TDI: Torture Cruise
Chapter Nine: Gwen and Heather
"Who's next, huh? Who???"
The unseen voice had no response to Gwen's question.
But, someone else did.
Someone who didn't know enough to shut her mouth!
"It's obviously you, Gwen! If that's your real name! God knows what you get up to with those freaky friends of yours!" Heather needled the goth girl.
"And what the hell would you know about that?" Gwen sharply retorted.
"Oh, I did some checking. Your 'friend' Reaper has a rap sheet a mile long!"
"Only because the cops have been hassling him for years! Dammit, Heather, what is your problem?!"
"I was just protecting myself in case I ever ran into them. It's real easy to scan police databases when you're a spy! Oh, by the way, Gwen? You have plenty of psycho fans! They're all over the internet! Any one of them could be behind this travesty!"
"Me? What about you? I suppose none of your spy buddies could have done this?"
"Don't be absurd! They have better things to do than trick out cruise ships with death traps!"
"Speaking of tricked out cruise ships...This is your daddy's cruise ship, yet you know nothing about what happened to it?"
"No, of course not! Noah was in charge of all of the cruise ship modifications for the show!"
"And I suppose you had nothing to do with the rooms, or that spa you were raving about? You're full of shit, Heather, you know that?!"
"I don't know why you're blaming me! I'm as much a target as any of you! I almost died, remember? Besides, isn't it obvious? The killer is Chris! He was so angry that we went and did a show of our own, this is his revenge!"
"But...Chris and Chef are dead! Unless...you know something you haven't told us?"
"Just rumors...Unsubstantiated sightings in the Far East that couldn't be confirmed."
"And you mention this now?!? Goddammit, Heather! I trusted you! I stood up for you! And this is how you repay me? You haven't changed one bit! You're still pulling the same crap! You're still a goddamned b-"
"Shut up!" Heather angrily slapped Gwen in the face. "I didn't do shit!"
"Oh, that's it!" Gwen said as she rubbed her red cheek. She advanced on the raven-haired one, hate filling her eyes.
"Ladies, please!" Tyler cried out as he jumped in between the two teens who frequently sparred on the old Total Drama Island TV show, pulling pranks on each other, but who had never resorted to fisticuffs to settle their differences.
Tyler faced Heather, hoping to block her from Gwen.
Gwen, meanwhile, was restrained by Justin, who placed his hand on the goth's shoulder.
"Get lost, Tyler!" Heather shoved the jock out of her way. "If Gwen wants to fight me, I'll gladly oblige her!"
"Get away from me, Justin!" Gwen barked as she slipped out of the model's grasp. "Heather's had this beatdown coming for a long time!"
The two female combatants circled, each looking for an opening.
"Are we going to just let them fight like this?" Tyler asked Justin.
"Why not? It's not as if we have anything better to do! Maybe the crazy kook in charge will be satisfied with some girl-on-girl action? Besides, you can't do anything about the situation. I've never seen a more useless person in my entire life!"
"Hey! You take that back, or..."
"Or what? You'll trip and fall on me?"
Before the two dudes could start their own fight, there was a sound.
A knocking.
From INSIDE the sarcophagus in the torture room!
And then...
...A voice!
A human voice. Not an electronic one.
"Help! Let me out!"
In another part of the cruise ship, the other still-living passengers (Trent, Cody, Sadie, Ezekiel, Harold and LeShawna) slowly made their way through the gloomy passageways (since the ship was on emergency power, lighting was limited) until they came to a brightly-lit room (it had its own generator).
Inside the room was a bank of television monitors.
Closed-circuit TV monitors.
"What is this? The security room?" Trent asked.
"No. Look." Harold pointed out one of the screens. "There's the confession cam in the spa that Noah showed us!"
"So...This is the producer's room?" Cody wondered.
"Must be." Harold replied.
"Who puts a confessional in a spa, anyway?" Zeke inquired.
Trent, Cody, Sadie, Harold and LeShawna looked at each other.
"Heather!" they responded in unison.
"Ah." Ezekiel finally grasped the extent of the Asian-Canadian's ego and love of luxury.
