Sea Sick: A Horror Novel

Jack turned to the waitress standing next to him. She’d remained rooted to the spot ever since Conner had shoved her. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“What the hell is going on?” He shouted the words at her, trying to snap her out of the daze she was in. It must have worked, because she blinked her eyes and seemed to come back to reality. But the only thing she did was flee, abandoning her duties and racing away into the crowd. A moaning from behind Jack made him quickly forget about her.

Conner was back on his feet, preparing for another attack. His eyes were now leaking blood and it coursed down his pallid cheeks in crimson rivulets. He was snarling like a rabid pit bull.

Jack wasted no time. He drove his fist forward as hard as he could while twisting his pelvis in order to get his whole weight behind the blow. Conner’s nose spread wide and exploded as the punch connected. Jack felt the fragile bones snap beneath his knuckles, but Conner behaved as if nothing happened. He staggered back under the force, but seemed entirely unaffected by the pain.

Jack swung his fist again and again and again.

And again...

Jack’s triceps began to tire. His hands were swollen and matted with gore, but Conner’s shattered face continued to snarl at him. The lad’s arms continued to reach out and snatch at him. All around Jack, the room continued to combust with chaos. Members of security had run in to check out the disturbance, but were quickly being tackled to the ground by groups of crazed passengers. Jack could not be sure, but he thought he saw men and women, who had themselves been attacked earlier, now joining in the frenzy, as if they had somehow been converted to the cause.

It was time to retreat. Jack could not restrain Conner much longer with punches alone. It seemed the only way to put a stop to the lad for good would be to kill him, and Jack was not prepared to do that. So he ran instead.

He pushed and barged his way between tables, chairs, and even other passengers. Many people were trying to escape the room as well as him, but most were now like Conner, bleeding from their eyes and snarling like animals. Several eye bleederseyebleeders reached out for Jack as he dodged by them, but luckily their reactions were slow and their clumsy snatches too late.

Jack reached the lounge’s exit and bounded through the already-open doors. Outside, people lay scattered throughout the corridor. Numerous adults lay weeping and moaning ,,nursing open wounds that bled unimpeded onto the carpets, while those who were uninjured sought to help those who were. Then there were the people that were undeniably dead; their unmoving bodies split open.

What the hell have I just been involved in? Jack asked himself as he sprinted amongst the wounded. What the hell has happened to these people?

At the end of the corridor, Jack took a sharp right and barged through the double doors of the Lido Restaurant. The room inside was deserted compared to the busy High Spirits lounge, but there was still a small group of would-be diners in the room. Several staff members were also standing around, looking confused. Some wore kitchen uniforms while others were dressed like waiters; they all wore mortified expressions on their faces. They obviously had no clue what was happening outside, but the amount of screaming was enough for them to know it was something very bad.

“What is going on?” a burly white man in a chef’s uniform asked.

“I have no fucking idea,” Jack admitted. “But we need to get these doors locked, right now.”

The chef gave no argument and reached for the doors. He fingered the catch where the two doors met, and then turned back to face Jack. “Okay, they’re locked.”

“Good,” said Jack, wishing there was a barricade blocking the room rather than a flimsy set of frosted-glass doors.“We need to get help.”