Blood Cruise Read online

  He stares at the boy’s terrifying face. The blood smeared on his chin. The slack skin of his body, the almost concave chest.

  Every cell in Tomas’ body is screaming at him to get out, but the boy is blocking the exit again.

  Tomas pulls the beer bottle from his inside pocket, seeing his reflection mimicking his movements out of the corner of his eye. He clutches the neck of the bottle, afraid it might slip through his sweaty fingers. He smacks it against the edge of the desk. Nothing happens. He strikes again, harder; the glass shatters.

  The sharp edges glint in the dim light.

  Tomas waves the broken bottle about in front of him. A loose shard falls onto the carpet. He moves closer to the boy. Must get out. Nothing else matters.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he says.

  His heart is pounding faster and faster; the pain from the gash in his throat throbs to its beat. The boy doesn’t reply. Tomas can’t even hear him breathing.

  Thoughts flash through his head. Peo and the others are at Club Charisma now. They have no idea where he is. They are probably going to assume he passed out somewhere. Or possibly hooked up with someone. They won’t start wondering in earnest until tomorrow morning.

  Tomas takes another small step forward; they are no more than three feet apart.

  ‘Please,’ he says. ‘I won’t tell your mum, or anyone, if you just let me go.’

  The boy’s mouth opens and closes. That snapping sound.

  ‘But if you’re not careful, I might—’

  The boy rushes him, arms outstretched, teeth biting the air. Tomas swings the broken bottle in an arc in front of him and watches, horrified, as the sharp edges slice into the skin right below the boy’s collarbone and sink further into his flesh. It is so easy. Too easy.

  He pulls his hand back, lets go of the bottleneck. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whimpers. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to …’

  The boy looks at him, almost reproachful. He touches the torn, ragged edges of the cuts with an air of disbelief. Tomas can see how deep they are, but there is no blood. Only grey flesh underneath, which shimmers faintly in sickly hues. Like mince left sitting in the fridge too long. And the smell is so strong now, it fills the cabin. Like ammonia and sweet, rotting fruit.

  This is impossible, this is impossible, I must be dreaming, I need to wake up.

  The boy climbs on top of him again, clings to him like a parody of a terrified child seeking comfort from an adult. His teeth sink into Tomas’ neck; he presses his mouth against the opening, sucks as though the blood isn’t coming out fast enough.

  Tomas staggers backwards, only managing a couple of steps before his legs give out. He sits down on the floor between the bed and the desk with a thud, tries to push the boy away, but the shock is so overpowering it has made him weak.

  The skin of the boy’s back is losing its grey pallor, turning pink and healthy as the blood fills him. Tomas watches without understanding. And then the child clamps down on Tomas’ neck again. Knocks him onto his back. The shard of broken glass on the floor cuts through his jacket and shirt. Blood starts trickling out of the boy’s wound. Tomas’ own blood is dripping back onto him in a perverse circulatory system.

  Black clouds are blooming in his field of vision, growing into one another.

  If he faints now, he won’t survive. And a part of him wants to simply accept it. It is so tempting to let the darkness dancing in front of his eyes swallow him, to let himself fall into the unknown, escape the pain. It would be no harder than drifting off to sleep on the sofa in front of the telly at home.

  But he doesn’t want to die.

  The boy is sucking slower now, like a nursing infant starting to feel full.

  This can’t be how it works.

  This can’t be how it ends.

  He has to try.

  Tomas raises his right hand, takes a few quick breaths and lands a blow with his right hand on the side of the boy’s head, smacking it into the edge of the desk.

  The boy hisses at him like an animal. There is blood

  my blood

  on his teeth, glistening on his lips, chin, slowly seeping out of the wound below his collarbone. The flesh there is pink and healthy now. His face looks like that of a real boy.

  His teeth snap in mid-air. Tomas strikes the side of his head again.

  The boy’s eyes roll back into his head. He collapses on top of him.

  Tomas’ scream bounces back at him from the walls of the cabin.

  The body is so little. So light.

  He almost vomits as he struggles to get up off the floor. The cabin is swaying, as if the ship has sailed into an unexpected storm, and maybe it has. He doesn’t know; he no longer has any sense of what might be reasonable. The room is spinning faster and faster. Pulling him down into the dark.

