Cruise Ships in the Mist
by Lady Emily
"What's going on?" Bailey Pickett asked no one in particular. The Sky Deck was crowded, but strangely quiet, the only noise the soft murmurs of unease between the passengers and the ever-present lap of waves against the sides of the ship. It didn't take long for her to figure out what everyone was staring at as she wove through the crowd to the railing.
The ocean was different here. The water was clear, reflecting the heavy gray color of the sky, but it was full of plant life in the form of ropy brown seaweed. The waves were calm, and the seaweed bobbed up and down, up and down.
However, the seaweed, which was a common sight in many areas of the Caribbean, wasn't what had captured the attention of the nervous passengers. In the distance, a few hundred meters off, was a cloud. A cloud so thick, in fact, that it appeared completely opaque, more like a dense gray wall of fog than anything else. And it was moving at a rapid pitch- straight towards the ship.
Bailey's shoulders relaxed. Fog? Was this what had everybody so worried? She felt some sympathy for the passengers who had paid for sunny vacations to the tropics, but weather was weather- there was no helping it. Besides, it was the captain's job to worry about the course; if he thought the fog would be a problem he'd simply circumvent it. She laughed a bit to herself, people could be so melodramatic. Put them on a cruise ship and they don't have a care in the world, but a little fog rolls in and they're suddenly convinced the ship is about to sail into the Twilight Zone...
A hand gripped her arm and she jumped despite herself, gasping and covering her mouth. "Cody!" she reprimanded her ex-boyfriend in a hushed tone. "You startled me!"
"Sorry." Cody said. He wasn't looking well. His mouth was drawn into a thin line of worry. Bailey wondered if he'd gotten enough sleep last night. "Just... come away from the railing. Listen, Bails, stay below decks for a while, will you?"
"What?" Bailey scoffed. "What are you talking about? We have class in half an hour." She nudged him gently in the stomach with her elbow. "Don't tell me the weather is creeping you out too."
He didn't smile. "Forget class today." he said. "Just get London, go down to your cabin and stay there for a while, all right? And, whatever you do, stay away from the windows. And if you see Zack or Woody, tell them to do the same, okay? Please."
"What? Why?" Bailey asked. Forget about the weather, Cody was being creepy. Forget class?
"Just trust me?" Cody asked, adding, "I know we've already established that this is, for some reason, near-impossible for you to do, but trust me, just this once."
Bailey frowned at him. Why did he have to throw their breakup in her face like that? He was always doing it. How were they supposed to move on and be friends if they couldn't let the past go? "Sure, Cody. Whatever." She had no intention of skipping class, but he obviously wasn't going to let her go until she said she would.
"Thank you." He squeezed her arm gently and gave her a relieved smile, and she suddenly felt extremely guilty about lying to him. He disappeared into the crowd, and Bailey cast a last look out over the ocean, seeing, to her surprise, that the fog had continued to race forward and was beginning to overtake the ship, only a few dozen meters away now. The air around her was starting to feel cold and misty, despite the fact that they were just north of Bermuda.
There was an alarm bell that caused the people on the deck to look at each other in panic, and then the captain's reassuring voice issued over the PA system. "Looks like we may be in for some unpleasant weather, folks. We ask that, for your own safety, passengers use caution on the outdoor areas of the ship. Visibility is getting low, and we don't want any accidents."
Many passengers took this announcement as their cue to go inside, heading back to their cabins, to the gym, or into one of the many shops on the plaza deck. Bailey checked her watch and realized that she should get a move on if she wanted to get to Miss Tutweiller's classroom with enough time to review her flash cards one last time before the European capitals quiz. It wasn't until she got inside, reflexively smoothing down her hair as she usually did after coming off the breezy Sky Deck, that she realized what the other passengers had found so unnatural about the fog.
How had it moved so quickly when there was no wind at all?
***'***
By the time school started, the fog was so thick that visibility was practically zero. The view from the windows of Miss Tutweiller's classroom on the upper deck was of a blank, grayish-white expanse, almost opaque except for the vague swirling and churning of the mist outside.
Miss Tutweiller stood up and looked around at her unusually sparse class. "Where is everybody this morning?"
"Maya's still sick." Zack volunteered, looking around in confusion. "But that definitely doesn't explain where Cody is."
Miss Tutweiller chewed nervously on one fingernail. "It's not like him to miss class... or all these other people." Only Bailey, Zack, Woody, Addison, London, and two or three others had even shown up.
"Maybe they're just feeling a little under the weather." Woody joked nervously.
"Don't joke about this..." Addison said softly, staring out the window. "It's really creepy out there..."
Bailey cleared her throat loudly. "So are we going to take this quiz, or aren't we?"
"Yes, yes, we are." Miss Tutweiller answered distractedly, staring out into the fog as if she too were unable to help herself.
She picked up the quiz papers from her desk, and just as she began to pass them out, there was another loud bell signaling an announcement. "Hello, folks, this is the captain speaking. Due to extremely low visibility, we are requesting that all passengers remain in the indoor areas of the ship until we can get through this patch of fog. I repeat, all outdoor decks are now off-limits. Please stay indoors until further notice. Thank you."
The students looked at each other in alarm. "We're stuck in here?" London repeated. "In class? This is a nightmare!"
