A couple of grim-faced crew in lifejackets stood near the concierge desk, ushering passengers up the grand staircase, urging everyone to bring only necessities and proceed in an orderly fashion. Passengers scurried out of cabins all along the corridors, some laden with luggage and laptop bags, others more pragmatically with only bottled water. Nervous security staff kept watch over the stairwell down to the lower decks, from which the shrieks of the infected reverberated along the narrow corridors. With each shout ringing from below, panic rippled through the crowd. Everyone was hyper aware of the spreading infection.
The infirmary nurse we’d pulled from the lower decks quickly deserted us to join the flood of people. I started to follow, but Lily nudged me and raised her eyebrows, giving my hand a significant glance.
“You, uh… might want to clean that and put it away.”
“Oh… OH!” I was still clenching my knife, bloody from my encounter with one of the infected, an eyeball skewered on its tip. Horrified, I quickly wiped it off on a napkin from my pocket, tucked the knife into my jacket and tried my best to wipe my bloodied hands clean. No wonder other passengers were giving us anxious looks and a wide berth. If not for Lily’s presence, the security staff monitoring the stairs likely would never have let us through.
“Ow…” I winced as I scrubbed, finally noticing the bite wound. I hadn’t felt it at all during the adrenaline rush of our escape from the infirmary, but now it throbbed, oozing blood. I sought a clean rag from my bag.
Security staff hovered nearby, eyeing me.
Lily bound the wound and quietly asked, “Are you infected?”
“Huh? Oh! No, it’s not that kind of contagion,” I said. “It’s more like possession… it spreads through whispers. And it can affect electronics… even warp concrete. I don’t know how exactly, but it’s like my eyes… supernatural.”
“So that man they pulled in was a ghost from the sea? A vengeful spirit?”
“No idea…” I said. “My eyes don’t see ghosts. Just death.”
“Just death?”
“Yes. I am attuned to death.” She’d finished tying my hand and used another rag to try to get at the blood on my face. I’d forgotten about that, too. I smoothed my hair and tried to look less of a murderous lunatic. Wriggled my fingers in an awkward wave at the security guard, and asked Lily, “Right, how do I look?”
She squinted. “… just about your normal.”
“Good,” I said, before my brain caught up to my mouth and realized what this implied about my “normal.” Wha… okay, this felt like a lot of shade from someone I’d just hauled out of the contagion-filled underbelly of the ship. I scrunched my brow, about to retort when we both heard it—the shriek of a thin, high voice. Passengers wept and sobbed as they thronged past us. Panicky babble filled the air. But this was different.
A child’s voice.
I looked to the security staff monitoring the stairs to see if any of them had registered the shriek, but they had moved off to deal with another unruly passenger. None of the other evacuees were paying attention. And of course Lily went after the cry. Unlike me, she hadn’t suffered years of failure to inure her to the fact that the deaths I predicted were inevitable. Also, I hadn’t told her that our own expiration dates were rapidly approaching—that our escape from below meant nothing and we were as doomed as all these other passengers. Soon—maybe right now, following her to the sound of the child’s cry—I’d get infected, go mad, and immolate myself. But there was no sense trying to dissuade her. What I’d learned in my forty years was that all roads led to the future I foresaw.
I followed her past the elevator bay and down to the last cabin on the port side. The wail could be heard more distinctly now above the general din.
Then came the sound of a woman’s laughter—low and throaty.
“Mama!” shrilled the child’s voice.
“Hello!” Lily pounded on the door. “Hello? Do you need help?”
The throaty laughter abruptly stopped, though the child’s wailing continued. I tensed, every muscle coiled. As footsteps approached the door, Lily’s eyes flicked to me, signaling me to be ready. I sort of wanted to press pause on this moment and explain to her that a few lucky strikes didn’t make me some kind of Buffy the infected slayer, but now the door was cracking open—
Motherducker. I gripped my knife.
The door slowly creaked inward, revealing a cabin in disarray, the gray light from the oceanview window falling on discarded clothes, a shattered mirror, and a small boy huddled by the bed, a bright green backpack beside him, packed with children’s versions of emergency supplies. He clung to the straps, red-faced and weeping, while Lily pushed the door until the knob bumped the wall.
No trace of the woman with the throaty laugh.
I swept into the room. The rush of blood in my ears pounded like drums as I peeked around the bed and into the bathroom. The boy couldn’t have been more than five years old, his voice hitching in a whimper when I passed near him with my knife, his fear subsiding only when Lily knelt beside him and cooed in her soft, musical voice: “… ssshhh, it’s all right. Is that your bag for evacuation? I’m Lily, what’s your name…?”
“B-Ben-Benjamin…”
—the softest whisper of sliding wood sent spiders skittering up my spine.
A wild-haired woman lunged out from the closet. I slammed into her as Lily grabbed the boy and ducked away. My knife cut into her shoulder. Her fingers raked my cheek. And then, suddenly, she embraced me, her tongue snaking inside my ear. I gasped at the sensation—a cold that went straight through my inner ear with her whispered words. I couldn’t even make out what she said. “Sssccchuuuuurrrrmmmaaahhnn”—all hissing and slurring. Then I slammed my head forward, into the bridge of her nose, knocking her into the closet. While the woman was fighting to disentangle herself from hangers and clothes, I fled the cabin after Lily and Benjamin, grabbing the door handle behind us and dragging it shut.
I held it tight, but the woman did not try to open it. Instead, the low, throaty laughter resumed inside. Then the sound of tinkling. Shattering. A repetitive, dull thudding. She was banging her head against the glass.
Releasing the door, I sank to my knees and cupped a hand to my ear, trying to shake the cold out.
hahaha the shards mirror so pretty tinkling heehee shshhhhwiiisssspsin
The voices were like a wind blowing just inside my left ear, where she’d licked it.
