10 years ago, I won a competition to have a private full expenses paid party on a state-of-the-art cruise ship. It allowed you and five friends to spend a night on the vessel, with free food and drinks. We thought it was going to be one of the best nights of our lives. It turned out to be the worst night of my life, by far. Let me tell you my story.
I drink a lot of soda. As in, buy a pack per day, a lot. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I see it as one of the more harmless vices you can have, although I appreciate it’s probably not the best thing to do for my body.
Well, one day I spotted a new graphic on the pack when picking a few up at the grocery store late one night when I was running low. It had a bright graphic of the sun wearing sunglasses, and stated in large vibrant lettering:
“For a limited time only! Prize draw entry for a deluxe cruise party day with each pack! Will it be YOUR lucky day?”
All you had to do was scan the QR code on the box, along with a picture of the receipt. Easy enough. And so, for the next two months, I dutifully scanned the codes in the hope of being lucky. 48 packs in all. I didn’t give myself much chance though – There must have been hundreds of thousands of entries nationwide. So after the deadline passed, I just went back to normal life and forgot about it.
That is, until I received a phone call one Thursday morning while I was at work. I couldn’t believe it and had to step outside to get some fresh air – I’d won! I was given a list of Friday nights to choose from, and was asked to provide the details of up to six people who would be going. They even asked me for what food we liked, and of course, we would have all the free soda on board that we could drink.
Upon speaking to the rep further, we’d have a huge cruise ship all to ourselves; including a huge swimming pool, games arcade and tennis court. The only people on board would be us, and a skeleton crew to steer the ship and serve food. We’d go on a round-trip to a nearby island, spend the night and then travel back. I couldn’t believe my luck.
Without thinking, I reeled off the names of five of my closest friends, and started counting down the days to possibly the best night of my life.
After the longest month of my life, the Friday that I had marked down in my calendar for weeks had finally arrived. I gathered my things hurriedly, and made for my car.
It was a long drive to the dock, about two hours. But it would all be worth it. As I pulled up into the parking lot, I could already see the huge cruise liner that had been laid up for us – It looked unbelievable. As I got out of the car in amazement, I could see my group of friends in an excited circle. They all greeted me with enthusiastic hugs and smiles.
“I can’t believe it! This is going to be so awesome.” Exclaimed Will, my best friend. I’d known him since junior school.
Our group of friends was small, but tight-knit. We all got to know each other in junior school, all except Jen, who we got to know through our D&D evenings. We badly needed a wizard, and she responded to our ad online. We clicked immediately, and we’ve been close ever since.
Outside of Will and Jen, there were three others in our group. We had Frankie, who was our resident music geek. He could play numerous musical instruments, and was always making suggestions for weird and wonderful albums across a wide spread of genres. His latest recommendation was a pirate metal album from a band called Rum’n’Rock. It was surprisingly good.
Next was Kat, who loved to play video games. She regularly streamed online – Her niche was first person shooters. She was very proud of the fact that she had a KD ratio of 2.1. Tied in with that, she was incredibly competitive and hated losing. In fact, there was a viral video of her online a couple of years back of her raging after a painful loss. She didn’t mind that though, as it meant she was quite popular now.
Last but not least was Adam. He was the sporty one of the group – He loved to play soccer and was always representing our school in competitive matches. Now that we’d left school, he carried on playing a couple of evenings per week. You wouldn’t think he was athletic or fit though if you just watched him eat – I’d seen him slam down two pizzas by himself once after a particularly intense game.
We excitedly made our way up the stairway, which was adorned with branding for the soda. At the top, we were greeted by a representative from the soda company and were asked to take a couple of photos for their marketing department. It felt a bit corporate and soul-less to do that in hindsight, but we were looking forward to that night so much that we would have pretty much agreed to anything.
After a few pictures were taken and exchanging pleasantries with the company rep, the walkway extended down from the huge ship. Once it was secured, we bounded our way up to the deck with huge smiles on our faces.
Upon boarding, we were welcomed by the captain of the ship, along with being introduced to the surprisingly small crew that would be serving us. In what I was sure was a health and safety requirement, the captain proceeded to let us know how to put a life jacket on, and where the lifeboats were located. We all subtly rolled our eyes at each other – Come on, we were only going to be gone for a day, and were just going 100 miles off shore. It’s not like we were in any danger.
An hour after departing, dusk had fallen and we could start to see the stars. We were all standing on the forecourt of the restaurant, which was towards the front of the ship and had a glass ceiling which allowed you to look up at the sky. It was beautiful. A perfectly clear night, not a cloud in the sky.