"Now, now, boys and girls. It's only until we get past the worst of this fog." Miss Tutweiller reminded them, but she didn't sound particularly reassured herself. "And I have the perfect thing to take your minds off of it: a map quiz!"
Suddenly the classroom door banged open. Addison, London, and Woody screamed in fright.
A large bearded man in a yellow rain slicker, boots, and hat stood in the doorway.
"Haggis!" Miss Tutweiller cried, startled. The grizzled old sailor had a habit of popping up unexpectedly... in a very creepy sort of way. Of all the ship's crewmen to get a crush on her, it had to be the salty old Haggis.
"Ahoy." The man panted his traditional greeting. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, my little sea cucumber. The sea's awash with mystery and peril, and who knows what Neptune has in store..."
Miss Tutweiller noticed how out of breath the man was, like he'd just run a long distance. "Haggis, are you all right?" she asked, tactfully placing her fingertips on his shoulder and turning them both away from her students. "What are you doing here? You're scaring the kids."
"Aye, they've got a reason to be scared, all right." Haggis intoned morbidly. "Do you know where we are?"
Miss Tutweiller scoffed. "I'm the geography teacher, of course I know where we are." she answered. "We're in the Atlantic Ocean, just northeast of Bermuda."
"Aye..." Haggis confirmed. "We're in the Sargasso Sea..." When no one looked shocked or awed by his statement, he repeated it in frustration. "The Sargasso Sea! Sargasso!"
"Yeah..." Bailey spoke up, unimpressed. "The only sea surrounded on all sides by ocean currents, taking its name from its abundance of sargassum seaweed. So there's a lot of seaweed. We saw it."
"Aye..." Haggis said. "But I take it you've never heard the stories..."
"What stories?" Zack asked.
"No stories!" Miss Tutweiller said. "Everyone finish your quiz! You're scaring the kids." she hissed again at Haggis.
Haggis ignored her, finding himself with a captive audience of students. "Maybe you all noticed when you came to class today, that there was no wind... There's never wind in the Sargasso Sea, so for hundreds of years, whenever a ship would sail into the Sargasso Sea, it would become trapped. Trapped by the unnatural lack of wind. Snared by the seaweed..."
"Sargassum is a free-floating species of seaweed." Bailey pointed out skeptically. "It's not attached to the ocean floor; it couldn't snare a ship."
Haggis frowned at the girl, causing her to shrink back. "Aye, there's seaweed down there..." he said, gesturing out the window. "But that's far from all that's down there. It's also a breeding ground for eels... millions and millions of 'em, and all the darkest, most evil creatures of the sea. Sea serpents, giant squid... leviathans! And that's not all... There have been... incidents."
"What kinds of incidents?" Woody asked obediently, quaking in fear.
"Ships disappearing into the Sargasso Sea, and coming out empty..." Haggis breathed. "Not a soul left on board. And none of them are ever found."
"Where do they go?" London asked meekly.
"Some say, the maritime madness comes over the ship... drifting here for days and weeks... they run out of food and begin eating each other until there's no. One. Left." Haggis said.
London let out a little squeal.
"Some say," Haggis continued, "That the ghosts of all the people who've disappeared rise out of the ocean, dragging the passengers to their watery graves."
"Haggis!" Miss Tutweiller reprimanded. "Stop it!"
Haggis leaned forward. "But worst of all..." he said. "Some say that on foggy days, like this one here, the sea monsters, the creatures of the deep, surround the ship, reaching their long, slimy tentacles out of the water to GRAB-" Here, Haggis reached out and made a grasping motion inches in front of London's face, causing her to gasp. "- their unsuspecting prey, picking them off one-by-one, and swallowing them whole!"
The class was silent, the students' faces white with fear.
"Haggis!" Miss Tutweiller yelled. "You will not come in here and scare my students half to death! Get out!"
Chastened, Haggis twisted his yellow rain hat in his hands. "Got a bit carried away there, aye, lassie? I'll go then..." He looked seriously at Miss Tutweiller, then around at the students. "But keep a weather eye, all of you. The sea's never been one to give up her secrets... unless they're secrets you're better off not knowin'." Jamming the hat back onto his head, Haggis strode out into the fog.
"Well..." Bailey chuckled nervously as she set down her pencil. "I'm done with the quiz." No one else had even started it, of course, and Bailey laughed at her own rattled nerves as she handed the A+ paper to Miss Tutweiller. "Sea monsters... really!"
"I know!" Zack said in the same tone, a forced chuckle. "Crazy old Haggis, coming in here telling us ghost stories. He must think we're a bunch of dumb landlubbers."
"That's right..." Miss Tutweiller laughed, and the rest of the students joined in with uncomfortable laughter.
SPLAT.
Addison was the first one to scream, pointing at the window, where the white, dead face of Haggis was pressed against the glass. His wide, unseeing eyes stared into the classroom as he was shaken violently by the thick black tentacle wrapped around his neck. Slowly, his corpse slid down the window and crumpled onto the deck, leaving behind streaks of blood and saliva on the glass. Addison and Woody clung together. London ducked behind Zack, screaming shrilly.
Then another tentacle whipped into the picture, wrapping itself around Haggis's ankle, dragging him off the deck and into the water below.
