Chapter 15
I worry about the strength of the caissons, the supply of drinking water suddenly running out, the possibility of the storm upgrading or lasting days.
But as I head to the bowels of the boat, my storm anxieties are shunted to the side and replaced with different ones. Descending to the crew quarters feels like closing the cover of a hot tub when you’re still inside it.
Trey had showed me a nearly invisible door on the far side of the main level, tucked behind a huge potted plant.
“These stairs will take you to the crew area. Fair warning, you might not get any service. Hopefully we’ll have internet for a while longer, but don’t be alarmed if you can’t use your phone while you’re down there. ”
“I never noticed this door before,” I said as he opened it for me, revealing a claustrophobic staircase shooting straight down into the depths of the yacht. It looked like a tunnel, enclosed on all sides—no windows, no landings.
“Good,” Trey replied, so casual and genial. As if this was a perfectly normal day and not an emergency situation. “The crew areas and staircases are supposed to be unobtrusive.”
When Trey shuts the door behind me, my skin prickles. Trotting down the steps, it’s clear the lack of care billionaires take with places that aren’t made for them. The staircase is stooped and dimly lit; the railing is dusty. There is no art. There are no windows.
It’s eerily quiet. My footsteps echo as I go deeper, but the storm is muted inside the isolated staircase. I am confined in the very center of the boat. A chill rolls up my spine, and I stutter to a halt when a burst of cold air blooms on the back of my neck.
Swiveling, I look behind me. The staircase looms above, darkness chewing on the edges. No one is there. I must have imagined someone’s icy breath on my skin.
It takes me two tries to swallow the excess saliva that has filled my mouth, and when I finally manage it, I continue onward.
The steps eventually lead me into a long, drab hallway, illuminated only by the light spilling from the tubelike staircase. Shadows hover, and the hall ends in inky puddles.
Okay, no thanks.
Searching frantically, I find a panel of switches near the staircase and slap them, lighting up the crew area like a stage. It smells like mothballs and mildew down here, but the fluorescent bulbs chase away the darkness and make the space feel a little less hostile.
There’s a crew mess that consists of a few benches surrounding a long Formica table, a microwave and mini-fridge, and a line of cabinets. Past the mess is another constricted hallway with doors that hang slightly ajar—crew cabins.
Everything upstairs is sleek, white, and minimalist. The crew area is small, functional, and more than a little ugly. No wonder the stews didn’t want to stay here. The people upstairs get huge beds and a beautiful kitchen and room to stretch. They get windows.
But this? This is a prison.
The roar of the hurricane is back now that I’m outside of the enclosed staircase.
The caissons keep Empress from rollicking with the violent waves outside, but the sound of the storm crashing against her hull isn’t comforting either.
And with no windows, the crew area is even worse than upstairs.
At least on the main floor I can see how bad things are getting.
Down here, all I have to go on are the sounds of thrashing waves and howling wind.
It’s far easier to fear something you can’t see properly.
I resolve to make this experience as fast as possible.
Glancing at my phone, I sigh. Trey was right.
No service down here. I pocket the useless device and scan the mess area before heading straight to the cabinets.
The first cabinet door creaks when I open it.
The shelves are bare. Another layer of dust. I go through the other cupboards, finding nothing until I get to the one above the mini-fridge.
Jackpot.
There must be twenty boxes of instant mac and cheese stacked together, and my stomach growls while I try to count them.
Down the hall, a door creaks.
I freeze with my fingers trapped between boxes of college dorm food, sweat trailing down my forehead. The open cabinet door is blocking my view of the crew cabins, and my throat catches as the creak sounds again, louder this time.
Go ahead and look. It’s probably nothing.
But my heart is hammering, and my finger pads are slick against the cardboard boxes. I’m rooted down, unwilling to pull back, peek my face around the laminate wooden cabinet and peer into the gloom of the hallway.
When the dripping starts, a low whimper slips from my mouth. It’s a familiar sound. The same staccato pattern I heard in my bathroom the other day.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Except this time, there’s another noise accompanying the rhythmic dripping: footsteps. Sluggish and squelching, as if someone is limping through mud.
There’s a faint roaring in my ears, and it takes me a second to realize it’s my pulse, threading its way into my head like a flooded river.
