Date: 2021-08-20 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: A cruise vacation becomes a fight for survival and sanity... Riley boards the cruise ship Aria with plans to steal her inheritance back from her wealthy uncle. But this isn’t the Aria from the brochure. It’s been replaced. The hallways bend in on themselves in impossible ways. Monstrous threats creep out of the off-limits Deck Two. And a stranger claims this has all happened before, in a skyscraper that appeared overnight. Riley must survive the haunted ship and solve its mysteries, or the Aria will claim her soul forever. They Cling to the Hull is the terrifying sequel to It Waits on the Top

They Cling to the Hull

Horror Lurks Beneath, Book 2

Ben Farthing

Copyright © 2021 by Ben Farthing

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover art and design by Pierluigi Abbondanza.

BOOKS BY BEN FARTHING

BOOM

THE PIPER’S GRAVEYARD

CROWDED CHASMS

IT WAITS ON THE TOP FLOOR

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Epilogue

A SPECIAL THANKS

WANT YOUR NEXT STRANGE HORROR READ?

1

Chris presented his ticket for the cruise ship he intended to sink.

The chipper young woman behind the counter scanned the ticket’s barcode. She inspected his ID and passport. “Mr. Haberman, so happy to have you.”

He wished he had fake documents, but he’d never even had a fake ID as a teenager. He wouldn’t know the first thing about forging a passport.

“Before you drop your bags off, strap these tags on. They’ve got your cabin number so the porters know where to bring them. Then you’re welcome to explore the ship until dinner at 7:30.” The attendant’s gummy smile looked genuine.

Chris didn’t blame her. Only about a hundred cruise-goers lined up this morning, and they were mostly relaxed-looking retirees. The Aria of the Seas was on a transpacific season relocation, sailing six weeks from Long Beach across the Pacific to Hong Kong.

The public story was that the ship was transferring from its West Coast Mexico route to an Indonesian route. Chris doubted that story.

But that meant it was a different type of cruise from the common, drink-all-night, party-all-day trips. The entertainment staff would be bare bones, and only the primary restaurant would be open. No port-of-calls to disembark and tour foreign cities and pay for supposedly locally-made trinkets that had “Made-in-China” stickers on the bottom.

And for the crew and staff, that meant no dealing with demanding vacationers who only had two weeks off from their soul-sucking jobs, so they demanded perfection.

No, Chris thought as he surveyed the crowd, these were leisure class. You didn’t buy a ticket to a transpacific, ship-transfer cruise expecting perfect service. You intended to sit on a lounge chair, drink tequila, and be entertained by the three acts who were on board.

According to the website, this voyage featured: a lounge singer who could sound like anyone from Elvis Pressly to Michael Buble to ABBA, a stand-up comedian who did acts both with and without props, and a French couple who performed ballroom dance routines, and who doubled as dance instructors.

Chris carried his two suitcases to the drop-off point outside. He squinted at the blinding sunlight. Salt flavored the air. A team of porters were lugging suitcases onto carts. Chris said a silent prayer that he’d hid the suitcase’s hidden pockets well enough. If not, this whole endeavor would be over before it started.

The lead porter took his suitcase. “Enjoy your cruise, sir.” He looked like a gym-addicted meathead. He had gelled hair, muscles bulging out of his shirt sleeves, and a chip on his shoulder. He eyed Chris suspiciously. “Everything okay?”

Chris flashed a smile. Don’t look too closely in the bag, he thought. He said, “Just excited, I guess.”

The porter’s name tag read, “Bobby.”

“It should be a relaxing cruise, don’t you think?” Bobby peered into Chris’s eyes, obviously trying to read his expression. “I hope you brought a few paperbacks.”

“I sure did.” Chris tried to hide his nervousness. He gave an awkward wave and headed up the gangway.

It was out of his hands now. Nothing to do but wait to see if they caught him.

He got stuck on the gangway behind a white-haired couple, the husband using a walker.

Heavy guilt settled in Chris’s gut.

He didn’t want to drown a hundred retirees and three times as many crew and staff.

But if the Aria of the Seas stayed afloat, everyone on board would suffer a fate worse than death.

He hoped the evacuation procedures were as seamless as the check-in. These old folks would need it.

2

“We’re finally on vacation!” Krystal squealed.

Everyone on the concourse stared.

Riley hid her face, pretending to search through her purse. The last thing she needed was the wrong person to spot her.

A lady in a Hawaiian shirt shot Krystal a glare and whispered to her husband, “This is supposed to be a relaxing voyage.”

Another old lady—this one with hair dyed bright pink, and leaning on a cane painted like a candy cane—shushed the grump. “That’s the spirit. Tequila!”

“Yes!” Krystal pointed at the candy cane lady and shimmied her hips.

“Can you turn it down a notch?” Riley kept her face low. She tried to do that and look around the concourse at the same time.

Krystal was bringing attention to them, and if the wrong person saw Riley, it would make life a lot more difficult.

Krystal finished her dance. She noticed Riley hiding her face in her hand and gasped. “I’m so sorry. I got excited about our six-week vacay and forgot about your uncle.”

“Keep it down,” Riley hissed.

“Is he here?” Krystal whispered too loudly. Her head popped up like a prairie dog’s to peer at everyone in line.

Riley looked around again to be sure. “No. He’s probably in whatever VIP timeslot they have.”

“Rich bastard,” Krystal said. “So, what’s the plan to steal it back?”

“Be quiet,” Riley insisted.

Her uncle Nathaniel had stolen Riley’s inheritance. The only thing her dad had left her after his quick battle with prostate cancer was a gold pocket watch.

The estate lawyer had read her the will. His remaining cash went to a charity she hadn’t heard of. It was only $75.

Riley had been most surprised to hear that multiple banks would be fighting over the house. Dad had been tight-fisted and careful to avoid debt—even credit cards. But in the years while his prostate was secretly growing a tumor, he’d taken out two mortgages.

The probate lawyer didn’t know where the money went, but he gave Riley a stern warning about not accidentally taking the debt on herself.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her two jobs—one at the coffee shop, one driving for UberEats—only left a little spending money each month.

So when the probate lawyer said she was to receive her father’s pocket watch, Riley immediately felt guilty. Dad loved it, it was a family heirloom, and Riley would have to sell it. Dad used to say it was worth $50,000. She hoped he was right. That was enough to quit one of her jobs so she could go to nursing school.

That pocket watch was her passport to finally having a purpose in life. She was nearly twenty-five and had spent the last seven years feeling entirely useless. The minimum-wage trap kept her too busy for school, too busy to do something valuable in the world. She was even too busy to help her neighbors. She was afraid she would die in sixty years, having never made a difference in anyone’s life. Just serving coffee and delivering food thirteen hours a day until her body wasted away.

But Dad’s pocket watch would give her the freedom to go to nursing school. She didn’t feel especially called to wearing scrubs and dealing with bodily fluids, but at least she would be helping people. And it would pay a lot more than serving coffee. She might even get free of splitting rent with roommates. Not that she didn’t love Krystal, who was now singing a Madonna classic as they waited in line.

The watch never made it to Riley.

As the probate lawyer pawed through the boxes in Dad’s living room, his expression grew more and more frazzled. “It was just here. I can’t imagine.”

Finally, he admitted it. “Your uncle Nathaniel and his wife were here earlier. I’ll need to call them and ask if the watch could have slipped into the box your father left them.”

Over the next few weeks, the probate lawyer called Riley to update her. He’d filed the police report for the missing watch, and if she wanted to sue her uncle for the watch or its value, he’d be happy to testify that Nathaniel was the only one who could have stolen it. He even recommended a lawyer who hadn’t lost a civil case in years.

No way Riley could afford to sue Nathaniel. The man owned a mining operation that hacked apart mountains. He could afford an army of lawyers.

The watch was gone—unless she could get it back herself.

She’d tried twice already.

The first time, she marched up to his front door to demand it back. A maid opened the door, and dear Uncle Nathaniel didn’t bother showing his face.

The second time, she broke in during the day. Aunt Wendy caught her, and in an embarrassing show of pity, shooed Riley out of the house before Nathaniel could notice she was there.

Two weeks ago, Riley received a postcard that said, “He’s taking the watch on the Aria of the Seas on Sept 8th.”

She didn’t know who it was from. Maybe Aunt Wendy felt guilty about stealing $50,000 from her niece when they owned cars worth twice that much. Maybe the maid was sick of Nathaniel, and this was a quick opportunity for revenge.

Neither of those explanations quite made sense because the final note on the postcard said, “Your father would want you to see.”

“See what?” Krystal had asked between mouthfuls of popcorn while they watched Jane Austen movies on a Tuesday morning.

“Beats me. My watch, I guess.”

Krystal shrugged. “If you say so. So are we going?”

“On the cruise?” Riley had realized that yes, she was absolutely going. She’d open a credit card if she had to. She’d quit her coffee shop job and forgo six weeks of UberEats pay. Uncle Nathaniel didn’t need the watch. He’d stolen it just to be an ass. Probably wanted to display it in his ten million dollar mansion.

But if Riley could get it and sell it—even for half of what Dad said it was worth—everything would change. No more nights and weekends swallowed up by part-time jobs, leaving her scrounging for me-time on a Tuesday morning. No more crappy apartments. If she could just get qualified for a decent job—and nursing felt right—life could finally start moving. Riley could finally search for a reason for living.

“Yeah, we’re going.”

Now, two weeks later, the attendant was scanning their tickets and reviewing their passports.

Riley had studied the Aria of the Seas, learning its layout from blueprints, watching every YouTube video she could find. She stalked public Instagram pages of people who’d taken videos on the ship. She knew where the biggest cabins were—that’s where Nathaniel and Wendy would be. She knew where the safes were, but Riley doubted Nathaniel would trust someone else with the security.

Two weeks isn’t much time to learn to pickpocket, but she practiced with Krystal anyways. They had a dozen half-baked plans on how to snatch the watch out of Nathaniel’s pocket or how to sneak into his cabin. She knew it was a long shot, but she had to take the chance.

She’d kinda learned to steal, and she’d definitely learned everything she could about the ship. She was ready.

But when they walked out of the concourse, dropped their bags with the porters—where Krystal flirted with a muscly guy named Bobby—and then started up the gangway, Riley froze.

“What is it?” Krystal asked.

Riley inspected the windows on the bottom deck of the ship. A dinner-plate size porthole every ten feet.

“This isn’t the Aria.”

Krystal checked her ticket. “Of course it is.”

“That’s what our tickets say. That’s what the signs say.” She craned her neck to look up at the side of the ship. “That’s even the name painted on there. But I’ve spent two weeks learning every inch of the Aria, and it doesn’t have that many windows on the bottom decks.”

“You must be remembering wrong.” Krystal shrugged. “I see windows. You see windows. Those guys inside see windows.”

“Who?” Riley scanned dark glass circles the reflected glaring sunlight.

Krystal pointed three portholes down.

A blurry face was pressed against the glass. The thick window distorted the image, but Riley could see two small blobs for eyes and a large blob for a mouth. It looked like animal fat mixed with Play-Doh. She couldn’t make out the rest of the head—the mass continued in all directions to the edge of the window.

But it was all so blurry she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Maybe a walk-in freezer? “Are you sure that’s a person?”

The face rotated, so the two eyes focused on Riley. A chill ran up her spine.

“It’s somebody,” Krystal said. “Quit staring. Let’s go.”

Riley followed Krystal onto the ship that was definitely not the Aria.

3

The gangway led them to the concourse, what was essentially a floating shopping mall. It even had the mixed smells of greasy food and sweet ice cream.

It should be deck seven, but instead, they were on deck six.

“I’m telling you,” Riley insisted, “this isn’t the Aria of the Seas.” She wanted to explore the ship top-to-bottom, to verify that she wasn’t crazy.

Krystal had other ideas. “Forget that. Let’s find the buffet. Wait, I need a margarita!”

The voyage had a barebones staff and few travelers, but everyone was on the deck six concourse.

The restaurants and shops were all bustling, despite the website’s warning that they would be closed most of the voyage. The three-story interior space was decorated like a rainforest. Leafy vines hung from the ceiling. Lights on the ceiling projected green silhouettes of monkeys and jaguars onto the floor.

Riley and Krystal were the youngest guests there by far. A crowd of senior citizens gawked at the scenery or browsed through the jewelers and fine art galleries.

The lady from the concourse with the pink hair and peppermint-striped walking cane saw them. “There’s my party girls! I’m here with my sisters, and they’re a couple of wet blankets. Can I get drunk with you?”

“Yes, girl!” Krystal grabbed the lady’s hand. “We’re looking for margaritas right now.”

Riley swallowed her irritation. She tried telling herself they had six weeks to explore the ship.

But if it wasn’t the Aria, then that threw off her footing. Right now, she felt like she was flailing. Her whole plan to steal back Dad’s pocket watch had lost its launchpad.

Riley desperately wanted to explore the ship and start working on a new mental map.

“I’m Marjorie,” said the old lady. “And don’t tell anybody, but I already swiped a wine cooler from the shops.”

She tucked a glass bottle into Riley’s purse.

That was the last thing she needed. Riley tried to hand the wine cooler back to Marjorie.

“No!” Marjorie waved a wrinkled hand. “I think the cashier saw me take it.”

“I don’t want it.” Riley looked over into the shop, where a skinny dark-haired woman craned her neck to see them from behind her cash register.

Krystal shoved the bottle into her own purse. “Let’s go spend enough on margaritas to make up for it.”

“That’s the spirit!” Marjorie’s eyes shined like a schoolgirl’s.

“I’d like to get to our cabin,” Riley said.

“Can’t,” Marjorie said. “Didn’t they tell you? Gotta give the porters an hour or so to deliver everyone’s luggage.”

Riley bit her tongue, so she wouldn’t tell the old lady to get lost. “Okay, well, where’s this bar?”

“Who knows?” Krystal said. She approached an ice cream shop to ask the man behind the counter, “Where’s the Cloud Club?”

The man chewed his lip. He spoke with an eastern European accent. “I’m not positive. I think on deck nine or ten.”

“Shouldn’t you know?” Riley asked.

“Whoa,” Krystal pulled Riley away. “Go easy on him.”

Riley insisted. “Why don’t you know? Are you new on the ship? Or is the ship new?”

His eyes went wide, then he grinned. “I only serve ice cream.”

“Come on, little miss Sherlock.” Krystal dragged Riley past a closed candy shop—the elderly passengers likely didn’t give it much business—and to an elevator. “We’ll try deck eight first.”

“Sounds good to me,” Marjorie said.

Riley jerked her arm free from Krystal’s grip. “I’m telling you, that guy was guessing where the bar is because this is a new ship. It’s not the Aria.”

“My ticket says it’s the Aria,” Marjorie said. “Although, now that you say it, my sisters and I did go on the Rhapsody of the Seas last year, and that’s supposed to be a sister ship to this one, but they do seem pretty different.”

“See?” Riley said.

Krystal shrugged. “Okay, you’re right. But what does it change? I’m still here to get drunk and help you with… that other thing.”

Marjorie raised a pink eyebrow in a conspiratorial smile, but the old lady knew to bide her time.

Riley wanted to explain that all her preparations to steal her dad’s pocket watch started with knowing the layout of the Aria of the Seas. Now she’d have to learn a whole new ship. But she couldn’t say all that in front of Marjorie.

She couldn’t say that her plan felt like it was falling apart already. Her only chance at finding some purpose in life was on wobbly ground unless she could quickly reorient herself to this ship that definitely was not the Aria. “You know what? I think I’ll wait until dinner to start drinking. I’d like to stretch my legs some first.”

“You’re going to poke around, aren’t you?” Krystal shook her head. “I’ll be in the Cloud Club until dinner. You do you. Don’t let your uncle see you.”

“Uncle?” Marjorie asked. “I’m so glad I left my sisters. Sounds like your cruise will be much more exciting than mine.”

“Hopefully not too much,” Riley said. “I’ll come find you in a while.”

Riley left Krystal and Marjorie waiting for the elevator. Her first step was to check the lowest decks. Those windows she saw from the outside definitely weren’t part of the Aria.

She entered the stairwell and headed down.

4

As the door shut behind Riley, the stairwell fell silent.

Not even muffled conversation leaked through the door. That was some serious soundproofing.

Inside the stairwell, a fancy blue and gold carpet complemented the gold handrails.

Heading up, a small chandelier hung on each landing. But looking down, the lights were dimmer. That didn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be dark anywhere.

Nerves tangled in Riley’s belly. The real Aria of the Seas had two performance halls on Deck Three, along with conference rooms and the disembarkment station. The first aid station and the vault with lockboxes were also down there. Deck One was all crew and maintenance and whatever to keep the ship running.

The point being: guests, crew, and staff all might have reason to go downstairs. It shouldn’t be dark.

Something was malfunctioning, or there was something really weird about this Aria replacement.

Riley took a deep breath. She squeezed the fancy wood handrail.

If she let some burnt out lightbulbs slow her down, she’d never get back Dad’s watch. She’d be stuck in her dead-end jobs, only now she’d be weighed down by $3,000 in credit card debt from the cruise ticket.

She started downstairs, into the shadows. Her heart pounded in her throat.

Footsteps tapped on the stairs below.

Someone was there.

“Hello?” Riley called. She leaned over the railing. With only dim lights, Riley could just make out the shape of the stairs and the railings. She didn’t see anybody.

Nothing to worry about. Just a crew member going about their duties. If anything, someone being down there meant that it was perfectly safe to explore.

Riley circled the landing of deck four. If this were the Aria, this whole deck would be guest cabins. But she didn’t bother checking the other side of the large wooden door. She knew this wasn’t the Aria. She wanted to start from the beginning to map out this new ship in her head, starting with the bottom. That’s where the vault should be. She continued downward.

Again, the tap of footsteps below her. This time, they were rapid and light, like a child running.

Riley froze. She hadn’t seen a single kid today.