Bailey gripped the edge of her desk, shaking with fear. "W-what was that?"
"S-suh-suh-suh-sea monster!" Woody yelled, causing the entire classroom to erupt into a panic once more.
Miss Tutweiller, looking pale and sick, tried to restore order. "Okay class, okay. We need to calm down. CALM DOWN!" The students quieted. "Okay, first things first." Miss Tutweiller said. "Everybody away from the windows."
As if she had to say anything. Each student was pressed as far against the back wall as they could.
"Cody told me not to come to school today..." Bailey moaned quietly.
Zack's head snapped toward her. "You've seen Cody today? Where was he?"
His questions were urgent, and Bailey suddenly realized what had him so upset. Cody was out there. "On- on the Sky Deck." she stuttered. "Before class."
Zack took a few steps toward the door, and Tutweiller caught him by the arm, stopping him. "He told me I should skip class and go back to my cabin." Bailey said slowly. "I'm sure he was headed back to his cabin as well."
"Fine, then I'll see him there." Zack said stubbornly, trying to pull out of his teacher's grip.
"I'm sure he's fine." Miss Tutweiller said. "I understand you're worried about him, Zack, but there's no need to put yourself in danger as well."
"Then what about Maya?" Zack challenged. "She doesn't know anything about what's going on. I have to warn her."
"The last person to walk out that door was killed!" the teacher hissed. "I am not going to let you go out there!"
"My brother is out there, and my girlfriend." Zack said in a hard tone. "I have to go find them."
Miss Tutweiller dropped his arm, at a loss for words.
"I'm going with you."
All eyes locked on Bailey as she stepped up next to Zack.
"You don't have to." Zack said quietly.
"Yes, I do." Bailey said, just as quietly.
"Bailey! Don't go!" London wailed.
"At least take some kind of weapon!" Woody suggested.
Bailey and Zack looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon, but the classroom was pretty sparsely supplied. Zack opted to take a meter stick, while Bailey grabbed a large pair of scissors.
"Good luck, you two." Woody said, apology for not accompanying them in his tone. He had one arm wrapped around Addison, the other wrapped around London, who were both cowering, petrified.
"Thanks." Zack said easily, his tone conveying that he didn't blame them for staying. "Take care of yourself, Woodchuck. Everyone."
"Come on." Bailey was standing at the door, her face pressed against the glass, searching the outside for any signs of the monster they'd just witnessed. But there was nothing, only cool white fog. Zack took her elbow and they pushed the door open, stepping into the white cloud. By the time the door had shut (and locked) behind them, the visibility was so bad that they could barely see each other. "Give me your hand." Bailey whispered.
Zack didn't even have it in him to make a smart remark, instead gripping her hand tightly. Together, they edged along the side of the ship, as far from the railings as possible.
There was a scream somewhere ahead, followed by a splash. The strange acoustics of the fog played tricks on their ears, making it impossible to tell how far away the scream was coming from. Bailey shuddered.
There was a swishing sound, and a long, ropy tentacle covered in suction cups whipped past Bailey's feet, ensnaring the leg of a nearby deck chair and dragging it to its doom. Bailey nearly cried out, but Zack's hand covered her mouth. "It might be listening."
"They." Bailey whimpered, nodding up and down to assure him that she wouldn't scream.
"They?"
Bailey's heart hammered in her chest. "That one was green." she choked out. "The other one... the one that... killed-"
"Was black." Zack finished grimly. "So there's more than one."
"Right." Bailey blinked back tears as she looked over her shoulder to meet his eyes, and gasped. There, hovering in the air above Zack's head, was the green tentacle poised to strike. With a strangled scream, she yanked on his arm and together they tumbled forward, the tentacle missing Zack's neck by inches. However, within seconds, the thick black tentacle reappeared in front of them, snagging Bailey's ankle as she screeched in terror.
Zack raised the meter stick and whacked the slimy appendage to no effect. Bailey yelped as the tentacle pulled her feet out from under her, causing her to slide along the deck towards the railing. Zack dropped the meter stick to hold onto her arm with both hands, playing tug-of-war with the creature for Bailey's life. Frantically, Bailey reached down to her ankle, holding the scissors like a dagger. She was shaking so hard that it took her a few tries to stab the thing.
There was an otherworldly shriek from somewhere below as the tentacle recoiled, dripping noxious black blood. Zack yanked Bailey back onto her feet and they took off running.
The Sky Deck was a nightmare. Apparently not every passenger had heeded the captain's warning, and several life-or-death struggles were taking place on the blood-spattered deck. Bailey clapped a horrified hand over her mouth as they stumbled over the green-clad torso of another smoothie bar attendant- barely recognizable as the man whose shift ended before Zack's. His legs and head were entirely gone, and the floor was slippery with blood. A dripping green tentacle rose out of the sea and snagged a woman in a bikini top and sarong, who clung to the railing, wailing, before being ripped away and flung into the churning depths.
Zack felt a wet pressure wrap suddenly around his arm, then a squeeze like a blood-pressure cuff, before his left arm erupted in pain. The thin, green rope of muscle had wound itself around his bicep, clearly intending to sever his arm. He yelled in pain, and Bailey whirled around, scissors at the ready. With both hands, she snipped into the tentacle's flesh, nearly severing it completely and showering them both with a spray of blood.
