Copyright©2016 by Matt Shaw

Matt Shaw Publications

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may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

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The characters in this book are purely fictitious.

Any likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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VOYAGE

TO

HELL

Matt Shaw

part ONE

Today

Guest #1: Nikki Kidd

Beautiful Views

A cruise experience was new to Nikki and her husband, Christopher. But why would she turn down a free holiday for them? Why would anyone? She was standing at the rear of the ship watching the mainland disappear on the horizon as the sun set. She imagined Scott - her brother-in-law - and, his wife, Kara standing on the dock watching the ship getting further away as it started it’s mystery voyage. They had been good enough to give Nikki and Chris a lift to the docks so they didn’t have to park the car up for weeks, at some extortionate rate, but she couldn’t help but feel as though they were just being nosey. After all, since Nikki had announced they’d won a mystery trip, they had been mocking it saying it would probably be a little rubber dinghy trip round the Isle of Wight… Or a rough journey across the violent Bay of Biscay - playing on Nikki’s fear of drowning.

‘Ooh, make sure you hold on tight. Don’t want you falling overboard and drowning…’ Scott had teased. Nikki smiled at the memory. Bet he isn’t laughing now. It had been clear, from the conversations in the car, that they were desperate for a holiday themselves.

‘And everything is free?’ one particular conversation had started.

‘Other than travel expenses to the ship, yep. Once we’re on board, everything is completely free apparently. Well, nearly everything. In the brochure it did state we could have massages in our room but, if we opted for that, we would need to pay.’

‘Sure we can live without a massage,’ Christopher had answered, looking out of the window. Nikki had shot him a look. She quite fancied a massage as it happened. The way the brochure described it, it sounded amazing; a massage in the comfort of your own room, on your private balcony, overlooking turquoise waters with the clearest skies imaginable. A description which suggested they weren’t heading for the Bay of Biscay and nor were they nipping off on a trip round the Isle of Wight.

Nikki turned her back on the disappearing shoreline and stared to the top of ship. She’d never seen a cruise-liner so big although - to be fair - she hadn’t seen many cruise-liners.

The brochure had boasted of nearly 1,500 cabins, a handful of fancy-looking swimming pools including one, on the main deck, with glass sides so you could see out to the ocean below. There were saunas, steam-rooms, cinemas, restaurants, a shopping mall (of sorts) and excursions to the mainland when the opportunity arose. The letter explained that food would be free (whichever restaurant they chose), drinks would be complimentary (both domestic and imported) and you were to even receive vouchers for the shopping mall which sold goods at Duty Free prices.

Nikki smiled. Two weeks of bliss ahead.

‘How did you win?’ Christopher had asked when Nikki showed him the letter detailing the prize particulars. He hadn’t  minded the idea of a free holiday but - like most people - he was suspicious when one just dropped on their doorstep. That kind of thing didn’t usually happen unless it was some kind of con. Oh, you have won a free holiday! Give us your bank details so we can book you on… Next thing you know, your bank account is empty and you’re having to sit through meetings with the bank managers to get it all sorted.

Fuck. That.

‘I don’t even remember entering the competition!’ Nikki had told him. ‘Worth a phone call though, right?’ The invitation had come through the post stating they had won a free holiday. To claim the prize all they had to do was phone a number listed on the invite.

‘Not from our phone, it isn’t.’ Christopher had seen many a scam in his time, they both had, and one of the most common was such an invite with an instruction to call a number. You phone through and - hey presto - you’re suddenly charged hundreds of pounds. ‘I think you should just bin in personally,’ he had said.

Nikki caught sight of her husband on the deck. He was talking to one of the waiters - a smartly dressed man in black trousers, a white shirt and a black waistcoat - ordering the drinks that they both desired. She smiled to herself. Bet he was glad she hadn’t binned the invite now.

The waiter walked away in the opposite direction as Christopher came back up the deck towards her with a smile on his face.

‘He’ll be right with us apparently,’ Christopher said.

‘Completely free?’

‘And service with a smile.’ Christopher leaned on the railing and looked down to the ocean below. ‘Good job I made you call that number,’ he muttered.

Nikki laughed and playfully hit him on the arm. ‘Whatever.’

Looking down to the waters below, Christopher found himself wondering what was down there. The sea was a place of mystery which had intrigued him for many years. And not just him but others too - some of whom even believed that aliens had crashed into the sea years ago, where they continued to live undetected to this day. Christopher chuckled at the thought.

‘What is it?’ Nikki asked.

He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

At no point - looking down to the murky waters - did he ever think he’d be looking down to the final resting place of his wife.

‘Is that the same smiley waiter as before?’ Nikki had spotted a waiter heading towards them with a tray - on which balanced two drinks. Unlike before, he wasn’t smiling now. ‘He looks angry.’

Christopher flashed a wink to Nikki and reached into his pocket. He pulled out some money. ‘Good job I brought some money to tip with then, hey.’ He took a crisp five pound note and stuffed the rest of the notes back into his pocket.

‘Five pounds? Hardly free drinks when you tip a fiver…’

‘You don’t always tip. But for the first tip, it’s important to appear generous. It will ensure you’re looked after for the rest of the trip because the waiters remember you as the guy that gave them a fiver for doing very little… Trust me. We tip five now and maybe a little more at the end of the night… In the meantime, he’ll keep coming back to see if we need anything.’ He said again, ‘Trust me.’

Guest #2: Angela McBride

All Mod-cons

Angela sighed loudly. Her husband, Brad, shot her a look. Her sighing wasn’t helping the situation. The blocked toilet wasn’t unblocking. The ever increasing level of water wasn’t suddenly disappearing and - more importantly - his patience wasn’t growing.

‘It’s going to overflow!’ Angela pointed out, not that it needed pointing out. Brad was well aware what was happening given the fact he was on his knees with his hand down the toilet bowl trying to get it unblocked - something which was simple enough in principle but proving anything but.

‘Get more towels!’ Brad snapped. There was one towel on the floor to catch any overflow but, given how the water was continuing to rise, it wouldn’t be enough to stop the floor from getting a soaking. ‘This is why the holiday was free,’ Brad moaned as Angela passed him another couple of towels. ‘Because everything is fucking broken.’

The toilet wasn’t the first thing that broke in their cabin. The first thing was the handle on the bedside drawer. Angela had gone to unpack their case, putting the underwear in the bedside drawer, and the handle had come away in her hand. That had been an easy enough fix requiring it to just be put back on and twisted round. The toilet though…

‘For fuck sake,’ Brad moaned as the water spilled over the rim of the bowl and soaked his knees. ‘Fucking great.’ Angela tried not to laugh, the same reaction Brad had had when the bedside drawer had broken in her hand. Given the soaking he was getting - and his already frail mood - he probably wouldn’t have appreciated her mocking him. ‘Fucking shit-hole,’ he moaned. He pulled his hand from the bowl and stood up, wiping himself dry on his own trousers. He had to change anyway now thanks to the overflow. ‘Just call reception. Tell them to come and fix it. Should have done that in the first fucking place anyway.’ For a second time, Angela bit her tongue. She had suggested that they phone for help but Brad had insisted that it was an easy fix. Brad noticed her smug look. ‘Don’t say a fucking word,’ he hissed.

‘Didn’t even cross my mind.’

‘The brochure said it was all modern comforts,’ Brad moaned. ‘Didn’t fucking say everything was falling apart.’ Angela walked from the bathroom, back to the main living area to where the phone was. When Brad was in this kind of mood, it wasn’t worth arguing with him or agreeing with him. Both seemed to set him off further. Let him rant, let him get it out of his system and - soon enough - he’d be laughing about it.

‘Hello, yes, this is Cabin 406. Unfortunately our toilet seems to be blocked and is flooding over the top.’ She paused and then laughed. ‘Thank you.’ Angela hung the phone up and sat on the edge of her bed. What she would give just to close her eyes for a moment. It had been a long trip, one which had caught up with her now that she was sitting down.

‘What did they say?’ Brad walked into the room, wiping his hands on a clean towel this time.

‘They’re sending someone from maintenance.’

‘Any idea when? Do we need to be here or can we leave them to it?’

‘Apparently they’re coming right down. Anyway…’ Angela looked him up and down. ‘Did you really want to leave the room like that? Not exactly the best first impression, is it?’

Brad raised an eyebrow. ‘And a broken drawer and flooding toilet is a good first impression?’

‘Well true but…’ A knock on the door disturbed them. Angela got up from the bed and walked over to the door. She opened it to reveal a man dressed in brown polo shirt and brown trousers. Around his neck was his I.D. Maintenance man. ‘That was quick,’ Angela said.

‘We aim to please,’ the man smiled. ‘And - between you and me - it’s not the first issue in this corridor. I was three cabins down when the call came through… A handle fell of one of the drawers!’

‘Oh, really?’ Angela didn’t feel the need to tell him about their handle too. That she managed to fix herself. The toilet was what was important.

‘Right…’ The man walked into the room and turned into the bathroom. ‘Let’s see what is going on here then.’ He laughed to himself. ‘Can’t even blame the previous occupants?’

‘No?’ Angela had followed whilst Brad went to investigate what else he could wear, digging his out clothes from one of the bags still waiting to be unpacked.

‘You’re the first guests!’ The man started to look at the toilet. ‘Problem with these modern ships is they let the cheapest bidder build them. They all look fancy from afar but get close and… Stuff like this.’ He lifted the top of the cistern. ‘Still, easy enough fix. Have it done in a jiffy.’

‘Well I’ll get out of your way. If you need anything, I’ll be in the next room.’

‘No worries, thank you.’

Angela walked back through to the bedroom and whispered to Brad, ‘Do we tip him?’

‘For doing his job?’

‘It’s the nice thing to do, isn’t it?’

‘People don’t come to my place of work and give me a tip. Do you get tips?’

‘Well, no…’

‘I’m sure his wage is good enough. If you really want to give him a tip - give him one of those vouchers they gave you for the shopping mall. Probably worthless anyway.’ Brad stopped when he realised Angela’s face had dropped.

‘So… I just need to go and get some tools. I’ll be no more than five minutes,’ the maintenance man said. ‘If there’s anything you guys need, or want to do… You can go off if you want. I can let myself in if you’re happy with that?’

‘Thank you. We’re not sure what we’re doing yet but… Might see you in a bit.’ Angela said.

The man smiled again. ‘No worries. Be right back.’ He turned and left the room. Brad turned back to Angela who had folded her arms and was now looking directly at him with a disapproving look on her face.

‘Well now you’re going to have to tip him.’

Guest #3: Anna Garcia-Centner

Welcome drinks

Anna was sitting at the bar with one of the welcome cocktails in her hand. Although she had been there for the last twenty-minutes, the bar had been open since midday - more or less the moment they had first started letting the passengers board the ship. Welcome cocktails for the passengers to get to know one another. For Anna - a lone passenger after her partner couldn’t get the time off work - it was the perfect opportunity to meet new friends. Or at least, it should have been.

‘Yeah well - you fuck off back to the room then, you cunt! Go call him… Call that piece of shit and tell him how much you fucking love him and miss him and - when we get home - pack your fucking bags and do one…’ The woman the man was shouting at had already left the bar, in floods of tears. Yet it still didn’t stop him from shouting as though she were still standing by his side.

‘I’m guessing he’s been in here since you opened,’ Anna said to the bartender as he replaced her cocktail with another full one.

The waiter glanced over to the abusive man and apologised, ‘I’m sorry about him. Rest assured security has been called to remove him.’

Anna sipped her fresh cocktail using the straw provided. ‘Think he will go quietly?’

‘Considering he can’t sit there quietly? I doubt it.’

‘Do you know what the whole story is?’ Anna asked. There was nothing else happening in the bar. A few people milling around drinking the free drinks but ultimately keeping to themselves and the television was playing some sports program she couldn’t give a shit about. The language might have been somewhat foul but at least the stranger was entertaining to watch.

‘I can tell you his name. His name is Trent.’ He paused a moment. ‘From what I’ve got so far… She cheated on him with some guy. He found out - although I’m not sure when - and… I think the point of this trip was to be some kind of make-or-break vacation. Going by the conversation, pretty sure it won’t last until the first port.’ He laughed. ‘Hopefully there are some cabins left or else we’ll have to set him up a bed in the pantry.’

‘You can do that?’

The bartender shrugged, ‘Not sure. Never been done before.’

‘Can you sort me a vodka and orange and a whiskey?’ a waiter called out as he approached the bar having come in from the deck. ‘And can you grab me a cup of water? Mouth is so dry… Sea air…’

The bartender started with a small glass of water. He handed it to the waiter who thanked him before taking a mouthful. He swilled it round before swallowing it down. He set the glass back down on the bar and smiled at Anna.

