Secrets at Sea

Chapter 27

Kepner and I spend over an hour sitting in the corridor messing with spells that randomly popped into my head. The walls and floors of this hallway got completely destroyed by goo, burn marks, water damage (from putting out the fires causing the burn marks), bolts of electricity carved into the wooden walls (which are live and  still just as sparky as a real thunderbolts), and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember even conjuring. I feel a little bit drained, but not completely exhausted. I dig into my bag and grab a protein bar for both Kepner and me, and we lean up against the wall looking out onto the ocean while we snack.

"Do you think anyone has any idea that we're stuck out here?" I ask, and take another big bite into my chocolate flavored bar.

"The cabin was unable to send out a distress call before the power went out. The Captain's personal satellite radio, for emergencies like this, was stolen. We think that there was someone on the inside pulling some strings that caught us off guard." He says and finishes his protein bar. He puts his wrapper on the ground in front of us and I burn it to a crisp. No trashcan required.

"Why didn't you guys have someone stationed in the Bridge, keeping an eye on the crew and protecting the Captain's phone. Also, shouldn't you have your own special emergency phone? Genocryte wouldn't possibly send you out here without a way to communicate." I state and he nods his head in agreement.

"They did send us with communication, but it was smashed by one of the crazies as they attacked our guy in the Bridge. The psycho killed Bayer without even a second thought." Kepner grows silent. I look back over to the ocean and continue eating my bar.

"So we're stuck stuck." I mutter.

"Yeah, we're stuck stuck." He sighs.

"Well I guess we'll just have to figure our own way off this stupid ship." I sit up and reach out my hand to him. He looks at my hand then back at me, a smile erupting on his face as he lets me help him up to his feet.

We finally make it back to the bridge of the ship, after about an hour of walking, hiding from the crazies, and having to climb over a few barricades made out of lounge chairs. Kepner does the secret knock on the bulkhead door for the stairwell. There's no answer. We stand there in silence waiting for someone to open the door for us, all the while I'm mentally scanning the area for any psycho that decides to come down this hallway. On the way here I figured out that I can map out the ship using my powers, so we've been using that to navigate our way to the bridge. Little red beacons light up in my head when there is someone nearby, which gave us enough time to hide behind an open door or behind a potted plant. I was able to practice my powers on the person that came by, whether it was making them hear a noise off in the distance (causing them to run towards it), or it might have been controlling their weapon to work against them and physically hurting them in the process, or my personal favorite,  I would just fling them off the ship and into the water. That one proved to be highly effective in my opinion.

Kepner knocks on the door again, waits, then tries the doorknob. The bulkhead swings open with no resistance. We both exchange worried glances and head into the stairwell. Like the last time we were in this room it's dark, so we use the wall and the stair railing to guide us up the steps. We reach the top landing and see the bulkhead to the bridge is open. I peer inside, not sensing anything mentally, and am met with an empty room. All the cots are in place, but vacant of any of the injured patients that had been there before we left. There's gear strewn all over the floor, no indication that people had been organizing it into packs for survey teams to explore the ship.

"Where is everyone?" I ask the obvious question lingering in the air.

"You can't sense them?" Kepner asks and I shake my head no. "A group this big, you'd think I'd be able to sense them if they just up and left like this."

"You'd think." He says and walks into the room. My gut tightens and I know something's wrong.

"Kepner! Stop!" I shout and reach out for his arm. My fingers graze the fabric of his sleeve, but it's too late. Dozens of hands shoot down from the ceiling and grab Kepner by his shoulders, hoisting him into the air and through the hole that the hands came from. Once his body is through the hole it disappears and I'm left standing in the doorway to the bridge, alone on this ship full of killers.