Zack shook the deadened appendage off of his throbbing arm and grabbed Bailey's hand, pulling her into the deck with the boys' cabins. They raced down the hall, both trying to ignore the screams coming from inside some of the rooms. "The portholes." Bailey gasped fearfully.
They skidded to a stop between Zack's and Cody's cabins, and Bailey twisted the handle. "It's locked!" she cried, pounding on the door. "Cody!" Her foot slipped in something sticky, and she looked down to see a puddle of dark blood seeping out from under the door. God, no. "Zack!"
Zack was already unlocking his own door, racing to find the spare key to Cody and Woody's cabin, pushing papers off his desk, yanking out the drawers one-by-one and turning them upside-down. Finally, there was a metallic clink as it tumbled out of the last drawer and bounced under the bed.
"Zack! Hurry!" Bailey shrieked, still rattling Cody's doorknob. "Hold on, Cody!"
"We're coming Codes!" Zack yelled hoarsely. He dove under the bed, reaching around blindly and finally coming up triumphant, key in hand. By the time he tried to get it into the lock, his hands were shaking too hard to unlock it. Bailey pushed him aside and unlocked the door, opening it and gasping.
The room was in a shambles, furniture broken, clothes, books, and other personal items strewn everywhere. The porthole flapped weakly with the swaying of the ship, the glass gone except for a few stubborn shards poking out of the frame. A long segment of black tentacle lay on the floor at their feet, oozing the blood they had seen from the hallway.
Bailey collapsed against Zack. "He's not here." she whispered, tears streaming down her bloody cheeks. "Do you think...?"
Zack wrapped an arm around her shoulders, as much to support himself as her. "I don't know." he said flatly. Clearly there had been a struggle here, but who had come out victorious? Cody, or the monster? And if Cody had won... why wasn't he here? "He fought hard." Zack said, as though that was consolation to either of them. Taking back his arm, he sank onto the messy remains of his brother's bed, suddenly looking ten years older. "Codes..."
Bailey's tears had become sobs, and her shoulders were shaking inconsolably. "C-C... he told me to stay inside today... I should have been here, I should have stayed with him!"
"You didn't know what was going on." Zack said, grief and frustration warring in his voice. "It's not your fault. But why didn't he tell me?" He flung out an arm and sent Cody's bedside lamp flying against the wall, shattering the bulb with a satisfying tinkle of glass.
The piece of paper that had been pinned under it fluttered to the floor, catching Bailey's attention. "What's this?" She picked it up, and a smile broke through her sobs. "Zack..." she said. "Maybe he did."
Zack took the bloodstained piece of paper she pressed into his hands and read the note scrawled on it.
"Z-
Went to the forbidden locker in the cargo hold. Meet me there. Be careful.
-C"
Zack grinned, the aged, worn look disappearing from his face. "He knew I'd come for him."
Bailey dried her tears on her sleeve. "Like anyone had doubt you'd try." She took the hand he offered her and followed him out of the room.
"Come on!" Zack urged, his focus back now that their own little crisis was (temporarily, at least) over.
"We don't have time! And we have to find Maya!"
They raced along the corridors, down the stairs to the girls' decks, reaching Maya's cabin without further incident. "Maya!" Zack yelled, banging on her door. "Open up! It's me!"
There was silence inside the room.
"Maya?" Bailey twisted the doorknob, but, of course, it was locked. "Are you in there?"
Complete silence.
"MAYA!" Zack yelled, reaching into his back pocket and working his driver's license free of his wallet, sliding it in between the door and its frame. "Come on, baby!" He fumbled with the lock for a long moment before losing his grip on the card. It fell into her room.
Still, there was no movement inside the cabin.
A queasy feeling overtook Bailey's stomach as she watched realization dawn on Zack's face. If Maya was in there, she wasn't alive. "Zack..." she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. There was nothing else she could say.
Zack didn't look at her. "We've spent enough time here." he said in a low voice. "Let's go find Cody."
Bailey's heart broke for Maya, and for Zack, but she acquiesced wordlessly, letting him lead her down, down, into the cargo hold. Here, mercifully, it was harder to hear the screams of the people on higher decks... or perhaps it was just that the screams were beginning to die out.
She'd never been down here before, the cargo hold was off limits to students and passengers, but she wasn't particularly surprised that Zack seemed to know exactly where he was going. He led her through a series of twists and turns. The cargo hold was dark, dank, and creepy, and she could swear she heard the scuttling of rats... but the fact that there was not a porthole in sight made Bailey feel the safest she had all day.
Suddenly Zack took off at a run. Bailey's heart stopped in her chest as she recognized a familiar figure in the corridor up ahead. Cody. Weak with relief, she supported herself by leaning against a stack of crates while she watched Zack embrace his brother.
"Codes!" Zack reprimanded. "You scared the hell out of me!"
"God, Zack, you scared me too!" Cody answered, clutching Zack tightly. "Where have you been? Was my note too subtle or something? Did I use too many big words?"
Zack snorted a humorless laugh. "No, we were... We were on a wild goose chase." he said softly.