"I have to give Heather credit for one thing. That spa was fi-ine!" LeShawna whistled, drawing dirty looks from Sadie and Trent.
"Not a good time, huh?" LeShawna sheepishly added.
"This is interesting." Harold said as he flipped through the producer's handbook for the Totally Dramatic Cruise TV show. "It says the special prize for the winner is their own TV show. Trent, didn't you say you wanted your own music show?"
"I say a lot of things! What does that have to do with anything?" he snapped.
"Only that you were pretty eager to get in that accessway, the one that electrocuted Eva! And then the hatch just happened to get 'stuck' when we were trying to escape the sharks!" Harold voiced his theory.
"What are you saying, foureyes? You think I'm the killer? You're insane!"
"Noah gave us a clue. The killer's one of us. I just haven't figured out who yet. But I will." Harold got in Trent's face. "Oh, I assure you, I will."
"Harold, baby, maybe you should keep that to yourself!" LeShawna advised as she pulled her beau away from the ticked musician.
"Oh yeah? Well, whoever's screwing with us separated most of the couples, but not you and LeShawna. Why do you think that is?" Trent speculated.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Harold retorted.
"You tell me." Trent vaguely threatened.
"Guys! There's another room of monitors!" Cody urgently announced. "You have to see this!"
Scanning the screens, Trent said "Is that Gwen and Heather fighting? It's about time!!"
"Forget that! Look over there! And there!" Cody indicated monitors which were trained on the flooded compartments they just came from.
But that wasn't what Cody was upset about.
On another bank of closed-circuit TVs, the dead bodies of Katie, Courtney, Lindsay and Geoff appeared.
"Ho-ly sh--!!" Trent gasped. "What the hell's been going on???"
The others were speechless.
"Is there sound on this, Cody??" Trent asked, but got no reply. "Cody!!!" he screamed.
"Okay! I'll look for the sound button!" Cody finally answered and ran around the cluttered room.
"Where is this?" Trent inquired.
"It says..." Harold squinted and tried to make out the words written on the tape below the monitors. "...Aft cargo hold."
"Aft?"
"In the rear of the ship!"
"Okay, we're going there right now!" Trent took command of the situation.
"Wait!" Cody exclaimed. "I think there's a broadcast connection to the home studio! I may be able to break in and tell them about our situation."
"Okay, you do that. And the rest of us will go to the cargo hold."
"I'm not going anywhere near that hellhole! Katie..." Sadie muttered as she nervously rocked back and forth in the producer's chair, eyes wide from witnessing the horror or her best friend's corpse.
"Alright...Cody and Sadie will stay here. Harold! LeShawna! Zeke! Let's go!" Trent ordered.
"Go get 'em, guys!" Cody cheered. Then the techie noticed something unusual.
"Why is that red light on?"
Rushing through the dimly-lit cruise ship hallways, Harold turned a corner...
...And ran into a hulking, blood-stained figure!
Back in the cargo hold, Gwen and Heather's fight was interrupted by the plea for help from the sarcophagus.
Since they were closer, Tyler and Justin opened the ancient Egyptian casket.
And out popped...
"Beth??" Tyler croaked. "How did you get in there?"
"Someone put me in there. Oh, here."
From behind her back, Beth produced...
...Chickens!
"Ahh!!" Tyler screamed, fell over, and knocked himself out.
"Beth? What the??" a puzzled Justin said.
"You're next!" Beth chirped.
Then she threw a caustic liquid in the model's face!
"Owww! What the fu!! Oh my God! The pain!" Justin screamed, and raked his fingernails over his formerly pretty face.
"Acid. It's my gift to you." Beth blithely added. Then she ripped a spear from one of the suits of armor standing in the torture room. "Here's another one."
And Beth, quiet little farmgirl Beth, stuck the spear in the male model as far as it would go, then pulled it back out, sending Justin into paroxysms of pain!
To the amazement of Gwen and Heather!
"Don't worry." Beth said as she fixed the glasses on her face. "I haven't forgot about you bitches!"
