Sea Sick: A Horror Novel

Jack nodded. “The doctor’s name is Fortuné. Give him my regards. Goodbye Ivor, Vicky. I hope your daughter gets well soon.”


He left the family alone for the last time.





1600hrs


Jack looked at his watch and grimaced when he realised it was approaching four-o-clock. Just over four hours until the infection reached its final stage. With every second that passed, it seemed more and more hopeless that Jack would find a solution. He had some facts to go on now, but they offered very little. Jack listed off the things he knew, one by one.

Ivor and his family became ill the night after boarding – yesterday.

Ivor’s daughter, Heather, is at a more advanced stage of infection – is that just due to her age?

Conner is another passenger that boarded the same day as Heather. He’s also sick, but his girlfriend, Claire, isn’t. That makes it seem unlikely that the early form of the virus is contagious as she would surely have been exposed by now – so was the virus initially transmitted in some other way?

Donovan worked for the world’s biggest drugs company, and was smuggling arms overseas, but he’s dead now – murdered, most likely, by Tally.

Tally probably killed Donovan and then made the false accusations about me so that I was hindered by Security – so what is she trying to keep me from achieving and how does Donovan factor in to that?

The ship is at sea and due to dock in Cannes tomorrow. Why did Joma stop the ship today? Why not back in Palma before the virus was even transmitted in the first place?

Jack felt like a blind man groping his way down an alley. The answers were in front of him but he could not see them. What was it that meant Claire was not infected but Conner was? Why was Heather worse than the others? Where onboard was busy enough, and cramped enough, to infect a third of the ship’s passengers?

What am I missing?

“Sir, can you come with us, please?”

Jack turned around to see four of the ship’s guards approaching him. They didn’t seem like they were willing to talk.

Jack threw a short uppercut to the closest man and then threw him into the others. One of the guards dodged out of the way and managed to throw himself into a tackle. Jack fell backwards but managed to apply a front face lock to the man, cinching -in a guillotine choke hold. It was only a matter of seconds before Jack felt the guard pass out, but then he found himself trapped beneath the man’s bulk.

Unable to move, Jack was helpless to resist arrest as the other three guards recomposed themselves and bore down on top of him. They hoisted him up to his feet and started dragging him away. Jack knew he was on his way to see the captain again.





1700hrs


Marangakis entered the room with same authoritative disdain that he always did. This time Jack lacked the patience to show respect for the man’s position. Jack rose up from his chair to meet the captain. The guard in the room moved to restrain Jack but caught an elbow in the eye-socket for his efforts. Jack grabbed the Captain with both hands, spun him around, and wrapped an arm around his throat.

“It’s time you and me went and made a call,” said Jack, yanking the Captain backwards towards the door.

“You’re in very deep trouble, Mr Wardsley.”

Jack squeezed the man’s windpipe and made him choke. “Shut up. How do we get to the Bridge from here? We need to contact the mainland. There’s something very bad aboard this ship.”

“What are you talking about, you maniac?” The Captain fought against Jack’s arm but he was going nowhere.

“The Bridge? How do we get there?”