‘Good afternoon,’ the waiter said.

‘Good afternoon to you.’

The bartender set down the first of the ordered drinks. ‘Is it busy out there?’ he asked as he set about preparing the second drink.

‘Just two people at the moment. Guessing most are still unpacking.’ The waiter looked around. ‘Not too busy in here either. Might be an easy shift…’

‘You fucking cunt!’ Trent called towards the door again.

‘Or not.’ The waiter laughed. ‘What’s all that about?’

‘Don’t ask.’

The waiter suddenly shuddered and frowned. ‘Want me to knock him the fuck out?’ Both Anna and the bartender shot the waiter a look. His face flushed immediately. ‘Sorry.’

Anna laughed. ‘His anger is clearly contagious.’

‘Here,’ the bartender set the second glass down and handed the waiter a tray. He watched as his colleague loaded the tray up and headed back towards the deck where Nikki and Christopher had ordered their drinks.

‘What? No… I’m not fucking leaving. You fucking leave, you prick.’ Trent was mouthing off at the two burly security men, both of whom were dressed in black with handcuffs attached to their utility belts, along with pepper sprays. Trent shoved one of the men.

‘You want to know what’s really scary?’ the bartender asked Anna.

‘What’s that?’

‘I haven’t even served him any alcohol…’

Trent was tackled to the floor by the second of the security men.

‘Really?’ Anna asked.

‘Really. His wife had a cocktail and he had a glass of water.’ The bartender shrugged. ‘Guess he got drunk in his room first.’

‘Guess so.’

‘Should we come back later?’ Brad asked as he approached the bar with Angela. He pointed back to the commotion going on over by the door betweenTrent and the security guards.

‘I’m really sorry about this,’ the bartender apologised again.

‘No need.’ Brad sat at the bar. Angela sat with him. ‘To be honest, just makes the trip that little bit more surreal. Broken room, fights in the bar… Not even been the first night yet.’

‘It’s not normally like this,’ the bartender said. ‘I mean, on the other ships I’ve worked on… It’s not normally like this.’

‘Promise?’ Brad asked.

Anna seized her opportunity to make friends with another woman. She leaned closer to Angela, ‘I can recommend the welcome cocktail. Not sure how much alcohol is in here but, certainly nice enough to drink!’

Angela smiled. ‘I’ll have what she’s drinking please,’ she said to the bartender.

‘And for you, sir?’

‘Something strong.’

‘You need the water,’ Anna said.

‘Beg your pardon?’ Brad looked at her, confused as to why she’d suggest such a thing. Did he appear drunk? Was she being funny because he still looked wet from the toilet soaking he’d received?

‘That’s what that man has been drinking… Clearly it’s the strongest thing they serve on here to get him in that state!’ she explained.

‘Ah. I see. Well…’ Brad addressed the bartender, ‘Something strong… With alcohol…’

‘Whiskey?’

‘Perfect.’

Brad turned his back to the bar and watched as the furious man was carted off, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Guest #4: Debra J. Bergevin

Make or Break

Debra knew Trent was getting angrier. She hoped a change of scenery would have been good for him but - clearly not. She turned down the corridor, tears streaming down her face, as he called out from the bar.

‘Yeah well - you fuck off back to the room then, you cunt! Go call him… Call that piece of shit and tell him how much you fucking love him and miss him and - when we get home - pack your fucking bags and do one…’

The affair was over. It had been for months now and yet - Trent couldn’t seem to let it go. When the free holiday came through the post, Debra had suggested that they go away together - just the two of them with no one else to get in the way or cause upset. No friends, no nosey family members trying to offer unwanted advice… Just the two of them. A make or break vacation where - hopefully - they’d rebuild their relationship to a healthy standard. A healthy relationship? As Debra turned down the next corridor, heading towards the stairs which would take her to her room - she knew that wasn’t the case. Their marriage was well and truly over… All because of a mistake. A fucking mistake.

She wiped her cheeks clear of tears as she passed a couple of strangers - both of whom looked at her sympathetically. She gave them a fake smile, hoping it was enough to ensure they left her alone.

The marriage was over. What made it worse – now was that they were stuck on the ship for two weeks.

Jesus. Couldn’t even make it one night.

She headed down the flight of stairs and then the next, passing more couples - happy people exploring their home for the next two weeks with arms interlocked and smiles on their faces. Trent and Debra… There was a time when that would have been them. Not anymore. Definitely over.

Fourth deck. She left the stairwell and took a right turn into the next corridor, bumping into one of the maintenance men causing him to drop his tools.

‘Watch where you’re fucking going,’ the man hissed.

‘I’m sorry…’ Debra didn’t stop. His hostility caused the tears to flow again.

The maintenance man didn’t call out to apologise as he set about picking his tools up.

Debra stopped outside room 408. Pulling out a small keycard from her clutch bag, she let herself in. The door closed behind her. Inside the room - alone and away from prying eyes - she was now grateful that they’d only asked for the one room key to be prepared for them. At least he couldn’t just barge in. Especially not whilst he was in that kind of mood. She’d seen him angry before but - not like this. This was a new level.

Debra sat on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands. Safe in the knowledge no one else could see her, or judge her, or even shout at her, she let the tears flow freely sobbing her heart out. All of this - this whole mess - just because she had thought that her husband didn’t love her anymore and another man had caught her attention by showing her the affection she missed at home. Sitting here now, she regretted what she had done even though she knew she only had herself to blame. The amount of times - since Trent had discovered what had happened - she had wished she could have turned the clock back to before she had strayed… But she couldn’t. And neither could she continue apologising to him every time he brought it up, something which seemed to happen whenever he had a drink. The alcohol flowing through his veins letting the past eat away on his rotting insides as they twisted in the knowledge that he wasn’t good enough for the woman who once had loved him more than anything else on the planet.

Debra fell back, flat on the bed, and held the pillow over her face. With her voice muffled, she screamed loudly - the pillow acting as a silencer.

What would happen now?

Trent would no doubt be coming back to the room. He’d knock on the door and she knew she would have to let him in. If she didn’t, he’d just keep banging and banging until someone complained and - for the second time - security would be called. She’d let him in, he’d continue shouting at her and then… Then what? It was a small cabin and they were stuck there until the ship returned to port. Would he sleep on the floor? Would she? There was hardly any space to sleep on the floor, let alone for the fact that there was no spare bedding for whoever ended up down there. Maybe there was  another cabin they could pay to use? This free holiday - this make-or-break trip - suddenly looking likely to cost God only knows how much.

Should have stayed at home.

But then - maybe - he might come back and apologise for causing a scene? Someone could have had a word or the time apart could have made him see sense as to what he was doing. Although, even if that did happen, Debra wasn’t sure she could forgive him. As hypocritical as it sounded, she knew that, if she did forgive him, his jealousy would only rear its ugly head again in a few days, or weeks. It was obvious now, after this latest outburst, that he would never be able to forgive her enough to move on from what she had done.

She sat up and tossed the pillow to one side. A thought went through her head: maybe she should just phone the reception staff now and ask them about another room? Might as well get used to living alone as that was what her future seemed likely to hold for her. Loneliness.

She only had herself to blame.

Guest #5: Kelly Rickard

Passing Concern

Kelly turned her head as her eyes followed the weeping girl as she disappeared down the next flight of stairs.

‘Do you think we should go and see if she is okay?’ she asked her husband, Roy.

‘No. I think we should mind our own business and get to the bar before all the cocktails are given away,’ he said in a matter of fact tone as he continued to pull his wife of five months towards the bar where the welcome drinks were being offered.

‘Come on - really - do we need to rush? It’s free drinks for the duration of the trip. The drinks they’re offering today are no different from the drinks that will be offered tomorrow.’

‘That may be so but, it would be good to get a lay of the land.’

At the top of the next flight of stairs, they followed the sign to the bar which pointed them away from the stairwell. Like the other guests, they too had come on this trip by invitation through the post although they had nearly missed the trip thanks to Roy’s refusal to believe that anything in life was completely free.

‘There must be some angle,’ he had told Kelly when she landed the invitation on his lap.

‘Yes,’ she had replied, ‘they want us to have a really nice holiday on this new ship and then - when we do - they want us to tell all of our friends so they book for the following year at a cost of thousands of pounds.’

‘Our friends don’t have thousands of pounds to waste on a cruise.’

‘But the company who posted this… They don’t know that.’

As they turned down the next corridor they immediately backed themselves against the wall to allow security to pass by with Trent who was now being frog-marched away, cuffed for everyone’s protection - including his own. As they entered the stairwell, Kelly turned to Roy and asked, ‘Do you think that was anything to do with the woman we saw?’

‘Does it really matter if it was?’ Roy asked as he continued down towards the bar area.

‘Well, it would be nice to know who we’re sharing the ship with,’ Kelly said.

‘We hurry up and get to the bar,’ Roy replied, ‘we can see exactly who we are sharing it with.’

Kelly tutted. ‘You don’t even like cocktails.’

‘No, but I’m sure they do other drinks too.’

Kelly laughed. ‘Maybe the cocktails are free and the other drinks are really, really expensive?’

‘Then it’s a good job I have my credit card,’ he said.

They reached the double doors of the bar. Roy pulled the door open and held it in place for Kelly. She thanked him as she stepped in. He followed, letting the door close behind him.

The room was filling up now. People were milling around, drinks in hand, chatting to one another. Anna and Angela were at the bar, still talking to one another as Brad stood at the far end of the room, looking out of the window to a large swimming pool.

Topics of conversation were mainly about how each of the guests found themselves to be on this cruise. Most replied the same in that, honestly, they had no idea. The invitation had dropped through the post and they’d replied expecting nothing to come of it right up until the tickets came through a few days later. The topic at the bar was different though with Anna and Angela discussing Trent’s anger, a conversation that didn’t go unnoticed by Kelly as she and Roy got to the bar.

‘Welcome drink for her and I’ll have a beer please, mate.’ Roy said.

‘Coming right up.’

‘Was that man shouting at a woman?’ Kelly joined in the conversation with Anna and Angela. ‘As we were on our way here, we passed by this crying woman.’

‘I believe so,’ said Anna. ‘Airing their dirty laundry in public,’ she continued.

‘How embarrassing,’ said Angela.

‘She looked terrible,’ Kelly said. ‘I hope she’s okay.’

‘She’ll be fine and if she isn’t - it’s none of our business.’ Roy handed the cocktail to Kelly who took it without asking what was actually in it. He then turned and picked up his own drink. He sipped it back with a satisfied sigh. ‘Probably going to put some weight on with this trip,’ he said as he took another sip. ‘Have to skip some meals to allow for all the calories in the beer.’

Kelly rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not having you getting blind drunk every day just because the alcohol is free!’

‘Relatively new marriage,’ Roy said to the other ladies, ‘we’re still working out who is in charge.’ He gave Kelly a wink.

‘Clearly it’s me,’ she said as the other two women laughed.

‘Uh oh,’ Angela joked, ‘looks like we might be in for some more drama yet to come!’

Anna laughed. ‘That’s fine. Keeps things interesting.’

Roy raised his pint to everyone and said, ‘To free holidays! Cheers!’

Guest #6: Sasha Kirkham

Temper

Sasha, a solo traveller, was in her room screaming through the wall for the people in the next cabin to ‘shut the fuck up’. With each screamed word, she slammed her fists against the wall in the hope they’d finally get the message and stop doing whatever it was they were doing to make so much noise. How many people were even in the next room? It sounded as though they were having a party in there with so many voices all bleating on. Unless - was it the television? Had someone left the television on really loud and left the room? Was that the noise that was driving her insane? With her hands sore, and heart rate up, she slumped down in a small office chair that was next to a narrow table which seemed to only serve the purpose of housing the ship’s many brochures and leaflets. Overcome with emotion, and frustrated that she was being ignored, Sasha started to cry yet - in the room next door - the voices continued.

‘Please,’ she wept. ‘Just shut the fuck up!’ And, with that, she slammed her fist down on the narrow table with such a heavy force that the half-empty glass of water resting on the edge dropped to the carpet below. With the landing softened, the glass didn’t break. The water soaked into the carpet leaving a dark stain. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Sasha repeated, quieter this time. ‘… Fucking kill you…’ she muttered.

part TWO

Before

Guest of Honour: Michelle Clevenger

An Unexpected Guest

‘Mrs. Michelle Clevenger?’