Great music was playing (We were asked to choose the playlist, of course), and the ship was lit up with bright lights. There were about 10 industrial-sized refrigerators in the restaurant filled with ice cold soda – We were told that we could take any left over home with us. I was really the only major soda drinker in the group, so most of it would be coming home with me.
As we were all dancing, one of the few members of the ship’s crew announced over the tannoy: “Dinner is served!”. As we sat down at a huge table in the centre of the room, a crew member approached us with a trolley full of piping hot food. An amazing selection of meats, every type of side dish you could think of, and we could also see a table full of desserts in the corner.
“Oh my god, amazing!” Screamed Jen over the music.
“You’ve really outdone yourself this time!” Said Adam, slapping me on the back.
I licked my lips as I couldn’t wait to tuck into the great food, when I looked around the table. I could only count five of us – That’s odd, how did he get separated? We all went to the restaurant together, I was sure of it.
“Frankie? Where’s Frankie?” I asked, looking around confused. He was nowhere to be seen.
“Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing him for a little while…” Kat murmured, while also looking around.
“He’s probably exploring the ship. You and I know that he always lets his curiosity get the better of him. He’ll turn up. Why don’t we go looking for him after we eat?” Will sputtered, in-between mouthfuls of pizza.
So we agreed to finish our meal first. I mean, he did always have a tendency to go wandering off regardless of what we did. If we ever went grocery shopping, we’d find him in some random aisle. If we went to the mall, no doubt he’d find the weirdest store and be looking at something strange in the back. It wasn’t exactly unusual for him to go missing.
After 15 minutes of solid gorging, we decided that now was a good time to try and find him. As we struggled to stand up due to being jammed full of delicious food, a crew member let us know that they’d keep it warm for us if we wanted more later. I couldn’t imagine that myself, but you never know.
As we looked at the paper map we were given upon boarding, we tried to agree where it was most likely that Frankie would be. We almost unanimously agreed that the arcade would no doubt be the most likely place – You couldn’t drag him away once he went into one. He loved playing the game machines.
And so, we made our way to the arcade. It wasn’t a very long walk, but we had to go through the innards of the ship. We approached the entrance, which was adorned with images of cartoonish characters along with iconic video game images. It looked like we had time-travelled to the 1980s, with jazzy carpets and bright neon lights illuminating the huge room. It was difficult to hear much above the cacophony of sound effects and retro music. Everything was bathed in a blue and red neon glow.
“Frankie? You in here?” I shouted, as I paced down the room looking at every arcade cabinet as I went.
“Come on man, you’re missing all the awesome food! There’s plenty of time to kill zombies and collect rings afterwards!” Yelled Adam, with his arms stretched out.
As we reached the far-end of the arcade, there was no sign of him. There was an unmanned bar at the end of the room – There was a little sign saying “Help yourself to any refreshments in the fridges – Game on!”. It was a nice little touch. Of course, the only drink in there was the various different types of soda that the company made. Cherry, ‘zingy’ Lemon, Diet, and of course, classic. I grabbed one for the road.
As we turned around after a brief refreshment break, we spotted a figure hunched over one of the arcade cabinets near the entrance. I ran towards it, and as I got closer, I could recognise those red sneakers anywhere. It was Frankie!
“Where did you sneak off to? We were looking for you!” I said in relief, as I put a hand on his back. I was briefly struck by how clammy and cold he felt – A chill ran up my fingers. It was difficult to see properly in the red light, but as I tried to look at his face which was staring at the screen, he had a blank, almost vacant expression.
“You feeling OK buddy?” I asked in concern.
It took a couple of seconds for Frankie to say something, but he muttered: “Sick. Feeling sick.” His voice was concerningly monotone, but I chalked it up to him not feeling well. That’d also explain the fact that he felt cold to the touch.
“Seasick huh? I used to get that when I was a kid – Let’s go on deck with some fresh sea air. Should set you straight!” Said Will reassuringly, as he put his arm around Frankie’s shoulders and led him out of the arcade. Frankie was shuffling his feet and had his head down – He must have been feeling really ill.
As we walked through the inner corridors of the ship, we followed the signs taking us to the tennis courts. They were outside, and seemed like as good a way as any to make it on deck.
After a minute or two, the fresh smell of the sea air blasted us in the face as we walked out on deck and approached the tennis courts. They were clearly in good condition, and were floodlit in bright white light from above.