She rolled her eyes. That didn’t mean a thing. There were probably a bunch of families on board. She’d barely seen anyone yet.

At the next landing, the chandelier was so dim she could barely make out the abstract paintings hanging on the walls or the blocky patterns on the carpet.

The hairs on her neck stood up. Carpet. These stairs were carpeted. Then what was that tapping noise? It couldn’t be footsteps on a soft carpet.

Maybe somebody was tapping their fingernails on the walls or on the stair railings. But that’s not what it sounded like.

Riley paused at the top of the next staircase.

Only the bottommost deck below her. Unless Deck One wasn’t really the bottom? Riley realized she wasn’t positive about that.

The stairs descended into absolute darkness. The dim chandelier hanging above her barely revealed the walls and floor of the Deck Two landing.

Riley fumbled for her cell phone in her purse. The screen blinded her. She swiped to find the flashlight, then turned it on.

A wrinkled old man scowled up at her from the bottom of the stairs.

Riley gasped. She fell backwards. She held up her phone’s flashlight like it were a crucifix warding off the devil.

After a moment, Riley crawled to the edge of the landing to look back down the stairs.

It was a painting, an old guy in a tuxedo. He looked like the skinny guy who ran the Death Star in Star Wars, except he held a gold pocket watch.

Riley tiptoed down the stairs, still rattled from the scare. She took a closer look at the pocket watch in the painting. It was familiar.

She opened her photos app and scrolled back over a year until she found one of Dad. He never wore his old pocket watch—just kept it in a display cabinet with his favorite books and airplane models. But Riley found a photo of his living room and zoomed in on the cabinet.

It was grainy, but there was no mistaking it.

The pocket watch had a chain with links of varying sizes. One link in the middle was shaped like a diamond. Then the watch itself was round like a normal watch, but the cover that flipped open was also diamond-shaped. When it was closed, you could still see the numbers 1, 5, 7, and 11. She’d always thought that was weird.

Riley held her phone up next to the painting.

The old Death Star general was holding Dad’s pocket watch.

She took a photo of it. She had no idea what this meant, but she wanted to talk it through with Krystal.

Maybe Uncle Nathaniel took it on this ship with a purpose.

Except, this wasn’t the original Aria. This painting wasn’t here before.

It all suggested that Uncle Nathaniel knew the Aria would be switched out. Didn’t it?

Riley’s head hurt trying to figure out what was going on.

She took a breath. It was hard to calm herself when she was standing in the pitch dark, on the bottom of a ship, with dim light trickling down from overhead, while her little phone’s flashlight strained to banish nearby shadows.

There were no more stairs downward—if this wasn’t the bottom deck, the way down was somewhere else.

The old man in the painting looked over a claustrophobic corner of the stairwell, with just a single wooden door to decorate the walls.

If this were the original Aria, then towards the bow of Deck One would be the vault where valuables could be stored. But she was somewhere in the middle of the ship. Through that door should be areas reserved for crew and staff. The guys keeping the ship engines running. Probably the engine itself. But if that were the case, how could it be so silent down here?

Riley wanted to see.

She pulled open the door and shined her phone through.

It reflected back at her in a thousand shimmering beams of light. Riley swallowed a scream.

5

Riley held her phone’s flashlight out closer.

But she refused to step through the doorway.

Deck One was an open, low-ceilinged room.

Mirrors made up the ceiling.

Goopy strands of mirror dripped down from the ceiling. They reflected Riley’s light back at her.

Riley’s mind raced, trying to figure out what she was seeing.

The dripping stands varied in thickness from the width of her thumb to as big around as her waist.

She could reach out and touch the closest strand if she wanted—she didn’t—and the farthest strand that her flashlight revealed was at least twenty feet into the room. The light could have gone farther, but the strands were packed in too tightly. It was more crowded than the concourse upstairs. She could find a path through without bumping into the strands, but two people couldn’t do it walking next to each other.

Riley took one step into the room, then stopped herself. None of this mattered. Dad’s watch mattered. Getting money to become a nurse mattered. Making enough money to have a real life mattered.

She wanted to know where the vault was, and it wasn’t here, so she should go upstairs, then find some stairs closer to the bow.

But this goopy funhouse was bizarre. She shined her light at the ceiling. The light bounced around to return to her split in a thousand pieces.

Even as the liquid glass dripped down, the mirrored ceiling didn’t seem to be losing any of its substance. And the floor didn’t seem to be gaining any. The mirrored strands connected with the dull gray floor, but the spaces between the strands remained rough tile.

The strands themselves looked like they were flowing downward, like a faucet turned on with the water pouring down smoothly. But they weren’t flooding anything.

Mirrors and glass didn’t move like that. Not unless it was extremely hot, but it was chilly down here.

This didn’t make sense. Riley held onto the door frame for support. Maybe stress was making her hallucinate.

If she really wanted to know what was going on, she should explore down here. Or on the deck above. What was on Deck Two that was leaking down here, but not really leaking?

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. She shook her head. When she opened them, Deck One was still a goopy funhouse mirror maze.

But she couldn’t let it distract her.

She needed to find the vault in case Nathaniel decided to lock away the pocket watch. That was the next step in reorienting herself and stealing her life back.

She turned around and let the door shut behind her.

The watch mattered. Not this weird Aria replacement.

She wanted to rebuild her mental map, and she’d started it. Deck One, midship: creepy goop. Time to keep moving.

As she walked up the stairs, a terrible thought occurred to her:

Nathaniel ran a billion-dollar fracking company. He raped the earth to make money. What if this ship—this replacement—was a new venture? Something so dangerous and harmful to the environment that it had to be kept secret?

That made perfect sense. Of course, Nathaniel wasn’t taking a six-week vacation to go on a minimal amenities cruise. He was a jerk who lived and breathed his corporate life. His company had probably funded this whole trip. Of course, it was designed to make him money— and probably kill half the ocean at the same time.

Riley reached the Deck Two landing, happy to at least have the dim chandelier to augment her phone’s light.

She considered what might be on the other side of this landing’s door. Something that caused the mirror to melt and drip below. Something that would hurt the ocean and make Nathaniel richer.

Maybe she should care.

If she could get Dad’s watch back and also collect info to give to the EPA and get Nathaniel shut down, that’d make this trip doubly worthwhile.

Riley smiled. Nathaniel might even go to prison.

Maybe she’d even find purpose in protecting the environment from men like her uncle.

Yep, her goals for this trip just got upgraded. Steal Dad’s watch. Collect evidence to put Nathaniel in an orange jumpsuit.

A few photos of whatever was in Deck Two would be a good start.

She yanked on the door handle. It was locked.

Something tapped rapidly on the other side.

Riley jumped back.

It was the same noise she’d heard before and thought was footsteps.

She fought the urge to flee upstairs. It was just somebody on the other side. “Hello?” she called.

The tapping came again.

She tapped her own fingernail against the wood door.

It sank into soft wood.

Just enough to get under her nail. Goopy wood grain.

The door itself was losing firmness, like the ceiling below.

Riley backed up. She wiped her finger on her jeans. She didn’t want that stuff against her skin. Whatever it was.

Something tapped louder this time, more urgent.

The door shook. The dent her finger had left in the wood filled in and smoothed over.

The tapping turned into banging.

“What do you want?” Riley called. “Are you okay?”

The banging stopped.

Someone answered in a language she hadn’t heard before. A short threat, a female voice distorted like the physical door.

A ripple went through the door like a stone splashing into a pond.

“Forget this.” Riley fled upstairs.

6

Chris found a lounge chair to enjoy in an outer deck of Deck Eight.

The ship hadn’t disembarked yet, and he still had half an hour until his bags should be in his room.

Might as well relax. Pretend to relax.

He’d chosen the side of the ship pointing away from the shore. The sun reflected sharply off the ocean. A sailboat lazily navigated the open water beyond the harbor.

A seagull landed on the nearby railing. It chirped at Chris.

“I don’t have anything, sorry.”

“Excuse me?” said a man approaching him.

Chris jumped.

It was Bobby, the ex-military porter. Shouldn’t he be delivering bags?

“Did you ask me something?” Bobby looked suspiciously at Chris.

They’d found the hidden pockets in his luggage. This was it then. Arrested. Stopped in his tracks before he could get started.

“Sir?” probed Bobby.

“No. I was talking to the bird.”

“Ah, well. Did it say anything back?” He gave Chris a mocking smile.

“Yeah, he asked for a basket of french fries.”

“Funny,” Bobby said in a tone that was anything but. “Sorry to interrupt you…”

Here it comes. About to be labeled a terrorist.

“…that young man back there asked me to give you this.” Bobby handed him a folded note.

Chris took the note and sat up to peer down the ship. “Who?”

He saw four retirees playing shuffleboard and two more enjoying the lounge chairs.

Bobby looked over his shoulder. “He must have gone back inside. He seemed in a hurry. Generous tipper, though.”

“Uh-huh.” Chris opened the note.

Bobby cleared his throat.

“Oh, right.” Chris fished a dollar out of his wallet to shoo Bobby away.

His fear of his luggage being searched had been upgraded to fear of who was sending him notes.

Only one other guest knew he was here, and Chris wanted to avoid him.

He read the note.

“I’m glad you made it. You should lie low. The others in my group still blame you for Micah. But I know you’re a fellow believer. I’ll come get you when it’s time so you can witness it, too. But until then, LIE LOW.”

Shit. He’d already been spotted.

He didn’t know the guy’s name, only that he was in some kind of organization with Micah Rayner.

Cult, more like it.

Last year, a skyscraper had appeared in Richmond overnight. Billionaire construction genius Micah Rayner had tricked a team into exploring it. She’d claimed it was to reverse engineer how it was built. But she’d been expecting it, waiting for it. She worshipped some other-dimensional entity she called the Deviser. She believed the Deviser had sent every major breakthrough in construction and architecture for the betterment of mankind. Everything from plate glass to air conditioning hadn’t been invented but had been discovered in structures that suddenly appeared.

Micah wanted to find the next breakthrough inside the new skyscraper and use it to get even richer. But the Deviser had only been prepping mankind for slaughter. Perhaps not slaughter, but maybe capture and slavery. Chris wasn’t sure. All he knew was that three men who explored that building were yanked away to an overlapping dimension, and when they’d managed to press their face against the glass, so to speak, they’d begged for help that Chris couldn’t give.

Micah had pressed on. She went insane, trying to demand the Deviser’s attention. But she was too broken, so it didn’t want her. She died, Chris escaped, and then a few weeks later, the skyscraper disappeared, just like every other “gift” the Deviser sent over.

This time, nobody survived to start replicating the gift.

But Chris had been watching for another attempt. He’d planned to knock down the next building immediately when it happened again.

Instead, he got a series of text messages, presumably from the same guy who’d just sent him this note.

He said that Micah had led a whole group of believers. These believers still thought the Deviser was benevolent. Most of the cult—that’s what they were, Chris figured—blamed Chris for Micah’s death and the skyscraper not being put to good use. But his secret friend thought Chris also worshipped the Deviser and still deserved to get close to the Deviser again, so they informed Chris about the mysterious nature of this new cruise ship.

The Aria of the Seas had appeared overnight.

Not the original. That was scheduled for retirement, but the cruise line found this one floating in the Pacific, claimed it, swapped it out, and kept their cruises going.

Chris’s mysterious friend had told him about the cult’s intention to be on the new Aria’s maiden voyage. He invited Chris to join.

Chris stood up from his lounge chair. His seagull friend flapped away. He leaned on the railing.

He couldn’t let the Deviser snatch away any more people. He still had nightmares of the screams and pleading from the men it had already taken. He’d seen a glimpse of its world and sensed the foreign emotion behind its intentions. He didn’t know what the Deviser was or exactly what it wanted. Only that it had spent millennia prepping mankind to be harvested, and now it was ready to take and use them.

He didn’t know what this ship was, but if it came from the Deviser, it couldn’t be good. Maybe it would disappear on its own in a few weeks. But it would have a purpose before then. Probably taking more people. Likely something worse.

Whatever its purpose, Chris figured it would be more difficult to accomplish if the ship were at the bottom of the ocean.

He checked his watch. His bags should be in his cabin.

He kept his head lowered to avoid Micah’s cult spotting him and headed for his cabin to make plans.

7

Riley found Krystal in the Cloud Club, which turned out to be on Deck Eleven.

Her heart still pounded from running up five flights of stairs—which was as far as she got before her body demanded the elevator—and from the banging and threats in a foreign language she’d heard through the Deck Two door. Not to mention the goopy dripping glass in Deck One.

She paused at the entrance to the club, catching her breath.

The Cloud Club was a cocktail bar with leather wingback chairs and glossy wooden tables. Laid-back electronic music played. Globe lights hung from the ceiling over each table and over the bar. The far wall was all glass, looking out over the harbor. Sometime during Riley’s excursion downstairs, the Aria had disembarked. Strange that she hadn’t heard any foghorns or celebrating.

The club was half-full of old folks who were dressed for a Caribbean cruise—not a cocktail hour.

Krystal was whispering with Marjorie over bright orange drinks. With the old lady’s pink hair and Hawaiian shirt, Riley had an impression of Krystal chatting with her own future self.

Riley joined them. “Krystal, I need to talk to you.” She didn’t want to confess what she’d seen in front of Marjorie. She didn’t need rumors going around about the crazy twenty-somethings on the cruise. Any attention she drew to herself could make Nathaniel notice her.

Krystal waved to the bartender with her orange slushy drink. “One of these for my friend.”

“I don’t want to get drunk yet.”

“We do,” complained Marjorie, “but no alcohol until after the evacuation drill. These are virgin.”

“Too bad it’s not a singles’ cruise!” Krystal and Marjorie fell into a fit of laughter.

Riley bit her tongue instead of asking Krystal to explain whether it was the hypothetical virgin who’d want to be on a single’s cruise or whether all the other guests would want a virgin to be there.

Either way, Krystal was going to find an excuse to squeal and laugh. She was perfectly happy to gloss over the details of how she got there.

“I can leave you two to gossip on your own,” Marjorie offered.

“Don’t you dare,” Krystal said. “Riley’s got problems on her mind, but we have six weeks to think about those. Let’s have fun right now.”

Six weeks on this ship with whatever was on Deck Two. It made Riley’s gut do somersaults.

The bartender sent over her drink. She sipped on it. Without any tequila, it was an orange Slurpee. Riley loved Slurpees.

Deck Two was probably nothing.

Well, nothing as scary as it first seemed.

Nathaniel’s destroy-the-earth corporation probably had something prepping down there. And someone had yelled at her in Farsi or Romanian or Tagalog or some other language she hadn’t heard before. It had sounded far more foreign than that, but until Riley could talk through the experience with Krystal, that’s what she could tell herself.

“Yoo-hoo,” Krystal wiggled her fingers in front of Riley’s face. “You’ve got your head in the clouds.”

Marjorie laughed again, wrinkled cheeks bouncing. “In the Cloud Club!”

A harsh tone interrupted the house music.

The passengers all jumped.

The tone was followed by a recorded announcement. “This is a drill. All passengers to lifeboat evacuation stations.”

The recording warped at the end, transforming into a high-pitched screech before cutting out. The tone sounded once more, painfully loud.

The bartender raised both hands. He spoke with an eastern European accent. “Our apologies for the speaker malfunction. We’ll get that looked at. But everyone, please head to deck three or four. Check your room keycard to see where your assigned evacuation station is.”

Marjorie booed.

The bartender lifted a bottle of tequila. “Then everybody come right back here, and let’s give those drinks some life!”

Krystal and Marjorie cheered. The rest of the old folks in the Cloud Club clapped mildly.

“Looks like we’re on different decks.” Marjorie looked at Krystal’s keycard. “I’ll see you ladies back here after we learn how to not go down with the ship.”

The old lady leaned on her candy-cane walking-stick and hurried off.

Krystal chugged her Slurpee, grabbed her forehead until the brain freeze passed, and then picked up her purse. “I’m ready.”

They navigated their way to the elevator, then to Deck Four.

Riley couldn’t talk to Krystal about what she’d seen. The cruise was hardly packed, but with everybody going to the same place at once, it was a shuffle through a geriatric crowd.

The creeping flow of the crowd took them outside.

Salty, warm air greeted them, along with the swush of the ocean water against the hull.

Crew members in neon yellow life vests held up cardboard signs with numbers on them to indicate the different drill stations. The signs looked like they were drawn in permanent marker.

“If your keycard says group number fourteen,” a crew member yelled, holding up a crudely-drawn number fourteen, “then you are assigned to lifeboat fourteen, and you stand in this line.”

Guests were shuffling about in front of him. Not exactly a line.

“This is a mess,” Krystal laughed. “I hope we don’t sink.”

Riley found their group number on her keycard. Twenty-one.

They pushed through five herds of old folks.

The crew member holding their sign was a stocky woman in her 40s with jet black hair pulled into a tight pony tail. She looked to be from Southeast Asia somewhere, and her accented English confirmed it. “Group twenty-one, here is your line.”

Riley and Krystal stood at the front of a loose bunch of guests. All gray-haired. Several with frowns that said standing this long was painful. Riley couldn’t imagine them rushing for the lifeboat in an emergency.

Finally, the flow of guests thinned until everyone was in their groups.

Their crew leader raised her voice. “Everybody, eyes on me.”

Krystal elbowed Riley and pointed up.

The lifeboats were hanging above them. Riley had been too lost in thought to notice.

“Look at that one,” Krystal whispered.

Two groups over, a lifeboat hung crooked. It lurched to one side like a shrugging teenager.

“That can’t be good,” Riley said.

The crew leader repeated herself. “Eyes on me. Even you two youngsters.”

Riley felt her cheeks turn warm and red. Her fellow guests chuckled.

Spurred on by the laughs, the crew leader said, “Kids today think nothing bad can happen. And they’re probably right. But just in case, we need to be prepared. My name is Annie. If there’s ever an emergency, you’ll grab a life vest under the bed in your cabin and come to this spot.”