Michelle had opened the door to two strangers, both of whom were dressed in smart looking suits - immediately making Michelle feel uneasy. Especially as she had been spending the Saturday morning cleaning the house after a lazy Friday night with beer and Rock Band on the Xbox.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed nervously as her mind desperately tried to think back to a time when she might have missed a payment on something. A thought prompted by their official look and the fact that one of them had a black case in his hand which - she guessed - was full of important documents proving how they were in the right and she was in the wrong.

The man to her right handed her a business card, pulled from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. ‘My name is Paul Smith and I’m from SB Inc.’

Michelle looked at him blankly. Was the name supposed to mean anything to her because - if it was - they’d be disappointed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she confessed, ‘I don’t know you.’

‘But we know you and your family!’ The way the man spoke sent a shiver down Michelle’s spine. It wasn’t reassuring. It was sinister. She frowned, puzzled by what he was referring to.

‘I’m sorry,’ she continued, ‘I’m really busy… Can I help you with something?’

‘May we come in?’ the same man asked.

Michelle laughed. ‘Not without telling me what you’re doing on my doorstep.’

‘Everything okay?’ Keith, walked up behind his wife having been listening from the other room.

The man on the doorstep, still clutching his business card, explained, ‘Your family has been selected to join us on a free cruise…’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Everything is free… The ship goes from Southampton, England…’

‘Same place the Titanic set off from? Nice.’

The man continued, ‘It will cruise from…’

Keith cut him off, ‘That’s enough. What’s the catch? What’s the angle? More to the point - how were we selected? What’s the story? You go around all the houses around here offering this and when you sucker someone, you hit them with a bill to…’

‘Flights to England are paid for. Upperclass. Limousine transportation… Tickets for you, your wife, your daughter Kyra and, of course, Michelle’s mother and father Carol and Dennis…’

Michelle looked towards Keith to see his reaction. How did they know everyone’s names if this was some house to house scam? He was looking directly at the strangers. He too was confused.

‘May we come in?’ the man asked again.

Keith looked at Michelle. She was still looking at him. He then looked back at the men and shrugged. ‘Sure.’ They may as well listen to what they had to say. If he didn’t like their offer, he could always kick them back out again.

Keith was first to take a step to the side, out of the doorway. Michelle quickly followed his lead and - then - the two men stepped inside. Michelle closed the door.

The Invite

Michelle put the iced-tea down on the dining room table allowing the men to help themselves to whichever glass they preferred. The two men helped themselves as Keith continued to flick through the cruise-liner’s brochure.

‘You seen this?’ he asked Michelle. He knew she hadn’t. When she was out of the room, preparing the drinks, he had been given the glossy booklet by the quietest of the two men. Each page clearly detailing what they could expect from the trip. Michelle took the booklet from him and started to flick through it. She too was suitably impressed. Keith turned back to the two men. ‘So this is free?’

‘Everything is free, yes.’

‘I don’t understand. We didn’t sign up for any competitions.’ He suddenly turned to Michelle and asked, ‘Did we?’ She shook her head. ‘So how were we selected exactly?’ He laughed. ‘I’m sorry, this kind of thing just doesn’t happen to us. We have our vacations but we work hard to get them…’

‘It’s because of your vacations that you have been selected.’ Every few months Michelle, Keith and Kyra met up with Dennis and Carol to go on a Norwegian cruise ship. Their passion was to travel together and see as many new places as they possibly could. Sightseeing, beer, wine, karaoke, laughter and - more importantly - memories to last a lifetime. ‘The company has sent out random invites done on a Postcode lottery system to people who have both never been on a cruise before and those who have gone on many. With the new people, they’re hoping they get addicted to the cruise ship style trips and - with people such as yourselves - they’re hoping you forget the other companies moving forward and only travel with us. Applicable to both yourselves and the people who’ve never set foot  on a ship before, they’re hoping you all come away having had the best trip and start spreading the word about the company. It’s costing them a fair amount to organise this but they’re hoping to get more of the money back via both repeat bookings and new bookings from people who get to hear about your trip.’

‘Seems like a lot of effort to get word out there, why not just put an ad out on the television?’

The chatty man smiled. ‘How many times do you see an advert for a cruise during the adverts?’

Keith shrugged. ‘Quite a lot actually.’

‘And how many times have you picked the phone up to book that exact cruise?’

Keith smiled. The answer was never.

The talkative of the two men reached back into the case and withdrew a square-cut file. He opened it up without a word and pulled the paperwork out before handing it to his colleague who took it with thanks.

‘These are your tickets. Now, obviously, the trip isn’t for a few months but we are pretty set on the date sadly. Given the scale of the operation, we aren’t able to offer alternatives for people. Could get complicated.’

‘Understandable.’ Keith took the tickets from the man and looked at them. ‘And this is for real?’

The two men smiled.

‘Very much so…’

Keith looked across the table to Michelle. She was eyeing  the tickets in his hands now, the brochure still in her own. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘looks like we have some planning to do.’

Michelle beamed from ear to ear.

Better than Home (Almost).

Kyra was first into the room, pushing by Keith who’d been the one to insert the keycard into the door’s electronic lock. No sooner had she stepped over the threshold did she stop in her tracks with her mouth ajar.

‘Wow,’ was all that she could muster.

Guests of honour, apparently, and - because of such - they had the poshest room on the whole of the ship. Well, not a room. A suite with three bedrooms, a large living room - bigger than their own living room back home in Albuquerque.

‘Should give feedback for this moment,’ Keith said to Michelle. ‘Room was stunning, even managed to silence a grumpy teenager.’

Michelle played along, ‘Imagine the bookings they’d get!’

‘Very funny! Can I have this room?’ Kyra was standing by the doorway to one of the rooms. As it turned out, one of the bigger rooms.

‘No.’ Keith and Michelle said in unison.

‘Well this is a bit fancy, isn’t it?’ Carol said.

‘Not as fancy as the hotels in Vegas though,’ Dennis replied as he carried in their luggage. Being a resident of Vegas for as long as he could remember, he had seen some pretty impressive hotels going up - each new one offering something that tried to outdo what the other hotels offered. He often joked that if someone came along and did a real budget hotel, right on the strip, they’d probably make more money than the bigger hotels offering rooms at extortionate rates. He knew it wouldn’t be the case but it often made whoever he was talking to stop a moment to really give it some thought, something else which made him chuckle to himself.

‘You’re in this room,’ Michelle said to Kyra, pointing her to the smaller of the three rooms - not that it was particularly small. She knew Kyra would say something but she didn’t care. Kyra was staying in a room by herself, she didn’t need the extra space that the others required. Besides, each room had its own private bathroom, it’s own balcony and - more importantly for Kyra - it’s own television so she could keep up with her favourite shows. To her surprise, Kyra didn’t say anything as she disappeared into her room to start unpacking her case.

Keith came out of the room he’d claimed as their own and said, ‘It’s better than our own bedroom…’

‘Well of course it would be,’ Dennis pointed out, ‘that’s the point of the suites… Gives you something you can’t normally get at home and spoils you so much you feel as though you need to come back within a few months.’ Dennis glanced around the room. ‘Tell you what,’ he continued, ‘it’s working for me… When should we book again?’

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ Carol said to Dennis. ‘We need to see if the food is any good yet.’ She muttered, ‘Nothing worse than being stuck on a ship with lousy food.’

‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Dennis said. ‘They wouldn’t go to the effort of making a ship this fancy and then fill it with crap chefs…’

‘Well even so.’

Michelle screamed from the en-suite bathroom of the bedroom Keith had chosen, ‘Oh gross!’

‘What is it?’ Keith called through.

Michelle came back through to the bedroom, hopping on one floor. ‘I trod on a fucking cockroach!’ She collapsed on the bed and lifted her foot. ‘Can you please clean it off?’

Keith laughed. ‘Like fuck I am touching that shit!’

‘Use a towel! Scrape it off! Quick! I think I’m going to vomit…’

Just outside  the bedroom, Carol looked at her husband. She raised an eyebrow and mocked him, ‘So - when did you want to book again?’

Dennis shrugged. ‘One little bug and it means you’d never stay here again? There’s bugs all around us, we just don’t always see them…’

‘Please! Just scrape it off!’ Michelle was still freaking out in the bedroom as Kyra came from her own room, mobile phone raised up and video recording. Now, the only person who wasn’t laughing was Michelle. ‘Keith! Get this fucking thing off my foot!’

Keith walked away from Michelle, stepping back out into the living area with a clap of his hands. ‘So - anyone fancy welcome drinks at the bar before we look around this place?’

‘You’re a fucking asshole!’ Michelle called through, practically in tears.

‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ Dennis said, ignoring his ranting daughter as Kyra continued to capture the moment on film which - hopefully - they’d all laugh about later.

‘You coming or did you want to meet us there?’ Keith called back to Michelle.

‘Come and get this off my foot. Just wipe it off with a towel…’

Keith turned to the rest of the family and said, ‘I think she wants to meet us there.’

Dennis laughed. Keith and Michelle were always winding each other up. It was all harmless banter and whilst it might have looked like he was being a dick to outsiders, they all knew Michelle would get her revenge later - when he would be least expecting it. He would definitely pay for leaving her with insect guts on her bare foot.

part THREE

Tomorrow

Homecoming

Frank and Baylie were standing on the pier watching the incoming ship getting closer. They had come to collect their friends, just as they had happily dropped them off the previous day. And they weren’t the only ones who’d come to watch the cruise liner dock. The side of the pier was lined with people standing by, some to collect their loved ones and some just to see the flagship cruise-liner returning to port.

‘Of course it’s all they’re going to talk about, you know that?’ Baylie said.

‘I know.’

‘And - meanwhile - we still haven’t booked a…’

‘… Holiday. I know.’

‘Even though you…’

‘… Promised you. Yes. I’m working on it.’

‘So when we get home, I guess we can have a look online to see what deals are about? Maybe they’ll want to come away with us after this trip was cut short?’ She paused a moment. ‘What do you think happened to force them to come back?’

‘It’s just not the best of time. I’m working a few issues through and…’ Frank noticed everyone around them was starting to back up, away from the pier’s edge. There was obvious concern on their faces. ‘What?’ He followed one of the group’s gaze - straight to the incoming ship…

The incoming fast ship.

‘Spain. Spain’s not a lot of money. We could do that without breaking the bank or causing…’

‘Honey…’

‘… and financial issues. You can fly out there for a couple of hundred pounds right now and…’

‘… Honey…’

‘A hotel… Doesn’t have to be fancy. So long as we are close to a beach and…’

‘… Honey… Shut the fuck up.’

Bailey stopped talking and turned to her husband with anger in her eyes.

‘Don’t you talk to…’ She stopped. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking through her. She turned to see what he was looking at.

‘Run!’ he yelled. Grabbing her arm, he started running from the pier along with the rest of the people who’d grouped there. Behind them, the ship hit the pier. The wooden structure crumbled and splintered as the liner pushed through it; the sounds of which drowning out the screams of the people now running for their lives. Frank stumbled to the ground in a heap. His ankle twisted awkwardly.

‘Frank!’

‘Don’t stop! Just fucking run!’ Frank waved her on as the ship loomed ever closer, the pier failing to slow it’s destructive path. Bailey screamed and ran without looking back. Her scream was drowned out by the mayhem. Frank’s scream… Also drowned out.

*

One of the more accessible emergency entry points was jimmied open from the outside by one of the firemen. All attempts to communicate with the crew had failed and it was these guys who had been sent in to try and establish what had happened. Not knowing what to expect, each of them was masked up - protection against a possible gas leak: One of the theories being thrown around by the people in charge back on the now quarantined docks. Gas leak could have rendered the bridge unconscious, instruments might not be working - hence they had been unable to stop and then the darker suggestions which would explain as to why no one was shouting down from the deck. As far as it looked from the docks, the boat was void of life.

The first fireman stepped into the corridor with axe in hand. He stopped in his tracks, holding up his colleagues from boarding.

‘It’s not a gas leak,’ he said, his voice shaking. He stepped to the side to allow his colleagues to see what he’d walked in on. They too stopped in their tracks.

Blood smeared on the wall.

Bodies on the floor.

Men.

Women.

Children.

Battered.

Bruised.

Beaten.

Dead.

‘They’re all dead,’ the fireman continued. ‘They’re all fucking dead.’ The firemen were used to seeing horrors in their job but not usually to this extent. One of the bodies had a knife jutting out of its skull, another had a blade sticking from its chest. One body, a young woman in her mid-twenties, had a broken bottle in her dead hand. On the jagged shard of the bottle was an eyeball which clearly belonged to the young man opposite her, slumped on the floor. ‘They did this to each other? What the fuck happened here?’

