Dead Sea

Chapter 7

   Cecelia Chase had been enjoying some downtime when the message came across her work pager. This immediately sent her heart racing; usually her assistants could handle things when she was off. This was her first sign that her night was about to get bad, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined going from having her elbows up on the bar, to being elbow deep in bloody bandages.

      She had been working aboard this ship as its main nurse for the past 11 years, with a broken leg being the worst thing she had to deal with up to this point. There had been a reason they placed a 'NO RUNNING' sign adjacent to the pool. Looking back on that she now felt as though she were in the deep end, sinking way over her head, as she attempted to stop the bleeding.

      What sane person tried to kill themselves on a vacation cruise? The whole point of the cruise was to get away from the stresses of the real world. After seeing the whole scene laid out in front of her, Cecelia felt bad for the woman she was treating. As one of the first ones on the scene, she was able to deduce what happened quickly. She checked the bodies in the bed to see if they truly were as bad as they looked. Although they were still warm, not a pulse could be found on either body. The same could not be said for the shooter. The pulse was there, faint, but it was still a pulse. She immediately paged one of her assistants for a gurney to be brought ASAP. What felt like years, but was only minutes later, her assistant barged through the door, nearly tripping over Cecelia and their sole patient.

     "What in the..."

     "No time to explain; if our girl here's pulse was any weaker it would be non-existent. Quick, let's get her onto that gurney and get her down to the nurse's station immediately!"

     "What's the point? We have no way to treat her. We don't have a complete hospital onboard, remember?"

     "We will improvise! I'm not just gonna give up on the woman! Stop arguing and LIIIIFT!" As quickly, and carefully as they could, they managed to quickly get the woman to the nurse's station, which consisted of a whole two rooms (if they were big enough call them that). Each room consisted of cabinets full of supplies, as well as a table for patients in each room. Never had they had more than two to fill them.

     As she now attempted to stop the bleeding, she couldn't help but think of what went on to make this happen. Clearly, by the look of the wedding ring on her patients' finger, she could deduce that the couple in bed weren't technically a couple. It was obvious that the cheating had gone on for a while, otherwise what was the point of packing the gun? She seemed to have finally had enough and decided that if he wasn't going to end the fling, she would do it for him. Murder was a serious crime, reason or not, so the easiest way out of punishment was of course to turn the gun on herself. Cecelia couldn't really blame the woman, seeing as a similar scenario is what made her decide she would enjoy a life at sea. The only difference being that she knew when to get out and it didn't involve murdering anybody.

     When she was still with her ex-fiancé, Cecelia was a nurse at a local summer camp. This was the main reason she was hired on the spot here, summer camps and cruises had very similar illness factors; bumps and bruises, the odd case of food poisoning, a sprain or two. Nothing some bandages, medicine or a splint couldn't fix. This was not the case when someone had blown off part of their skull.

     Wrapping another roll of gauze around the woman's head, she noticed that the bleeding had begun to slow, barely seeping through the bandage. This was good news. She wrapped some a few more times around, just to be sure, before checking her vitals again. They seemed to be returning to normal for now. This was very good news. A deep breath escaped her mouth as she began to prop herself up against the cabinets behind her. Before she touched the cabinets, her pager went off.

     "Radio me ASAP."

     It was from one of her assistants that had gone to help clean up the room. What could she possibly want so urgently? "This is nurse Chase"

     "Sorry to interrupt you, I'm sure you have your hands full, but I've got something that just made everything worse."

How could things be worse? "I hate to ask, but how could things be worse?"

     "Well... as we began to move the bodies of the deceased a note fell out from between the sheets. It must have been there when they climbed in and were just 'too busy' to notice it."

A note? Okay how can that be bad? "I'm not seeming to follow. How does this note make things worse? We've already got two dead passengers, maybe a third before the end of the night."

     "I wouldn't stop counting just yet. The note is a suicide note. Apparently, our couple of the year brought their suicidal daughter along on their vacation."

     Cecelia dropped her radio and practically leaped to the phone at the far end of the room. Reaching for the phone, hand nearly upon it, the phone began to ring. Picking up the phone she was shocked to hear the captain's voice.

Thankfully an onlooker had seen the daughter standing on a rail of the ship and had let some workers know so they could save her. He was calling to let her know that the daughter was alive. Finally, some good news.

Returning to her patient at hand, she doubted she would be able to hear, but she at least wanted to whisper that her daughter was alive and well. The look on her assistants face told her not to bother. "I'm sorry, we lost her while you were on the phone. She did well to last this long."

Well this was just great, they had miraculously rescued the daughter, only for her to return to having both parents dead. What a cruel world we live in, Cecelia thought.