Riley stopped listening.

Standing ramrod straight, not twenty feet away, was her Uncle Nathaniel.

Riley had only met him a few times since when she was a toddler. Then he and Dad had a falling out, and she didn’t see him until the funeral. But she recognized him, even with his back turned.

He used his posture to announce to the world that he was nauseatingly proper. He watched his group’s crew leader without moving. Nathaniel was tall and wide. Long silver hair was slicked back down to his shoulders. He was ten years older than Dad. He had to be over seventy now. But he carried himself comfortably and relaxed.

Riley willed him to keep his head forward. If he so much as glanced back to his right, he’d spot her.

What if he already had? When Annie had called out Riley and Krystal, had he turned to see?

No, he’d still be staring at her if he had. The man ran a multimillion-dollar mining company. He didn’t believe in being subtle.

Humid wind blew along the ship, whipping Krystal’s hair into Riley’s face.

The lifeboat creaked overhead. Something slipped. The boat dropped two feet.

Krystal gasped.

Riley’s heart leaped into her throat.

The old folks slowly looked upward at the yellow fiberglass hull that had almost crushed them.

If there were a disaster, between the janky procedures, crappy equipment, and the guests’ molasses-slow reaction time, it’d be a mass casualty event.

Annie had left her jaw hanging mid-sentence. She watched the boat, hands out as if she’d leap forward to catch it. “Maybe everyone step to the side.”

There were murmurs of disapproval from the group as they split in half to push into the neighboring groups.

Krystal started toward Nathaniel’s group, but Riley grabbed her elbow and forced her the opposite way. “My uncle’s over there,” she whispered.

“Which one is he?” Krystal asked. “The guy next to the lady with the dangly earrings? He kinda looks like you.”

Riley had her dad’s high cheekbones and nose. She supposed Nathaniel did, too.

“Is that your aunt?”

Riley had been so afraid of being spotted by the boogeyman Nathaniel had become that she didn’t notice Aunt Wendy at Nathaniel’s side.

She was nearly as tall as Nathaniel. Auburn hair was done up. Glittery earrings danced in the wind. Her round face gave a kinder impression than her husband’s. Riley hadn’t spent any more time with Wendy than with Nathaniel. But when Riley had broken in, trying to steal the watch, Wendy had only shooed Riley out. She could have called the cops. So there was that.

If Wendy spotted Riley, it’d be as bad as Nathaniel. She’d tell him. He’d realize why Riley was there. The watch would go into the vault, which would make it next to impossible to steal. Riley had backup plans for that, but she wasn’t confident in any of them.

Riley turned her back to her aunt and uncle. She removed a bobby pin to let her hair fall over her cheek. The wind made that pointless. “We need to get out of here.”

“They won’t let us yet,” Krystal said.

Annie was already ushering everybody back together, off to the side of the dangling lifeboat.

Riley suddenly thought of a better plan. “When this is over, I’ll meet you back at the Cloud Club.”

“Where are you going first?”

“Hey, youngsters!” Annie waved with her fingers. “Let’s pay attention.”

“So sorry!” Krystal sang.

Annie finished her spiel, but the other groups were still going, so they had to stand and wait.

“You’re going to follow your uncle, aren’t you?” Krystal whispered.

“I gotta see what cabin he’s in. And there won’t be another chance with such a big crowd.”

“Do you need me to cause a distraction?”

“What? No.”

“Well, at least take my hat. Your dark hair will stand out. It’s like a hair salon in a nursing home around here. Everyone’s gray.”

Riley put on Krystal’s red sunhat. Despite its garishness, Krystal was right about it standing out less.

The other crew leaders finished their speeches, and then that same tone sounded over the speakers. It was too quiet out here. Barely noticeable.

The crowd started shuffling back for the doors.

“Wish me luck,” Riley whispered.

“Don’t get arrested. You don’t get to call your lawyer if you’re arrested at sea.”

“Thanks for that.” Riley locked her gaze onto Nathaniel’s slicked-back silver hair and started following.

8

Back in his cabin, Chris slammed the door behind him and raced to his suitcases.

The disaster drill had been a clusterfuck.

Before he could get to his cabin to check on his bags, the drill had been announced. Chris had never been on a cruise—he didn’t know to expect that.

He did know, after seeing the shitty drill, that in a real disaster, most of these geriatric guests would die.

Sinking the ship had become a bit of a moral conundrum.

The cruise line’s evacuation procedures didn’t deserve the faith he’d put in them. No way these old folks could get to their lifeboats in a timely manner.

No way all the lifeboats would be watertight. Hell, he’d seen two of them break loose just in the twenty minutes they’d stood for the drill. And he’d heard other guests talking about more of them doing the same in other places on the ship.

The cruise line must have swapped out the Aria without much notice. He wondered what else about it wasn’t up to snuff.

If he went with his original plan to sink the ship and cross his fingers that everyone got off alive, who could say what other problems with the ship would reveal themselves?

Chris didn’t want to murder a thousand guests and twice as many crew and staff.

He made sure the door to his cabin was locked, jammed a chair under the doorknob, and then opened his suitcases.

He unpacked his clothes and toiletries. He set his Kindle, satellite phone, and chargers on the nightstand.

And then he lifted out the suitcase’s lining to reveal the metal frame.

Square aluminum tubing supported the canvas sides. Chris had lined it with lead. He unhooked three latches, and the whole length of the center tube opened on a hinge.

He removed four different plastic baggies of powders and pellets. He’d purchased them from various medical and farm supply outlets.

By themselves, they were harmless, or even helpful, if you had thyroid problems or a wheat beetle infestation.

But when combined together, and then with the contents of the toothpaste tube in his shaving kit… boom.

A very controlled boom. One that could be directed to a small area.

When Chris had practiced in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, it had blown a twenty-foot hole in a reinforced concrete wall.

He wasn’t positive how that would translate to the hull of a cruise ship, but he expected a hole maybe half that size.

Three of those charges placed along the hull, and the ship should be guaranteed to sink, but not so fast that it stopped people from escaping to the lifeboats.

At least, that had been the plan before the emergency drill.

Now Chris realized the Aria would need a week’s notice to evacuate everybody. And even still, the lifeboats themselves might not launch or might break apart upon hitting the water. Or might just fall and crush the evacuees.

But he couldn’t call the whole thing off, either.

This ship came from the same place as the skyscraper he’d escaped last year. Whatever its exact purpose, Chris suspected it would end with the people aboard yanked to an overlapping dimension where they begged for death.

Was drowning in the middle of the Pacific better than suffering in a dimension ruled by an incomprehensible entity?

Chris didn’t know.

There had to be a better option.

He needed a way to get everyone off the ship before he sank it.

But the Aria’s schedule had only one stop to refuel in its entire journey across the pacific. And the guests weren’t even allowed off.

There weren’t port-of-calls at touristy destinations.

Chris replaced his bomb-making material in the hidden compartment in his suitcase’s frame. The wheels in his head kept turning.

He needed a minor disaster.

Something that would get everyone off the ship, at least temporarily.

He looked at the narrow door to the narrower bathroom.

Backed-up plumbing might do it.

If no one could flush a toilet, they’d have to get the guests off the ship.

The cruise line might even send another ship to transfer passengers over.

Chris turned on his satellite phone. No signal down here on Deck Six. He would have liked a cabin with a balcony outside, but he’d barely scrounged together the money for a ticket in the first place.

He stuck the phone in his pocket and went upstairs to make a call. He didn’t know enough about cruise ship plumbing. But he could call his son and get him to look it up.

9

Riley realized her mistake five minutes into following Nathaniel and Wendy.

The crowd of guests had seemed so easy to hide in when they’d been packed together on the outer deck.

But the ship had seven decks of guest cabins. The crowd quickly split into many directions, and Riley was left trying to blend in with six people in a hallway.

She’d followed her aunt and uncle to the elevator, milled about until they got on, then sprinted up the stairs.

Luckily, they got off only three decks up.

But not so lucky, was that Riley was left trying to follow them with only a handful of other guests to hide behind.

The tight hallway made Krystal’s sunhat feel even more ridiculous. Riley took it off and hugged it to her chest.

The hallway turned toward the center of the ship, then continued toward the bow, staggering to account for the narrower berth farther from the center.

After two turns, Riley was the only one left in the hallway, except for Nathaniel and Wendy up ahead.

Suddenly, Nathaniel stopped mid-stride. Riley swallowed a gasp. She hunched over a guest cabin door, holding Krystal’s hat, half-covering her face, and fumbling with her keycard in the door’s lock.

She couldn’t turn to look at Nathaniel, but from the corner of her eye, she saw both him and Wendy look at her.

No, no, no. If they spotted her already, Dad’s watch was likely gone forever. Not to mention Riley’s shot at nailing them for whatever environmental disaster they were trying to cause with the contents of Deck Two.

She could practically feel her chance at escaping her minimum wage nightmare slipping away. Her chance at finally having enough time to figure out what the heck she was supposed to do with her life. All gone if Wendy recognized her.

Riley made a show of flipping around her keycard and inserting it the other way.

Her heart pounded in her throat.

“Keep walking,” she whispered. “I’m just a random passenger who can’t get a door unlocked.”

Finally, movement in the corner of her vision. Nathaniel and Wendy were walking again.

Riley waited for them to round the next corner, then followed. She stepped as lightly as she could on the thick carpet.

The gold-encrusted light fixtures buzzed. She poked her head around the corner.

Her heart sank as she saw an empty hallway.

But then the door at the very end clicked shut.

Nathaniel was on Deck Seven, cabin 701.

It looked like it was on the bow itself.

Riley hurried back down the hallway to see.

Deck Seven’s outside deck was restricted to the very center of the ship. The guest cabins here had balconies to enjoy the ocean air.

But Nathaniel was absurdly wealthy. Riley marched up to Deck Eight to investigate a hunch.

The outer deck here circled the ship.

Riley strolled along, her hand on the railing. The setting sun threatened to blind her if she looked toward the bow, where she was headed. She kept her eyes down.

A row of lounge chairs looked out over the ocean. Empty. The other guests were likely getting dressed for dinner. And those who wanted to enjoy the ocean air and sunset were up on the top deck, without the roof here restricting their view.

Riley was struck by the size of the ship. It took a solid minute to walk from midship to the bow.

But when she reached the front of the ship, her hunch proved true:

On the bow of the Aria, two-story windows faced the setting sun.

Wherever this new ship had come from, it had cabins for the ultra-wealthy. If they were like the cabins in the original Aria that she’d studied, they’d be lush, 1,500 square foot cabins with spacious bedrooms on the first floor and a viewing area on the upper floor.

In her aunt and uncle’s cabin, the curtains were drawn.

Riley ran her fingers along the glass. It would have been too much to hope for a window that opened or a sliding glass door. The ultra-wealthy got the best view, but they had to enjoy it from behind glass.

Riley imagined if push came to shove, she could use something heavy to break this glass and get into Nathaniel and Wendy’s cabin.

She’d put that on her to-do list: in case of emergency that distracts the entire ship, break glass to steal watch.

A wet, slurping sound from behind her made her jump.

She spun around.

Blinding sunlight forced her eyes shut. She squinted at the deck. Nothing but lounge chairs faced to the front of the ship.

Riley squinted against the sun as she approached the railing.

The wind in her face—even without gusts—made her realize how quickly the ship was moving.

The wind could easily swallow a cry for help.

She became very aware of how alone she was on this deck, so far away from any doors inside.

The squelching noise came again. It sounded like a soaked-through suction cup being pried off a shower wall.

Riley put her hands on the railing. The metal was cold beneath her fingers.

She should turn around now. Run back to midship and inside. If she looked over the edge, something would be hanging there. Maybe the owner of the face she’d seen in the lower deck windows while boarding the ship. Maybe whatever had screamed behind the door on Deck Two.

But Riley couldn’t run away. Curiosity was too strong.

She leaned her head over the railing.

White-crested waves crashed into the ship over a hundred feet below. Their peaks caught the retreating sunlight.

Riley looked straight down.

Something clung to the hull.

Its shape wavered to the rise and fall of the ship. It was twenty feet down from Riley. It was as wide as her Honda Civic was long, and it bulged out from the hull two or three feet.

The sun was reflecting off the hull right above it, so she couldn’t make out details. She tried to see a head and shoulders, maybe arms hugging the bow.

But with the sunlight disrupting her view, it was just a mass. All she could tell was that it was covered in smaller bulges—or made up of them.

Her hand cramped from squeezing the railing so tightly.

She let go and flung her fingers about, keeping an eye on the thing clinging to the hull.

Should she tell somebody?

Maybe it wasn’t anything weird. Maybe it was some kind of barnacle. Or a big patch of grease meant to protect a decaying area of the hull.

The thing unstuck a limb from the ship, swung it across its back, and slapped it onto the hull higher up.

Riley sucked in air and jumped back from the edge.

Fear flooded her mind. That thing was alive. It was moving. It was climbing.

It had a limb like an oversized starfish.

She had to tell someone.

They’d think she was drunk.

She needed a photo.

Riley took out her phone and swiped to open the camera app.

She waited until she heard the squelching, slapping sound again. It was louder now. The thing was closer.

But she needed proof. Both to show to someone in authority and to prove to herself that she wasn’t going crazy.

She stretched her arms out to their limit, holding the phone pointing straight down. With her other hand, she tapped the screen. She jumped back.

With one eye on the railing, Riley inspected her photo.

The thing was only six feet below the deck. She didn’t wait to inspect the image anymore. She ran.

10

Chris found an out-of-the-way spot outside on Deck Eight. He plopped down onto a lounge chair close to the ship’s bow.

He turned his back to the setting sun. Soft wind whispered past his ears and tussled his hair. The starboard side of the Deck Eight exterior was a straight shot of walkway with lounge chairs facing the railing. Sunlight reflected off the ceiling all the way down the ship. The sky behind the Aria filled with storm clouds. Chris hoped they outran them. He was discovering that his belly didn’t like the ocean.

He pulled his satellite phone from his pocket. It was blockier than his iPhone, like the old cell phones from when he was a kid. No data, so he couldn’t search the internet himself. But it was probably best that he didn’t search “how to disable a cruise ship’s plumbing,” in case after all this was over, the authorities came looking for him.

He dialed Eddie’s cell number. The ringing made an odd juxtaposition with the open ocean in front of him.

“Hello?” Eddie groaned.

Chris checked his watch. Almost seven, which meant it was almost ten back home. Eddie was eleven, and since it was a Saturday, he was allowed to stay up playing Fortnite with his friends. “You’re in bed early.”

“The power’s out. It stormed real bad today. Did you go swimming yet?” Eddie’s voice crackled with static.

Chris felt weak hearing his son. Maybe he should have let the world deal with the consequences of the Aria while he hid with Eddie in rural Virginia. Life would be perfect if the purpose of this phone call was to tell Eddie about going swimming on a cruise ship.

Chris had burnt out of trying to make it as a freelance architect. Now he and Eddie lived with Chris’s parents’, and Chris worked as a substitute teacher—not to worry, the art teacher was trying to persuade the principal to hire Chris full-time to teach art, architecture, and engineering.

Life would be just fine if not for the Aria. If not for the trauma both he and Eddie had suffered inside the overnight skyscraper in Richmond.

And now Chris was on an overnight cruise ship, chugging farther away from Eddie by the second.

“Dad?”

“Sorry, I zoned out there for a second.” Chris stood up. Someone was walking around near the bow. A young woman crept up to the front railing like she was sneaking up on something. The sun silhouetted her. Chris minded his business and walked a bit toward midship. “I’m hoping you can look up something for me.”

“Why?” Eddie was already suspicious. He knew Chris’s financial situation. A last-minute pleasure cruise didn’t make sense.

Chris leaned on the railing. Looking down at the ocean made him realize how fast they were traveling. How quickly he was moving away from Eddie.

He didn’t have a lie prepared. “I just want to know how something works. The plumbing on cruise ships. Does it go to a tank somewhere?”

“Did you flush your phone?”

Chris laughed. He loved hearing Eddie make jokes. Despite the trauma of the skyscraper, he was back to being a little boy. Almost a preteen now. “No, I’m just curious.”

Eddie went quiet long enough that Chris asked. “You still there?”

“The power’s still out. I can’t use the computer. I can google on my phone, though. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

“Okay, be quick. I don’t want to miss dinner.” They hung up.

Eddie definitely didn’t believe him, but he was playing along. Better that than have him worried sick about his dad.

Chris kicked himself for not finding another way to look up things like this. He could have hired a research assistant online. Not that he had the money for that.

He’d do his best not to call Eddie with questions like this again.

Footsteps raced toward him, slapping on the deck.

Chris whirled around. He expected to see Micah’s cult charging him, ready to throw him overboard.

Instead, the young woman from the bow ran toward him. She clutched a cellphone and a floppy red hat and was running in flip-flops. Her face was white, and her eyes wide with terror.

Chris thought she was ten or fifteen years younger than him—probably early twenties. She wore shorts and a loose, faded-white blouse.

She dashed past him.

“Are you okay?” he blurted out.

She turned just long enough to say, “Run!” and then fled back to midship, where she disappeared inside.

Chris looked up toward the Aria’s bow. He held up his phone to shield against the sunlight. As far as he could tell, the sitting area was deserted. Nothing but the open deck and lounge chairs, one kicked out of line with the others.

Maybe the young woman was drunk already.

Or maybe the Aria had dragged something with it when it appeared overnight. Something from the infinite plane Chris had seen from the top of the skyscraper.

Chris walked slowly towards the bow. Wind blew into his eyes. The starboard and port railings came together in a little bronze globe that reflected the sunlight.

The skyscraper hadn’t taken long to become threatening. He wasn’t in there half an hour before the building claimed its first victim.

The Aria could be the same. His gut told him the ship had a different purpose from the building. But whatever that purpose, he knew the ship could become active at any moment. Probably it already was.

He reached the railing and started to lean over.

His phone rang.