Bailey's heart sank as she listened to the resignation in Zack's voice. Of course he was talking about Maya.
"'We'?" Cody looked behind Zack and his eyes landed on Bailey. "Bails..." he breathed. "Thank god you're safe."
She flew into his arms. Breakup be damned- she'd thought she'd lost him forever. Just feeling the familiarity of his body against hers made her want to cry with relief. Then she pulled away quickly, not wanting to rub salt in Zack's wound. "You're covered in blood, Cody." she realized with concern, looking him up and down. Most of the blood was black- from the creature he'd fought in his cabin- but an alarming amount of it was red. "Where are you hurt?"
"Most of it's not mine." Cody answered, plucking at the dark-colored bloodstains on his clothes. He opened his left hand and showed them a series of deep gashes on his palm. "I fell on some broken glass, that's all." Bailey gently took his injured hand in hers, but he closed his fist, waving it off as unimportant.
"Sorry it took so long, bro." Zack said. "It took us a while to find the note. Your cabin is a mess. You guys are pigs."
"That's alright." Cody waved him off. He gestured to the large locker behind him, the broken padlock lying on the ground next to a pair of bloody bolt-cutters. "It's not like I didn't have anyone to help me."
"Hey Cody! Are you gonna help me or just make the sick girl do all the work?" A voice cried from within the locker, and Bailey and Zack gaped at the sound. Zack's eyes widened as Maya appeared in the doorway, her fists planted on her hips. She spotted Zack and her face broke into a relieved smile. "Boy, am I glad to see you!"
He didn't waste a moment in pulling her into his arms, kissing her deeply.
"Zack! Zack!" Maya yelped, pulling back. "I'm sick, remember?"
"I don't care." Zack murmured into her cheek. "I thought you were dead." He smoothed back her hair with the palm of one hand- she still felt feverish, but definitely better than she'd been ninety seconds ago...
"Oh, Zack..." she whispered sympathetically. "I'm sorry, baby." She pressed her lips to his again. "Cody came and got me before one of those... things could."
Keeping one arm around her, Zack looked to his brother. "Thank you." he said in a low, serious tone.
"Hey." Cody shrugged, trying to make it seem like it was no big deal. "You looked out for Bailey."
The rest of the sentence, '...so I looked out for your girl', was implied.
Tears welled up in Bailey's eyes once again, and she placed one grimy hand on the side of Cody's face and kissed him, somewhat amazed when he kissed back. They'd been apart for so long... and now they were back together, reuniting in the face of something threatening to destroy them all.
It would take a natural disaster of mythical proportions to make them both overcome their stubbornness.
Bailey planted a last quick kiss on his lips. "The monsters." she reminded him. "How did you know?"
"You know I've always been interested in sea monsters." Cody said, reminding her of the time they'd partnered up to try to prove the existence of a sea serpent- Galapagos Gertie- for a science project... and failed.
If Gertie was anything like these nightmares, Bailey was glad she didn't exist!
"The Sargasso Sea is rife with legends of ghost ships, sea serpent attacks, giant cephalopods... Nowadays I try to take all the 'sightings' with a grain of salt." Cody said, looking slightly embarrassed, "But this morning, when I saw the fog that moved without wind... I knew."
"So what are we gonna do?" Zack asked. "It's a bloodbath up there, Codes."
"That's what I asked myself." Cody explained. "But there's never been any record of anyone tangling with something like this and surviving, so I was at a loss... but then I remembered something. This locker."
Zack peered into the dark locker. "Moseby would never even tell me what's in it..."
"Harpoons." Cody, Bailey, and Maya said together.
Maya frowned. "I thought that was common knowledge."
"It is." Cody said. "Moseby just thought it would be better for everyone if Zack didn't know."
"He was probably right." Zack agreed reluctantly. "So how many do we have?"
Maya ducked into the locker and returned with a large harpoon gun in each hand. "Two." she said, handing one to Cody.
"But there's at least two of those things out there." Zack said.
"We saw them." Bailey confirmed.
"So we'll have to make them count." Cody finished. He looked around at his three companions. "...Has anybody ever shot a harpoon gun before?"
The teens all looked at each other, no one wanting the pressure of having to make the single most important shot of their lives. Cody looked at Bailey. "You've got good aim, Bails." he said softly. "Anyone who can get a fly with a dart is sure to hit one of those things."
Bailey paled, but pursed her lips in determination, accepting the weapon Cody handed her.
"I'll take the other one." Zack volunteered finally. "You're not looking so well, Maya, and everyone knows Cody's aim is terrible."
Cody didn't argue, instead turning to Maya. "Then we've got the hard job. Being the bait."
"What?" Bailey and Zack chorused. "No!"
"If either of you think I'm letting you do that, you're insane!" Zack cried.
"We have to get the things to surface high enough for you to get the shot." Cody pointed out. "They're not going to do that if there's nothing in it for them."
"Besides, it's not like we won't be armed." Maya said, picking up the bolt cutters and hefting them like a baseball bat. She touched Zack's shoulder. "We'll be careful."
"Still..." Zack said. "I don't like it."
"No one likes it." Cody said. "But we have to do it before we're the only people left! Or before these things bring down the entire ship! Come on."