A female, authoritative voice came from the mobile stairs leading up to the entry point, ‘Thank you. We’ll take it from here.’

‘Who’s that?’ the lead fireman asked. He wasn’t referring to whoever was dismissing them from the back. He was referring to the woman standing at the far end of the corridor. A woman whose features were hidden by blood splatters and smearing down her face. A woman with a look of pure hate in her eyes. ‘Ma’am… Are you okay?’ A beat. No answer. ‘Can you tell us what happened here?’

With no warning, the woman screamed as she charged towards the men. Just as the fireman started to back away, startled by the reaction - a gunshot rang through the air and the woman dropped to the floor.

part FOUR

Today

Guest #1: Nikki Kidd

Causing a Splash

‘Is that the same smiley waiter as before?’ Nikki had spotted a waiter heading towards them with a tray - on which balanced two drinks. Unlike before, he wasn’t smiling now. ‘He looks angry.’

Christopher flashed a wink to Nikki and reached into his pocket. He pulled out some money. ‘Good job I brought some money to tip with then, hey.’ He took a crisp five pound note and stuffed the rest of the notes back into his pocket.

‘Five pounds? Hardly free drinks when you tip a fiver…’

‘You don’t always tip. But for the first tip, it’s important to appear generous. It will ensure you’re looked after for the rest of the trip because the waiters remember you as the guy that gave them a fiver for doing very little… Trust me. We tip five now and maybe a little more at the end of the night… In the meantime, he’ll keep coming back to see if we need anything.’ He said again, ‘Trust me.’

‘Your drinks,’ the waiter said as he approached. Gone was the polite attitude he had seemed to possess when Chris first spoke to him. In it’s place; a harshness that caught Chris off-guard.

He stuttered, ‘Thank you.’ With the hand free of money, Christopher took Nikki’s drink and handed it to her. She smiled at the waiter but said nothing. Chris took his own drink. ‘And,’ he continued, ’this is for your troubles.’ He held the note out. The waiter snatched it, another act which took both Chris and Nikki by surprise. They both waited for the thanks as the waiter looked down to the note. Slowly, he looked back up to the two.

‘A fiver?’

‘Yes. You can get yourself a drink, or something,’ Christopher said.

‘Or something? With a fucking fiver? There’s not much or something I can go and buy, is there? Won’t even buy a fucking magazine or…’

‘Mate, not sure what is going on but I don’t think your attitude is entirely appropriate. Especially given the fact we don’t have to tip anything…’

‘Then don’t tip anything!’ The waiter scrunched the note up and threw it back in Christopher’s face. It dropped to the deck by his feet.

‘What the fuck is your problem? It was supposed to be a nice gesture. A little thank you for getting our drinks…’

‘You know what would be even better? You get your own fucking drinks.’

‘I’m sorry. What happened to the waiter I was talking to before? You know, the one who wasn’t a complete cunt…’

‘Honey, can we just go inside?’ Nikki could see Christopher’s temper rising and knew it wouldn’t be long before he kicked off. Get him inside, away from the confrontation and avoid any potential embarrassment. Jesus Christ, it’s the first night…

Christopher looked to Nikki. He could see she was getting embarrassed by the whole situation. Not the best start of a holiday. He nodded. ‘Yeah. Okay.’ He took Nikki by the hand and started to walk with her towards the bar where the meeting drinks were taking place.

‘Yeah - go inside before I smack you one…’ the waiter sneered. ‘Do as the whore says.’

Christopher stopped in his tracks. ‘What the hell did you just say?’ He turned back to the waiter who was grinning from ear to ear.

‘Come on… Let’s just go inside…’ Nikki didn’t like what the waiter had said but - the way she saw it - they could let management know inside. Let them deal with it in a way which they saw fit, which would most likely result in the man’s instant dismissal. If Christopher lashed out… He would be more in the wrong, which would take away from the waiter’s own punishment. He might have said that but… Your husband knocked out two of his teeth…

‘Apologise to my wife,’ Christopher said to the still-smirking waiter.

The waiter turned to Nikki, ‘Really sorry you’re a whore.’

‘Son of a bitch…’ Without any further warning, Christopher dropped his drink and swung his fist at the waiter’s face. As the glass shattered on the deck, his fist slammed into the waiter’s face - flooring him. Nikki ran towards the bar to get help as Christopher stood over the waiter who was lying on the floor, laughing despite the blood streaming from his nose. Christopher frowned, ‘Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?’

The waiter laughed. ‘It’s in the water.’ The waiter quickly sat up and wrapped his arms around Christopher’s legs. A quick squeeze and push and Christopher stumbled over with a loud, heavy thud which got Nikki’s attention.

‘No!’ She started to run back to help her husband as the waiter climbed on top of him, pinning Chris down with his weight. Unable to shake him off,  the waiter dribbled down into his mouth - laughing the whole time.

‘It’s in the water! It’s in the water!’ Over and over. ‘Can you taste it?’

‘Get the fuck off me!’ Christopher gagged as some more spit went in his mouth and hit the back of his throat.

From the side, Nikki threw herself into the waiter sending both herself and him onto the deck. Christopher rolled onto his side, gagging and retching from the spit in his mouth.

The waiter scrambled up to his feet, using the railings as support. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘fair play to you… Didn’t see that coming…’ He laughed as he turned to Nikki. She was on the deck, her shoulder hurting from the hard impact. Tears streaming down her face. ‘So is that it?’

‘Don’t you fucking talk to her!’ Christopher rolled onto his front and onto all fours, ready to get up.

‘Shut the fuck up! No one was talking to you,’ the waiter said as he ran across to Christopher with a swift kick to his gut. Christopher curled around the foot and rolled onto his back with the force of the blow. Gasping for air. Winded. The waiter turned back to Nikki. She was using the railings to get to her feet too. The waiter smiled and slowly walked over to her. By the time she was standing up properly, the waiter was right next to her. Blood still streaming from his nostrils. ‘Psst…’ His whisper, right over Nikki’s shoulder, made her jump. She spun around to face him. He whispered, ‘Can you swim…?’ And - with that - he shoved her over the railings. He laughed. ‘It’s in the water.’

Nikki splashed down into the rough sea before the waiter turned around, that same fucking smirk on his face. No one else on the deck still. Just him and Christopher… Perks of the dramas kicking off in the bar and - of course - the fact that most of the guests were still taking the time to unpack their bags.

‘Your wife has gone way overboard with this vacation,’ the waiter teased him.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Christopher asked as he continued to gasp for his breath. The waiter kicked him again. His answer.

*

Nikki was frantically scrabbling against the side of the ship despite being unable to get a grip. A hope that her husband had raised the alarm or that someone had seen her fall. Someone must have seen her fall. Please let them have seen. She slipped again and disappeared under the water before resurfacing, gasping for air. Looking up, the ship was moving. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before it got away from her and her chance of rescue was gone.

‘Someone help me! Please!’ she screamed with her head tilted up to the deck. ‘Plea…’ She went under again and - for a second time - resurfaced, gasping for air. No one would hear her screams or cries. She knew that and yet she continued to call out… Her voice immediately drowned out by the ship’s engine and the waves slamming the side of the liner. Tears in her eyes as another shape came over the ship’s railings.

Christopher’s body landed with a heavy splash.

Another unheard scream from Nikki before she lost concentration and went under for a third time. By the time she struggled back to the surface, Christopher was there with her. The relief was short-lived when she realised his eyes were missing - gouged from their sockets as a sick keepsake. She screamed again.

‘This is your fault, cunt!’ Christopher reached out for Nikki and - when he found her - wrapped his hands around her neck. She panicked as he started to choke the life from her. ‘Your fucking fault!’ he hissed.

Guest #2 and #3: Anna and Angela

Social

‘Thank you for sitting with me,’ Anna said to both Angela and Brad. They had moved across to a table in the corner of the room where they could continue to get to know one another.

‘Our pleasure.’ Brad turned back to Angela, ‘I might swing by the room.’

‘Why?’ Angela asked. They’d not been there for more than ten minutes yet and already he wanted to go back to the cabin. ‘We’ve just got here.’

‘You can stay. I’ll be right back. Just want to see if the guy has finished fixing the toilet yet.’

‘Fixing the toilet?’ Anna asked, a confused look on her face.

‘Don’t ask.’ Angela said. She turned back to Brad, ‘It will be fine, just… Stay. Give him a chance to fix it at least. I’m sure that it will be fine by the time we get back to the room later…’

‘It won’t take long.’

‘What are you looking at?’ A shout came from the exit leading to the deck. The new friends turned to see what the commotion was. The waiter who’d been dealing with Nikki and Christopher had come in, looking like hell; white shirt stained with blood and his nose still bleeding.

‘Jesus!’ the bartender muttered and hurried out from behind the bar towards his colleague. ‘What the hell happened to you?’ He took him by the arm and led him back towards the back of the bar and through to a small stock room tucked away in the corner.

‘Anyone else worried about this cruise?’ Anna asked. ‘What with that man shouting out and now this…’

‘… And a broken toilet…’ Brad moaned.

‘Teething problems. It’s a new cruise so there’s just teething problems,’ Angela said, trying to see the good.

‘Teething problems? Broken bathrooms and riots…’

‘Angela shrugged. ‘Least it was free.’

Brad shook his head. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to the cabin.’

‘You aren’t going to see what happened to the waiter?’ Angela asked.

‘Not my business,’ said Brad as he walked towards the corridor. He called back before turning the corner, ‘See you in a minute.’

‘I take it you won this cruise too?’ Anna asked Angela.

Angela nodded. ‘Still not sure how but… Yep.’

‘How much do you think this cost them? Must be thousands.’

‘Pennies to a big company. I’m more interested in how much it will cost them given the fact people seem to be unhappy.’ A quick look around the bar and it was obvious what people were talking about: the bloodied waiter. Angela noticed Kelly and Roy were looking in their direction. She shrugged towards them as though to say Can you believe this?

Guest #5: Kelly and Roy

Kicking Off.

Kelly laughed again and shrugged back to the girls sitting across the way at the table. They, in turn, laughed. At least they saw the funny side of everything, unlike Roy who shook his head in disbelief.

‘This is getting beyond a joke now.’

‘What? Do we ring a bell, or something?’ Dennis said. He had come up to the bar with Carol, Keith and Kyra. He called back behind the bar, ‘Hello… Anyone serving?’

Before Roy had the chance to tell the other passenger that he may as well forget it and go back to the cabin and order room service, the bartender stepped out from the room he’d taken his colleague into. His expression had changed: Gone was the polite, keen-to-help young man and, in his place… A face like thunder.

‘Hello, can we get some drinks over here, please?’

‘You think I’m your skivvy?’ the bartender snapped. ‘You want drinks - why don’t you get your own? Got arms, haven’t you?’

‘I’m sorry?’

Roy and Kelly looked towards the bartender, shocked.

‘I see,’ the bartender continued, ‘you have arms and legs but you’re deaf and dumb…’

Dennis looked to his family and laughed. He shook his head. ‘You believe this ass?’ He turned back to the bartender. ‘Is your manager around?’

‘Probably.’

‘Can I speak with him?’

‘And say what? You want to tell him you’re being a fucking dick and making other people get you your drinks? Sorry but - he’s too busy to hear you being a pussy.’

Dennis looked back to his family, unsure of how best to respond to this level of aggression from someone who was actually being paid to work there.

‘What’s your problem? Just get him his drink. Jesus fucking Christ…’ Roy looked at Kelly and continued, ‘See - nothing in life is free. There’s always some kind of price to pay. In this case, it’s being stuck on a ship with aggressive assholes.’ He turned back to the bartender, ‘What… Is being an asshole contagious on this ship?’

The bartender smiled. ‘It would appear so.’ He winked at Roy.

‘Let’s just go back to the cabin,’ Kelly said.

‘What? No. We’re not going anywhere. He is,’ he said, referring to the bartender. He continued, ‘Where is your manager?’ Roy got to his feet. ‘He through there?’ he asked, pointing through to where the waiter had been led. Without waiting for an answer, he walked around the bar - heading for the other room.

‘I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,’ the bartender said whilst making zero effort to actually stop him.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Dennis continued. He turned to his family, ‘What can I get everyone to drink?’ He too walked around to the other side of the bar as Keith, Kyra and Carol watched on, dumbfounded by everything that was happening. ‘Get out of my way,’ Dennis said as he barged past the bartender.