Chris’s heart jumped into his throat. He leaped back from the edge. He caught his breath from the scare and answered.

“I found an article,” said Eddie.

“What’s it say?” Chris kept his eye on the edge of the deck. Something bulged out from the hull, just barely in sight above the edge.

“There are two tanks. One for sink and shower water. Another to collect toilet flushes. When they fill up, it gets treated and dumped into the ocean. Sounds gross.”

Chris felt an overpowering need to stay far away from whatever was bulging from the hull. All he could see with the piercing sunlight was that the thing was yellowish-orange and rough like sandpaper.

Eddie’s crackling voice continued. “It says here that one time the plumbing backed up, and people were stuck on the ship for three days. I hope your ship’s pipes don’t get clogged.”

Chris climbed on top of a lounge chair, looking for a better view. The rubber slats wobbled under his feet. He saw more of the thing. More yellowish-orange, bulging sandpaper. Not enough detail to learn anymore about it.

“Dad?”

“Sorry, I’m listening.”

“That was everything. What else can I look up?”

Where the wastewater tanks were located. How he could clog them. Whether that would even matter, if the last time they clogged on a cruise ship, it meant the passengers were actually stuck on board. “How come they didn’t evacuate the people when it clogged?”

“It didn’t say.”

A patch of the organic, yellowish-orange sandpaper swelled like a bullfrog’s throat.

“Shitshitshit.” Chris jumped down from the lounge chair.

That wasn’t natural. The Deviser’s dimension was already bleeding over. And Chris didn’t even know what this ship was, let alone how to stop it.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie sounded frantic. “Why are you on that ship, Dad?”

Chris backed away. “I’m fine. I tripped. I’m fine now.”

The sandpapery balloon deflated, back out of sight.

“Is it because of the office in the city?”

Of course, Eddie knew exactly what it was. Nothing else would scare Chris so deeply. Eddie had picked up on it before Chris left. “No,” he lied.

“Promise?”

Chris had sworn to his boy never to break a promise again. He’d hurt his son in that building. He’d done it to make Eddie less desirable to the Deviser, and it had saved Eddie’s life. But he’d still hurt him. He’d told him no one would ever be a solid support. That Eddie could never count on anyone.

In the months it had taken to earn that trust back, Chris had sworn over and over that he’d never abandon Eddie.

“You promise?” Eddie had often responded.

“Cross my heart,” Chris would say.

“You don’t break promises?”

“I never break promises.”

Although it was juvenile, with Eddie, Chris differentiated between a simple lie and breaking a promise. Sometimes you lied to your kids. But after the pain Chris had caused in his boy, a promise had to be a promise.

“Dad?”

Chris stared at the edge of the bow. His mind raced as he tried to figure out his next steps. “I’m still here.”

“I said do you promise? You’re not on the cruise because of the office in the city?”

“I have to go now. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Chris circled wide, trying for a better view without getting too close.

“Dad, you didn’t promise.”

“I love you.” He hung up.

He stood at the starboard edge of the bow. Waves splashed against the hull far below. The ocean raced toward the ship, roiling in the wind and redirecting the last rays of the setting sun up into Chris’s eyes.

Chris leaned over the railing, stretching for a clear view of whatever clung to the hull at the tip of the bow.

He saw white paint over steel. Nothing else. Not below Deck Eight, and not anywhere above it. He ran to the port edge of the bow to look up at the other side. Again, nothing but the ship itself.

He breathed in the salty Pacific air.

The Deviser’s dimension was crossing over like it had in the overnight skyscraper.

Three hours since the Aria disembarked, and he was already running out of time.

He should sink the ship now, before people started disappearing, snatched away to the Deviser’s dimension.

But he couldn’t murder a thousand old people, even if it meant saving them from a worse fate. If that made him weak, then fine.

He had one plan and no other way forward. Back up the plumbing, hope the cruise line evacuated the guests, then sink the ship.

Enough bedsheets down the toilets should cause a clog. His first step would be the laundry.

His stomach rumbled.

Dinner first, then the laundry.

11

Riley found Krystal in their cabin.

The room encouraged claustrophobia—two slim beds with a nightstand between them. Barely space to walk around them to the one dresser. A child-size loveseat made of water-proof fabric was squeezed into the comically small space between the beds and the bathroom door—which was also unnaturally narrow.

Riley leaned on the wall to catch her breath. The room was claustrophobic, but it was also safe. The thing clinging to the hull couldn’t get her in here.

Krystal wiggled into a silky purple cocktail dress. “Dinner is black tie tonight!” she sang. She saw Riley, and her jaw dropped. “Girl, you look like you saw a ghost. Did your uncle catch you?”

For a moment, Riley had no idea what her friend was talking about. “Oh. My uncle. No, he didn’t see me.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Riley plopped onto the stiff loveseat. Her back was tired. “I found Nathaniel and Wendy’s cabin. Big windows at the front of the ship. When I went outside, there was something stuck to the hull.”

Krystal sat on the bed. Their knees bumped. “Like a barnacle? Is that what they’re called?”

Riley considered that. Its skin had looked a bit like a barnacle. Skin. Was it right to think of it as having skin? “Bigger than that. And it moved.”

Krystal giggled nervously. “You’re teasing me.”

“I’m serious.” Riley fished out her phone. “I took a picture.”

Krystal put in Riley’s passcode and swiped at the screen. “Yeah. A barnacle. Why’d you take the picture so close?”

Riley snatched her phone back. The photo was crisp, but the clinging thing was too close. No context for size. It could have easily been a closeup of normal-sized sea life. “I’m telling you, it was bigger than me. And it moved. It was climbing up the ship.”

“Was your margarita actually virgin?”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Okay, I’m just saying.” Krystal stood up. “Zip me up.”

Riley obliged. “We should tell somebody, right?”

“If you think so. We’ll find a crew member on the way to dinner. Show them your photo.”

Riley thought about leaving their cabin. That thing could be anywhere on the hull right now. It could be inside the ship. She didn’t know what it was, but deep inside, she knew it was unnatural. It was dangerous. “Maybe we should skip dinner tonight.”

“Not a chance. Get dressed. Don’t freak out so much. We’re here to have fun and steal your watch back from your uncle.”

Maybe Nathaniel was involved. This could be connected to the weird dripping mirrors on Deck One, and whatever was going on behind the locked door on Deck Two. All part of his scheme to destroy the earth for money.

She couldn’t hide in their cabin. She had to report what she’d seen.

“Okay, I’ll get dressed.”

12

Riley was about to lose her mind.

“It’s just not a clear photograph.” Bobby the porter cupped her phone in his hands, zooming in and out of the photo.

Riley and Krystal had found him in the hallway leading to the dining room. Glistening wood trim and plush red carpet offered an aura of luxury. Old people in tuxes and shiny dresses ambled by on their way to the cruise’s first meal.

Bobby was muscled enough to haul suitcases around, but Riley wasn’t impressed so far with his mental abilities. “What did you say this is?”

“I don’t know what it was. Something on the hull of the ship. Bigger than me.”

“It looks small.”

Riley swallowed a scream. The photo was a closeup of the thing’s skin. It didn’t look big or small. “I’m just saying what I saw. Can you go look?”

“Deck Nine, you said?”

“Eight.”

“I’ll check, but I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe something dead in the ocean splashed up onto the ship.”

Krystal scoffed. “That’s like a hundred feet.”

Riley felt thankful that her friend was sticking up for her.

“It’s probably a bunch of barnacles all close together,” Krystal continued. “That’s my guess.”

Riley rolled her eyes. So much for solidarity.

“I’ll have someone take a look.” Bobby touched Riley’s arm softly. “Go eat your meal. The crew will do the worrying, so you can enjoy your vacation.”

“And you’ll let me know what they find?”

“Promise.” Bobby crossed his heart with his finger and walked off.

“I think he’s cute.” Krystal tugged Riley into the dining room. “At least compared to all these nursing home residents.”

Despite everything, the dining room impressed Riley. A happy buzz of conversation paired nicely with a live jazz pianist. The maitre d’ checked their key cards and invited them to follow him, past tables of gray-haired guests in black ties and evening gowns. The dining room was over two stories, with the upper level around the outside of the room, so the center remained open to the main floor. Riley and Krystal followed the maitre d’ up marble stairs and to a small table by a window.

They thanked him and took their seats.

“I need this luxury all the time.” Krystal sipped her water glass and checked the wine list. “Uh oh.”

Riley didn’t know whether to turn around or hide her face.

“You’re uncle’s down there.”

Riley looked down past the marble staircase to the main floor.

Nathaniel and Wendy sat at the head of a long rectangular table. She counted eight other people with them.

“Who are they with?” Krystal asked.

“I’d say it was his business partners, but that looks more like a church group.”

The guests with her aunt and uncle ranged from one foot out of high school to one foot in the grave.

“You never said they were religious,” Krystal said.

“I don’t think they are. But that’s a strange group.”

“It must be random seating.”

“No, look around.” Most tables only seated six or fewer guests. “Their table is the only one that big. It’s intentional.”

“So what?” Krystal set aside the wine list to look at the menu. “It’s a club or something. Ooh, shrimp cocktail for an appetizer.”

Riley didn’t bother trying to convince her. Nathaniel was on this ship for a reason. His career destroying the earth, plus the weird stuff happening on Decks One and Two, suggested this was some sort of underwater mining exploratory trip.

He put some fancy equipment on the bottom decks, the cruise line swapped out the ships, and now Nathaniel would run his tests to see how much money he could suck out of the ocean.

She’d felt so sure about that.

But then, who in the world was he with?

Wendy sat next to a woman in her thirties. She was blonde and wore a sparkly blue cocktail dress. She was overweight to the point that even from across the room, Riley could see that dress straining. Wendy and Nathaniel were vain enough that they judged anyone for being out of shape. Rich people paid personal trainers and private chefs in order to avoid such embarrassing body shapes.

And the guy next to Nathaniel had a walking cane leaning on the table, and he had gray hair tied back in a ponytail. His tux was originally black but had faded to a charcoal color. And Nathaniel was sitting next to him, happily chatting, as if he wasn’t embarrassed to be seen next to someone who couldn’t even afford a new tuxedo.

“Ew,” Krystal said, “one of the entrees is a lamb. Have you ever had lamb?”

“Once,” Riley said as she stared at Nathaniel’s table. “It’s like steak but greasier.”

“Baby killer.”

Riley noticed something else. Across the open area in the middle of the floor, at a table with five guests, one younger man was also inspecting Nathaniel’s table. The man was maybe ten years older than her, so in his mid-thirties.

It was the guy she’d ran past outside on Deck Eight.

Why was he interested in Nathaniel?

Riley made a mental note to talk to him when she got the chance. He was probably FBI or EPA. If he was going to arrest Nathaniel, maybe she could convince him to get Dad’s watch for her.

Whatever Nathaniel’s group was, Riley hoped they had regular meetings. The more he was out of his cabin, the more chances she’d have to steal the watch.

In fact, if everyone was attending the formal dinner each night, then this could be the perfect time. No crazy plans, no pickpocketing—just wait until dinner time, check that Nathaniel and Wendy were in the dining room, then force her way into the room. She could find something to use as a crowbar.

This was going to be easier than she’d thought.

Tomorrow, she’d skip dinner and get her watch back—her fifty-thousand dollars.

Then she could kick her feet up and enjoy the rest of the cruise, watching the mysterious EPA agent take down her selfish uncle.

In six weeks, she could go home, quit driving for UberEats, and start nursing school.

This was happening.

Riley ordered the lamb.

13

Micah’s cult had been easy to spot.

The rest of the guests in the dining room were older couples or groups of geriatric siblings or friends. They sat at small tables of two or four or six, laughing like they’d known each other for years.

Chris thought vacationing with your elderly friends was nice, but he hoped in the future his vacations would be with Eddie and future grandkids.

He stopped his mind from wandering away.

The cult was at the largest table, and they didn’t fit the demographics of the rest of the cruise.

Of course, they probably didn’t think they needed to hide. Who would they be hiding from?

After the other guests at his table had left, Chris still sipped at his lemonade. He couldn’t afford anything else.

The dining room was gaudy and made him uncomfortable. He wore a blazer and tie—the clothes his parents had bought him when he went for the substitute teacher interview. His other dress clothes were old and ratty.

He watched Micah’s cult.

As the tables emptied one by one, the fourteen people around the largest table stayed and talked.

Chris had no doubt they were Micah’s people. It was a six-week cruise—you had to be retired or a trust fund kid to have six weeks to spare. And trust fund kids weren’t spending their time on cruise ships relocating across the Pacific, operating with only half their amenities.

The group at the large table all listened intently to the older man at the table’s head. He wore his shiny gray hair slicked back like he thought he was Steven Segal. His high cheekbones made Chris think of an undertaker. The tall woman to his right periodically reached over to squeeze his hand.

Chris scanned through the guests to guess at which was the one who’d contacted him.

Not the elderly frumpy man—his contact had found him online. So he’d guess one of the younger cultists.

A skinny twenty-something in a blue shirt and Star Wars tie sat next to the leader’s wife. He laughed genuinely at something she said, then glanced briefly at the leader. Everyone at the table followed his lead.

When Micah disappeared, that’s the guy they shifted their devotion to.

Chris wondered how Micah had gathered them all, whether they’d independently developed a belief in the Deviser and then found each other. Or whether Micah had converted them because they were each useful.

Chris’s waiter came and asked if he needed anything. He asked for another lemonade to have a reason to still be sitting here.

He’d asked for a beer, but it wasn’t included unless he shelled out more cash. As it was, it’d already take him two years to pay off the credit card bill.

The waiter left, and Chris looked back down to the main floor.

The cult leader was standing up. The man was freakishly tall.

Everyone at the table shuffled to their feet.

Chris did the same. One part of him said he should avoid the cult—stay out of their sight. His intent was to sink the ship. He didn’t need to know anything more about them in order to achieve that goal.

But they were here for a reason. They didn’t have any more knowledge about the purpose of this overnight ship than he did. In fact, he had more, since he’d actually been inside the overnight building. If they were like Micah before she entered the building, they still thought the Deviser was an extra-dimensional Santa Claus. They were probably here hoping for gifts.

Chris’s contact had thought Chris would want to witness something. Maybe they were all here just to observe. But Micah wouldn’t have gathered a cult of passive observers.

Chris was certain they had their own plans. Those plans could get in the way of his plans. Or they could inadvertently put the ship in danger with their naive understanding of what they worshipped.

Either way, Chris needed to know more.

He followed them out of the dining room.

The attendant at the door offered him hand sanitizer and wished him a happy evening. The dining room doors closed behind him.

Chris scanned the gaudy hallway outside the dining room. The cult bunched around the elevators. A blonde woman in her thirties let out a chirpy laugh at something the old cult leader said.

Chris froze. He hadn’t thought this through. At least some of this cult knew who he was and blamed him for Micah’s death. They wouldn’t be happy to see him.

He couldn’t exactly sneak after them down an elevator. Or tiptoe behind them in an empty hallway.

But they were too caught up in their own happy conversations that nobody looked at him.

The invitation he’d received said to keep a low profile. So only one of them knew he was on board. They likely wouldn’t notice him unless they had another reason to give him a close look.

Like if he were standing awkwardly in the doorway, staring at them.

He casually walked to another elevator, turned his back to them, and pressed a down button.

He heard the other elevator doors behind him slide open. He kept his eyes straight ahead as the trivial conversation drifted away and then went quiet as the doors shut.

Chris felt his shoulders relax. He wasn’t cut out for this. He was a substitute teacher, for crying out loud, not a spy. He shouldn’t be sneaking around anywhere.

For the millionth time, Chris wished there was some government agency he could have passed this off to.

A nasally voice behind him made him jump practically out of his skin. “You’re not being careful enough.”

14

Chris spun around.

In the middle of the luxurious hall, one of the cult members leaned toward Chris.

The kid in his young twenties. Up close, Chris could see a wisp of a mustache and chin beard. His eyes were a rare gray-blue, and they betrayed an anxious concern.

“I sent you the note to keep a low profile.” He held his hands at chest level, expressing his anxiety with awkward gestures. “I’m Pete.”

Chris couldn’t pass up the opportunity to question a member of the cult. But Pete was right—Chris wasn’t being careful enough. “Help me understand something,” he said and then walked away.

The kid followed him down the hallway. “You should stay in your cabin. My friends are really angry at you.”

“I’m not afraid of them,” Chris lied. He’d learned from Micah that fanatics were dangerous.

The hallway took them past an empty guest services counter and then through glass doors into the shopping mall the cruise called the “Promenade.” The walkway was open and lit, but only a handful of guests were there. An old couple sat on a wrought iron bench between two ferns. A trail of four women hobbled quickly past the dark jewelry shop and the shuttered art gallery. Each shop had a false front that extended from the room’s outer walls. They were all painted different bold colors, but inside they were dark. Only the ice cream parlor was open and bright.

Above, guest cabin balconies overlooked the shopping area. Chris decided he should have at least sprung for an interior balcony to have two exits from his cabin. It was all going on a credit card anyways.

Chris looked around for a private place to have a conversation.

Pete grabbed his shoulder. “I invited you onto this ship as an act of generosity.”

Chris stopped in his tracks. He looked at the kid in his freaky pale eyes. Surviving the overnight building hadn’t left Chris impervious to fear, but inside he’d gone through enough scuffles that he was aware of how competent he was in a fight. He wasn’t concerned about the scrawny kid.

The kid got the message. “Sorry.” He pulled away his hand. He looked down at his feet. “You’ve obviously been closer to the Deviser than any of us, except maybe Nathaniel—"

Chris cut him off. “Who’s that? The tall old guy you were all fawning over?”

Pete huffed. “Respect is earned, and he’s earned it. You have, too, at least in my eyes.”

“Because I survived the Deviser’s skyscraper?”

Pete waggled his spindly index finger. “See, I do want to ask you about that. What happened to Micah? My friends suspect that you violently stopped her from learning the Deviser’s next secret. They’re waiting for you to reveal that you’ve claimed it for yourself.”