Cody, watching it all unfold in the producer's room, could only utter "Beth...No...Why??"
Meanwhile, Trent, LeShawna and Ezekiel skidded to a stop behind Harold, who feared his life was about to end.
But...
"My man! How you doin'?"
"DJ?" Harold gasped. "Oh wow! We thought you were a goner, what with that monster shark back there!"
"Yeah, I thought I was, too!" DJ replied. "But after eating Duncan, I think the shark got indigestion! He looked a little green around the gills! Anyway, I made it out!"
"That's great! But we have a situation!" Trent informed the gentle giant. "There are more of us dead in the cargo hold!"
"No! Is...is Heather?"
"No. She's alive. We saw her fighting Gwen!"
"Huh??"
"Never mind! Let's go!!" Trent urged the others follow him as he ran down the hallway.
"You think you're all so pretty and perfect!!" Beth ranted as she advanced on Heather and Gwen, pointing the blood-tipped spear at them. "But I know you're not! I know the truth!!"
The two frantic teens backed away and tried to reason with the insane farmgirl.
"Beth?" Gwen pleaded. "You don't want to hurt your friends! Please, calm down, and put the spear down!"
"I always knew Chris picked a bunch of psychos for that show!" Heather bitched.
"Heather! Not helping!" Gwen complained.
"You're not my friends! You killed my friend with your vote to save Heather!"
"You mean Lindsay? I'm sorry, we didn't want..."
"You killed my Owie! Die, murderer!!"
From out of nowhere, a bloody Izzy, wearing a dress torn in a hundred places, leaped on the crazy Beth and plunged a knife into her chest!
A death gurgle issued from Beth's throat, and she fell onto the cold steel floor.
"Izzy? Where the hell did you come from?? Why, what happened to you?" Gwen searched for answers.
"Oh, this?" Izzy replied, pulling at her blood-stained clothes. "You should have seen the other guy! Ha! Nah! Ran into some sharks! No biggie!" she grinned, making as much sense as Izzy usually does.
That is, none.
"Oh. I...see." Gwen blankly responded.
"So...Who's up for S'mores?" nutty Izzy asked.
"No..." Beth gasped, and pulled herself up onto her feet. She used the spear to steady herself. "You won't...cheat me of my revenge."
Then Beth impaled Izzy's back on the tip of the spear, and ran it straight through the other side of her body until the spear exited the redhead's chest!
Izzy fell to her knees and died instantly.
"Oh no!! Oh my God no!" Gwen cried, and covered her mouth in shock.
"We...did it...Heather..." Beth uttered her last words, then fell over dead.
"It is true!" Gwen almost couldn't believe it, but there it was. "You...This is all your doing! Why, Heather?"
In the producer's control room, Cody finally flipped the switch that controlled the sound.
"There! Now what's that red light for? Is it actually broadcasting all of this?" the tech geek wondered.
"Why did you kill all those people? I know you didn't like them, but to kill them??"
"You're ranting! I didn't..."
"Did you really risk your life to save Lindsay? Or did you want it to look like you did? What did you do, have shark repellant hidden on you somewhere?"
"Shark repellent?? This isn't some cheesy old TV show! Now I know you're loopy!"
"Oh, God, you fooled everyone! But you're not getting away with this!"
Then Gwen launched herself at the teen spy.
"Get away from me!!" Heather swatted the goth girl, sending Gwen barreling backwards!
Right into...
...The spear jutting out of Izzy's chest!
Gwen's head jerked upwards. "Ughkk!" Then the light in her eyes went out, and she was gone.
"Gwen?? No. It can't...She wasn't even...How could I...No. No!!" a stunned Heather cried.
Just then, police helicopters appeared in the sky above the cruise ship of death, called there by the home studio when they saw what was occurring on the ship.
As the police led a handcuffed Heather away, Trent and the rest finally reached the rear of the boat.
"Heather?" her boyfriend, DJ, asked. "What happened? Heath?"
But the Asian-Canadian teen had no words for her lover and, with head down, quietly marched into the police chopper, which flew away as the cruise ship survivors watched.
Next:
One Week Later
&
Six Months Later