“… you okay, friend? Hey!” Lily knelt beside me.
“There’s… something cold in my… argh… I’m…” I grabbed my head. “I can hear them… the voices…”
“Oh God…” Her grip tightened on my shoulder. “This is all my fault…”
I shook my head. “No, you’re not at fault. This… was already going to happen. Already know… how I die. Have known, since I got on the ship. It’s nothing to do with you.”
“What?” Lily looked horrified, but then the boy whined, “Mama,” at the door. She snatched his hand before he could open the cabin, pulled him near and tried to placate him.
I forced myself to stand. The whole ship seemed to tilt under me, as if suddenly I could feel the water’s current just beneath its belly, but I managed not to totter over. “Come on… let’s get going… get you both to the lifeboats.”
Promenade deck
Lily and Benjamin had to climb the stairs slowly to accommodate me. Most of the passengers had already mustered on deck 5 for evacuation, so we were virtually alone on the grand staircase. I clung to the railing for balance, pausing every few moments to try and shake the water out of my ear. The whispers—allwill diediedieeeee… no escapehehe—merged into my own inner doubts now, echoing the dread I’d harbored ever since I’d boarded. A soft susurrus of fateFATEfate death is fate…
“Come on, friend. Just a little further.” Lily grabbed my hand, and I gasped. For an instant, I forgot about the voices. Forgot everything, except the soft feel of her fingers in mine. Because—her hand—
It was warm.
Hope flared, fluttered in my ribs as we climbed the last few steps up the grand staircase, out into the café on deck 5. But then, just as suddenly, the hope flickered, sputtered, and died, because…
The smell.
I ripped off the handkerchief I’d been wearing over my face to muffle the stench of rot.
The aroma of coffee and pastries wafted to my nostrils.
I whirled, checking for the bloodstain on the café rug, which had been there since the very first day—
It was gone. The café was pristine, other than a few chairs knocked out of place. The scent of coffee grounds made my mouth water, and my stomach rumbled at the pastries in their glass case.
“My vision,” I gasped. “I can’t see the future anymore…”
Couldn’t see it. Couldn’t smell it. Couldn’t feel it in my cold hands. My own fingers were warm, the injured hand throbbing with coagulating blood.
Yanking free from Lily, I tugged out my phone, illuminating myself with the flashlight and staring at my reflection on the screen. My eyes… they were no longer pitch black. At the center of the pupil shone an eerie, glowing light. And from my ear… spider webbing? I turned my head, pawing at a glowing strand that flowed into the ear. It felt cool, almost like a thread of luminescent water. As I turned my head, I caught a glimpse of the thread stretching downward, past the banister of the grand staircase. “Do you see that?” I called to Lily and the boy, but they only looked at me with wide, worried eyes.
Of course they didn’t see. That glowing strand was like my visions—something only I could perceive. Only now I wasn’t glimpsing the future.
I was glimpsing the power of Passenger X.
I realized something else, too, as I bobbled my head to observe that glowing strand. It carried the whispers into my ear.
When I looked up again, Lily and the boy were backing away.
“You’re going mad,” said Lily.
“Yes…” I agreed. “… the price I paid for staying. I saw my charred corpse the first day. I’ll be going to my cabin to set fire to myself in a moment…” fateFATEfate “Go,” I said, beckoning them toward the promenade deck doors. “Escape. I stayed to make sure you and others could evacuate. I’ll keep an eye out for Passenger X. As long as you get out of his reach—escape the Seastar—you’ll survive.” liesLIESlies EVERYONE DIES “Go,” I repeated, gritting my teeth against the voices.
Lily looked sadly at me, but nodded and drew Benjamin with her through the doors.
I followed them several steps behind. Outside, crowds were already loading onto the lifeboats under the formless, foggy morning sky. As my gaze tracked Lily and Benjamin, the sea breeze hit me. A ray of sun shone through the clouds. Hope. Hope. Hope! A crewman spotted Lily and the boy and waved them over, calling out to the crowd to prioritize families—
—and as they stepped forward to accept a couple of lifejackets, ice shot through my veins, rushing from the base of my skull through every part of me as I saw—oh, I saw! That silvery glowing filament that whispered into my ear—there were dozens of glowing threads just like it. Dozens! They stretched throughout the crowd, infected passengers mingling with regular people. Blending in. And as I touched one of the lines, its whisper roared into my mind: fingersfingersfingers bitethefingers I touched another nearby: hahaha what if I tore out her scalp hahaha… when I board I’ll starttearingtearing
And then I lunged.
Lily cried out as I yanked her back. “Hey! What are you—”
“Stop,” I hissed.
Lily’s brow scrunched, teeth gritting. “Let go—”
“No.” YESyesyou foresaw this foresaw this “Lily,” I went on, ignoring the voices, “you can’t board… he’s not going to let any of those lifeboats make it safely back…”
“What—”
My grip was a vise, dragging her closer to me as I whispered, “It’s not an evacuation. It’s a trap.” The horror of it sent fresh waves of ice down my spine. Lily clearly thought I’d lost it, and I burst, trembling with frustration, “I told you. This isn’t a virus. There’s intention behind it. Directing it. There are people in this crowd still in the early stages. Everyone on board those lifeboats will be infected by them—and when they’re rescued, the infection will spread. Do you understand, Lily? What you’ll be if you board? Those passengers fleeing—they aren’t the survivors. He’s letting them go!”
Realization slowly dawned on her, and she shook her head, eyes going wide, fingers white-knuckled on the boy’s hand.
“There aren’t any survivors,” I whispered. “No… there are only hosts.”