The only secret of the skyscraper had been that the Deviser was done gathering humanity and was ready to start harvesting. But the cult didn’t know that. Chris assumed they still believe the Deviser was benevolent. “And what do you think happened?” Chris asked Pete.

“I think Micah saw a limited chance to escape this world to commune with the Deviser, and she took it.”

Chris thought of the mess of flesh and wire and bone and steel that had chased him and Eddie through the top floor of the skyscraper. That’s what Micah became. “We should find a quiet place to talk. I’ll tell you what happened to your old leader. And you’ll tell me your cult’s plans for this ship.”

“Outside where the wind will hide our voices,” Pete suggested.

They left the Promenade to return to the elevators. They rode to the top deck. They passed through sliding glass doors and into the pool area.

Chris thought he could get used to the evening ocean air. It was just warm enough that the breeze felt nice.

Electric lights lit up a huge swimming pool. It was forty feet across, and extended half the length of a football field. In the middle, concrete piers with planters offered a divide. On normal cruises, maybe one side was for kids. But on this cruise, with mostly retirees, Chris suspected that after dinner, most of the ship would be abandoned except for a few nightclubs and the casino. That left the swimming pool empty and inviting.

This ship had appeared overnight, like the skyscraper. But where the building had been a weird counterfeit of an office building, this was close to the genuine article. As far as Chris could tell, anyways. He’d never been on a cruise before.

He wasn’t sure what that genuineness meant. The purpose of the Aria was different from the purpose of the skyscraper—he knew that much. It likely meant that he needed to more fully explore the ship. If all the parts he’d seen were normal, maybe the parts he hadn’t seen were beyond bizarre.

Pete hugged his chest. Even in his tweed blazer, he shivered. “I’m used to warmer weather. I live with my folks in Arizona.”

“That why you couldn’t make it to the skyscraper?” Chris sat on a lounge chair. This was as good a spot as any.

“Micah only let us know about it right before she went inside. I waited for her next communication. It never came.”

“And eventually, your tall silverback friend took over?”

“Nathaniel reached out to us, yes.” Pete looked nervously at the glass doors leading to the elevator bank. “Let’s move more out of the way.”

Chris obliged. They found a spot against the ship’s edge, with the central concrete piers blocking the view from one elevator bank.

Pete kept his eye on the other elevator bank. “Tell me how Micah found the Deviser. Did you witness it yourself? Why did you leave if you had the option of remaining?”

Chris sighed. That was a whole barrel of ignorance. “You tell me everything you know about the Aria and why you’re on it. Then I’ll tell you about the skyscraper.”

Pete would likely deny Chris’s story and clam up about his own, so the kid needed to go first.

“I already told you what we know about the ship. It was found floating in the ocean. The cruise line claimed it before anyone else realized it was there. They swapped it out with a ship that was about to be retired.”

“Aren’t there laws about salvage? Wouldn’t they have spent months contacting every other cruise line to make sure they didn’t get sued?”

“They did. This Aria appeared nearly a year ago.”

That was a surprise. Chris had assumed it had appeared right before Pete’s cryptic text messages to him. But now Pete was saying that once the overnight skyscraper had disappeared, the Aria showed up shortly afterwards. “How’d you find out about it? If it had leaked anywhere, it’d be all over the news.”

“Nathaniel found out.”

“How?”

Pete scratched at his fingernails like a raccoon washing a meal. “I can’t tell you that part.”

Chris stood up. “Then you won’t learn what happened to Micah.”

“What happened to her? Were the others right? Did you kill her?”

Chris hid any expression from his face. “Everything you know, in exchange for everything I know. No exceptions.”

“Fine. Sit down.”

Chris got comfortable again. Water lapped at the pool’s edge.

Pete chewed on his lip, then continued. “Nathaniel’s got some way of knowing when the Deviser has reached over.”

“Reached over?”

“Like the skyscraper.”

“I thought that skyscraper was the first the Deviser had acted in decades. That’s what Micah said.”

“Micah only had eyes for the future. She was after the next construction breakthrough.” Pete pulled a playing-card-sized shard of glass from his pocket. “Most of us are also passionate about the past. What the Deviser has left behind.”

“Micah said the past buildings it sent over all disappeared. The skyscraper certainly did. It’s still on the news sometimes.”

“The structures themselves disappear. But not what explorers removed from inside. Nathaniel gave me this glass from the first greenhouse.”

Chris took it and held it up to the light. “You’re saying this is centuries old?”

“Millenia.”

“Neat.”

“It’s amazing. It’s from the Deviser’s dimension.”

Chris had a sudden vivid memory of being near the top of the skyscraper, looking out at a flat, infinite plane, while something enormous stalked behind the buildings of Richmond. He handed the glass back to Pete. “What’s this got to do with how Nathaniel found out about the ship?”

“Nathaniel’s and Micah’s families have been rivals for generations. Nathaniel has been studying with the purpose of worship, Micah with the purpose of progress.”

“Where do you fall?”

“Progress has been an effect of worshipping the Deviser, but it’s not the purpose of that worship. That’s beside the point. Nathaniel has an artifact from the Tremont Hotel. He’s secretive about it and how it works, but it led him to the Aria. He actually found the ship at dock, then had his people research what it was and who it belonged to.”

“And the cruise line just told him the story of finding it?”

“He’s got a lot of money,” Pete said. “He negotiates million-dollar deals from a fancy bar in his basement. He’s persuasive.”

Chris took it all in. He leaned back to look up at the stars. The pool lights dulled the night sky. The lounge chair creaked under his weight. “Okay. That’s how you found out about the ship. Why are you on it?”

Pete’s constantly gesturing hands went still. “The same reason as you. To get close to the Deviser.”

“But why?”

“Why have people gone to church for thousands of years?”

“This is your religion?”

“That’s not a word I usually use, but sure.”

Chris felt bad that he was about to shatter this kid’s faith. “Most people pray to a God they believe cares about them.”

“The Deviser gifted us modern civilization. If that’s not benevolence, what is?”

Chris watched ripples in the pool from the ship’s movement. “That’s why all of you are here? Even your bossman Nathaniel?”

“Everyone has their individual motivation.”

“Maybe I’m not being clear enough. What plans does Nathaniel have for this trip?”

“To draw close to the Deviser.”

Chris wanted to pull his hair out. “And how is he planning on drawing closer the Deviser?”

“By finding the purpose of this ship and helping it to fruition.”

Chris exhaled and closed his eyes. He’d worried that was the answer.

It was insane. To think that some random person could help along the purposes of the Deviser. He’d seen glimpses of its infinite flat plane. He’d survived the impact of its tendrils reaching into this world. No way in hell someone could have any impact on what it planned. That’d be like a cockroach helping create the Hadron Collider. Impossible in every way.

And it was insane that someone would want to help the Deviser in the first place. Chris had seen men yanked away from our reality to an eternity of slavery. Or torture. Chris honestly didn’t know what had happened to them, only that they’d screamed for help.

“You look like you’re disgusted with me,” Pete said.

Chris blinked and sat up straight. “Do you really want to know what happened in that skyscraper? Or would you rather go on living with faith, or whatever you call it?”

“Knowledge only strengthens faith.”

Chris took a breath. He told Pete how he’d entered the overnight skyscraper to find Eddie, who had broken in to search for treasure. He told him how one of Micah’s men had disappeared in the basement, and he’d only later understood that the building was absorbing people once it had formed their mental state to its liking.

Pete nodded. “The Deviser values growth. Communion must be the reward.”

Chris told Pete how when he later caught glimpses of the taken men, they screamed and begged for rescue. Pete shook his head. Chris shared his theory that all the Deviser’s past gifts—wells, smokehouses, cement, then the modern construction breakthroughs that allowed cities to flourish, like steel frames, elevators, and air-conditioning—were meant to gather mankind close together. Not out of benevolence, but for harvesting. The overnight skyscraper provided the final mental sculpting to prepare people for whatever tasks the Deviser wanted them for.

Pete shook his head. “You’re lying.” His face held the youthful pain of life’s first big betrayal. For most people, it was romantic heartbreak. For Pete, it’d be finding out that an incomprehensible entity didn’t love him.

Chris told him how Micah was obsessed with finding the next construction breakthrough for her own wealth and power. When she realized there was nothing she could use, something snapped. She tried to sacrifice Chris and Eddie to the Deviser as a last-ditch attempt to pry from it what she wanted. She died in the attempt, and then the building mutilated her corpse.

Chris left out how he’d intentionally maimed her before her death. He could still feel her bones breaking under his blows. It had been necessary to save Eddie’s life. He knew that. He also knew that he’d assaulted a frail old woman.

Pete stood up. “Why are you telling these lies? The Deviser loves us. I’m on this ship to get closer to him.”

“I’m only telling you what I experienced.”

“Did you even go inside that building? Or has it all been a ruse to damage our faith? Nathaniel warned me that people would try to tear me down. I thought he meant my parents laughing at me, but he apparently knew someone like you would try to deceive me. He knew someone would try to stop us from achieving the next step of our plans.”

“The next step? So your plans are more specific than just helping the Deviser? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nathaniel guides us. I told you, he’ll help us help the Deviser’s purposes for the Aria. He doesn’t tell us all the details. That’s where faith comes in.”

So the lanky silver haired cult leader knew more than he was sharing with his followers. Chris wanted that info. Sinking the ship was still the top priority, but the more he knew about what horrors might appear, the better.

Pete waved both index fingers in a for shame motion. “I invited you here because I thought you shared my love for the Deviser. How could you not? You’d been so close to him. But you’re a deceiver. I have to confess to Nathaniel what I’ve done.”

“Wait!” Chris jumped up, but Pete was already running away.

This was bad. Chris didn’t know how dangerous Nathaniel was, but cults generally weren’t friendly to people trying to stop them. And this particular cult’s former leader had been happily capable of violence.

Chris didn’t try to stop Pete. What could he do? Wrestle him to the ground, and then what?

The kid’s cheap leather shoes slapped against the deck as he sprinted along the swimming pool. He ran for the far elevator bank. He stopped near the concrete divider in the middle of the pool and looked back like he thought Chris was chasing him.

They locked eyes across the pool. Pete was frantic and scared. Chris figured part of the kid believed what he’d told him. Shattered faith couldn’t feel good.

Chris raised his hands and shrugged, trying to convey his harmlessness.

Pete turned and ran.

Chris was left alone on the top deck of the Aria.

The cult would know he was here now. Pete had already said he was the only one who didn’t blame Chris for Micah’s death.

He’d need to keep a low profile. Get his meals in his cabin. Stay away from public spaces.

The plan was still to get everyone off the ship by clogging the plumbing, then planting his bombs around the lower hull.

But he wanted to know what threats the Aria contained.

His brief exploration earlier today hadn’t yielded anything, but there was plenty of the ship he hadn’t explored yet. The bottom decks, for example.

But the ship was huge. If Nathaniel really had a trinket that could lead him to threats from the Deviser’s plane, then Chris wanted that trinket. He had enough explosives that he could blow up any especially dangerous areas and still have enough to sink the ship.

And getting the trinket out of Nathaniel’s hands might also interrupt the cultist’s plans, whatever they were. Pete had suggested that Nathaniel had a specific way in mind to help the Deviser’s purpose with the Aria.

Chris still didn’t know what that was. If he wanted to find out, he’d have to steal Nathaniel’s trinket.

He wasn’t the best burglar, but he’d been preparing for a year to collapse a building. He’d learned the basics of getting into places he wasn’t supposed to be.

Tomorrow, he’d set both his plans into motion: clog the plumbing, and steal Nathaniel’s trinket.

For now, he’d go to his cabin and sleep.

15

Riley threw back her head and sang along to “Sweet Caroline.”

It turned out, the jazz pianist from the dining room doubled as the evening entertainment in the Cloud Club.

Krystal had somehow found Marjorie again—who once again said that her sisters weren’t drinking enough—and the three of them now sat around a table next to a huge window.

The night reflected the inside revelry, with only occasional glimpses of movement outside as someone walked by on the outer deck.

Riley watched her reflection enjoy feeling tipsy, singing along with her best friend and a pink-haired old woman who Riley envied for her open embrace of life.

Tomorrow, Riley would get her watch back. Tonight, she was on a cruise.

Marjorie stood up. “I’m getting a refill,” she shouted over the music. “What are you ladies having?”

“Margaritas!” Krystal cheered.

Riley almost said no, but then gave a thumbs up. She had all day tomorrow to recover from a hangover.

With Marjorie gone, Krystal leaned over to Riley to be heard over the crowd’s singing. “I was hoping there’d be more men.”

Riley pointed to a white-haired man with coke-bottle glasses. “What about him?” She giggled at her own joke.

“After six weeks of this, ask me again.” Krystal sipped at her drink. “Did you think Bobby was cute?”

“Who?” Riley couldn’t remember meeting anybody on the cruise.

“The guy looking into your mystery photo.”

“Ohhhh, him.” Riley rolled her eyes. “There’s not enough tequila on this ship. Somehow I’m just not attracted to men who treat me like a hysterical woman in a bonnet drama.”

“Oh, he wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes, he was—”

The lights went out.

The speakers died.

The crowd gasped. Krystal screamed in that exaggerated way she did at any little shock, except for her, it was earnest.

Riley patted Krystal’s arm. “It’s probably just for a couple of seconds.”

The piano played a few more chords, and then the pianist gave it up.

From somewhere across the dark room, the bartender yelled. “Everyone stay calm. Probably just the crew working on some circuits. Stay where you are. Don’t try to move anywhere in the dark.”

Good advice for the guests who would break a hip if they fell over. Riley laughed at the image, then felt guilty about it. She was drunker than she’d thought.

“We have plenty of backup power generators,” yelled the bartender. “Just give them a few seconds.”

But seconds turned into minutes. In the dark, people started complaining. The only light in the bar was the glow of cell phones.

Riley about jumped out of her skin when Marjorie appeared next to her. “I didn’t get there in time to order, but I swiped a bottle of something. Who wants to do a blind taste test?”

Riley took a small sip. It was rum. Not what she wanted in a pitch dark nightclub half a cruise ship away from her cabin.

After another ten minutes in the dark, the pianist dove back into the singalongs, sans microphone.

It meant lots of off-tune crooning geriatrics drowning out the professional singer.

After an hour, Riley’s long day was catching up to her. She wanted her bed. Surely the whole ship’s power wasn’t out. It was still moving forward, after all. She could feel it swaying under her, ever so slightly.

The bartender interrupted again. “We have emergency flashlights and glow sticks for everyone. They’re still working on the power, so you’re invited to return to your cabins. By the time morning comes, we’ll have everything up and running. Anyone who wants an escort through the dark hallways, find one of our staff. They’re the ones with the big lanterns.”

There were only four lanterns, beacons in the dark, revealing young, orange-shirted staff. Already, elderly guests began to crowd them like moths to a flame.

“I’m not waiting for an escort,” Riley said. “Let’s find our way back.”

“How about you be my escort?” Marjorie asked. “I’ll grab us some flashlights and glow sticks.” She was off before Riley or Krystal could answer.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Krystal asked. “She’ll probably try on her own if we don’t go with her. If she falls down the stairs because we’re not there, I’d feel awful.”

Riley didn’t want to escort random old ladies through the dark cruise ship. But they had five weeks and six days left on the voyage. She wasn’t going to start it out by making enemies. “Of course. It’ll be fun.”

Riley stood up. Her head spun. She’d only had a few margaritas, but she wasn’t a big drinker. She caught her balance on the table and took a breath. “I’m fine.”

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Krystal asked.

The room was still too dark to see each other.

“I’m fine.” Riley repeated.

Marjorie returned, her face lit green from a glow stick she’d tucked between her breasts. “I’m gonna make the men stare at me!”

She handed them each a cheap plastic flashlight and a glow stick. “I’m on Deck Three, close to the front of the ship. It’ll be fastest to get to the front outside, then go down.”

“Lead the way!” Krystal said.

The Cloud Club was on the same top deck as the swimming pools. Riley had come in from the elevator, which let her stay inside. She hadn’t been outside since what she’d seen on Deck Eight.

Marjorie pulled Krystal by the hand, and Krystal pulled Riley.

“Hold on, guys,” Riley said as they dragged her to the outer doors.

Flashlights turned on, and glow sticks cracked among the guests waiting for their staff escort.

The automatic sliding doors hissed open. Salty, humid night air collided with the air conditioning. A knot turned in Riley’s gut. The outer deck wasn’t safe. “Guys, what if we stayed inside?”

But Marjorie didn’t hear. She led them onto the outer deck.

Krystal leaned back to say, “It’ll be fine.”

The night was empty.

Clouds hid the stars and moon. They were the only ones taking this route, so they were the only movement. Their flashlights revealed the path between the swimming pool and rows of lounge chairs. There were more lounge chairs on this ship than people.

Their footsteps were staccato slaps over the soft rushing of water and wind.

Riley avoided looking at the edge of the deck. The railings were high here since usually there’d be so many people enjoying themselves. But the thing she’d seen clinging to the hull had looked perfectly capable of climbing a few extra feet.

Marjorie stopped suddenly. Krystal bumped into her, and Riley had to rush to grab the old lady by the shoulders, so she didn’t fall. Riley shouldn’t have been laughing about broken hips earlier.

“What is it?” Krystal asked. “Why’d you stop?”

“Y’all didn’t hear that?” Marjorie pointed her flashlight at the side railing. “Something splashed in the swimming pool.”

Riley closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see. “Let’s keep moving.”

“No, I see it too,” Krystal said.

Riley forced her eyes open. Krystal and Marjorie’s flashlights revealed a dark, bulky mass at the bottom of the pool.

16

Riley brought her own flashlight beam up to the dark shape in the water.

The wind picked up, bringing with it a scent of rot and salt.