*

Anna laughed, happy that she had made the decision to move away from the bar area. She gave a nod of her head towards the commotion and Angela followed her gaze. ‘It’s all kicking off over there.’

‘Oh God. At this rate they’ll be turning the ship back. What is wrong with people? Why can’t they just be happy that they got a free vacation?’

*

‘What the fuck?’ Roy crossed the room to where the waiter lay in the shadows. ‘You okay?’ he asked as he leaned down to the unconscious body. ‘Can you hear me?’ He reached into the dark shadow to feel for a pulse. ‘Kelly?’ he called out. ‘Get in here!’

*

‘Get back round the other side of the bar, you cunt!’ the bartender spat.

Dennis continued pouring his own drink first. As the ale reached the top of the pint glass, he turned to the bartender and took a slow swig whilst staring the hostile man directly in the eye. He gulped the drink back and let out a long, melodramatic sigh. ‘That hit the spot.’ Without turning away from the bartender he called out, ‘Carol - what did you fancy?’

‘Last chance…’ the bartender warned him.

‘Before what?’

‘On the count of three…’

‘Really?’

‘Dennis… Forget it. There are other bars on the ship. We’ll just go somewhere else…’ Keith wanted Dennis to put the bartender in his place. God knows he deserved it but, at the same time, he was very conscious of the fact he had his daughter there and she really didn’t need to see…

*

‘Someone! Help! Quick! a woman shouted as she came running into the bar, stealing the attention of the majority of the people in the room. Her face was splattered in red and she had panic in her eyes. ‘He’s killing them!’

A couple of guests - some of the bigger men in the room - jumped up from where they had been seated and ran towards the distraught woman who led them away from the room.

*

‘This is crazy,’ Anna said. ‘I think it might be worth turning back! This isn’t much of a vacation even though it is free…’

‘Well… They didn’t include any of this in the brochure.’

*

‘Can you find the light switch? I can’t feel a pulse…’ Roy said as Kelly came into the room. As requested, she started fumbling around for the switch. When she found it, she flicked it down and the overhead light flickered on illuminating the room. Kelly screamed and Roy jumped back when they saw the waiter’s face. Or rather, what was left of it.

The waiter’s face no longer looked like that of a human. Instead it resembled nothing more than a bubbling mess of flesh, blood and bone fragment… Smoke gently billowing from the festering left-overs of the once-man as though acid had been thrown over his face.

‘What happened to him?’ Kelly asked, panicking, after the initial scream of shock and disgust.

Alarm bells rung as Roy’s own thoughts turned to the last man who’d seen the waiter alive. The bartender.

*

The glass smashed against the bar’s hard surface as the bartender brought his hand down hard and fast. Dennis spun to see what had happened. The broken pint glass sliced both the air and his throat, the latter causing a jet of spray to gush over the bartender’s smiling face and the wall behind.

‘Fuck you!’ he shouted as Dennis dropped to his knees clutching his throat, not that it helped stem the flow of blood thanks to the main artery being cut wide open.

People were screaming. Some frozen to where they were standing or sitting. Some running for the nearest exit.

The bartender aimed the red-stained glass towards Dennis’ family as Keith instinctively stood in front of both his daughter Kyra and his mother-in-law Carol - both of whom were weeping uncontrollably. ‘Which one of you cunts wants to go next then?’

‘Me!’ Roy called out from behind the bartender. The bartender turned around just as Roy swung a bottle he had swiped from behind the bar. The bottle connected hard but didn’t smash. The only thing which broke was the bartender’s nose. A satisfying crunch as he dropped to the floor like a split sack of shit. Roy said out loud, ‘He killed the waiter.’

‘I want to go home,’ Kelly said. ‘They have to turn the boat around. I don’t want to stay on here…’

Angela and Anna hurried over.

‘Is everyone okay?’ Anna asked.

‘It’s like these people are possessed…’

‘I have to go,’ said Angela.

‘What? Where?’ Anna continued, ‘Something strange is happening, we shouldn’t split up…’

‘I have to find Brad just in case…’

‘CUNT’ a man screamed from across the way. The group spun just as another passenger threw himself over a table at another. The two men crashed to the floor where they began to brawl.

‘What the fuck is going on?’ Dennis asked.

Angela took the opportunity to slip from the room in order to find her husband.

‘Angela, wait!’ Anna called out. Too late. She was gone, swallowed up by the crowds of fleeing passengers, all desperate to get back to the perceived safety of their cabins.

part FIVE

Earlier

Guest #2: Angela and Brad

Contagious

‘I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to the cabin,’ Brad said as he stood up.

‘You aren’t going to see what happened to the waiter?’ Angela asked.

‘Not my business,’ said Brad as he walked towards the corridor. He called back before turning the corner, ‘See you in a minute.’

‘Might want to find another way to go,’ Keith said as he passed by Brad.

Brad frowned. ‘Something up?’

‘Some idiot resisting arrest. Guess they don’t water down the alcohol here.’ Dennis laughed. ‘Another plus for coming back on this ship later.’

‘Need to try the food first,’ Carol said.

‘Well you might want to find another bar,’ Brad said, ‘it’s not much quieter there… Starting to think we’re on some kind of party boat.’

‘Great,’ Keith said sarcastically. ‘Well, have a good day.’

‘You too,’ said Brad as disappeared around the next corner. ‘Ah, you again,’ he said as he was greeted by the sight of the man who’d been kicking off in the bar earlier. The two security guards were struggling to keep a hold of him as he pulled and pushed against their grip.

‘Let me go, you fucks! Let me fucking go!’ He pushed with all his weight and both he and the security guards slammed against the wall with a heavy thud. He then pulled away from them, dragging them back to the next wall.

Brad looked back down the corridor he’d just come from. He knew that all roads lead to Rome but… This was the quickest way. He sighed. Maybe they’d get the psycho under control soon? He hoped.

‘You guys need a han….?’

Before he finished his sentence the man shook himself free from their grip and charged down the corridor towards Brad and… He stopped. He just stood there, looking at Brad. There was no hate in his eyes now. There was nothing but puzzlement.

‘It’s the water…’ the man suddenly said calmly as the two security guards hurried down the corridor in order to restrain him once more. As they reached out the man screamed - horror and pain. Brad took a step back as the man’s face split down the middle. A bubbling mess visible beneath the fresh gash.

‘What the fuck…’

The two security guards back off.

The man screamed again. More pain. More horror. A little bit of spittle flew from his ripped open mouth, hitting Brad directly in the eye who flinched away, raising his hand to his eye in an effort to wipe it away. ‘Fuck sake!’ he yelled. By the time he moved his hand away, the man was on the floor - motionless. ‘What the fuck was all that about?’ he shouted at the two security guards. ‘What the fuck did you do to him?’

‘We didn’t do anything! You saw what happened! His face just…’

The second guard finished the sentence, ‘His fucking face ripped open! How is that even fucking possible? The fuck is that about?’

‘You did this!’ Brad shouted at them. ‘You killed him.’ Anger boiled over in Brad. ‘What next? You going to kill everyone on this fucking ship?’ Before they had a chance to answer Brad charged towards them. A swing of his right fist and it slammed against the closest guard’s head before he threw himself against the second petrified man, knocking him down with thanks to his weight. Before the man had a chance to push him off, or even retaliate, Brad started hitting him in the face over and over again with each punch splitting the guard’s skin open spilling blood.

From behind, further down the corridor, a woman screamed.

‘You’re killing him!’

Brad paid her no attention. He carried on hitting the guard before stopping momentarily to jump on the second, unconscious man. Without waiting to catch his breath, he started pounding him with clenched fists too. The woman screamed again around the corner, ‘Someone! Help! Quick! He’s killing them!’

Brad stopped hitting the second man and sat back a moment. Satisfied they were both dead - now he’d take a little breather.

‘Fuck you,’ he muttered under his breath. Brad frowned as a shiver ran down his back. The feeling of being watched by a hundred eyes. Slowly he twisted his neck round to see back down the corridor that led to the bar. A group of passengers were standing there, both scared and horrified by the sight before them. Slowly they parted as Angela pushed her way to the front.

part SIX

Now

Guest #2: Angela and Brad

Continued

Angela also froze at the sight of her bloodied husband crouched over the two bodies.

‘Brad?’

Brad didn’t say anything. He just stared at his wife, a look in his eyes suggesting there was little to no recollection of who she was to him. Or, worse, a look in his eyes which told her he no longer cared.

‘Brad? What happened?’

A scream from the bar distracted half of the group. The other half, Angela included, couldn’t take their eyes away from the bloodied man staring at them from the far end of the corridor.

‘Brad? You’re scaring me.’

One of the security guards - the first man who’d taken less of a beating - groaned before pulling himself up. ‘Will you shut that fucking whore up? Giving me a god damn headache…’ When he was fully sat up, he too turned to face the group with the same look of hate in his eyes that was in Brads.

With the exception of Angela, the rest of the group slowly started backing back down towards the bar despite another scream and crash coming from it.

Angela tried to change the subject away from their current surroundings, ‘Did you manage to get to the room, okay? Was the bathroom fixed?’

‘You look sad,’ Brad said. ‘Did you want a hug?’ Brad stood up and stepped over the body of the second guard. The other man also stood up so that they were standing together, side by side. Hate in their eyes. Angela took a step back and flinched as something crashed to the floor back in the bar. ‘Are you scared?’ Brad asked.

‘I’m fine,’ Angela lied.

Brad smiled.

‘If you don’t do it,’ the guard said, ‘then I will.’

‘Do what?’ Angela asked. Another step back. Whatever it was they were talking about, she knew it wasn’t good. The two men smiled at the same time. Angela took another step back and another loud noise from the bar distracted her attention away from the two men before her. From where she was, she could see the bar now. She could see through the frosted glass fronted doors silhouettes of people fighting. She swallowed hard as the nerves continued to grip her body. ‘I want to go back to the cabin,’ she said as she turned back to where Brad had been standing. She jumped. The two men were running towards her - hate in their eyes, smiles on their faces.

At the same time Angela screamed, Kyra was also screaming in the bar…

Guest #7: Michelle, Keith and Kyra

Unaware

Michelle slipped down beneath the warm water which filled the bath and sighed. She’d scraped the dead bug from her foot and decided on having a bath over joining the rest of the family in the bar for the welcome drinks. Now she felt clean, with the guts washed away, she could see the funny side of what had happened but it didn’t mean she would let Keith off the hook so easily for abandoning her in what she felt had been her hour of need. The longer she stayed in the suite, wasting away the time, the more he would be upstairs stewing about how much trouble he was in. She grinned to herself at the thought of him squirming up there, as she twisted the hot tap back on with her foot. Warm water flowed into the bath and continued to ease away the stress from all the travel she’d done over the last twenty-four hours or so. She laughed. Probably starting to sweat thinking of just how much trouble he was actually in.

*

Kyra screamed again as the stranger snapped Keith’s neck back in the other direction with a crack loud enough to be heard over the sounds of another stranger’s fists pounding down heavily on Anna’s still face - each punch splitting more of her skin open. What had started as a few scuffles here and there had turned into a full-on riot as pint glasses, bottles and fists flew through the air - along with the items of furniture not bolted down on the ship’s wooden decking.

Kyra was behind the bar, thrown over there by her father before he was attacked, as Dennis tried desperately to protect his own petrified wife. Roy and Kelly were standing with Kyra, the three of them protected - at least for a while - separated away from the shocking and sudden onslaught of violence.

Seeing what had happened to Kyra’s father, Roy pulled her back and tried to block her from seeing any more whilst also trying to protect Kelly from the horrors. Kyra fought him, pushing him away, so that she could see. Her grandfather and nan were still in danger…

‘You have to help them,’ she whimpered.

Roy looked across the bar. Dennis and Carol were backed against the wall with an angry group starting to close in around them. Dennis grabbed a stool from the floor and began swinging it from side to side in order to keep them back.

‘I don’t know what to…’ Roy stopped himself as a plan formulated in his mind. Without another word, he grabbed a bottle of spirits from beneath the bar and threw it into the violent group. It smashed on impact as Roy turned to both Kelly and Kyra. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

The two girls followed his lead and started reaching for the bottles. No sooner had they got them in hand, they started throwing them into the crowd with some bottles hitting target and others missing by a mile. One of the group - a man in his twenties - hissed at Roy as a bottle smashed close to his face. Before he had finished, a second bottle hit him square in the face, dropping him to the floor with blood streaming from his broken nose.

Slowly the group started backing away from Dennis and Carol, much to Dennis’ relief as his arms continued to tire from their relentless swinging.