***'***
They made their way up out of the cargo hold and through the girls' cabin deck. The corridors were eerily silent- no sounds, no movement. It was almost worse than the screaming.
Maya stayed close to Zack. "Zack...what do they look like?" she whispered softly.
Zack realized that of the four of them, Maya was the only one who hadn't seen one of the monsters directly. With his free hand, he tangled their fingers together. "I don't really know, all we saw were the tentacles." he whispered back. Maya nodded, giving a little shudder, and Zack squeezed her hand. It went against all his instincts to let Maya go out there... to let any of his friends go, but her... If he thought there was any other way!
The door to the Sky Deck was gone, simply ripped off its hinges, the thick white fog spilling into the hallway. Cody put out his arms and stopped them. They automatically formed into a kind of huddle as Cody addressed them in a low voice. "All right, guys, this is it. Zack, Bailey, you guys head upstairs as fast as you can. Hopefully these things won't be able to reach you up there, and at least you'll have a better view." He looked at Maya. "Maya, we'll set up a trap in the middle of the Sky Deck... anything we can use as bait."
"What do you mean, any-" Maya began, but Cody cut her off.
"Shh... they'll hear us." he said. He pursed his lips grimly as he decided how to answer her question. "Octopuses are attracted to raw fish." was all he said.
Zack reached across the circle and shook his brother's hand. "Good luck."
"You too." Cody said, gripping his hand tightly. He had just let go when Bailey pulled him into her arms. "You'll do great, Bails." he told her, allowing himself to hold her close for just a moment.
Zack cupped Maya's face and kissed her gently. "Be careful."
She took his head in her hands and deepened the kiss, as if she couldn't bear to let him go. When she finally pulled away, she smiled bravely. "I will if you will."
Bailey released Cody, and her voice shook slightly as she looked at the others. "Are we ready for this?"
"Nope." Zack said. "But let's go." And together the two couples walked into the mist.
The fog had thinned just enough to let them see that the Sky Deck was a scene of absolute carnage- crimson blood slicked the deck, corpses were strewn everywhere. The sight made Maya's already-sick stomach churn up bile. "Oh-!" she half-gasped, half-sobbed, covering her mouth with one hand.
Cody was right there beside her, looking none-too-well himself. "I know..." he murmured under his breath, taking her elbow gently. The fog's strange acoustics made it sound as though his voice were coming from multiple directions at once.
Suddenly Maya realized what he'd meant by his remark about octupuses being attracted by raw fish... These octopuses- if that's what they were- would be attracted by raw meat.
People.
She bit back a scream as she nearly tripped over the body of a man she did not know. He was wearing the white uniform of one of the upper-level crewmen, but his head was crushed beyond recognition, the round bruises on his neck indicative of the strangling force of a suction-cup-covered tentacle. Trying not to look at the gory state of the man's head, she seized him by the ankles, pulling him to the center of the deck as Cody had instructed. She barely managed to keep down her stomach juices as he joined her, dragging a lounge chair laden with assorted dismembered body parts to add to the gruesome pile.
Meanwhile, Zack and Bailey made a break for the staircase, trying to ascend it as quickly and as quietly as possible in the blinding fog. Bailey stepped on a man's hand and slipped, catching herself on the banister with a metallic clang and pausing, frozen with fear. Zack stared back at her, wide-eyed, and it was a long moment before she felt safe enough to move again. Letting out the breath she'd been holding, she took another tentative step upwards.
Out of nowhere, a pair of black tentacles appeared, one lashing itself around the railing, the other around Bailey's waist. "Bailey!" Zack yelled as she cried out in terror. He made a grab for her hand and missed as the thing dragged Bailey backwards down the steps.
"Run!" she yelled at Zack. Her chin hit the stair below her and she bit her tongue hard, blood filling the inside of her mouth as tears welled up in her eyes, but she scrambled to keep her hold on the harpoon gun, determined not to lose it.
"Bailey!" Cody had come running at the sound of the shout, squinting in the mist to find her. Horrified, he watched the thing lift her up into the air, panicking as he looked for a way to save her. After what seemed like days, but was really only seconds, he remembered the fire hose under the stairs. Turning his face away, he used the hammer to break the glass, setting alarm bells whooping wildly over the sound of Bailey's screams. Ignoring the hose itself, he seized the fire ax, scrambling back to where he'd last seen her.
She was putting up a good fight. One arm looped through the metal railing of the stairs, straining to keep her from being pulled to her doom, she used the butt of the harpoon gun to hit the monster, driving the blunt object into its slimy flesh with as much force as she could muster. The thing's grip tightened around her waist just as her eyes met Cody's in the fog. She looked scared, beaten. Blood dripped from one corner of her mouth.
Cody didn't know where he found the strength, but he lifted the heavy ax over his head, slicing straight down on the monster's limb. It split in two, and the monster let out a gurgling wail from somewhere beneath the waves. The half of the tentacle that was wrapped around Bailey squeezed her painfully tight for a moment, then fell, limp, to the deck. Bailey sobbed in relief as Cody grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. "Oh, Cody."
But there was no time for a tearful reunion, as the other tentacle ripped a portion of railing free from the stairs, swinging it at them. Both teens dropped flat on the deck, the twisted metal wreckage sailing inches over their heads.