The shape in the middle of the pool was bulges upon bulges. Or maybe that was just in Riley’s head. She was still freaked out from earlier, and now the tequila was muddling her thoughts. The rippling pool water distorted their limited view, which was already difficult with the pitch darkness.

Krystal walked to the pool’s edge. The flashlight’s beam lit up a surface patch of blue chlorinated water and a wavering section of the pool.

Riley just wanted to go back inside.

“What do you see, honey?” Marjorie asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s something.”

Riley had a sudden vision of the thing from the hull bursting out of the pool to grab Krystal. She rushed to Krystal’s side to pull her away.

But the water closest to the edge was empty. Just a blue and green mosaic pattern on the bottom. This was the deep end, five feet down to the decorated cement bottom. “It’s too far away,” Riley said. “Let’s just go.”

Marjorie came up beside Riley, her light still trained on the shape in the water. “It’s not an issue of how far. It’s an issue of what it is.”

Riley tried to pull both her friends away from the water. They resisted.

“Is that a person?” Krystal squatted, got up, and walked a few feet to the side. “It’s not a person, is it?”

“Ah fuck, I think it is.” Marjorie was already taking off her clothes.

Marjorie’s vulgarity surprised Riley, but she was more focused on the thing in the pool. “It’s bigger than a person, isn’t it?” But was it the size of the thing on the hull? Is this where it had ended up after Riley fled? Or was the thing in the pool too small?

Marjorie stripped down to her underwear, which had a lot more lace and was a lot skimpier than Riley expected for a woman Marjorie’s age. “We gotta pull them out.”

Riley pointed her light at the mass. The water distorted the light too much for her to be sure of its shape.

Marjorie lowered herself into the pool. The splash was drowned out by the wind. The pool nearly swallowed her small frame. She craned her neck to keep her chin dry.

“Please don’t,” Riley said. “Let’s go find somebody.”

“That’s a good point,” Krystal said. “If it’s a person, I don’t know CPR, do either of you? I’ll go find a crew member. Riley, you keep an eye on Marjorie.”

Krystal ran off before Riley could protest. Her flashlight and glow stick bounced as she ran back toward the Cloud Club.

“Shine your light on them for me,” said Marjorie.

Riley turned back to the pool.

The mass had moved closer.

“It moved,” Riley tugged at her hair. “Did you see it? It’s not a person. Get out of the pool. Please.”

“Calm down.” Marjorie hopped in slow motion through the water. “What are you scared it might be? You didn’t tell me you get paranoid when you drink.”

Riley clung to that idea. She was paranoid because she’d drank too many margaritas. She held her light steady on the mass. The ship’s movement shifted the water, fracturing the light.

Riley tried to see what she’d seen on the hull: bulging, rough surfaces clung together, at least one oblong limb. But it was no use. It could be anything.

Marjorie drew close.

The mass expanded, doubling like a cell dividing.

“Oh lordy, is it moving?” Marjorie froze.

“I told you. Get out. It’s not a person.” Riley knelt down, ready to help Marjorie out of the pool.

But Marjorie took another step closer. She looked nearly straight down into the water, which covered her mouth and nose as she tilted her neck forward. She pulled her mouth back up. “Well, now I want to see what it is.”

The ship dipped, sending a splash of water over the pool’s edge.

Marjorie’s dyed pink hair floated up behind in the deep water. She stretched a leg out, distorted in Riley’s view, toward the mass.

Riley considered jumping in and forcing Marjorie out. But no way was she getting in the water with that thing. If that made her a coward, oh well.

“Please get out, and let’s wait for the crew. Krystal should be back any second.”

“I raised my kids to help when there’s help needed.” The wavering form of Marjorie’s leg stretched out and made contact with the mass. The woman yelped. She jerked her leg back.

Riley was in the water before she realized it, her instinct to help overpowering her fear. It was warm compared to the night air. Her clothes instantly became heavy. She held her flashlight above her head.

“What was that?” Marjorie stumbled backwards, paddling with her hands.

Half the mass dashed away along the bottom of the pool, far along the ship, out of reach of Riley’s flashlight.

“Where’d it go?” Marjorie whipped her head around.

Riley ignored the part of the mass that had fled. “It’s still at your feet.” She pointed her light. Cool air chilled her wet skin. The thing still at Marjorie’s feet took a clearer form.

“It’s a little boy!” Marjorie cried, her voice cracked with a mother’s anguish. She dropped below the water, then surfaced with a body in her arms.

Riley helped her to the edge of the pool. She climbed out, her weight clothes weighing her down. She dragged while Marjorie lifted, and a body flopped onto the deck.

Riley held up her flashlight. It wasn’t a boy, but he was young. A bit younger than Riley, probably. Brown hair hung over pale gray eyes that stared lifelessly at the sky. He wore a tweed blazer and blue jeans.

“This wasn’t a swimming accident,” Marjorie said. “Oh, the poor thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s five feet of water. He could have just stood up. And he’s in his dinner clothes.”

Riley sat back on the deck. She’d seen those dinner clothes. She recognized the corpse. Three hours ago, he’d been sitting at the table with Nathaniel and Wendy. The only guy his age at the table.

Someone in Nathaniel’s group had either suffered a terribly unlikely accident or been held under the water to drown.

Riley imagined the young man strolling out on the upper deck, enjoying the night air, happy to be on vacation. And then the thing from the hull dragging him into the pool.

A sickening thought occurred to Riley. She unbuttoned his shirt.

“What are you doing?” Marjorie asked. “Do you know CPR? I think it’s too late.”

Riley inspected the body for any kind of wounds. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Bite marks, scratches. Anything that would suggest the thing from the hull had attacked him.

Nothing. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her when she’d seen half the mass dart away. They absolutely weren’t, but maybe she could convince herself of it.

Her light glinted off of something near the corpse’s waistband. Something silver dripped out of his pocket. Riley scooped it up with her finger.

A drop of liquid mirror.

The same stuff she’d seen stretched between the ceiling and floor down on Deck One. It was hot enough to burn if she left it against her skin, so she wiped it on his clothes. It was gritty and scratched her finger as if it were minuscule flecks of broken glass.

She got up and started walking.

“Where are you going?” Marjorie asked.

Riley didn’t know. Away.

Riley walked the entire perimeter of the pool. The mass that had fled was gone.

She hugged her arms across her chest. The temperature was probably low eighties, but her drenched clothes were cold. Across the pool, Marjorie’s glow stick lit her and the corpse in a sickly green.

The thing clinging to the hull was connected to Nathaniel’s drowned friend, who was connected to the insane stuff on Deck One, which was coming down from the locked Deck Two.

She’d come to steal a watch. What was she getting involved in by going after Nathaniel? Was it still safe to break into his cabin tomorrow during dinner? Someone had died. She might be risking her life if she continued on with her planned heist. But if she went home without the watch, she’d be condemning herself to a lifetime of retail overload, always too busy to escape her minimum wage prisons.

An electric lantern’s glow appeared down the deck. Krystal was bringing the crew.

Riley couldn’t do anything to help. She switched off her flashlight, hid her glow stick in her wet pocket, and went to her cabin to dry off and clear her head.

17

A sharp knock on Riley’s door woke her from a restless sleep.

She sat up fast, prepared to claw out the eyes of her attacker.

The room was empty. Nobody was attacking her. Krystal wasn’t even back yet.

Krystal blinked in the green-tinted furniture and walls. The tight space was lit only by her glow stick. She’d left the light switch on before turning in, so that meant the power was still out.

The knock came again, louder this time.

Riley heard Krystal complaining but couldn’t make out the words.

Riley stumbled out of bed. Krystal must have lost her key card.

Riley’s body ached. Judging by how exhausted she was, she couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour. But the windowless cabin made that hard to judge.

A third knock, practically pounding.

“I’m coming!” Riley unlocked and swung open the door.

A small man waited in the doorway. He wore a blue blazer with gold stripes on the shoulders and cuffs. He held a hat under one arm and a lantern in his other hand.

Krystal stood behind him, one hand scratching her elbow. Her cocktail dress had become wrinkled. Her eyeshadow was smeared, and her eyes were red. She grimaced. “I would have texted, but we’re in the middle of the ocean.”

The uniformed man held out his hand. Riley shook it. It was smaller than hers.

“My name is Captain Silva,” he said with a European accent. Maybe Portuguese? “Forgive me for the intrusion.”

His curt tone said that he was not especially sorry.

“That’s okay,” she said anyways.

“I’m here because of what you and your friends found.”

Krystal said, “Don’t worry, they don’t think we had anything to do with it.”

“Where’s Marjorie?” Riley asked as if that were the most important thing right now.

“We’ve already escorted her back to her cabin.”

“You know her sisters she keeps mentioning?” Krystal said. “They’re triplets. Two other ladies that look exactly like her. Except their dye jobs are boring.”

Captain Silva blinked slowly. His silence swelled loud enough for even Krystal to notice.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just gonna wash my face, and then I’ll come with you.”

“I’d prefer to talk to your friend alone,” Captain Silva said. “Just like we spoke to you and your elderly friend individually.”

Krystal walked into the cabin, lighting her way with her cheap plastic flashlight. “She’s gotta change back out of her pajamas. Give us one sec.” She shut the door behind her.

Captain Silva immediately knocked again.

“Better go with him.” Krystal shimmied out of her dress and kicked off her heels. “God, that feels good.”

“What did he ask you?” Riley wanted to go back to bed. She wanted to be invisible, not grab the attention of the Captain.

“Just to tell them what happened. They recorded me with a camera in a creepy room. The Captain and some weirdo security guy.”

Krystal was in bed and asleep in the two minutes it took Riley to get sweatpants and a t-shirt on.

Riley went back into the hallway armed with her glow stick and flashlight.

The anger on Captain Silva’s face made her want to shrivel up into a little ball. It made sense, though. Such a physically unimposing man running such a big crew, he’d have to be able to intimidate despite his size.

“I walked your friend here as a courtesy. I could have gone back to bed and had security do it. You should not have had time alone to straighten out any stories.”

Riley hesitated. “We only found the body. Are you accusing us of something? I might need to wait to talk to a lawyer before I talk to you.”

A quick calculation behind his eyes, then he relaxed. “No, no. We have security cameras around the pool. It seems likely the body was there before the power outage. I expect the investigation will reveal a high blood alcohol level. Come.” He walked back toward the elevator.

Riley didn’t feel like she had any choice but to follow.

“When’s the power coming back on?” she asked.

“It’s being worked on. Don’t worry. We have a slim staff because of the unusual nature of our journey. But our crew is full.”

Riley realized she had a chance to ask the biggest question on her mind to the man most likely to know the answer. “Why doesn’t this ship match the pictures of the Aria online?”

Captain Silva missed a step. It was almost imperceptible, but her question had definitely jolted him. “What do you mean?”

“Windows on the bottom decks for starters. And the Promenade is a deck higher than I saw online.”

“The cruise line doesn’t make public such detailed schematics.”

“People post photos on review sites.”

“And you study them in great detail?”

“You’re dodging the question.”

They reached the elevator. Captain Silva pushed the down button.

Riley’s heart flipped. “Where are we going?”

“To the security offices for you to give your statement.”

“They’re down?”

“On Deck Three.”

Riley placed herself in her mental map of the Aria. When she’d gone down and seen the dripping mirrors and heard the strange yelling behind the locked door, all that had been towards the ship’s stern. Now they were at midship.

Too close to the strange things she’d seen. Thoughts of interrogating Captain Silva about the replacement Aria slipped away, crowded out by fear of descending back into the warped belly of the ship.

The elevator pulled them down.

18

Captain Silva led Riley into a plain, white-walled room.

Fluorescent lights buzzed. It was smaller than her bedroom in her and Krystal’s tiny apartment.

Riley expected an interrogation room with a metal table in the middle, maybe a one-way mirror on the wall.

Instead, despite the simpleness of the room and the eerie effect of the flickering light, the room had four armchairs with floral patterns set in a circle. She could imagine a knitting circle gossiping away in this room.

Captain Silva invited Riley to sit. A pale man as wide as he was tall walked in behind them.

Next to the short, slender Captain Silva, this newcomer made Riley think of a square plastic CD case on steroids.

Captain Silva introduced him. “This is First Officer Bengtsson. He’ll take your statement.” Captain Silva nodded to Riley. “Regrettably, I must retire. I relieve my second mate in four hours. If I don’t get at least three hours of sleep, I won’t leave any coffee for the guests.” He smiled, revealing bright white teeth.

Riley gave a polite laugh, trying to hide her nervousness at the interview and her fear of being this low on the ship again. The dead kid had been on Deck One. The thing clinging to the hull might be down here.

First Officer Bengtsson stoically watched Riley. He saluted Captain Silva, who left and shut the door behind him.

Riley was left alone with the blocky troll of a man.

He sat down across from her. The chair creaked under his weight. “I would also prefer to be sleeping. Let’s make this quick.” His accent was some type of Scandinavian.

“I’m sure Marjorie told you everything, but—”

He cut her off. “I would like the entire story from your mouth.”

Riley again considered whether she needed a lawyer. The internet had warned her never to talk to a cop without a lawyer. Did this situation count?

First Officer Bengtsson placed his phone on the chair’s arm. He tapped a button, and the phone beeped. “What time did you leave the Cloud Club?”

Riley answered his questions, walking him through how they’d walked across the deck in the dark, then Marjorie had heard a splash, and they’d spotted the body. She told him how Marjorie had jumped in while Krystal went for help, and then she’d helped get the body out of the pool. She was honest in saying she’d been so spooked from it all that she walked away.

Her interrogator cleared his throat. “Your pink-haired friend, she said someone swam away from the corpse before you pulled it from the water. Did you see this?”

She’d left that out. It wasn’t a person. No one could swim that fast. But if Bengtsson thought she was making up a story, he might think she was lying to cover up her own guilt. She couldn’t bring up the clinging thing.

“I don’t think anyone swam away. It was a trick of the light.”

“The power was out.”

“My flashlight.”

He was built like a stone, and he kept his thoughts behind a stone face. “Your friend said you got a better look at the assailant than her.”

“Assailant?”

“This person who swam away—it’s reasonable to assume that they attacked this boy, no?”

She should have matched Marjorie’s story. She was a terrible liar. But no turning back now. “I’m not sure I saw anyone at all. There was movement, but it was too fast to be someone swimming. Probably just my flashlight. I was freaked out. I was probably shaking the light.”

“What do you think moved that quickly?”

The thing on the hull, she wanted to say. “Nothing. Like I said, I think it was a trick of the light. The guy didn’t look beat up at all, did he?”

“The professionals will determine that. Why did this spook you enough to flee? Surely you would expect we’d want a statement.”

“I’m sorry. I was a little drunk.”

“It looks suspicious.”

And there was Riley’s cue. If they suspected her of anything, she wasn’t saying another word.

She stared at the ceiling. Exhaustion made her body ache.

After a moment, Bengtsson asked, “You don’t think it looks suspicious?”

Riley looked him in the eyes. They were deep green. Under his buzzed white-blond hair, they looked like dark emeralds. She decided she must still be a little drunk. Otherwise, staring this brick of a man in the face would be intimidating.

“Here’s another question neither of your friends could answer: what was the splash? You heard a splash and then looked in the pool and saw the body. But he was already drowned. Not kicking or struggling like he would be if he had just fallen in with a splash. What was the splash?”

Riley squeezed the armrest. That was a good question. Had the thing from the hull jumped in as they’d arrived? Had it drowned him somewhere else and then jumped in with the boy?

“Did you hear the splash, or did your pink-haired friend only tell you she heard one?”

Riley opened her mouth, then bit her tongue. She didn’t remember. She could imagine a splash. But had she heard one? Or had Marjorie only gasped and claimed to have heard one?

“Whose idea was it to walk along the upper deck rather than through the ship with the other passengers?”

Riley was surprised. Bengtsson wasn’t suspicious of Riley—he thought Marjorie was involved.

“Your friend suggested it, didn’t she?”

Riley barely knew the old woman, but she wasn’t a murderer. The thing on the hull had been in the pool. Marjorie wasn’t involved. Riley wasn’t about to throw her under the bus. “Marjorie was with us in the Cloud Club for two hours before the power went out.”

“You never let her out of your sight?”

Riley chewed on the inside of her cheek. Marjorie had slipped away for a few minutes right before the power went out. But she walked with a cane. She couldn’t have snuck outside, overpowered a 20-year-old to drown him, then snuck back inside. Plus, her clothes would have been wet. And Riley was almost certain they hadn’t been.

And again, she reminded herself, the thing from the hull had been in the pool with the body. That was the culprit. She just couldn’t tell Bengtsson that.

Riley looked at the security chief. “Marjorie was with us for two hours before we found the body. You shouldn’t be wasting your time questioning us. You should talk to the group he was with.”

Bengtsson raised an eyebrow. “You knew the deceased?”

Ah crap. She’d stuck her foot in her mouth. “I saw him at dinner.”

“There are five hundred people in each seating. Why did you notice him?”

Riley didn’t want to link herself to the investigation by admitting to Nathaniel being her uncle. “There’s not many guys here close to my age. He stood out.”

“Why are you on this cruise? You aren’t retired. How can you take six weeks' vacation?”

“I’m here to give a statement about how we found a body. That’s an off-topic question.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’ve given my statement. It’s two in the morning. If you want to chat about how many PTO days I get each year, let’s do it tomorrow.”

Bengtsson stared at her, then cracked a smile. “Don’t go out of town for a few days.”

Riley didn’t feel obligated to laugh. She stood up. She was so exhausted that her legs had gone stiff just in the five minutes she’d been sitting. “I’m free to go?”

“You are not being detained.” He walked her to the door. “My next interview should be here already.”

Outside the interrogation room, the hallway’s embellishments were a stark contrast to the bare room behind Riley. The elevators and stairs were around the corner. “I thought you’d already talked to Marjorie and Krystal.”

“I have. You were on the right track with your suggestion to talk to the boy’s friends.”

Footsteps from the stairs above, heading down.