  Albin

  Glass clinks against glass on the shelves Albin passes on his way to the tills. The tax-free shop is bathed in white light. Perfume bottles and liquor bottles glint and glitter, the gilded parts of the Marlboro multipacks and giant Toblerone bars sparkle. Albin has put a jar of liquorice in his basket. His mum and dad have given him two hundred kronor to spend on board, but it was hard to choose when there were so many options.

  A woman with dead-straight, peach-coloured hair and red lips watches him from the perfume section when he joins the queue. It makes him nervous; he wonders if she has noticed that he is with Lo and knows Lo shoplifted here earlier.

  But nothing happens. When he exits the shop, Lo is waiting for him, impatiently chewing her gum.

  ‘Way to be quick about it,’ she says, starting to walk before he even reaches her.

  He follows, glancing at the information desk and the man standing behind it looking bored. They take the stairs and end up outside Charisma Buffet again, then walk sternwards, past a restaurant, a café and a place called McCharisma, where a number of men in overcoats are drinking beer. They pass big arcade games, where a handful of little kids are pressing buttons without understanding how they work. It is completely dark outside the windows; the only things Albin can see in the glass are his and Lo’s reflections.

  ‘Abbe!’ Lo calls.

  She has set her course for a stand displaying shiny photographs on a board covered in black fabric. When Albin catches up, he recognises the girl standing there: she’s the one who took their picture when they first boarded.

  ‘Those are just display copies,’ she says in a heavy regional accent when their eyes meet. ‘You can have a look at today’s pictures right here. It’s forty-nine kronor for a paper copy, and you can pick it up in an hour.’

  She holds out an iPad. Lo snatches it from her and quickly swipes through the pictures while chewing her gum hard. Sometimes she stops, commenting on something: Isn’t it heartbreaking that no one has told her about conditioner? Pulling your jeans all the way up to your armpits really is my number one advice. I wonder if he knows his parents are siblings? It almost makes Albin dizzy to see all the unfamiliar faces flash past on the screen. He is looking for something to comment on too, but Lo always beats him to the punch.

  ‘Look, it’s us,’ she says.

  The image appears so suddenly it feels like he is looking at yet another group of strangers. Everyone is so blond. Everyone but him.

  He had just spotted the camera and was trying to smile, but now he can see the smile was only half formed on his lips; it mostly looks like a weird grimace. His white trainers are dirty. His jeans have baggy knees. He wonders what Lo would have said about him if he were one of the strangers.

  ‘I always love it when I look like a retarded sleepwalker,’ Lo says.

  The Lo in the picture has her eyes closed mid-step, but she is still pretty. Linda has put a hand on her shoulder and is smiling professionally. Dad’s face is a bit shiny, but he is smiling at the camera too. It’s almost like he and Linda are the married couple. Mum is in her wheelchair, looking diffidently up at the camera. Albin knows how much she hates having her pi
cture taken. It makes her stiff and weird whenever anyone holds up their phone. She always begs off or turns her head away the moment you take the photo. Albin has never managed to take a good picture of her. He wishes she could have looked nice in this one. Then he would have bought it and shown her.

  He looks back at his dad, trying to imagine that the man with the confident smile is the same dad as last night.

  Maybe I should do what Mum did. Then you’d all be happy, wouldn’t you?

  ‘What a lovely family,’ the girl says.

  ‘I wish,’ Lo says, and pulls Albin away.

  They walk past a room with dark walls and a sign that reads CASINO. A girl is standing behind a table covered in green felt. A few people are slumped on bar stools in front of flashing fruit machines, pulling levers and pressing buttons. He and Lo keep walking until the hallway ends. Dansband music is being played at a high volume. Lo’s ponytail swings back and forth like a pendulum with every step she takes, caressing her shoulder blades. Albin would like to touch it, feel the hair between his fingers.

  They enter a bar with a big dance floor. CHARISMA STARLIGHT is written in florid letters above the bar; the ceiling is decorated with little white lights meant to look like constellations. Multicoloured lights are flashing on the dance floor, making patterns on the hardwood floor and the closed red, curtains in front of the stage. An old couple are holding each other, taking tiny, shuffling steps from side to side, back and forth, not even remotely to the beat. It is as though they are in their own world. They look like they’re in love. Next to them a barefoot woman is jumping up and down, clapping her hands from time to time with a big, ecstatic smile on her face.