‘Try and get behind the bar,’ Roy called to them through the shouting and fighting. ‘We can board ourselves up in this room back here,’ he continued - referring to the small stock room he’d found the body of the waiter in. ‘You two,’ he said to the girls, ‘go in there now and shut the door. Don’t open it until you hear my voice…’

Both Kelly and Kyra threw one more bottle each before retreating back to the stock room. As instructed, Kelly closed the door.

‘What are we going to do?’ Kyra asked with tears streaming down her face both for how scared she was and for the loss of her father.

Beyond the door, the violence continued to escalate.

‘We’re going to wait here,’ Kelly said. ‘Don’t worry… I’m sure security is on their way. Everything will be fine.’ She looked at the door and wondered - how much of a beating would it take before it broke down? Were they safe in this room or had they just trapped themselves? She kept her concerns to herself.

*

Michelle closed the bedroom door and laid down on the overly large (and extremely comfortable) bed wrapped in nothing more than a towel. They had days ahead of them on the ship, there was no need to rush around now and explore. Not when she was so tired what with the bath’s warmth coming close to lulling her into a peaceful sleep whilst still lying in it, soaking. The family wouldn’t miss her. In her mind’s eye she pictured them at the bar enjoying the welcome drink. They won’t miss me. Especially if there is karaoke involved, she laughed to herself.

Just as she started to drift off there was a knock on the suite’s main door. Michelle opened her eyes and frowned. Keith forgotten his keycard and can’t get in? No. If that were the case, he would have borrowed Dennis’ card. Unless he hadn’t realized that he didn’t have his key until he had got back to the room and the others were still in the bar getting merry on the various free drinks? She smiled to herself. If he had helped me with the cockroach, I would have helped him with the door… She rolled onto his side. Fuck him. He can go back up to where the others are and borrow their key. With a self-satisfied grin on her face, she closed her eyes. She ignored the second knock…

Guest #6: Sasha

Welcome to Hell

Sasha lowered her fist back to her hip as she waited for the person on the other side of the door to open up for her. In her head she counted down thirty seconds. No sound of movement. No sound of a television on. Nothing. The room is empty. So many rooms along this corridor and most of them are empty. Fucking welcome drinks. She sighed heavily and turned away before walking to the next door along  the narrow corridor - knife still clenched in hand, blade bloody.

‘Room Service,’ she said as she knocked on the next door.

Movement.

Someone’s in.

She grinned as her grip of the knife’s steel handle tightened. The door opened and a young woman appeared with a nice black dress on and a face half made-up as though she were in the middle of getting ready to venture from the room.

‘Can I help….?’

Before she finished the sentence, Sasha thrusted the knife forward into the woman’s throat. As she pulled it out, a spray of blood splattered Sasha’s face. The woman dropped to her knees with her hands raised to her throat. Sasha leaned down closer to her and stared her in the eyes. It didn’t matter if she was trying to stem the flow, it wouldn’t help. The woman would die and Sasha - not for the first time this day - would get to watch the soul leave the woman’s body.

The woman fell back onto the floor and her hands dropped to either side of the body. She was gone. Sasha stood up straight. For a moment - just a moment - she paused, watching the corpse for any hint of life. Satisfied there was none, she wiped the filthy blade on her jeans and turned back down the corridor. Four more rooms on this corridor…  As Sasha approached the next room she noticed the door was slightly ajar. There was noise coming from the other side, something playing on the television. Easy pickings. Smiling, she reached out to the door and pushed it open with the tip of the blade. She froze.

part SEVEN

Before

Guest #4: Debra

The End.

Trent would be angry when he came back to the room, that was for sure. Even though it had been him who had created a scene in the bar, he would find a way to blame Debra. For instance, if she hadn’t cheated on him… If she hadn’t sucked that cock or allowed that cunt to penetrate her… The bar scene would never have happened. She was to blame and she knew - when he came back to the room - he would make her well aware of this. First he would start with the guilt, making her feel like shit for what she had done, and then - if he didn’t think she was getting the message - he would start with the violence. That was her fault too… The fists. He had never been violent before she cheated. Her infidelity had turned him into a monster. It was only right that she was made to suffer and yet, even so, she had had enough.

She got up from the edge of the bed, where she had been weeping for the past half an hour, and walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall next to a small office table with various pieces of literature (all based on the cruise-liner) scattered over it. Leaning on the table, she leaned in close to the mirror - a close-up of her own, broken self staring back. A sorry sight with heavy, black bags under her red-raw eyes and her hair - once cared for - nothing but split ends. She was a far cry from the woman who’d had the affair. Looking like this, no one would want her now. Not even her own husband, the man she wished would love her again like he once had done before she had thrown it away. Only yourself to blame. The grass is not greener.

She wiped away a single tear, the last of many, with the back of her hand. Painted fingernails, chipped. And - then - without warning, she spat at her reflection. Slowly, the dribble snaked its way down the once clean mirror and onto the wall.

‘You’re a piece of shit,’ she said to the reflection. ‘A fucking whore. You don’t deserve his forgiveness. You don’t deserve any possibility of happiness. You deserve to rot in Hell.’

The reflection didn’t argue.

Debra crossed the room to the wardrobe and opened the double doors with both hands. Hanging inside were all of her clothes. She reached in and took a hold of a silk scarf.

His voice played back in her head, ‘What do you need that for?’

‘It might be chilly where we go,’ she had answered.

He had laughed at her. He had told her that she was being stupid and packing unnecessarily but she hadn’t cared. She’d packed it anyway. He had responded by packing the thickest jumper he could find.

Debra pulled the scarf out. So pretty yet, at the same time, so impractical. It was too thin to wear at home to get any protection from the cold and no good to wear on any of the holidays they usually took, given the fact they used to opt for the hottest countries they could find. Seemed fitting that she’d finally found a use for it.

She held the scarf up to her face and pressed it against her skin. So soft. So delicate. Would it be good enough? She draped it over her shoulders and reached back into the cupboard. She grabbed a handful of clothes and pulled them out. Without any care, she dropped them to the floor in a heap before reaching in and taking another handful. Soon enough - the wardrobe was empty.

Room for a little one…

part EIGHT

Now

Guest #6: Sasha

Welcome to Hell (Part 2)

Sasha was standing there with the knife by her side still caked in blood from the last cabin she had visited. Debra’s pale corpse hung from the clothes rail in the cupboard. The scarf tied around her neck and the rail, supporting her weight… The life - strangled from her body.

Sasha stepped into the room and pushed the door closed behind her. Slowly, she walked up to the hanging body and leaned down close to it so that the two women were face to face. Debra’s eyes were locked looking up. Her face etched in pain from where she’d expired, gasping for air that never came.

‘Welcome to Hell,’ Sasha said quietly. There was something in her voice. She wasn’t happy that this stranger had killed herself. She wasn’t relishing in the fact she’d found her dead. Instead, she sounded almost jealous. She took a step back until she fell back into a seated position on the side of the bed. Without warning, she suddenly belched - her own body taking by her surprise. She didn’t apologise. There was no need. It wasn’t like she could offend the corpse. ‘What’s it like there?’ she asked the body. ‘Hell, I mean. What’s it like?’

She raised the knife to her own throat and - without another word - pulled the sharp blade across her skin, tearing it open in the process. Blood spewed from the wound - running down her top, spraying onto the carpet and even reaching Debra’s body. Within seconds Sasha lost her grip on the knife before her body slumped to the side, falling off  the bed in the process. She landed heavily on the floor with a thud.

Guest #7: Kyra

Guest #5: Kelly and Roy

Guest #8: Dennis and Carol

Trapped

‘Drag it over here…’ Roy had just come into the small stock room, followed by Dennis and Carol. He was pushing his weight against the door to save it from being pushed in by the angry mob gathering outside. His gaze was fixed on a table in the far corner of the room; receipts scattered on top of it, along with various order forms. Dennis didn’t need to be asked twice and hurried across to the table. With Kelly’s help, they dragged it over to the door and pushed the table up against it as Roy jumped out of the way.

‘Do you think it will hold?’ Kyra asked.

‘Of course it will,’ Dennis smiled at her. He walked over to her and put his arms around his tearful granddaughter. ‘Of course it will hold,’ he said again. He looked at Carol. She wasn’t as easily fooled. She could see the doubt in his eyes.

‘You okay?’ Roy asked Kelly.

‘What’s going on out there? Everyone has lost their mind.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ve decided,’ Dennis said to Carol, ‘I probably won’t be rebooking this cruise next time…’ He was trying to lighten the mood but it wasn’t working. It would take more than that for Kyra, or even Carol, to raise a smile.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Kyra said, referring to her dad.

Dennis held her closer. He didn’t need to say the words. She knew the answer already, even if she didn’t like it.

Kelly walked over to a small sink in the opposite corner of the room. She twisted the tap and cold water started to come out.

‘What are you doing?’ Roy asked.

‘I’m thirsty…’

‘With what’s going on out there… All this alcohol in here… You choose water?’ Roy asked as he grabbed himself a bottle of red from one of the many shelving units in the room. Kelly didn’t answer. She leaned down to the water and slurped it right from the tap. Roy turned his attention to the bottle. ‘Don’t suppose anyone has a bottle opener, do they?’

No one answered.

Roy sighed as he put the bottle down.

‘Fucking typical.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Carol asked.

‘We wait for help to come…’ Roy said.

‘Listen…’ said Dennis. The room went silent. The banging and scraping from beyond the door had stopped. ‘Think they have gone?’

‘No need to rush out there,’ Roy said. ‘Could be they’re waiting or they’ve moved on… But… Do you really want to risk it?’

‘What will happen now?’ Kyra asked.

‘They’ll most likely turn the ship to the nearest port, wherever that may be,’ Carol said.

‘Do you think mum is okay?’ Kyra asked again.

Carol smiled at her. ‘I’m sure she is fine.’ It was a guess. She didn’t know if she was okay. There was no way to tell, especially given how everyone had turned so violent… There was nothing to say it wasn’t happening elsewhere on the ship too. All Carol - and Kyra - had, was hope.

‘She’s fucking dead,’ Kelly hissed. Everyone in the room turned to Kelly who was still standing by the sink.

‘Kelly! What the hell!’ Roy snapped. ‘Was there any need for that?’ He turned to the family. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise for me, fucker. She asked about her mum. I told her. She’s fucking dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead, dead, fucking dead. Probably attracting flies already as the skin continues to fester in death’s wake…’

‘Stop it!’ Roy shouted. Back to the family, ‘I’m really sorry - I don’t know what has…’

Kelly interrupted her, ‘Shut the fuck up, you fucking pansy…’

‘Sir, you might want to control your wife,’ Dennis warned Roy.

‘Oh, please, he can’t even control his stream of piss in the morning. Just pisses all over the fucking floor like a retard… You honestly think he can control me?’

Roy didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. This was a side to Kelly he had never seen before.

‘It’s the water,’ he said to the others. He realised there was no point in talking to Kelly. Not now she had turned. ‘There’s something in the water that’s doing this to…’

A bottle of red wine smashed behind Roy. Before he had a chance to react, even look to see what had happened, the broken bottle was jammed straight into his jugular. Carol, Dennis and Kyra screamed as Kelly started to laugh.

‘He apologises for me? Well, I apologise for the fact that my husband was a whining little bitch…’ Kelly grabbed another bottle and smashed that too as Dennis stepped in front of his two girls, ready to protect them. He needn’t have worried though as the second bottle was thrust into Roy’s face - piercing flesh and eyeball as he dropped to the floor gasping and gagging on blood and spit. A third bottle was smashed. This bottle wasn’t thrust into Kelly’s husband, though. It was aimed towards Dennis.

‘Which one of you cunts was to be next then?’

‘This isn’t you,’ Dennis said. ‘There’s something in the water that is making you act like this…’ He said again, ‘This isn’t who you are…’

‘Oh. Gosh. You’re right. What have I done? Oh my… What. Have. I. Done…’ she said sarcastically. ‘Shut up and know this… I’m going to kill you and your fucking family. However, I’m willing to do you a deal… If you can kill just one of them… I’ll let you leave. What do you say?’

‘I’m not going to kill anyone,’ Dennis spat.

‘No?’ Kelly laughed. ‘Question is - what makes you think I was talking to you?’ Kelly peered around Dennis. ‘My offer is open to any of you. Little girl, kill any of the old cunts. Old cunts, kill each other or the little girl… I don’t give a fuck who kills who but - that’s the only way you get to leave this room. You have to kill one of your family.’ Kelly smiled. ‘Maybe your mum is still alive, little girl? Maybe you can kill gramps here and then go live happy ever after with mum? Don’t worry - she will marry another man so you’ll get a new daddy before you worry about what happened to him. Could be a better daddy too. I’ll be honest - the old one looked like a bit of wet blanket. Hardly surprising he had his neck broken…’

‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ Carol started yelling as she too grabbed a bottle from a nearby shelf. She smashed it down onto a ledge and held it tight in her hands.