It had to be Nathaniel.

The hallways suddenly felt like an animal trap, and the hunter was on his way.

19

Leather-soled shoes clacked down the stairwell.

Riley took an unconscious step away. That had to be Nathaniel. Who else from his group would take the time to put on dress shoes for a middle-of-the-night interrogation.

Bengtsson raised an eyebrow at Riley. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Riley looked around for an escape route. The stairs, the elevator, or down the hallway of Deck Three.

“I’ll call the elevator for you.” Bengtsson walked across the hall to press the button.

Voices from the stairwell. It was Nathaniel. Riley was out of time. “I need to stretch my legs a bit. It’s been a strange night.”

She turned and walked down the hallway.

Bengtsson called after her. “You should not be alone.”

But as she turned the corner, she heard Nathaniel greeting the security chief.

The dim hallway stretched far ahead of Riley. With it being so late, the bright overhead lights weren’t on. Only the dimmer yellow lights on the walls positioned every ten feet.

“Miss?” Bengtsson called. “Wait a moment.”

Riley hurried along the soft carpeted floor.

She passed doors labeled with letters instead of numbers. The doors were farther apart than up on the decks with the passenger cabins. These must be conference rooms.

But in practical terms, it meant long stretches of this hallway felt empty and abandoned.

Something splashed under her feet.

The carpet was soggy with liquid.

It could be a leak, Riley told herself. But she was directly above Deck Two. Down on Deck One, those silvery strands of liquid dripped down from the ceiling. The same gritty goop that’d been on the dead boy’s body.

Riley didn’t want to know if she was standing in that spillage now. She wanted to find the next staircase and go back to her cabin to sleep.

But Deck Two was connected to Nathaniel’s plan to destroy the ocean. Riley was convinced of that. Any evidence she could gather would be helpful. It’d feel great to shut down not just his watch theft but also his money-making, ocean-destroying scheme for the Aria.

Riley turned on her flashlight. Silvery liquid mixed in with carpet fibers. The green and red art deco pattern in the carpet was overtaken by the reflection of her light off the liquid.

She wished she had something to collect a sample with. She wasn’t going to scoop it into her pockets. Maybe that’s what the dead boy had done. But she could at least take a picture.

A better one this time, where you could actually see what she was trying to capture.

She took several, with and without flash. They weren’t perfect, but you could at least tell it was a shiny liquid soaked into the carpet.

Soft footsteps behind her.

She’d almost forgotten about Bengtsson. He must have got Nathaniel situated and then come to check on her.

Riley turned around.

A mass of wriggling darkness framed the hallway.

20

Riley staggered backwards, away from the wriggling darkness.

Along the walls, floor, and ceiling, emerged squirming black fingers. They looked like thumbs without nails or creases and moved together like a photographic negative of something from a coral reef. Rather than stick to the shape of the hallway, they bulged inward in spots. It framed Riley’s view of the lobby with a shuddering mass of small appendages.

Riley’s throat went dry. She couldn’t process what she was seeing.

Wet, scraping sounds as the swarm of black tubes rubbed against each other. It smelled of saltwater and sour mud.

Riley stepped backwards. The wriggling blackness shifted towards her. The straight lines of the hallway devolved into organic bumps and valleys.

She froze. It stopped.

This was impossible. She couldn’t have just walked through this area. This thing couldn’t exist. Not even at the bottom of the ocean, and certainly not on a cruise ship.

She tried another step away. Again, the colony of black tubes edged along the surfaces of the hallway, closer to her.

The shiny, structureless thumbs all leaned toward her. If they surrounded her, enveloped her, what would it feel like? Oily flesh flicking over every inch of her skin.

Riley screamed for help—Bengtsson was only around the corner—but it came out raspy and quiet. Fear choked her.

But fear didn’t paralyze her. She took another step away.

The black mass followed her. It shuddered harder than before, a centralized earthquake that she felt spread through the carpeted hallway floor. A bump of tubes stretched upwards. It was a single bulge emerging from the floor.

The oily blackness dripped away from the top of the bulge, leaving behind dusty orange appendages.

Riley steadily walked backwards. The intruding area followed her. The wriggling hill grew even more, slipping off its black topcoat.

The bump of waving orange thumbs squeezed itself together, stretched higher, grew lopsided, and tumbled over. It separated from the floor with a juicy “pop.”

It reminded Riley of videos of a calf being born.

The thing unfolded, and five appendages stretched out, each as thick as her waist. The thing jerked itself upwards, flopping around on the black tubes still wiggling out of the floor. It flipped itself over.

Uneven, bulging orange flesh that looked a rough as a sidewalk.

It was the thing from the hull.

From this clearer view, it looked like a deformed starfish. Five thick limbs reached out from a central body as big as a kitchen table. It was cramped in the hallway, surrounded by the field of black tubes that had birthed it. Its limbs bent up and against the walls.

Riley’s lungs burned. She’d been holding her breath. She gasped.

The monstrous starfish swung around. One limb reached for her.

She ran.

Heavy, wet noises behind her.

Riley imagined the monstrous starfish’s limbs slapping against the carpet, but she didn’t dare turn around and slow down.

That thing had killed Nathaniel’s friend. Drowned him or killed him and then dragged him into the pool.

Riley ran as fast as she could in flip-flops. She cursed the tennis shoes that she didn’t bother to pack.

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. Where were the next stairs? Where were the next elevators?

Thousands of waving black tubes spread over the walls and ceiling, overtaking her. Her feet slapped down onto their springy flesh.

The thing was right behind her.

She left her flip-flops behind, stepping out them as gracefully as when she came home from a long day.

Rubbery fingers pressed against her bare feet, slid up between her toes. The unnaturalness of it shrieked at her. She was fleeing something impossible.

Something thick and rough swiped the back of her neck. It stung.

She sprinted harder than she ever had before.

The carpet under her feet had never felt so good. She was outdistancing it.

But the wet smacks of the starfish’s strides were still close behind.

Ahead, the hallway curved to the left with the ship. She’d ran past midship and now headed towards the bow. There should be stairs… there they were—double wood doors with the image of a staircase above.

Riley threw everything into running. Her thighs burned, and she feared they would cramp and leave her collapsed on the floor as the starfish left on top of her, its hundreds of wriggling fingers crushing her body.

She reached the double doors, flung them open, and started up the stairs. She’d done it. She’d outran the terror that couldn’t possibly exist, that had emerged through the floor.

The starfish and its localized environment followed her into the stairwell.

Momentary triumph crumbled back into panic.

Riley took the stairs three at a time. Her quads tightened to the cusp of cramping.

She didn’t know where to flee. Nowhere on this ship felt safe. But if she could find other people, the nightmare would end. That’s always how it was in nightmares and horror movies. Run to the crowd. Then it’s either all in your head, or the public scares away the monster.

But it was two in the morning. The power was only recently back on.

She raced past the Deck Four landing.

Behind the door would only be guest cabins with sleeping guests.

The wooden banister cracked behind her. Riley risked a glance backwards. The stairs slowed the overgrown, deformed starfish, but it kept after her. It flung its limbs forward, one at a time, using them to yank itself upwards.

The space covered by the black fingers had shrunk. Now that the starfish had made it through, it didn’t need the invading environment.

Riley stumbled but caught herself.

There would be people all the way at the top of the stairs, nine decks up. But Riley’s legs would give out before then.

She neared the landing of Deck Five. She heard the most welcome sound of her life: slot machines.

Through the doors and down the hallway was the casino. Riley heard the whirring and jingling of the spinning wheels, the jangle of promised payouts, and the musical beeps of the electronic games.

Riley flung open the doors with her shoulder. The casino sounds grew louder. The ceiling hung low and the lights stayed dim. The hallway ahead emptied into a wide room lit mostly by the colorful screens of electric slot machines.

The doors to the stairwell crashed opened behind her. The starfish scuttled at her like a contained mudslide.

Riley sprinted into the casino. “Help!” She looked for anyone in authority.

A plump old lady with thick glasses looked up at her from a slot machine. A man in his sixties leaped up from his own games.

The card tables were closed at this hour. The only Aria staff was a woman Riley’s age in a red vest.

Apart from the two gamblers, the casino was deserted.

The attendant and the man hurried to meet Riley.

“What’s the problem, little lady?” The man wore a black shirt and white string tie. He spoke with a Louisiana accent. Riley suspected that anywhere else, he’d be open carrying an old west revolver. She wished he was now.

“Call security!” Riley grabbed the attendant by the shoulders.

“Ma’am, please do not touch me.”

“Christ on a cracker!” The man pushed Riley and the attendant behind him.

The attendant went white-faced. “What is that?”

The starfish bowled through the casino doors, knocking over the center support beam.

Screaming, the plump old woman fell back from her slot machine, directly into the monster’s path.

The old man rushed to help her, and he was carrying, a black pistol no bigger than his hand, which he fired at the starfish as he ran for the woman. “Debbie!” he shouted for her. The loud barks of the pistol drowned out his cries.

Riley’s ears rang.

The attendant tugged Riley by the arm. “Run!”

The pistol rounds struck the approaching creature. Orange wriggling fingers popped into pus. Tiny holes appeared in the bulges of sandpapery skin. But the starfish wasn’t stopped.

It reached Debbie just as the man did. It reared up and collapsed overtop them both. Limbs curled in like a squid drawing its prey to its beak.

The pistol barked twice more, and then both victims started screaming.

Riley let the casino attendant pull her through the aisles of loud and garish slot machines, past the empty gaming tables, and into a booth.

She shut the door behind them and flipped two deadbolts. “All the chips are in here. It’s as secure as anything.”

Riley looked out the thick glass window, but flashing lights and whirring cherries blocked her view of the starfish. “Can we call for help?”

The attendant was already yelling into a landline phone.

Riley collapsed onto the floor and buried her face in her hands.

21

Chris’s first clue that something strange had happened overnight was that when he called to get breakfast delivered, they said room service was canceled, and only one cafeteria was open.

Apparently, there’d been a power outage.

Chris wanted to keep a low profile now that Pete would have told the cult he was here. But hunger won out. He went up to Deck Ten, one level below the top deck.

The cafeteria took up the whole bow of the ship on this deck. It smelled of frying bacon and damp air conditioning. The walls were all windows to allow a view of the empty ocean. Stations for food dotted the center of the room. Chris had shown up right during the breakfast rush.

He heard his second clue of the night’s events while standing in line for scrambled eggs.

A leather-tanned man in sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt was standing in front of him, carrying two plates already loaded with melon and pineapple. He chatted with an equally leathery woman next to him. “I don’t know how you went back to sleep after those gunshots.”

“It couldn’t have been gunshots.” The woman popped a green cube of honeydew into her mouth. “Nobody has guns on the ship.”

“I’ve spent enough time at the range to know what I heard.”

Chris cut in. “Sorry for eavesdropping, but you said you heard a gun?”

The man looked annoyed at Chris’s intrusion. “Hell yes, I did.”

His wife rolled her eyes. “He’s overreacting.”

“What deck were you on?” Chris asked.

“Six. Right over the casino.”

“So it was probably the crew working on the machines,” she said through a mouthful of fruit.

“Or someone tried to rob it,” the man suggested.

The line moved forward to the food, and Chris let the old couple return to bickering.

He scarfed down his food at a small table between a support column and a window. Storm clouds still filled the sky behind them, but ahead were blue skies and calm waters.

He finished quickly to lower his chances of being spotted by anyone in Micah’s cult.

Fresh air would help clear his head to decide his next steps. Chris walked upstairs to the top deck.

The Cloud Club was open and had a sign outside offering Bloody Marys, but the pool deck was blocked off with yellow tape. The porter he’d talked to while boarding the ship—Bobby something—stood guard at the door outside.

He held up a hand as Chris approached. “Pool’s closed today.” He wore the same orange polo as the other staff, but his was a size too small to show off how frequently he used the Aria’s workout room.

Guilt bubbled inside Chris. The same as any time he drove by a cop, despite having done nothing wrong. That impulse had grown worse since he’d escaped the overnight skyscraper and became determined to collapse the next building the Deviser sent over. His internet search history was literally that of a terrorist, so his brain irrationally jumped on any law enforcement activity as evidence that the jig was up, so to speak.

And apparently, a twenty-something in an orange polo, standing in front of yellow caution tape, could also trigger those alarms in his brain.

Chris took a deep breath. He and Pete had been up here last night, but Chris hadn’t had his equipment on him. If they knew about the explosives in his suitcase, they wouldn’t be up here.

Chris looked past Bobby to the pool deck, doing his best to look innocent and casual. “Fixing something?”

Nothing looked out of order. Blue chlorinated water lapped at the cement edges of the pool to the rhythm of the ship’s gentle movement. Enough plastic deck loungers to relax an army. Fake plants for some ambiance.

Three people stood close to each other, talking by the pool. Two wore the black shirts of the Aria’s crew. A man built larger than Bobby the porter, whose posture said ex-military. The woman next to him looked equally as dangerous. The man in the tie was short and wide, but his sure-footedness in dealing with the intense crew members put him comfortably in charge.

Bobby answered Chris’s question. “Just some routine maintenance.”

It took Chris a second to remember what he’d asked. He pointed to the security crew. “They don’t look like pool boys.”

“Look, I don’t know what they’re telling everybody yet, so just find somewhere else to relax for a while. I’m sure Captain Silva will update everyone later today.”

Chris’s gut sank again. “Update us on what?”

“It was an accident. That’s all.”

Chris tried to piece everything together. Someone heard gunshots five decks below. That couldn’t have come from up here. “Does this have something to do with the power outage?”

“Probably,” Bobby said. “How else do you drown in five feet of water?”

“Who drowned?” Chris asked, hoping it was random chance and not at all related to his own plans.

“I don’t know, some kid. Give the crew time to fill out the paperwork, and everything will go back to normal.”

Chris walked away without another word. On a ship full of retirees, there were only a few guests young enough to be called “kid” by the young porter. It had to be Pete.

But Pete wasn’t drunk last night. Bobby was right—there was no reason to drown in a shallow swimming pool. Even in the dark.

The last Chris saw Pete, he’d been heading straight for Nathaniel to report on Chris.

If this were an episode of Law & Order, Chris would suspect himself. He had a motive: keep Pete from warning the cult about him.

But Chris had gone to sleep after their conversation.

Had Nathaniel killed the kid? Why would he? Pete may have expressed the doubt that Chris put into his head, but that’d be too extreme. No way the old man would murder someone for asking if their faith in the Deviser was misplaced.

Or had Pete even got down off the top deck? They’d talked around midship. Chris had seen him walk towards the elevators at the stern, but he hadn’t actually seen him get on those elevators.

Maybe something had grabbed him—something from the overnight skyscraper.

That rang true more than any other possibility.

The threats in the skyscraper hadn’t wasted any time coming after Chris and the other explorers. The threats on this ship wouldn’t be any different.

The shipwide intercom system chimed. It was buzzy and muddled here in the stairwell, but Chris could make out the captain’s voice well enough.

“There will be a mandatory meeting for all guests in the Rhapsody Theater on deck seven at noon today. All guests are expected to attend while we discuss important matters.”

The message repeated twice more.

Things were moving faster than Chris had hoped. A drowned kid, a cult that may or may not know Chris was on board, gunshots in the casino. It all had to come from the Deviser. The Aria had a purpose, and it was building momentum.

If he could find a way to evacuate the ship safely, he would. But he needed to put the core of his plan into motion. The Aria needed to sink.

And he couldn’t let Nathaniel and his cult get in his way. He wanted to know what Nathaniel knew and what he was planning. Pete claimed the recently-elevated cult leader had a trinket that led him to “breaches” from the Deviser’s dimension.

Chris wanted that trinket.

It was time to break into his cabin. The mandatory guest meeting would be the perfect time.

22

Riley sat huddled under a blanket in an unused guest cabin on Deck Seven.

Morning sunbeams came in through the sliding glass door that led to the private balcony.

By the time security arrived last night, the monster starfish had disappeared. They tried to bring Riley down to the medical bay on Deck One, but she refused to get any closer to Deck Two. That’s where the starfish had come from. That’s where everything was coming from.

She squeezed her knees against her chest.

The room was dusty and humid. Without guests, it had been neglected by the cleaning staff. They’d turned the TV on for her, but nobody had changed the channel away from the cruise line’s ad for the ship she was already on.

The ship’s doctor put her poking and prodding tools back into a leather satchel. She grimaced at Riley. “I hope you feel better.” And then she left.

Riley’s feet were scratched up but not deep. That was her only physical wound.

Mentally, she felt like the ball in a pinball machine. Coming on the Aria’s Pacific crossing was already the biggest risk she’d taken in her life. Quitting her job, maxing out a credit card—all to steal back Dad’s watch from Uncle Nathaniel. And then, on top of that, the insanity of the lower decks and the suspicion that Nathaniel had something to do with this not being the original Aria.

So for the monster in the Deck Three hallway—the same thing that had been clinging to the hull—to crawl out of the floor, then murder those people right in front of her…

Riley wanted to go home. Her fears of being stuck in minimum wage forever seemed silly now. Serving coffee was better than death by giant starfish.

The intercom speaker on the ceiling chimed, and then Captain Silva told everyone there’d be a mandatory meeting at noon.

Riley laughed. She didn’t know which death the meeting would be about. She hoped it would cut the cruise short.

Nathaniel could keep the stupid watch. Riley could go home, back to her coffee shop job, and focus on mindfulness instead of actually improving her situation. No screams from behind locked doors. No mutated starfish crawling out of floors.

A sick feeling in Riley’s gut.

She didn’t want to give up. She only needed a few hours a night to get some kind of job qualification. Selling Dad’s watch would let her quit her delivery gig to give her that time. She had to keep going.

Nope. She didn’t let herself sit with that impulse. She hopped out of bed to admire the view out the glass doors. Open ocean—little whitecaps on the swells.

Giving up sucked. It made you feel like a loser. Like you’d be stuck with the worst parts of yourself and then die never having lived.