The monster was roaring now, angry and injured. The waves became rough as it thrashed in the ocean below them, sending seaweed and blood-tinted water splashing over the decks.
"Cody?" Maya yelled from the other side of the deck, unable to locate him in the whiteness. "Where ar-AHH!" A thin green tentacle ensnared her ankle, quickly cutting off the circulation to her foot. It started to pull her, and she fell on her butt, sliding towards the edge of the deck. Then she remembered the bolt cutters in her hands. Yanking them open, she forced them shut on the tentacle, which slithered back over the side of the deck, leaving a trail of black blood. Holding her throbbing ankle, she scooted backwards on her butt, scrambling for the shelter of the smoothie bar. She backed into a warm body and screamed.
The other girl screamed too, and Maya recognized the disheveled young woman as the ship's director of activities, Connie. Connie covered her tearstained face, sobbing with relief when she saw Maya. "Oh, thank god!"
"Shhh!" Maya hissed, pressing herself against the back of the smoothie bar. A black tentacle shot over their heads, smashing into the back of the bar and sending blenders, cups, and fruit flying. The tentacle paused, and then drew back, slowly... slowly...
"It knows we're here..." Connie whimpered in her high-pitched voice.
"Shhhh!" Maya hissed again, beginning to tremble. The tentacle felt along the edge of the bar, as if it were exploring its shape and texture. It was looking for them.
"It knows..." Connie sobbed. "It knows!"
Slowly, the thing began to edge in Connie's direction.
Maya's eyes widened as she felt a pressure in the small of her back- Connie was trying to push her forward! She elbowed the other girl in the ribs, and Connie yelped at the unexpected pain. That was all it took.
The monster pinpointed her location, winding its tentacle around Connie's head like a blindfold, its suction cups making squishing, popping noises against her skin as it looped itself around her neck, her arms. The trapped, terrified girl let out a prolonged, ear-splitting scream.
Maya scrambled backwards, away from Connie, and her hand came down on the handle of the thin knife Zack usually used to slice fruit on the floor behind her. She picked it up, still shaking. Maybe Connie had tried to feed her to the monster, but Maya couldn't do the same. With a deep breath, she drove the knife into the creature's jellylike flesh.
Somewhere in the distance, the monster crowed, a bone-chilling, ethereal screech, and the seawater frothed as it began to rise closer and closer to the surface...
Black blood leaked from the stab wound, but the tentacle didn't withdraw. The thin black tip of the appendage flailed aimlessly for a few seconds, then stopped, twisting around and thrusting itself into Connie's open, shrieking mouth. Her cry became gurgled and muffled as the tentacle fed itself into her mouth and down her esophagus. She choked, spasming as the thing pushed itself into her body, splitting her from the inside. Maya nearly passed out; her vision went blurry as blood began to stream from Connie's nose in a torrent. Finally, the girl's eyes glazed over.
Maya lay on the deck, boneless with horror as the tentacle rose into the air, wearing Connie's lifeless body like some kind of demented sock puppet. Barely able to move, she managed to turn her head just enough to see around the edge of the smoothie bar.
For the first time, she could see what the tentacles were attached to as it rose out of the ocean, writhing menacingly. Its orange eyes were the last thing to make an impression before she lost consciousness altogether.
***'***
From his spot on the upper deck, Zack scanned the whiteness in frustration. The shifting, swirling mist meant he could see very little of what was going on below, and the screams and shouts of his brother and the girls were nearly driving him wild with panic. How the hell was he supposed to shoot this thing when he couldn't even see it?
And then, suddenly, he could.
The first thing he saw were the eyes. They were orange, an evil, glowing orange. Its pupils, though, were the unnerving thing- they were rectangular instead of circular, and oriented horizontally. The eyes were about three feet apart, staring through the mist like the headlights of an oncoming car on a foggy night.
The thing rose up even further, and the outline of its body became visible, a round, bulbous head the size of an SUV, seamlessly connected to a network of twisting, writhing black tentacles. Cody had been right- the creature looked, for all intents and purposes, like a black, monstrous octopus. A black, monstrous, pissed-off octopus. He couldn't figure out how something so massive was just floating there on the surface, like some kind of hideous beach ball.
The thing whipped one of its tentacles towards him, and Zack jumped backwards, watching as it snared the railing just feet from his face. The giant, menacing head drew closer, and Zack realized it wasn't just floating. It was climbing.
"Zack!" Cody yelled from somewhere below.
"Cody!" Zack yelled back, not taking his eyes off the monster. "Where do I shoot this thing? The heart?" It was so huge that somehow, the harpoon gun didn't seem like enough. When something was that big, it just kept on coming. "If so, where's the heart?" The way the thing was looking at him actually made him wonder if the monster could understand him.
"Octopuses have three hearts!" Cody cried back. "That's no good!"
Two more tentacles wrapped around nearby poles. The thing was advancing on him. Zack didn't know how, but it knew that he was the one with a gun. Somehow it knew. "THEN WHERE?" he bellowed.
"Between the eyes!" Cody screamed back.
"Is that your final answer?" Zack cried, already taking aim. By the time Cody had shouted 'yes,' his finger had tightened on the trigger. The harpoon fired, piercing its target directly between the eyes.