Kelly grinned again.

‘So who is going to get it then?’ Kelly asked. ‘Do you kill him or send her to be with her daddy? Or…’ She sighed. ‘Or do you try and be a hero and come for me? Tick, tock… clock is ticking.’

‘Put your fingers down your throat…’ Dennis said to Kelly. ‘Make yourself sick…’

Kelly frowned. ‘That wasn’t one of the options…’

‘Sick up whatever is in that water… You don’t have to do this…’

‘Of course I don’t have to do it,’ Kelly said. ‘I want to do it…’

‘Please… Sick it back up. We can wait in here until we get to whatever port we head for… No one else needs…’ Kelly slashed the broken bottle across Dennis’ face, splitting it diagonally open. He let out of a scream as his hand instinctively went up to the fresh wound. Carol rushed to his side as Kyra screamed.

‘I gave you all a chance to leave this room… Does no one want to take it? Do you all want to die in here?’ Kelly yelled.

‘This isn’t you! It’s something in the water! You don’t have to do this…’ Dennis continued, through the pain.

part NINE

Before

Quality H2O

The last of the pallets was loaded onto the ship as one of the crew signed the paperwork off on the clipboard before handing it back to the driver.

‘Sorry about the confusion, making you wait around…’ the crew member said. ‘Appreciate the patience.’

‘Honestly - not a problem. Everyone has procedures these days.’

‘Tell me about it. Some things, though, you just expect to work. Like, they swap suppliers… They tell us who the new supplier is and that we are expecting a delivery. Shouldn’t have to phone up chasing them to find out what is going on.’ He laughed. ‘And yet, when they’re delayed leaving port… It will be the ground staff who get it in the neck.’ He shook his head as he realised that - despite the moaning - this was his job and he was stuck with it. The delivery driver in front of him wasn’t. He got to go home. He didn’t have to put up with this shit. ‘Sorry, man, didn’t mean to go on.’

The driver tossed the clipboard to the passenger seat and started the engine to his signless white van. ‘Not a problem. One of those days, I get it.’ He smiled. ‘You should drink some water. Feel better. Rehydrate yourself…’

The crew member laughed. ‘It’ll take more than water to make me feel better. Anyway, something wrong with the water tanks. They’re all being drained and re-filled by another new company. And guess what - we didn’t know they were coming today either. Another fucking surprise for us.’

The driver smiled. ‘I know them. We’re all hired by the same company. You think you have communication issues? They could have got them to deliver these pallets for me, save me a trip down here and given me the chance - just maybe - to get home at a decent hour.’ He shrugged. ‘The powers that be… They don’t give a shit if we work overtime or not though, do they? They don’t give a fuck as to whether we have family waiting for us at home, or not. They don’t care about other people…’

‘Well - thank God it’s Friday. Weekend ahead.’

The driver selected the reverse gear and laughed. ‘I work weekends too.’

He started to reverse his truck back as the crew member shook his head. Poor son of a bitch. He turned away and headed towards the tanker which had shown up, ready to refill the ship’s water tanks. In his head he just kept asking himself over and over again - why are they doing this now when the ship has been there all week? This could have been done days ago but - no - they had to wait until now. Fucking idiots.

*

The table was surrounded by middle-aged businessmen and businesswomen in suits. With them, a couple of men in military-grade uniforms. One man was sitting at the head of the table with a large file. He thumbed through it and then took a hold of a pen, resting next to the folder, and signed the back page.

‘And what are you hoping to see from it? the head of the table asked.

‘There should be unprecedented levels of aggression. The animals we tested it on… When they drank the water, they literally tore apart anyone, or anything, in their path and at no point did they turn on each other. They were more aggressive than they’d be usually, they were certainly stronger in all cases…’

‘And we want this?’

‘When fighting an enemy we want the strongest soldiers, yes.’ The military man stepped forward.

The head of the table looked at him with raised eyebrows. ‘And why aren’t we just testing this on a group of your men? Surely we have volunteers for this kind of thing?’

‘Because we want to try it out on normal people, with no training, to see how it affects them, sir.’

‘I see…’

‘The cruise was the best way of doing this in a controlled environment.’

‘It has been explained to me and I understand that.’ He sighed. ‘We’ve come a long way since the fields. No turning back now, is there?’

‘No, sir, there is not.’

The head of the table looked back down to the file. ‘And it was completely random?’

‘People from all over the world, from all walks of life. Completely random, sir.’

‘Well…’ He pushed the folder away from him after closing it up. ‘Good luck to them.’

Another suit spoke up, ‘You might be feeling uneasy about this but if this works… We will be creating some of the most aggressive troops on a battlefield… They will attack and they will be relentless but - if the first tests are anything to go by - they will still stand and fight alongside each other as opposed to turning on one another like the last batch…’

‘Yes, thank you for that. But it doesn’t make it any easier. When you’re sitting in this chair and you’re the one signing these things… We will see how easy you sleep at night.’

‘For the good of the country, I’d sleep like a baby, sir.’

‘And what if this doesn’t work? What if they turn on each other?’

The officer stepped forward again. ‘We poison the enemies water supplies and let them turn on each other. We win the war without ever having to send a soldier over in the first place.’

The head of the table shook his head in disbelief. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to develop that one first? Save our own men by contaminating the water of the enemy?’

The officer smiled. ‘We developed both, sir. We’re ready for the human trials of that too and already know how to contain the experiment.’

The head of the table sat back in his chair. He looked towards the rest of the board members sitting around the table. They were all staring at him intently, waiting to see his reaction. It was only now that he’d realised he had been steered into this scenario. This was why the other man had stepped down and why they were so keen for him to take charge… Because they could play him. With the way everyone was looking at him now, he knew this wasn’t a choice. This had already been decided. All he needed to know - to save himself and his career - was where else he needed to sign.

part TEN

Tomorrow

Guest #7: Michelle.

Patient Zero

With no warning, Michelle screamed as she charged towards the firemen. Just as they started to back away, startled by her hostile reaction - a gunshot rang through the air and she dropped to the floor.

‘What the fuck? You shot her?’

‘Relax,’ the woman said, ‘it’s a tranquilliser gun.’

The fireman turned to her as she reloaded the gun with another dart. He said, ‘You need to start telling us what the hell is going on here!’

‘No, I don’t. You need to get your men and get off this ship,’ the woman said. ‘My crew can finish off now, thank you.’

The fireman stood there a moment, unsure as to whether she was being serious or not. It was clear from her expression that the conversation was over and that - yes - she was being deadly serious.

‘Something tells me that you weren’t surprised by any of this,’ he said referring to the blood splatterings and bodies lying around.

‘Come on,’ his colleague said, ‘let’s get out of here.’ He had been around for long enough to know that - in circumstances like these - you don’t question them. You just do as you’re told and get the hell out of Dodge. That was how you got yourself promoted or even kept a hold of your job. He led his colleagues back out of the ship using the same hatchway they had entered through. As they left, another group came in - all dressed in their fancy suits and long, white coats.

‘So far there’s only one who survived but be vigilant as there could be more,’ the woman said to them as she loaded another dart into her gun. Her colleagues acknowledged her words as they started examining the bodies. She walked over to where Michelle lay unconscious and peered down at her. She didn’t speak but, in her mind, she was wondering what the woman had seen. Just how horrific had the violence been? She squatted down next to Michelle and patted her down until she felt what she was looking for; a small purse in her jacket pocket. Reaching in, she pulled it out and tossed it to one of her colleagues who instinctively caught it. ‘Pull up her medical reports. Get us full details on bloods, previous procedures she may have had… Just anything and everything which will help explain how she survived.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ With wallet in hand, the man turned around and promptly left the ship as another man approached the woman kneeling down next to Michelle.

‘I think it’s fair to say it’s looking like a success,’ he said. ‘Extreme violence followed by their own termination. Can you imagine what would happen if we fed this into Russia’s main water supply?’

The woman looked back to the dead bodies around her and said, ‘I don’t think we need to imagine it at all.’ She sighed. ‘A success?The ship wasn’t supposed to come back to port like this. They’ve created such a scene we’re going to need to think of something to tell the people. They’ll be wanting answers.’ She stood up. ‘This wasn’t part of the plan.’ She looked her colleague in the eye. ‘How are we going to explain this to the press? They’re already turning up in their vans, pointing their cameras… Won’t be long before this is on every channel… And when they see the bodies being pulled out.’

‘Food poisoning…’

‘You really think people are going to believe that? Come on… Look around.’ She sighed again. ‘We thought of everything that could have gone wrong with this experiment. Everything except this.’ She changed the subject, ‘Get a trolley up here and get this one to the labs so we can see whether this is a permanent thing or whether it wears off like it did with the animals.’

He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt clip and raised it to his mouth. ‘Bring a trolley up, we have one for transportation back to the lab,’ he said.

‘Would have been so much easier had the ship been out at sea like it was supposed to be. Then we could have just sunk the fucking thing and been done with it,’ the woman muttered to herself as she stepped over Michelle’s body. Her colleague didn’t follow as he clipped his walkie-talkie back to his belt. Instead, he waited by Michelle as she continued to sleep. He too wondered what horrors she had been a witness to.

part ELEVEN

Now

‘

Guest #7: Michelle.

All the Horrors

Michelle woke both with a start and an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was very wrong. She was still lying on the bed where she’d dozed off after her bath. A headache pounding away in the back of her skull caused by either all of the traveling she had done recently, to get here, or from the fact that her little nap had gone on too long. What was the time? She rolled onto her side and reached for her small wristwatch - lying on its side on the bedside cabinet. Early evening now. She suddenly frowned when it dawned on her how long her family had been away for.

‘Keith?’ she called out.

No answer.

‘Kyra?’

Nothing.

‘Mum? Dad?’

Silence.

She sat up and put the watch back on the side.

Had they really been out all of this time without coming to check on her? Four hours… That’s how long they had left her. Usually, by now, one of them would have crackedand come back to at least see if she was okay and - usually - to hurry her up to go and join them.

Still wrapped in the same towel, she hurried over to the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of jeans and a top. Nothing fancy. Tossing them to the bed, she grabbed a fresh pair of knickers and socks from the bedside cabinet before perching herself on the edge of the bed and slipping them on underneath the towel which she then discarded by dropping it to the floor.

Michelle reached back into the bedside cabinet and pulled out a clean bra which she slipped over her shoulders and hooked before swivelling it into place. There was something very satisfying about putting on fresh clothes after a nice long bath to wash away the grime from traveling. Underwear on, she threw on the rest of her clothes before grabbing her jacket from the wardrobe.

Catching sight of herself in the mirror, her hair was all over the place. She fetched a hairbrush from the side - in the bathroom - and ran it through her hair. It could do with a proper clean but… That could wait until morning. Now she just wanted to go and find her family… Help shake off the feeling she had woken up with: The feeling that something was off.

Guest #7: Michelle and Kyra

Guest #8: Dennis and Carol

Failed

Dennis slowly turned to face Carol who took a step back in horror as Kyra screamed. Behind him, Kelly smashed another bottle.

Dennis tried to speak, desperate to apologise to Carol. The words wouldn’t come out though and neither would his mouth open properly. The glass bottle made sure of that, pinning it closed as it was jarred up under his chin and through his mouth, up into the rest of his skull. The bottle visible through the slight gap between the top and bottom row of teeth.

He slumped to the floor with a heavy thud which caused the bottle to smash within him.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Carol wept.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll be with him soon enough.’ Kelly took a step forward towards the petrified women, bottle in hand and ready to use. She suddenly stopped in her tracks and frowned. ‘Well… That feels weird…’ she said as the skin on her face started to bubble. She visibly shuddered as the skin beneath her eyes started sagging down. She dropped the bottle and raised her hands to her face. Eyes wide in horror when she realised her skin was turning into nothing but a puddle. ‘W-h-aat… Happeningggg…’ Her bottom lip slipped down, out of place - promptly followed by the top. ‘Heelp….Meee….’ she slurred through a distorted mouth of mush before - with no further warning - the flesh off her face burst away in globules of skin, blood and yellow puss. The splattered mess hit both Carol and Kyra directly in their own faces as they turned away in a desperate attempt to protect themselves from the splash-back. Both girls violently gagged and retched - not just from the disgusting sight but from the fact bits had hit them in their mouths.

