Chapter 2: Horror Cruise (Part 3)
The second hour brought an unexpected visitor.
Someone knocked gently on our door—three short raps, a pause, then two more. Not the aggressive pounding of an attacker. I looked at Selene, who tilted her head, listening.
"Ryan Knox?" a voice called out. "It's your cabin mate. Jasper Locke."
Selene immediately pressed her finger to her lips. She pulled out a small canister from her pocket—pepper spray—and positioned herself beside the door.
"I know you're in there," Jasper continued, his voice calm and measured. "And I know you've allied with Selene. Let me in. I have information you need."
Selene whispered: "He's dangerous. He killed four people on his last trip—strangled them to death and then studied their bodies for hours."
The forensic psychologist angle suddenly made a sick kind of sense.
"Information about what?" I called through the door.
"About why there are so many repeat survivors on this trip. And about who's really running things." A pause. "Also, I know where the weapons are hidden."
My ears perked up. Weapons could change everything.
Selene considered this, then gave me a slight nod. She'd cover me if things went south.
I moved the barricade and opened the door. Jasper Locke stood in the corridor, looking exactly as he had before—gold-rimmed glasses, polite demeanor, the same unsettling calmness. But he was carrying something: a small satchel slung over his shoulder.
"May I?" he asked.
I stepped aside. He entered, took in the room's defensive setup with a quick glance, and sat down on the edge of the bed, setting the satchel on his lap.
"Before we get to the weapons," I said, "why should we trust you?"
"You shouldn't," he replied simply. "But trust is a luxury in Death Trips. Cooperation based on mutual benefit is far more reliable. I need people who can fight. You need information. We trade."
"What kind of information?"
Jasper pushed up his glasses. "The last trip had 80 passengers. This one has 193. That's unusual. Normally the numbers decrease as the trips escalate—they want fewer, stronger survivors to filter through. But this time, they've increased the count substantially."
"So?"
"So the reward structure has changed too. Base reward of eight hundred thousand, plus a hundred and fifty thousand per ticket stub. If someone were to, say, collect all 192 stubs, they'd earn... over twenty-nine million." He let that number hang in the air. "That kind of money attracts professionals. Killers, mercenaries, organized crime enforcers. People who treat this like a job."
"You're saying this trip is designed to maximize casualties," Selene said.
"Precisely. And there's something else." Jasper reached into his satchel and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He spread it out on the bed—a schematic of the ship, hand-drawn but detailed.
"Where did you get this?"
"I have my sources. This shows the ship's surveillance blind spots—areas where there are no cameras. If you need to... dispose of evidence, those are your best options."
I didn't like the way he phrased that, but the information was valuable.
"Now, about those weapons," I said.
Jasper smiled. "There's a maintenance closet on Deck 5, near the engine room. The lock is electronic—code is 4-7-2-9. Inside, you'll find wrenches, pipes, a fire axe, and several emergency flare guns. All items that wouldn't have been flagged during the security screening because they're ship's equipment."
"How do you know all this?"
"Because I was the one who suggested they enhance security screening in the first place. Being helpful to the organizers has its perks." He smiled that unsettling smile again. "Of course, I also made sure certain things would still be accessible. Every good psychologist knows—you can influence behavior far more effectively by controlling the environment than by controlling the person."
"You manipulated the setup?" Selene asked.
"I merely suggested. What they did with my suggestions was their own choice."
The implications were chilling. This man had been playing both sides from the start.
"Why tell us all this?" I asked.
"Because the real threat isn't the other passengers," Jasper said, his expression turning serious. "It's the crew."
Selene and I exchanged a look.
"What do you mean?"
"Captain Qiu isn't just a ship's captain. He's a former military officer with ties to the organization that runs these trips. And the crew—he's hand-picked every single one of them. They're not just sailors. They're enforcers."
"For enforcers, they did a pretty good job of staying out of the fights on the train," I said.
"Because on the train, the fights were the entertainment. But this is a cruise ship—much larger, many more passengers, and an entirely different dynamic. The organizers want a certain outcome, and if the passengers aren't delivering it fast enough, the crew will intervene."
"How?" Selene asked.
"I don't know the specifics. But I've heard stories about previous cruise trips. Passengers who thought they'd survived, only to have the crew 'clean up' at the end." He stood up. "I've told you what I know. If you want those weapons, you'd better get them before someone else does."
He left the cabin as calmly as he'd entered, like a professor finishing a lecture.
Selene and I sat in silence for a moment after the door closed.
"Can we trust him?" I asked.
"No," she said. "But his information checks out. I've seen the crew's body language—they move like trained fighters, not sailors."
"So what's our play?"
Selene thought for a moment. "We get to those weapons first. And we stay alert for the crew."
We moved quickly. Deck 5 was in the mid-section of the ship, and we had to pass through several potential combat zones to reach it. But the kills had already started to wind down—the initial frenzy was over, and the survivors had retreated to secure positions or were stalking the corridors more carefully.
The maintenance closet was exactly where Jasper had said it would be. The code worked, and inside we found everything he'd promised. Selene took a flare gun and a wrench. I grabbed the fire axe.
"Just in case," I said, hefting it.
"Smart choice." Selene checked her flare gun. "These only have two shots each. Make them count."
We were heading back toward the upper decks when we heard the sound of combat from below—specifically, from the restaurant level. Not the scuffling of a random fight, but organized, systematic sounds.
We crept to the stairwell and looked down.
Three crew members in uniform were going cabin to cabin, dragging out bodies. Some of them were still alive—they were being methodically silenced with quick, efficient strikes. It was a cleanup operation.
Jasper had been right.
"We need to go. Now," Selene whispered.
But as we turned to leave, I saw something that made my blood run cold. One of the crew members looked up directly at me. He had a face like a slab of meat—thick brow, small eyes, and a nasty grin.
"Found one," he called out.
The other two crew members immediately started up the stairs toward us.
We ran. Selene was fast, and I kept pace. Deck 6, Deck 7, we sprinted up the stairwell. Behind us, the crew members pursued with disturbing speed—they weren't just fit, they were trained.
On Deck 8, I spun around. In the narrow stairwell, they couldn't flank me.
The first one came at me with a bo staff he'd picked up from somewhere. He swung it in a wide arc. I stepped inside his range and buried the fire axe in his shoulder. He howled and dropped.
The second one was more cautious. He pulled out a knife—a proper combat knife, not something from the kitchen. We circled each other in the corridor while Selene held position with the flare gun.
He feinted left, then lunged right. I parried with the axe handle and delivered a knee to his midsection. He doubled over, and I brought the axe handle down on the back of his neck. He went limp.
The third one—the meat-faced man—appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked at his two fallen comrades, then at me and Selene, and gave a slow, deliberate smile.
"Another time," he said, and vanished back down the stairwell.
"Another time" was right. The cleanup had only just begun.