The monster screamed again, but this time the scream was different, violent and futile. It reared back, exposing its gaping, beaklike mouth, and Zack recoiled backward at the sickening stench of blood and decay issuing from it. The bleeding, mutilated tentacles flailed as it fell backward, dropping into the ocean and sending a tidal wave of saltwater washing over the lower half of the deck. Slowly, the monster sank. Its orange eyes faded to a dull red as it sank lower and lower, its limp tentacles becoming indistinguishable from the tangles of Sargasso seaweed.
It became very quiet.
Zack stood still for a long moment. Was it really over? Was the thing truly dead? He gripped the railing in front of him, not daring to believe it.
"Zack!" Cody screamed from below. "Zack!"
At the sound of his brother's voice, Zack started, racing down the stairs though the already-clearing fog. "Codes?"
Cody was standing under the stairs, his arm around Bailey, who was still clutching the harpoon gun. His face broke into a smile as he saw his brother. "You did it!" he said, grabbing Zack in a hug. "Oh, man... I thought..."
"You okay?" Zack asked, hugging him back. "And we all did it." He released his brother and grabbed Bailey in a half-hug too. "You scared me there, Pickett." he confessed. "I was pretty sure you were gonna be seafood." Somehow, it felt okay to joke about it now; he was just so relieved.
"Me too." she said ruefully, rubbing her bruised waist where the creature had seized her. "I would have been, too, if not for Cody." She moved back into Cody's arms and they clung together, still drawing strength from each other in light of all that had just happened.
At that point, a pang of cold fear struck Zack's heart. "Where's Maya?"
Behind the smoothie bar, she stirred. "Zack?"
He was by her side in an instant. "I'm here, Maya. Are you hurt?" He grasped her hand and helped her sit up, and she rested against him, holding one hand to her head as tears leaked from her eyes.
"I'm not hurt." she managed to say. "But... I just... what I saw..." She couldn't bring herself to tell him about Connie, instead burying her head in his chest.
He rubbed her back. "I know, baby."
She began regaining her composure slowly. "I... I must have passed out." she said sheepishly. "Did... did you do it? Did you kill them both?"
Zack's blood turned to ice water.
Bailey screamed.
A pair of thin green tentacles had just whipped onto the deck directly in front of Bailey and Cody, winding around the bars of the railings, and a second monster hoisted itself onto the Sky Deck. While still huge for any common variety of octopus, this one was much smaller than the first one- flat on the deck, it was slightly shorter than Cody. Its long, vinelike tentacles swept over the deck in an whimsical, exploratory fashion, causing the pair to jump back and out of the way. It whined pitifully.
Bailey raised her free hand to her mouth. "Its a baby." she gasped. "We just killed its mother."
"You're right..." Cody realized, staring at it with trepidation. "What do we do?"
"What do we do?" Zack exploded from behind the smoothie bar, his arm still curled around Maya protectively. "You shoot it! That's what you do!"
"But..." Cody looked at the thing guiltily. "Maybe it's..."
"It's not friendly, it tried to kill us!" Zack reminded them. "And need I remind you, that it will someday become an adult... one of those things, if you don't shoot it now! Bailey!"
The baby stared at them balefully through orange, horizontally-slitted eyes. Then it struck out without warning, wrapping a tentacle around each of them at the knees.
Instantly, Bailey brought up the harpoon gun and squeezed the trigger, hitting it right between the eyes, just as Zack had done. Unlike the first one, the creature didn't go into its death throes. Instead, its tentacles weakly unraveled from the railing- and from its captives,- and it simply fell into the ocean to join its mother. "Huh." Bailey said. "Zack was right."
"'Course I was." Zack said, as he and Maya joined Bailey and Cody at the railing, watching the little monster's corpse sink into oblivion. By now, the fog had nearly completely cleared, and the sun shone down on the bloodstained floorboards of the Sky Deck. "Whatever those things were, they were clearly evil."
"Yeah..." Maya agreed, shuddering as she remembered all that she had witnessed. Zack's arm tightened around her, and she gave him a little smile.
Bailey pushed herself away from the railing, willfully not looking at the carnage still littering the Sky Deck. "I guess we should go see who else is... I mean... who else..." Somehow, the sun made it seem like what had just happened couldn't have just happened, that none of it was real. But the teens knew that very soon they'd have to face the cold reality of the situation. London, Woody, Tutweiller, Moseby... their friends, their surrogate family... Who knew what had become of them?
"Yeah." Cody said, taking her hand.
Maya lingered by the railing as the others made to walk away. "Cody?" she asked suddenly. "If there was a mother monster, and a baby monster... doesn't that mean there has to be a father, too?"
Cody paused. Back when he'd thought himself the expert on sea monsters, nobody had believed a word he'd said. But now that everything he thought he'd known had changed... now they wanted his opinions. The worst of it was that, in truth, he'd been thinking the same thing as Maya... or rather, trying not to think about it. Zack and Bailey were watching him now too, waiting for his answer, fear haunting their eyes. "Not... necessarily." he said finally. "No. No."
If anyone didn't believe him, they didn't say a word.
*****'*****
A/N: Inspired partially by Stephen King's "The Mist." The Sargasso Sea is real, some of the science is real... most of it isn't.
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