
She hangs up.
The Baltic Charisma
Lyra’s pyjamas are covered in her parents’ blood. She is slinking along the walls of the lower floor of Club Charisma. She’s no longer hungry, but she still wants more. She’s drawn to this place where the bodies are warm and in plentiful supply. It is dark and crowded. She stops next to the dance floor, sensing another of her kind. She scans the crowd and finds Dan straight away. She knows he is a leader. But something else catches her attention. Lyra turns to the mezzanine: someone up there smells warmer than the others.
*
On the upper floor of Club Charisma, a woman named Victoria hands her credit card to the bartender. She smiles at Simeone, who says, ‘We came to Sweden because we heard about the Swedish love boats,’ and she thinks to herself that she loves his Italian accent. She laughs and asks if they are what he hoped they would be, and he replies, ‘I hope so.’ His hand is around her waist; his fingertips burn through her thin dress.
‘The reception’s been messed up for a while now,’ the bartender says, and Victoria looks at his weather-beaten old face in confusion before realising he is talking about the card reader.
She rummages around her wallet, pulls out a couple of crumpled notes. Simeone’s hand comes to rest on her stomach, spreading its warmth there. Victoria puts her hand on his, intertwines their fingers. The blood pumps through her harder. She is starting to perspire, sweat settling like a thin film over the skin on her back.
‘Do you wanna go back to my place?’ she says. ‘It’s very close, you know. That’s the best thing about the love boats.’
He nods. She takes a sip of her new beer and hopes her breath smells okay. ‘Let’s go tell our friends we’re leaving,’ she says.
Hand in hand, they walk towards the stairs that lead down to the dance floor. People have gathered by the brass and smoked glass railing. A middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt sprints past, shouting something to the bartender. Victoria only catches a few snatched words.
‘… call … in a bad way …’
Simeone asks what is going on and she shakes her head, then spots a girl in bloody pyjamas coming up the stairs. Her lips are covered in caked blood.
Someone must have beaten her mouth to a pulp.
The girl reaches the upper level, backlit by the strobing lights.
She needs help. Victoria lets go of Simeone’s hand and rushes over to the girl. For a split second, Victoria sees the girl’s face up close, then she lands on her back. Lyra has knocked her over. Her hair tickles Victoria’s nose. The bass notes from below vibrate up through the floor, making her body quiver. And then—the pain of Lyra’s teeth digging through the skin. Teeth meet inside her throat and rip out a large chunk.
Victoria tries to scream, but her voice is gone. Out of the corner of her eye she notices something spurting through the air like oil from a new-found well: it is blood, her blood. People are screaming all around them, but Victoria can’t get out so much as a sound as the girl’s teeth rip through her throat a second time.
*
Down on the dance floor, Dan catches the smell of hot blood meeting air and looks up at the mezzanine. He hears screaming from up there, but no one down here reacts; they just keep dancing while the reek of fear grows stronger. There are so many scared people upstairs. Their hearts are beating fast and every second he manages to resist is sweet agony. He sees a woman’s body in a thin dress crash into the railing. Her face, pressed up against the inside of the glass, looks misshapen and flat. Only one of her eyes is visible. It stares unseeing into the dance-floor lights, the white of her eye reflecting the changing colours. And now he sees a girl in silk pyjamas up by the railing. A man is trying to restrain her from behind, but the girl squirms so violently in his firm grip that one of her arms is wrenched out of its socket. She arches her tense body, snapping her teeth in every direction. The woman in the thin dress is still filled with blood; it trickles over the edge and drips onto the dance floor. Sticky spatter lands on the cheek of a girl in a beige lace dress a few feet from Dan, but she doesn’t notice, just keeps dancing with her arms above her head. The blood. He needs it, can’t wait any longer. He goes to stand beneath the edge of the mezzanine and tilts his head back, mouth open. Warm, thick drops land on his cheek, on his tongue, straight down his throat.
The girl in the lace dress stares at Dan, not understanding what is happening. She glances up at the mezzanine floor. Spotting the body lying there she screams, clutching at the people closest to her. Someone calls out, ‘It’s Victoria, it’s Victoria, it’s my friend, oh my God, Victoria—’
People are pointing at Dan. There’s thudding steps on the stairs as others try to escape from the mezzanine. A body drops onto the dance floor, in the middle of a circle of gyrating
girls. There’s the sound of bones breaking and the screaming spreads, blending with the cries of pain coming from upstairs.
Dan can’t resist. He closes his eyes, sniffs the air and grabs one of the warm bodies running past him.
Filip
Over at Starlight, Filip hangs up the phone. He stares at it for half a second, trying to understand. Mika sounded like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. What he said had barely been coherent.
‘There’s some kind of contagion on board,’ he says quietly to Marisol. ‘We have to get everyone to go back to their cabins and then there’s a meeting in the mess.’
When he hears himself say it out loud, it suddenly feels more real.
‘What kind of contagion?’ she asks.
She doesn’t look particularly worried, which calms him a little. If anything is contagious here, it is Mika’s overreaction. Nothing else. Maybe.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, but we have to stop serving immediately.’
‘Oh, that’s going to be popular.’
Filip leaves the bar. A few people waiting for their turn shout angrily after him, but he sidesteps the hands reaching for him. Deciding not to push through the crowd on the dance floor, he walks the long way around instead, avoiding touching the brass railing. He looks at all the glasses on the tables. Are there sick people in here? How does it spread? Marisol and he have handled money and cards, their hands brushing against the customers’ hands. A woman’s naked, sweaty shoulder rubs hard against his upper arm, leaving a patch of damp on his shirt.
He reaches the side of the stage and walks up the steps. It must be obvious from his expression that something has happened because Jenny stops singing immediately. The bass player’s fingers come to rest on the strings. The drumbeat slows and falls silent. There’s booing from the room. Jenny walks across to Filip, handing him her microphone before he has a chance to ask for it.