I keep my gaze fixed on the box of mac and cheese in front of me, tracing the cartoon bunny mascot on the packaging.
Its huge eager eyes look demonic in the sickly fluorescent light.
“Go on,” I imagine the bunny whispering. “Look. Take a peek.”
I can’t. My hands won’t move from the boxes, my feet won’t lift from the sticky floor.
The dripping intensifies as the footsteps get closer, and now there’s a faint gurgling, a bubbling gulp that might have been soothing, reminiscent of a decorative fountain, if I wasn’t hearing it in this context.
“Would you rather it sneaks up on you?” the bunny asks me. When did its eyes turn red?
Under my fingers, the box of mac and cheese twitches, and the bunny—I swear, the bunny moves.
Gasping, I rip my arm from the belly of the cabinet and stumble backward, away from the kitchenette. The footsteps stop, and I whirl around, facing the mouth of the hallway.
There’s nothing there.
The space before the crew cabins is dusty and empty. One of the doors down the hall is creaking on its hinges, opening and closing an inch or two like we’re rocking at sea. The boat isn’t swaying, but maybe the movement is due to the wind shaking the vessel.
Sliding forward, leaving the cabinet door swung open, I tiptoe down the hallway toward the creaking door. I don’t want to. But I have to do it. If I don’t look, it will haunt me. I have to show myself that anything weird or creepy that has happened on this boat so far was in my head.
The hall presses in on me, a funnel of bleached lighting and magnetic walls.
It’s silent save the groaning door ahead.
My footsteps are timid, and my heartbeat punches against my chest. The cabin is halfway down the hallway, and when I finally reach it, oxygen is trapped in my throat, unable to make its way to my diaphragm.
I lurch forward the final few steps, eyes straining, gazing into the crew cabin.
There’s a small, narrow bed with hospital corners and a limp pillow. A stained dresser. A minuscule bathroom. And a door that leans on its hinges, shifting back and forth by itself due to a botched installation.
“See?” I mutter out loud, breath whooshing out of me. My chest uncoils and shoulders sag. “Nothing to worry about.”
I’m about to turn around and get back to my task when I spot a dark rectangle on the floor, half-visible underneath the disturbingly tiny bed. Is that a…
Sweeping into the room, I kneel by the mattress and duck my head, pulling the shape out from under the shadow of the bed frame.
It’s a phone. How strange. Maybe one of the crew members forgot theirs here when they moved out?
Except this is nice. Newest model. Expensive phone case, the color of dark pink lipstick.
When I try to tap the screen or turn it on, nothing happens.
It’s dead, of course. Who knows how long it’s been sitting down here, forgotten? Weird it’s not dusty, though.
I sit back on my heels, examining the phone again in the dim light for any clue to its owner, and then slip it into the pocket of my lounge pants. I can ask the others if anyone lost a phone, though I sincerely doubt any of them would be down here filming.
Hopping back to my feet, I give the depressing cabin one last sweeping look, relieved I forced myself in here.
There’s always an explanation, I think, glancing at the broken hinge on the door as I step back into the hallway.
A wet squelch interrupts my self-congratulations. I whip to the left.
She’s standing there, at the hallway’s dead end, barely five feet away, dripping water all over the floor.
It pours from her orifices, trickling over her torn and faded clothing to puddle at her bare feet, which are swollen and garnished with barnacles.
Her hair is snarled and soaking wet, sticking to her cheeks and shoulders.
She wasn’t there before. I know she wasn’t there before.
Choking, I pedal backward, trying to remember how to turn my body around, trying to remember how to run. The crew mess is behind me, the stairs beyond it. I need to get there, I need—
The woman’s bloated lips part, and a small waterfall rains from her mouth, mimicking the gurgling I heard a few minutes ago.
The water that comes from her is brackish and dark; it slaloms down her chin and splatters to the linoleum.
There is salt crusted on her eyelids and around her nose, and her eyes are bloodshot and beseeching.
Her hands, which are blue-tinted and peeling, flap at her sides until she finally raises one of them, reaching out to me. As if she’s telling me to stay.
“No,” I whisper. “This can’t be happening.”
She is the same height as my former friend—she has the same dark hair. But it’s hard to tell her features in their bloated state.
Not Sage, not Sage, not Sage, I chant in my head, and I can’t tell if I’m right or if I just want it to be true.