  ‘If only I could have a fun and bubbly personality like that,’ Lo says, looking grave. ‘You know, it’s all about choosing happiness.’

  They walk among the tables between the bar and the dance floor. Lo reaches for a half-empty bottle of beer someone left behind. The blond bartender shakes his head at her. He doesn’t look angry – actually, he is grinning – but Albin wants to leave now.

  ‘Isn’t it heartbreaking that he took fashion advice from a traffic light?’ Lo says, nodding towards a bald man a bit further on.

  The man is wearing a red shirt tucked into green jeans. His gut is jutting straight out over his belt, defying gravity. He actually does look like a traffic light. Albin bursts out laughing.

  The barefoot woman is circling the older couple. They watch her for a bit. A group of muscle guys in tight T-shirts walk up to the dance floor. One of them glances at Lo and Albin while he drinks beer straight from the bottle. Albin wonders if it looks like they are together. He moves closer to her.

  ‘Was that true about knowing someone whose mum works on a cruiseferry?’ he asks.

  ‘Mmm,’ Lo replies. ‘My friend told me all kinds of gross things. The people who clean have, like, the most disgusting job in the world. I mean, imagine. But at least they get a five-hundred-kronor bonus every time they have to clean up someone’s sick. And loads of people throw up, especially in their cabins. They can, like, make a fortune from vomit.’

  Albin looks around. Everything is so clean here: the brass railing with the smoke-coloured glass around the dance floor; the gleaming tables and bar counter. He peers at the maroon carpet. Can’t see any stains, but the room is fairly dark.

  ‘The best thing is when someone hurls in a urinal, because then all they have to do is hose it down the drain. Five hundred kronor, just like that.’

  Lo snaps her fingers. Albin tries to imagine having a job where you have to deal with other people’s vomit every day.

  ‘There’s all kinds of other gross things,’ Lo says, lowering her voice. ‘Loads of girls get raped in the cabins. But the police can’t do anything. They can’t collect any evidence because there are so many different DNA samples in the cabins.’

  She looks expectantly at Albin, as if she has already told him the punchline. But if she did, he missed it completely.

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Lo says. ‘I’m talking about sperm. There’s old sperm on the walls and the floor and everything because everyone’s doing it everywhere. It’s so incredibly gross.’

  Lo squeals and waves her hands about as though they are covered in sticky stuff. Her eyes are alight with revulsion.

  Albin doesn’t know what to say. He turns back to the dance floor. That guy is still eyeing Lo, but she doesn’t seem to notice, or she doesn’t care. She pulls her ponytail over one shoulder, combing it with her fingers.

  ‘Do your parents still have sex?’ she says. ‘Can your mum even do it?’

  ‘Stop it,’ Albin says.

  He doesn’t want to think about it. His mum’s ribs feel so fragile when he hugs her. His dad would be able to break them without even trying, wrench something out of joint, even if he was attempting to be careful.

  ‘What about Aunt Linda?’ he says.

  He doesn’t really want to know, but anything is better than talking about his mum and dad.

  ‘I heard her once,’ Lo replies. ‘With her latest boyfriend. Though it was mostly him making noise.’

  She sticks her fingers down her throat and pretends to gag. At least Albin is fairly certain she is pretending.

  ‘I bet she’s super-boring in bed, since she’s such a super-boring person in general. She probably doesn’t even know what a blowjob is.’

  Lo rolls her eyes. Albin doesn’t know what to say now either. The word blowjob hangs in the air between them. Imagine if Lo knew how much time he spends thinking about sex these days. Imagine if she knew what he looks up online sometimes. How it makes him feel. Scared and aroused and grossed out all at once.

  Sex is like a parallel universe where people who seem normal suddenly turn out to be something else. Almost like the monsters in his nightmares. They can look like anyone, seem like they belong in the normal world, until you peek behind the curtain.

  Is Lo one of them now? Has she done it with someone?

  ‘Wanna leave?’ Albin says, and tries to smile.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lo says. ‘But you have something stuck in your teeth that I’m really tired of looking at.’

  Albin lags behind when she heads for the exit, picking his front teeth with the nail of his index finger until he dislodges a small, green speck. When he puts it back in his mouth, it tastes hot and spicy.