As I was leading the group, I turned around and said: “Hey Adam, I bet you’d love to play a game or two. See any rackets?”
But the last word got caught in my throat. As I scanned around the group; Jen and Kat were huddled together. It had admittedly gotten a bit chilly since the sun went down. I was regretting not bringing a jacket myself. Will had his arm around Frankie’s shoulders – Frankie was still looking at the ground, and hadn’t said a word since those few in the arcade. He must have still been feeling ill, as his skin was pallid and pale. What made me stop in my tracks was that Adam wasn’t there. No-one had mentioned anything on the way here, and I was positive that Adam would have let us know if he was going anywhere. This was getting creepy.
“Hey, anyone see where Adam went?” I looked expectantly at Will, Kat and Jen; who all shook their heads in unison. Frankie was motionless, still fixated on the floor.
“Maybe he got lost?” Kat suggested.
Jen chuckled: “Got hungry more like. I would bet money that he’s back at the restaurant stuffing his face. Adam and free food is a match made in heaven.”
And so, we made the short walk along the side of the ship to the restaurant. The sea spray was making it feel even colder, so I increased my pace to a jog in a vain attempt to warm up. Kat now had her arm around Frankie, so was staying at walking pace. Will and Jen matched my jog, partly to warm up but also I imagine because we were getting worried about Adam.
We stepped through the front doors of the restaurant, and were glad for the blast of hot air which came through from the heating system. The music was playing just as loud, but now that the sun had gone down, the room was illuminated in a soft, yellow light.
Sitting at the round table where we had all eaten just an hour or two previously, was Adam. Our empty plates were still there, which I thought was peculiar. I would have thought the crew would have tidied that up. That thought left my mind as I approached the table though, as I was primarily concerned about my friend.
“How on earth could you stand to eat any more? Honestly, I don’t understand how you can stay so skinny yet eat so much!” Yelled Jen above the blaring music.
I could see Adam’s lips move, but couldn’t make it out because of the dim lighting and the loud music. I ran over to the booth containing the sound equipment, and fumbled around looking for a way to turn it off. I was not technical in any way, and was really struggling.
I looked over to Frankie, who was now also sat at the table, hunched over in a similar way to Adam. He’d know how to operate this equipment with his eyes closed.
“Frankie! Little help?” I yelled across the room. Frankie didn’t move, and didn’t even acknowledge me. I called out his name once more, but then presumed that he couldn’t hear me.
After pressing a few random buttons, I seemed to find the right one eventually, as the music cut out immediately. All we could hear now was the sound of the waves crashing against the ship, and the odd seabird.
“Adam, feeling sick too? You look as bad as Frankie!” Said Will, as I was walking back to the table.
I thought Adam didn’t hear him at first, as he took a couple of seconds to respond. But then he gurgled: “Hungry. Food.”
“Honestly, you’ve got a one-track mind with food. Did you eat too much and now you feel sick? You’ve only got yourself to blame!” Scolded Jen.
While she was saying this, I was staring at Adam’s face. His skin had the same pale colour as Frankie’s, maybe even worse. Also, maybe it was the lighting, but his eye sockets were sunken, casting a shadow. It looked like he was a corpse that had just come back to life. I’d been sea-sick before, and I never looked like that.
As I was about to get closer to Adam to take a look up-close, I looked up and spotted a silhouette standing in the doorway. It was Kat. She was just standing there, motionless; swaying slightly from the movement of the ship.
Jen jumped up out of her seat and hugged Kat.
“Hun, are you cold? What’s wrong?” She said, with a concerned look on her face.
Without lifting her head, Kat simply croaked: “Sick. Sick.”
“Right, that’s it! I think I’ve figured it out.” Exclaimed Will passionately. “It has to be food poisoning. It just doesn’t make sense for three of us to get seasick. Luckily I feel fine at the moment, but maybe we should tell the crew? And we certainly shouldn’t eat any more of this food, delicious as it might be.”
It did make sense. We had all eaten an hour or two ago, and it was a pretty big coincidence for half of us to suddenly become sick. There was such a large selection of food that we had all eaten different things, so it wasn’t guaranteed that we would all get it, I thought.
“Good thinking.” I said, patting Will on the back. “Why don’t we leave Adam, Frankie and Kat here for the moment, where it’s warm. The three of us can quickly run to the crew quarters to let them know, just in case they were planning on eating any of the leftovers. They might also have a medic on board.”
