Sea Sick: A Horror Novel

“What do we do, Doc?” Jack asked. “What’s wrong with the girl?”


The doctor stood in a daze for a moment. He stared down at Heather on the examination table. The girl was gnashing her teeth as though she were chewing the very air itself. Her eyes were red and bleeding.

Doctor Fortuné placed his stethoscope against an area of the girl’s chest beneath the bandages. He moved the head of the instrument around for a few moments, then looked at Jack with a complete lack of understanding written across the creases of his face. “This cannot be,” he said.

Jack stared hard at the man. “What? What is it?”

“She has no heartbeat.”

“Are you telling me that she’s dead?” Jack asked. Such a thing was impossible, but it didn’t surprise him in the least. The doctor could have told him anything right now and he would have accepted it willingly. That was how horrifyingly bizarre his world had become.

The doctor took a penlight from his breast pocket and shined it into Heather’s eyes. She snapped and hissed as his hand got closer.

“What do you see?” Jack asked. “Why are her eyes bleeding?”

“I don’t know. It’s some kind of subconjunctival haemorrhaging. Her pupils are not reacting to the light either and they seem unable to focus.”

“She’s not breathing,” Jack noted.

The doctor looked at the girl’s chest. It was completely still. “I believe she is dead,” he stated matter-of-factly. “At least, she should be.”


“What the hell are you lunatics talking about?” Ivor shouted from the floor. Vicky was growing weaker in his arms. “If she’s dead then how on earth is she moving, you imbeciles?”

No one said anything. The situation was beyond rationalization. Jack stared down at Heather and watched her mouth work feverously. He knew that it wanted to taste human flesh. If they unbound the girl she would immediately attack the nearest person in sight. Maybe it was a biological imperative of the virus coursing through her body – a way of spreading itself to new hosts. An infected host bites an uninfected host and passes on the virus through saliva.

Passes it on…

Before Jack had chance to say anything, Ivor wailed in horror. Vicky had gouged her fingernails into his cheeks and was pulling his face towards hers. The infected woman’s strength must have been twice what it usually was. Ivor was powerless as she sunk her teeth into the flesh beneath his left eye. It almost looked like they were kissing passionately, but Ivor’s screams said otherwise.

Jack grabbed Ivor around the collar and tried to drag him away. Vicky hung on by her teeth at first, but then the flesh ripped away and she fell backwards. Ivor stopped his screaming long enough to get to his feet but was still whimpering like a little boy. He stumbled away from his wife and shook his head. “What in damnation is happening to my family?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Just get away from her.”

Vicky rose to her feet, awkwardly, like a puppet raised by tangled strings. She scanned the room with feral eyes, snarling like a beast. There was a brief moment of inactivity, a brief pause while nobody moved.

Then she lunged. Her bloody fingertips stretched towards the gaping wound on Ivor’s face. It seemed like the sight of the blood attracted her.

Ivor probably could have killed most men with a single punch to the throat, but he was unwilling to retaliate against his wife – he looked like he would pass out at any moment. Vicky collided with him and the two began to wrestle. Jack came up behind the infected woman and grabbed her in a full-nelson, pinning her arms above her head while restraining the movement of her head (and her lethal jaws).