  He wipes his finger on his jeans and runs after Lo.

  Madde

  Madde is jumping up and down on the spot, one arm in the air, barely noticing how much her feet hurt in her high heels. Sweat is pouring down her face, trickling between her breasts, which are threatening to pop out of her top at any moment. The teeny-tiny gold flakes on her skin are shimmering like thousands of stars under the strobing lights of Club Charisma. Her fist is pumping to the beat until it feels like she is controlling the music. Her other hand is clutching her drink; vodka Red Bull is spilling over the edge of the glass, making her skin sweet and sticky.

  There aren’t a lot of people here yet, but they are staring at her and Zandra. Madde loves it. Their attention charges her like a bloody battery. As long as they keep staring, she will never get tired. She is going to give them something to talk about. And Zandra feels the same way, Madde knows she does; she can see it in her eyes. Zandra comes over, letting her feather boa slip down her shoulder like a stripper. She tosses the boa around Madde’s neck, pulls her close as though she has caught her. The feathers are warm and wet against Madde’s skin. Madde giggles, takes a big swig from her glass. Zandra’s grip on the boa tightens and she starts grinding her hips, goes all the way down into a squat. Her miniskirt rides up her hips; her white lace panties are practically fluorescent.

  And then Zandra wobbles and falls on her bum without letting go of the boa. Madde’s head is yanked forward and she very nearly goes down too. Her drink is sent flying. Zandra finally lets go and lies down on the floor, feet kicking, arms flapping every which way. Her laughter cuts through the music. And Madde is laughing so h
ard she can’t breathe; it saps her muscles of strength, so she can barely stand up. She leans forward, gasping, with Zandra’s shrieking ringing in her ears. Drool is dripping from Madde’s mouth; when she notices, it makes her laugh even harder.

  Filip

  It is always twilight in Charisma Starlight, which can make it easy to lose track of time, but Filip doesn’t need to check to know it is just coming up to nine. The guests arriving after the first sitting in the restaurants are on their second round of drinks. Filip and Marisol mix gin and tonics, pour beer and wine and Jägermeister, open bottles of cider, alcopops and special-discount sparkling wine. They keep an eye on two old men, leaning heavily against the counter, bickering loudly.

  ‘You can’t bloody well claim it counts as an international vacation,’ one of them says. ‘We’re only in Finland for one hour.’

  ‘That’s exactly right. Finland’s a different country, isn’t it, or maybe it belongs to Sweden?’ the other one retorts obstinately, in a tone that could drive anyone up the wall.

  ‘Just about.’

  Filip scans the room while he pulls a couple of pints from the taps. The barefoot woman on the dance floor is showing no sign of tiring. She has been joined by more dancing couples. A skinny woman standing in the dark next to them is making Filip uneasy, even though he can only see her as a silhouette against the flashing lights. She is standing much too still – it’s almost as though she isn’t real, a badly executed photomontage. Sometimes the lights briefly skim across her face; he can tell she is emaciated, furrowed, wearing far too much makeup.

  ‘If it’s not international travel, how would they be able to sell things tax-free?’ one of the old geezers says, looking smug.

  ‘But that’s not the point. We don’t even set foot on land there.’

  ‘And that’s exactly it: we’re not in Sweden either, so we’re abroad.’

  Filip keeps scanning the room. The seating between the bar and dance floor is filling up. A family has sat down on one of the sofas. The two younger children are climbing over the back of the sofa, throwing themselves between armchairs, but the eldest, a girl of about seven with thick glasses, watches her parents drinking their beer in silence. They look well on their way to getting plastered. There is a determination to their drinking he never used to see much on the Charisma before. He doesn’t know when it started, but it feels like it’s an unstoppable spiral. The passengers looking for a calmer, more family-friendly cruise only need to do a simple Google search to realise they should pick a different ship. Filip has seen the comments. Other ships entice patrons with themed cruises and famous DJs and much bigger guest acts than Dan Appelgren. The Charisma is the ship that was left behind, its only real draw cheap booze. It makes him sad sometimes. Filip hates seeing children with parents who can barely keep themselves upright; he remembers all too well what it felt like to hear the clinking from his own parents’ bags full of liquor bottles. He thinks about that a lot; how ironic it is that he works with alcohol all day every day now.