Kyra dropped to her knees weeping loudly asking, over and over again, why this was happening. Carol didn’t say anything to comfort her. She staggered across to the wall and leaned her body against it before she fell to the floor herself from exhaustion; both mental and physical. In her head - as disgusted and scared as she was - she kept saying over and over that, no matter what they had been through that night, at least now they were safe. At least now they just had to stay quiet in there and - hopefully - someone would come along and find them when it was safe to do so. At least… At least… Fucking… We’re safe… Fucking safe… Cunt. Cough. Cunts. Fucking cunts. Fucking safe from the fucking cunts and fucking… Fuck… Cough. Stop crying you pathetic little whore… Oh what’s the matter, is granddad dead and daddy dead? Oh boo hoo… Grow the fuck up you fucking little slag… Cunt. Whore. Bitch. Fucking piece of shit. Mummy’s little fucking princess… Mummy’s fucking little princess with her fucking head staved in… Cunt.

Kyra screamed as Carol launched herself towards her with hatred in her eyes.

Down a couple of levels within the ship, Michelle also screamed.

*

The corridor was lined with bodies. The walls were painted - here and there - with splatterings of red and brain matter. What the hell has been happening.

From further up the corridor, and just around the corner, someone screamed. Michelle didn’t run to investigate. She had frozen to the spot in fear. With her eyes fixed to the approximate area of the scream, she held her breath and waited.

A woman backed into the corridor with her arms waved up defensively.

‘Please… Why are you doing this? Please… I love you…’

‘I saw the way you looked at him…’ A man appeared, following the woman with a crazed look in his eye and a heavy piece of wood in his hands. ‘You’ve been fucking him.’

‘What? No. I sw…’ The woman’s sentence was cut short as the man swung the wooden block into her head. Michelle screamed, getting the man’s attention. He smiled at her.

‘It’s not what you think,’ he said calmly. ‘She was a bad person…’

Michelle didn’t wait to hear anymore. She turned and ran in the opposite direction, round the corridor and…

More bodies.

More blood.

More screaming.

More violence.

Michelle darted into the stairwell and started to go up - hoping to reach the bar -  just as someone came tumbling down the stairs with the skin on their face bubbling as though hit by acid. She screamed again.

‘Wait! Come back! I just want to explain what happened!’ the man with the bar was shouting. His voice getting closer. Michelle jumped the body in the stairwell and hurried up the stairs worried about what was happening and where her family were.

She froze on the spot for a second time when she heard more commotion on the deck up above. People shouting, screaming, swearing… She knew if she carried on, she wouldn’t get to where she needed to… Shouting from the floor below… The man with the wooden bar… Broken, splintered, bloody. Coming.

Michelle pushed through one of the fire doors, onto the next deck.

*

Quiet, despite the commotion coming from the stairwell. This looked to be untouched by the madness that was happening elsewhere much to Michelle’s relief even though she knew it wouldn’t last. The man with the wooden block was coming for her and if things were kicking off on the other decks, it wouldn’t be long before it reached this one too - either spilling down from decks above or coming up fromdecks below, such as the man with the wooden block.

Cautiously - yet quickly - Michelle stepped into the corridor and quietly closed the door to the stairwell behind her. With any luck, the man following would continue up towards the upper decks. She turned to face the corridor - her heart pounding heavily in her chest, making her feel sick along with the adrenaline surging through her body and the horrible thought that… Given the violence from the floors above… If her family were still in the bar… They’d be… She shook the thought from her head. Don’t think about that now. Just get somewhere safe and wait this madness out. Hopefully some help will come and… She carried on down the corridor, trying each door as she passed in the hope that it would open. Please open.

part TWELVE

Now

Ship to Shore

Michelle was on hospital bed but not in a hospital ward. Her ankles and wrists were bound by heavy restraints keeping her pinned in place despite her struggles, now that she was awake.

A man in a white coat was sitting a few feet away from her with a clipboard in his lap and a pen in his hand.

‘Do you know how you got here?’ he asked.

‘Fuck you.’

‘I see…’ He made a note.

‘Do you know your name?’

‘Michelle. My name is Michelle.’

‘And do you remember my name?’

‘Cunt.’

The man smiled and made another note.

‘You look frustrated,’ Michelle said. ‘Undo these restraints and I’ll suck your cock. Ease away some of those frustrations for you. Make you feel all warm inside and nice and relaxed. Unless… You can leave the restraints if you want? Just feed me your cock. I promise I won’t bite…’ She laughed before suddenly clamping her teeth down.

To his credit, the man ignored her, ‘Do you remember what happened on the ship?’

*

The room was empty much to Michelle’s relief. She closed the door behind her and locked it shut. She turned to the door, watching it - the handle specifically - and, slowly, backed away. She didn’t see anyone, as she came into the room, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t seen.

She tripped back against the bed and fell onto it in a sitting position. She waited there. Thump-thump, thump-thump… Still with the heavy heartbeat. Thump-thump…

A second announcement came through from the bridge. The first had been a couple of minutes ago, urging people to remain in their cabins and to lock the doors. A panicked voice - the Captain, Michelle presumed - stating the ship was heading back for port and that help would be here shortly. The announcement was the same in tone as the first: a hastily made recording.

*

‘Some bitch shot me with a tranquilliser dart…’

The man nodded. ‘You were going to hurt them.’

Michelle smiled. ‘I’m going to hurt all of you.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know what happened on the boat. You made this happen, didn’t you? You planned all of this… The lucky winners all getting a free cruise so you could run your experiments away from the public eye.’ Michelle laughed. ‘Not exactly in private now though, is it? Tell me - how many people died when the ship hit the docks?’

The man squirmed in his chair, uncomfortable with how much Michelle seemed to know. He couldn’t ask her how she knew so much. He didn’t want to admit that what she was saying had any truth. It wasn’t his place to. If they wanted to talk to her about it, they were more than welcome. His job was to see how much of her was left inside of this body and how - unlike the others - she hadn’t died from the exposure to the chemical.

‘Who were you on vacation with?’ the man questioned her.

‘What has happened to my family?’ Michelle asked.

‘Do you know their names?’

‘Keith, Kyra, Dennis and Carol…’ Michelle asked again, ‘What has happened to my family?’

The man had nothing to lose in answering her. ‘At this stage, we would presume they’re dead.’

*

Carol repeatedly slammed Kyra’s head against the hard floor of the stock-room. The first hit stunned the teenager, the second silenced her and the fifth killed her - not that this stopped Carol. She didn’t stop until the poor girl’s head was fractured and cracked in various places and skin coated in red. She didn’t stop until… Burning under her skin… Eyes bubbling and rupturing and… Carol raised her bloody hands to her face and screamed in pain.

*

‘How did you survive though? Out of everyone on the boat - no one else has walked away… Did you fight? Did you hide?’

‘When I get out of here, are you going to fight? Are you going to hide away?’

The man smiled at her once again. All the talk of leaving… She wasn’t going anywhere. She had survived the exposure to the chemicals. She was their test subject now.

‘Are you going to tell me what happened on the boat? Are you going to let me know how you came to be one of the only people to survive?’

Michelle teased him. ‘You want my story?’

‘My colleagues and I would be interested to hear it, yes.’ The idea behind the chemical was to poison the enemies’ water supply. Those who drank the water would become increasingly violent towards their neighbours - undoubtedly killing them - before they themselves died from the toxins. The last thing they expected was for anyone to survive from drinking it as that, in itself, would cause a problem… A whole nation of violent, psychopathic individuals ready to rip apart those who entered their personal space. The man pressed Michelle for an answer. ’So what did you do?’ he asked. ‘Did you fight or did you just stay hidden, only coming out of your hiding space when you felt it was safe to do so?’

*

Michelle’s heart skipped a beat as someone tried the door handle from the other side. Quickly, she dove under the bed in a hope that she wouldn’t be visible from the doorway. She listened.

‘Hurry up!’ Female.

‘The card isn’t working!’ Male.

‘Let me try.’

The sound of the card being swiped for a second time caused Michelle’s heart to skip a beat for the second time. This time the lock clicked across and the door was pushed open. Michelle watched - petrified - as a middle-aged couple came in. The man was first in, the woman closely behind. When she was safely in, he turned and closed the door.

‘Put the lock across,’ she urged him.

She didn’t need to say as much, he had already done it.

‘What’s happening out there? That guy… He stabbed him in the eye with a fork… What the hell was that about?’

‘I don’t know,’ the man said. ‘You heard the announcement, though, we just sit in here and we wait for help to get here.’

‘But how do we trust who comes to the door?’ the woman asked.

It was a fair point. When everyone is quick to turn oneach other , how do you trust the person who comes waving the white flag, offering sanctuary? It was a question the man couldn’t answer and one which worried Michelle. These people seem normal - almost normal enough for her to admit being in the room but… the woman had hit the nail on the head - how could you trust anyone in this situation? She couldn’t trust them and they couldn’t trust her. Could they?

*

‘I’ll tell you my story,’ Michelle said with a smile. ‘When you tell me what has happened to my family. There’s a picture of them in my purse. When you find them, you come back and tell me what happened to them and I’ll tell you how I managed to get out.’

‘It’s unfortunate but I can assure you that they’re dead. Three people survived - a family… Mother, father and a little daughter. They survived because they managed to stay hidden.’

‘I want to know how they died,’ Michelle continued. ‘I want the details.’

The man shifted in his seat. It was hard to give details when the bodies had already been sent for burning. ‘It would be the same way everyone went… They would have turned…’

‘You’re making it up. Go and get me the truth and I’ll tell you what happened to me. Otherwise,’ she threatened, ‘you’ll get nothing more from me.’

The man sighed. ‘Of course, we could just cut you up and see how you survived the ship and the toxins in your body.’

Michelle laughed. ‘You could do that but it wouldn’t be as entertaining.’ She paused a moment. ‘It’s not that I am asking much. I’m asking for you to tell me what happened to my family. Once I know exactly what happened, I can try to move on with my life and…’ She paused. Her mind had suddenly focused on her future and all she could see was violence, hatred and murder… Starting with the man sitting opposite her. Surprisingly enough, though, the thought didn’t scare her. It pleased her… She was looking forward to it and was already planning on what to do to him. She continued, ‘Tell me what happened to my family and take these restraints off and we’ll talk,’ she said with a smile.

The man looked towards a large two-way mirror on the other side of the room. He knew his colleagues were in there now, talking amongst themselves - discussing how best to move forward. On the one hand they could just terminate her and dissect her - find out what was going on in her body. On the other hand, they could stop the bodies from being burned until they found her family… Relay back to her what had happened and then listen to what she had to say. Sitting there, he knew the easiest answer - made even more easy by the fact that he knew, for certain, that they would end up cutting her up regardless. But, frustratingly, he also knew they’d already be in there, discussing how best to find out what had happened to her family. They wanted more than what was going on inside her body, with her organs, they wanted a story.

The man stood up and tucked the clipboard under his arm. He smiled at Michelle and turned towards the locked door. As he neared it, the door clicked open with a loud buzz - operated by someone on the opposite side.

‘So do we have a deal?’ Michelle asked.

He paused before stepping out. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And, with that, he left the room.

Michelle called out to him, ‘The offer of a blow job is still on the table. I promise not to bite it off.’ She started laughing as the overhead lights dimmed down.

To be continued…

With thanks to:

Jarod Barbee

Debra Bergevin, Rebecca Thompson, Jennifer Crawford, Grant Oxford, Sally Kennedy, Peggy Howes, Janet Brennan, Scott Hunter, Helen M. Helton, Colleen Cassidy, Baylie Poller, Sammi Brierley, Christine Feldon, Frank Meyers, Daryl Duncan, Gilly Adam, Jennifer Pelfrey, Stacy Latini, Sophie Hall, Chad Ferguson, Michael Fowler, Breanna, Kelly Rickard, Shaun Hupp, Angela Campbell, Chista Allin, Tammy Evans, Lance Kriegsfeld, Patty Jamison, Yvette Grimes, Mason Sabre, Hollyanne Trombley, Kay La, Michelle Bersani, Lollie Martin, Jennifer Risley, Anna Garcia-Centner, Martin Payne, Chrille Andersson, Angela McBride, Kim Tomsett, Paul James, Andrea Stevenson, Debbie Dale, Jennifer Eversole, Andy Astle, Cece Romano, Suzanne Elliot, Nicola Kidd, Hayley Marcham, Leach Cruz, Barry Skelhorn, Alicia Green, Joan MacLeod

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