Will and Jen nodded in approval. We ushered Adam, Frankie and Kat to a table close to the blast of hot air from the heating system; and grabbed some water for them. They continued to sit hunched over, motionless. We then exited the restaurant, shutting the doors behind us.
After a minute or two, we arrived at the bridge of the ship. We imagined that this would be the most likely place to find the crew.
“Let’s make this quick so that we can get back to the others.” Will said, as we approached the door. I had to agree.
Now that the music had been shut off, the ship was eerily quiet. All we could hear was the sound of the sea, and the low hum of what we presumed was sophisticated electronic equipment inside. What I didn’t realise at the time, was that I didn’t hear anyone speaking.
The door was ajar, so I gingerly pushed it open and stepped inside. The wide expanse of the ocean could be seen through the large windows at the front – It was nothing but darkness, aside from the light from the stars. There was a wide array of computer screens sitting along the front of the bridge as well, including what I presumed to be a radar.
While I was taking all this in, Will whispered in a hushed voice: “Where is everyone?”
“No idea…” I whispered back. “Maybe they all got food poisoning too?” I was just clutching at straws at this point – In actuality, I was terrified.
“Who the hell is steering the ship?” Jen shouted, pointing at the computer screens.
“Autopilot? I hope.” Will quipped, although the worried look on his face told a different story.
“Look – It’s nice and warm in here. I’m sure the crew will be back any minute. Why don’t you guys dash back down to the restaurant, grab the others and bring them here.” I said, as I noticed a very large first aid kit on the wall. “There might be some medicine in here that we can use to make them feel better. I’ll take a look while you’re gone.”
“We won’t be long.” Will nodded, as he grabbed Jen by the arm. They ran out of the bridge and down the steps.
I removed the first aid kit from the wall, set it down on the table and opened it. I’d never seen a first aid kit with so much stuff before.
Sterile gauze. Safety pins. Latex gloves. Antiseptic cream and wipes. Bandages. Painkillers of many types. Emergency lights. Tourniquet. Foil blankets. There was even more, but my eye was drawn to some anti-sickness tablets. They must have had many occasions in the past where passengers had sea sickness. I had no idea if it would help the others, but it was worth a shot. I grabbed the tablets and put them on the table.
As I was waiting for the others, I stood up and looked out of the wide windows overseeing the ship. I could see the tennis courts, still brightly illuminated against the black backdrop of the ocean. There was also a helipad which I hadn’t noticed before – This ship must be used by the rich and famous sometimes. As I traced around to the edges of where I could see, I spotted something that was bright orange on the side of the ship. I was initially confused, but then remembered the brief safety speech from the captain upon boarding. That must be a lifeboat.
Just as I was having this thought, there was an almighty creak from the bowels of the ship. At which point, I was plunged into pitch darkness. The reassuring hum of the computer equipment had disappeared, meaning that all I could hear now was the crash of the sea waves along with the sound of my panicked breathes. This wasn’t good.
As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, aided by the starlight, I felt my way around back to the table I had been sitting at. Scrambling around in the first aid kit, I thanked God that there was an emergency light in there. If this wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was.
Upon opening the packet feverishly, it was nothing more than a glorified glow stick. But beggars can’t be choosers, so I activated it immediately.
“Hello? Guys?” I yelled into the darkness, as I hoped they would be coming back by now. Nothing.
I steeled myself and took a deep breath, before pushing the door back open and taking a step outside. The air had a noticeable chill now, and I started to shiver. Although no doubt this was not purely down to the cold, as I was terrified of what was going on. Something was wrong.
I felt my way down the staircase leading down to the deck – While I tried to be as quick as I could, I didn’t want to fall and break my neck. These steps were very steep, and one wrong move could be disastrous.
With both feet on the deck, I breathed a quick sigh of relief as I started to make my way back to the restaurant. If you wouldn’t have known any better, you wouldn’t have thought that there was anyone else on this ship – It was deathly quiet outside of my footsteps and the waves.
“Guys? Are you OK? I’m not sure what’s going on, but it looks like the power has died.” I shouted, in the hope that the others would hear me. Still, nothing. They must have the doors shut, I thought.
As I approached the entrance of the restaurant, the doors were indeed shut. No wonder they couldn’t hear me.
It was pitch black inside. I nudged one of the doors open slightly, and listened. I couldn’t make anything out – Certainly not any speech. Maybe we’d just missed each other.
Although as I was thinking this, I started to hear something over the sound of my own breath and the sea waves. A kind of guttural rattle, a sound so unsettling that it seemed to claw its way up from the bowels of the earth itself. It became louder, and louder; until such a time that it was the only thing that I could hear.
