Cassie Alexander - Deadshifted

“Hello, guests, sorry to wake you. This is Captain Ames again. Just a reminder that we need you to continue to remain in your room, for the safety of yourself and other guests.” He coughed a bit and waited for attention. “However, we are in need of additional medical crew. If you have any expertise in a medical field and possess current qualifications, we would appreciate it if you would report to the Dolphin restaurant on the third deck. But be aware that if you do so, you might not be able to return to your cabin, possibly for the rest of the voyage, so please do not leave small children unattended. And remember, volunteering is voluntary!” he said, and chuckled, as though he’d made a hilarious joke. The chimes descended, and the intercom clicked off.

“You look pained, dear. She’s going to be fine. And if she’s not, well, it’s no business of ours.”

I wondered if being so personally near death had given Claire a ruthless clarity that I lacked. “It’s not that—well, it is, but—I’m a nurse. I should go help.”

Claire shook her head with finality. “You’re pregnant. You only have responsibility for one person right now.” She shot my belly a meaningful look. “You owe nobody nothing. You should go back to your room and rest.”

I was a little sweaty from the effort of moving that woman. But not sick-sweat, I was sure. I sighed. “You’re right, I should.” I put my hand out for Emily, and after a moment’s hesitation she took it, hopping off Claire’s lap.

When Emily and I made it back into our own room, she turned toward me. “That lady was weird.”

“Yeah, she was,” I agreed. I wondered what kind of person I was for just leaving her over there. It wasn’t like me to panic like that, but she’d scared me and something more primal had taken over. I’d lost whatever moral high ground I’d had this morning in the process—but I knew Asher wouldn’t care. He wasn’t the type of person to have problems with what I’d done.

My eyes found the clock. He had less than ten hours now. I wondered if his interrogation of Liz had been profitable. Whatever that woman had was not meningitis—it didn’t map to any illness I knew. But I had a hard time believing that Nathaniel could have come up with an entirely novel disease. Genetics didn’t work like that. You based things on other things, borrowed DNA, jumping genes. So far it was too hard to create anything new out of whole cloth.

So what mapped with fever, sometimes to the point of seizures, and weird hunger, with a dash of froth?

Not rabies, given the number of trays in her room—when you were rabid, your throat constricted and hurt too badly to swallow; that’s why rabid creatures perpetually drooled. And it would be too effing ironic for me to see someone with rabies now when I’d already survived being exposed to were-blood on a full moon night.

The left-sided heart failure I didn’t want to think about. There were meds to help it—but if you were so far gone that you were frothing because your heart and lungs weren’t talking right, your outlook wasn’t good.

Last but not least, there were esoteric genetic diseases that caused strange behaviors. Prader-Willi syndrome caused chronic hunger and disinhibition, which made you want to eat whatever you could. Families with people who suffered from it had to lock their afflicted relatives safe inside houses, and/or strap them down. And Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a rare illness that made people want to eat themselves. The only solution for that was highly experimental drugs, brain stimulation, or pulling out all your teeth to stop you from eating your own lips and fingers. Just the idea of it made me ill. And I couldn’t get away from the image of that women digging through my trash to eat my pre-licked fries.

“Are you going to be sick again?” Emily asked.

I barely managed to nod before I made it into the bathroom to throw up.

This time, no strangers came while I was gone. And I hoped Emily’d learned her lesson about opening the door for just anyone. But I couldn’t blame her for wishing her father would return, when I was still waiting for Asher. I wanted him to come back and tell me everything was going to be all right, even if it was a lie.

He’d never broken a promise to me before, and that was the only thing that kept me here now. The hope—as impossible as it was beginning to seem—that he’d be back by morning like he’d said he would.

Emily slept on the couch, limp like a puppy, completely passed out. I threw a sheet over her, and then I tossed and turned on the bed, not even trying to sleep, just thinking What-If thoughts. Every flicker of the show Emily had left on seemed like the shadow of the door opening, and I got up periodically to touch her forehead and make sure she wasn’t getting hot.

At 5 A.M., she threw the sheet off. I stood up to check on her again, and if I hadn’t been listening so hard for my own door I might not have heard it—the sound of the next door over clicking open, and then sliding shut.

Was her dad back? With news? Had he seen Asher? And would he take Emily off my hands? I pulled Emily’s room key out of my pocket. Even though Asher would know I wouldn’t leave a child unattended in our room for long, I felt compelled to write him a note with the stationery on the desk.

Next door. Be right back! I signed my name underneath, like he wouldn’t know it was me if he returned while I was gone.

I tiptoed next door and knocked softly. I didn’t want to interrupt anyone doing anything private, but I did want the girl off my hands. I knocked a little louder, but hopefully too quiet for Emily to hear, just a wall away. After long enough, I gave up and tried the lock with my loaned key.

“Hello?” I called out quietly.

It was dark inside. I reached out for a light switch. Maybe I’d only imagined the sound.

The light illuminated Emily’s father, sitting in the dark on the edge of their foldout couch.

“Oh, my gosh.” I clasped my hand to my chest, startled. “You’re back. Is your boy okay?”

He slowly turned to face me, and his eyes blinked as though they were unused to the chore. “He’s dead.”

That gut punch of a child’s death again. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t shake his head, or hunch over to cry, or anything else that I might have recognized as grieving.

“Did they let you back up here? Is the quarantine off?” I hadn’t heard any obnoxious chimes overhead, and there’s no way in my current state I would have slept through them. He didn’t answer me.

“Should I … go get … Emily?” I said, uncertain of my place here. I backed up against the door. Would he want some time alone with his grief? I could get that. If anything had happened to Asher, I’d need to be the fuck alone too. “Where’s your wife?”

“She’s dead too.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I repeated, like it would help.

He ignored me and turned his gaze back out to the ocean, back to where I realized he’d been looking before. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Would you like a glass of water?” I could see into the bathroom from where I stood, glasses from last night’s room service at the ready.

It happened in the second I looked away. One moment he was seated, apparently morose—the next he was standing and walking toward the balcony doors.

“Hey—” I took a step away from the door as he stepped outside.

From there it was only a long step and a half to the railing. I’d started to run, but he climbed up like he was mounting a horse, swinging over one leg at a time, and without hesitation he leapt.

This time was different from the man I’d seen go before. We were still six floors up, but the night was clear, and the moon was bright. I raced outside after him, hands reaching, too late. My hands clung to the railing as I looked overboard.