In trepidation, I lifted the emergency light in front of me and into the restaurant. “Guys?” I whispered.
What I saw in the darkness, I will never forget for as long as I live.
I could just about make out five silhouettes against the dark backdrop – The faint light giving the standing shadows form. Due to the differences in height, I immediately knew that these were the others. But it felt off, somehow.
With that, and as the unnatural cacophony of croaking and rattling grew louder still, the five silhouettes raised their heads with a slow, deliberate movement. In the darkness, ten glowing eyes flickered and shone as one; their malevolent gaze fixed upon me. I froze in fear.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness once more, the features of the five figures became grotesquely apparent – elongated limbs twisted at unnatural angles, skin ashen and mottled with an otherworldly pallor. These things were not my friends. I didn’t know what they were, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out.
As I mentally prepared myself to run, the taller figure in the centre that I presumed to be Adam (Or at least, used to be Adam) raised his deformed arm towards me. A piercing, shrill scream filled the air; as the figures started to run towards me.
In panic, I slammed the door shut and attempted to bar the handles with the emergency light stick. It wouldn’t hold long at all, but it might give me a sliver of a chance.
My mind wasn’t working at all as I sprinted back in the same direction as I came. What would I do? Bar myself in the bridge? What then? The power was out in the ship, I was effectively stranded.
Then, I remembered what I saw when I was looking out of the bridge windows. There were lifeboats. If my friends were still here somehow, I could come back and save them. All I knew was that I had to get off the ship.
I ran as fast as I could in the darkness, my hand grasping the side rail to help guide me. I kept tripping over my feet, as terrified as I was. All five of them were screaming now – I could hear them hammering at the inside of the door, scratching frantically in an attempt to escape.
I clambered up the side of the lifeboat, which was hanging off the side of the ship. In a mad panic, I began smashing buttons and switches on the inside. The vessel must have had its own emergency power source, because as I hit one button, a dull red light came into being.
I could see two buttons – Deploy, and Engine. I thrust my palm against the Deploy button, and prayed. To my relief, mechanisms began to spring to life; and the boat slowly began to descend. I had no idea if I would survive on the open ocean, but it had to be preferable to staying up there with those things. Whatever they were.
As I was about a metre below deck, I heard the crunching of wood and a multitude of forceful footsteps. The screaming had now reached a crescendo. They had broken down the door, and were heading my way.
“Come on, please God come on!” I screamed in anguish, pleading the mechanism to work faster.
Once I was around 3 metres below deck, I looked up. Although I couldn’t see their bodies, I could see those ten glowing eyes staring back at me. The shrill screaming had stopped now, but I could still hear that guttural, almost primal rattling overpowering the sound of the waves. They were just looking at me – Unmoving, motionless. Like a lion stalking its prey.
I was at their mercy – They could have easily tried to jump onto the boat. But they didn’t. All they did was watch, and keep watching as the boat eventually made contact with the sea. I didn’t want to take my eyes off of them, but I had to. I mashed the red button that said ‘Engine’, and the overpowering noise now became an intense whirring; as the boat’s engine came spluttering into life.
“Yes!” I screamed at the top of my voice. “Go! Go!”
The boat automatically disconnected from the lowering mechanism, and I was now on my own. I didn’t care where at this stage, but the boat slowly managed to get some distance between me and the ship. As I looked back at the cruise ship, I could still see the ten glowing eyes fixated on me. The glowing was almost even more intense now, as if they were angry that I couldn’t become one of them. As the ship began to shrink and disappear from view, I spotted an emergency flare on-board which I immediately set off. It leapt into the night sky, illuminating it for a moment with bright, red light. I’d done all I could, now I had to hope for rescue.
It’s now ten years later, and I never saw my friends again. A passing ship saw my distress flare and picked me up, thankfully. A search party was sent out for the cruise ship, but it was never found. It was as if it went silent on radar, and disappeared into thin air. The authorities were baffled as to how such a large vessel could disappear – I was questioned for days. They never believed me when I told them about those…..things. Delirium from food poisoning was the verdict, but I knew better.
The soda company ended up being sued by my friend’s families, as they never came back. They won, and the company went bust. Even after all that, and how guilty I feel, their families gave me some of their settlement money. It’s enough that I will never have to work again. I’m grateful, but I would trade it all in for a second just to see my friends again.
I’ve never touched a can of soda since. It brings up too many bad memories.