But if she got stubborn—if she still went after Dad’s watch, even suspecting that Nathaniel was somehow involved with the dangers of Deck Two—then she might die, whether or not philosophically she considered herself having lived.

People already had lost their lives. The boy her age with Nathaniel. The old lady enjoying herself at the slot machine last night. Her friend who tried to save her.

So Riley did her best to stamp down her impulse to stay determined.

It was time to give up.

A tap at the door, and then Captain Silva entered.

The small man had shaving nicks on his chin and circles under his eyes. He carried a tray of fruit and breakfast meats.

“Ms. Smith, I’m sorry to meet again so soon. I brought you breakfast. I didn’t know whether you’d have an aversion to food and want something light or if you’d be famished and want something greasy. I brought both extremes of the spectrum.” He offered a kind smile.

Riley took the tray. “I’m starving and nauseous. Let’s see what I keep down.”

“Let’s go outside and talk.” He led her outside onto the balcony.

The morning air was cool but still humid. Riley pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. They sat on plastic chairs.

Riley watched the horizon, letting the gentle swells of the water’s surface calm her thoughts.

“I love the ocean,” Captain Silva said.

“Good career choice, then.” Riley popped a strawberry into her mouth. Juicy and flavorless.

“I have dreams of retiring to a Caribbean port and taking tourists fishing.”

“What’s stopping you?”

He helped himself to a sausage link. “Fear of change. Comfort in my position. This is a coveted career. One I worked hard for. My wife is proud of me. And she would not want to move from Portugal to Jamaica.”

Riley didn’t know anything about marriage or careers. She ate another tasteless strawberry.

Captain Silva cleared his throat. “I have already spoken with Jessica about what she witnessed in the casino last night.”

“The girl working?”

“Yes. Her version of events is very similar to yours. And so I find myself confused.”

“How could it be real, you mean?”

“Rather, what is it you both saw, that made you think you saw some sort of barnacle monster?”

Of course, he didn’t believe them. She couldn’t even blame him. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it.

“I saw the same thing climbing the hull yesterday. Near the bow on Deck Eight. I wasn’t drunk then. So the monster that chased me into the casino last night wasn’t an alcohol-induced hallucination.”

“Clearly not. I walked you to your meeting with Security Chief Bengtsson, and you were mostly sober. And of course, there are two people dead.”

Right. He had to believe something happened. There were corpses.

“Bengtsson suggested maybe you and Jessica are covering up a terrible thing that you have done together.”

Riley set the breakfast tray down onto her lap. “Ridiculous. That’s your chief of security? He thinks a guest and a poker chip counter teamed up to randomly murder an old couple?”

“They were brother and sister.” Captain Silva stood up to lean on the balcony railing. The wind caught a scrap of tissue that had sealed his shaving nick and blew it away. “Bengtsson does not believe you hurt anyone. He suggested it among a list of possibilities. We were coming up with anything that might make sense because your story does not.”

Riley exhaled. She wanted a shower. “No, it doesn’t make sense.”

“There are many tiny bruises on the deceased’s body. That matches your description of a large starfish with many tiny feet. And deep gouges in her abdomen, where her liver was removed. Eaten, I suspect, but the doctor wouldn’t hypothesize about that until we have a real medical examiner brought aboard.”

“What about the other body?”

“We haven’t found it yet. Footage shows it being dragged away.”

“Now you sound like you do believe me.”

“I believe you saw something horrific. I believe two people are dead, killed by a wild animal. The wounds suggest as much. But what is more likely? That a giant starfish came out of the floor and chased you down the hallway leaving nearly zero evidence? Or someone on this ship smuggled some sort of predator aboard?”

“Why’d you say ‘nearly’ zero evidence? Is there security footage?”

“The cameras have been acting up. We have one video from inside the casino. You run through the entrance, and then something chases you. There are some electrical artifacts in the footage when your pursuer passes by. Those artifacts return when the second body is being dragged away.”

An impossible monster that short circuits cameras. Sure, why not? “How would someone smuggle something that big onboard. Nobody’s luggage is that big.”

Captain Silva looked down at the ocean.

“Oh, you’re not talking about a guest.”

“I’m not, no.”

“Last night, you wouldn’t admit that the Aria is different from the advertised pictures. It’s a new ship. It must have just switched over. Maybe this thing was already on board when your crew took over.”

“Bengtsson and I are considering all possibilities.”

“How about the possibility of what the hell is on Deck Two?”

Captain Silva’s lips went tight. “There’s no reason to suspect it came from there.”

“What’s down there? Have you seen what’s going on below it?”

“You’ll have to take my word for it.”

Riley rolled her eyes. “Like I hell I do. I saw that damned thing crawl through the floor out of Deck Two. Whatever you’re hiding down there, that’s what’s causing all this.”

“I am hiding nothing,” Captain Silva snapped, emphasizing the “I.”

“Then who is?”

“That’s none of your concern. You have dragged me away from the purpose of my visit.”

“Which is?”

“To convey the cruise line’s concern for your wellbeing, both physical and emotional.”

“Well, consider your corporate concern conveyed. I’m not signing any liability release.”

“My off-the-record advice would be that you shouldn’t sign any such thing. You could have a small but comfortable settlement after going through what you did.”

“Is that what you really came to say?”

“No. I would like to hear the details of what you experienced. Not just last night, but down on the lower decks, and outside on Deck Eight, as well.”

“You don’t want Bengtsson here to record everything and accuse me of murder?”

“This is for my own edification. I am unhappy with the… situation regarding Deck Two. I am captain of the Aria, but the cruise line owns the ship.”

“You don’t know what’s on Deck Two,” Riley realized. “You got orders from up top to leave it alone.”

Captain Silva plucked another sausage off the platter. “Please tell me what you’ve experienced thus far.”

Riley told him everything. She worried he’d lock her up for being crazy, but once the words started, they flowed.

Captain Silva stared out at the ocean. “Strange.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I will take what you’ve shared into consideration. To be entirely open with you, your story makes me worry about hallucinogens in our water.”

Riley started to protest.

“Except, of course,” he continued, “for the physical evidence I’ve seen. I will have to think some more.”

That was probably the best she could ask for.

“One more question,” Captain Silva turned around to lean back on the railing. “What is your relationship to our other guests with your same last name?”

Riley’s breath caught. Captain Silva had made a connection between her and Nathaniel. Which meant he already suspected Nathaniel was connected to Deck Two.

“You think my uncle bribed your bosses to keep you out of Deck Two.”

“Ah,” Captain Silva nodded. “You’re their niece. But they don’t know you’re here, am I correct?”

“And I’d like to keep it that way.”

He showed his palms. “I won’t say a thing. Am I also correct in assuming you are not employed by your aunt and uncle’s company?”

Riley laughed. “Hell no. I serve coffee and deliver fast food.”

“So you’re unaware of any intentions he has with the contents of Deck Two?”

“I don’t know what’s down there. Do you?”

“When we’re at sea, this is my ship.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Captain Silva stood up from leaning on the railing. He brushed off the sleeves of his blazer. “I appreciate your honest answers about your knowledge of your aunt and uncle. I wish you knew more, but I can’t fault you for a lack of relationship with them. My brief encounters with your uncle, in particular, have been unpleasant. Thank you for your time.”

He walked back into the cabin.

Riley followed. “Hold on. What’s going on? There’s clearly something dangerous down there, whether you believe it’s a giant starfish or a smuggled bear. You’re not just going to keep sailing another six weeks, are you?”

“I will be discussing our plans at the mandatory guest meeting at noon.” He left.

Riley stood in the empty cabin. Wind blew in from the open door.

Screw this.

She wasn’t letting Captain Silva’s own weakness with his bosses stop her from figuring out what was going on.

Getting her dad’s watch back and searching the room for dirt didn’t have to wait until dinner anymore. Nathaniel and Wendy would be at the mandatory meeting.

Riley would break in then.

She headed back to her cabin to find Krystal, all thoughts of giving up banished by her conversation with Captain Silva.

Whatever life meaning waited for her back home, today had a purpose. It felt good.

23

There was only one hallway that led from Nathaniel and Wendy’s cabin to the elevators or stairs. That was the downside of having the fanciest cabin on the ship. You got a view out the bow, but it was a long walk wherever you went.

At eleven o’clock, Riley waited in a sitting area down the hallway from the elevator bank on Deck Seven. She relaxed in an armchair that looked through a glass window down onto the shopping promenade in the center of the Aria.

She positioned an empty chair so that if she slouched, no one in the elevator lobby would be able to see her. She buried her nose in her Kindle but kept watch for anyone appearing from the direction of Nathaniel and Wendy’s cabin.

By eleven-thirty, a steady trickle of foot traffic appeared as guests made their way to the theater on Deck Five.

At eleven-forty-five, Nathaniel and Wendy walked into view. Nathaniel was wearing lanky khakis and a white linen shirt. His long gray hair was neatly combed. Wendy wore a modest, floral print sundress. Her hair was pulled back in a tasteful bun, held up with designer wooden pins.

Someone from the cleaning staff dropped a stack of toilet paper rolls behind Riley. Wendy looked over.

Riley’s heart leaped into her throat. She slid down out of Wendy’s view. Her heart pounded. Had Wendy seen her?

Riley breathed deep. She heard the elevator ding and the shuffling of feet. After a count of ten, Riley peeked around the chair. The elevator lobby was empty.

Wendy must not have seen her. Riley crept to her feet. Metal tools jangled in her purse.

For all the practice she and Krystal had done jimmying locks, and for all the research and purchasing they’d done to buy the right tools, Riley hadn’t considered a bag to carry everything. So she’d stuffed what she needed into the bottom of her purse.

Riley slowly but confidently walked into the elevator lobby. She glanced both ways and exhaled once she saw that Nathaniel and Wendy hadn’t been staying behind to jump out at her.

Despite it being her first break-in, she found herself shifting into autopilot.

She walked confidently down the hallway.

She could get used to this. Way more exciting than pouring lattes.

All the guest cabin hallways had the same seashell light fixtures above green and red art deco carpet patterns.

It was a long walk. Her surge of confidence dipped. Riley’s mind wandered right back down to Deck Three. She imagined that forest of stubby black tentacles reaching out behind her. A quick glance confirmed she was being paranoid. She was still shaken from last night.

The walk took long enough to let her heartbeat get really out of control. She rounded a curve, and there was the door at the end of the hall.

Inside her purse, she wrapped her fingers around smooth iron.

YouTube had plenty of tutorials on getting through a locked door. Riley and Krystal had researched how to fake keycards at first, until Krystal pointed out that forcing the mechanism itself would be easier. Sure, it’d damage the door, which would be evidence of the break-in. But Nathaniel would notice the missing watch either way.

Riley approached the door.

One bit of good luck: the metal plate to prevent jimmying wasn’t pale like steel. It was cheap aluminum. According to YouTube channel IBr8Locks’ most popular video, aluminum could be bent out of the way. Riley pulled a small prybar from her bag. She worked it between the plastic door and the metal plate.

She pried, jammed it deeper, pried again, jammed it even deeper. A few more rounds of that and the plate was bent out of the way, close to breaking.

Riley swapped out the prybar for a long steel shim. She went through the motions she’d practiced hundreds of times in the last few weeks. This lock was different from the one they’d practiced on, but the idea was the same. She slid it between door and frame until she found the latch bolt, then maneuvered the shim behind and brought it down and towards her.

The latch bolt moved but didn’t release its grip on the frame. Another three tries, and the door popped open.

Riley walked inside without a look back, pretending like she belonged.

She locked the door behind her.

Anyone within ten feet of the door outside would be able to tell that it had been damaged, but the latch was still closed. If Nathaniel or Wendy came back, she’d at least have a few seconds warning with the sound of the lock disengaging.

Riley stepped forward to take in the cabin.

Where Riley and Krystal’s cabin was claustrophobic, this one felt like a luxury castle.

A small luxury castle, but still.

They had a kitchenette with a microwave, a half-sized fridge and a counter with barstools. Through the kitchenette was a sitting room with a 60-inch TV and the most comfortable-looking leather couch Riley had ever seen.

She tested it out. It lived up to its looks.

The sitting room was open to the floor above. Spiral stairs led to a loft. The whole two-story wall at the far end of the sitting room was one big glass window. The view wasn’t as magnificent as Riley would have imagined. The outside of both Decks Seven and Eight had ceilings. There was thirty feet between the window and the edge of the ship. Really, their view wasn’t too different from the interior cabins that overlooked the Promenade, except for the framed squares of ocean and sky past the outside walkways.

Riley avoided looking out towards the bow, where she’d first seen the monstrous starfish. She should get in and out as quickly as possible.

She made a quick search of the end tables downstairs: just the cruise’s welcome packet and a guide to the TV channels.

Riley hurried up the spiral staircase. Upstairs was a loft sleeping area. A king-sized bed filled most of the space. A closet on one wall, a bathroom on the other.

Riley searched the nightstands. Prescriptions, jewelry, tissues, and phone chargers. No sign of Dad’s watch.

She checked the closet. Her heart sank.

There was a safe in the wall. Beige steel. A keypad like on a payphone. A plastic handle, like from a microwave.

Regular guest cabins didn’t have safes, but Riley should have realized the fancy guests in the fancy cabins would demand extra protection from the poor and untrustworthy staff and crew.

She leaned against the closet doorframe, figuring out her next move.

She’d been so proud of herself for getting inside, only to hit a barrier she hadn’t planned for.

Maybe she could remove the safe from the wall?

Before she could get her prybar back out from her purse, she heard something downstairs.

Riley froze.

Someone was fumbling with the cabin door.

24

Riley searched frantically for a hiding place.

The door rattled downstairs.

It wasn’t the quick click of the door being unlocked. It was a slow scraping of metal on metal. Probably what it sounded like from inside when she’d jimmied the lock a moment ago.

The door opened and then clicked shut.

Riley slipped into the closet and pulled the door closed. Nathaniel’s suits and Wendy’s dresses hung against her in the tight space. She listened for their conversation below.

But no one was speaking. Riley heard movement, but it was muted. Someone was sneaking around. It wasn’t cleaning staff, either.

Riley weighed her options. She could burst downstairs and pretend she belonged. If it was a random break-in, that might work. But they would have already seen the damaged door.

She could hide in the closet until they left. But the safe was in here. Whatever they were looking for, they’d end up searching the closet.

Her best bet was to slip out and then find a hiding place that wasn’t also the target of whoever was downstairs.

Before she could act on that decision, the closet door swung open.

Riley gasped.

The intruder had snuck upstairs without her hearing them.

It was a man around thirty. He had brown tussled hair. His round chin gave him a babyface. But the determination in his eyes marked him as a weathered soul. He’d been through heavier trials than most. That grimness in his eyes turned to shock as he saw Riley.

He jumped back, raised his hands, ready to protect against her attack.

Riley breathed deep. She didn’t know whether to push past him or freeze to see if he’d leave her alone.

Then she recognized him. In the dining room last night, there’d been one younger guy staring at Nathaniel’s table as much as Riley was. This was him.

The newcomer decided she wasn’t a threat. He lowered his arms and relaxed his shoulders. “Who the hell are you?”

“You first. I saw you watching my uncle.”

Gears behind his eyes turned. “You’re with Micah’s cult.”

“Cult? You’re calling Nathaniel’s group a cult?”

He tapped his fingers against his leg while he thought. “Are you not part of it? I guess I didn’t see you with them. But Nathaniel’s your uncle?”

Riley had a thousand questions to ask, but she was still in Nathaniel’s apartment. She had to keep moving, get her watch, and get out. “Why are you here? Are you with the government? EPA or something?” Nobody would care that Nathaniel had stolen her watch, but if he was planning on some ocean-destroying, money-grabbing scheme, it made sense that someone official was onto him.

“EPA? What’ve you seen that makes you wonder that?”

“Whatever’s on Deck Two. That’s gotta be some kind of environmental disaster waiting to happen. I think it’s mutating ocean life.”

“Shit,” he breathed. “I’d hoped I had more time.”

“So you are EPA.”

“Not exactly.” He stepped out of her way. “Do you mind stepping out of the closet? I’d like to get to the safe.”

Riley got out of his way. He pulled out a white and blue electric toothbrush. Instead of bristles, it had a glittering cutting disc. On closer inspection, it was a power tool repainted to look like a toothbrush.

He held it up to the safe. It whirred, then screeched as it touched the metal. Sparks flew. He turned his eyes away. “The good thing about these cheap cruise line safes is that they’re all about the appearance of security. But the damn things are made of aluminum. You could break in with a steel chisel if you were determined enough.”

In two minutes, he’d cut a square big enough to reach inside and pull out the contents: a leather folder, a wallet-sized jewelry box, a snub-nosed revolver, and Dad’s gold pocket watch.

He stuffed the gun, box, and watch into his pockets.

“Hey. That’s my watch.”

“I need to take a look at it before you can have it. Make sure it’s not the trinket I’m looking for. You see anything else like this in here? Jewelry? Pins?”

Riley pointed to a nightstand. The man pocketed Wendy’s loose jewelry. He flipped through papers on Nathaniel’s nightstand but didn’t find anything he wanted. “Alright. Let’s go find somewhere to check this out. Maybe you can explain what it is.”

“I doubt it,” Riley said. This was like something out of a logic-free dream. The guy was acting like the Mad Hatter. But if he might decide he wanted Wendy’s jewelry more and just give her the watch, she had no reason not to go along. “But we’ll see.”

She followed him back down the stairs and out the cabin door.

25

Chris led the girl down the hallway back to the elevator lobby. “Keep your head down. Don’t let the security cameras see your face.”

He glanced behind to check on her. She obeyed him to comic proportions, her neck craned forward to let her hair hang over her face. “When can I have my watch?”

Chris wanted an out-of-the-way corner to inspect what he’d found. With the deaths last night, the Aria was waking up. Whatever its purpose, it was building momentum. If Nathaniel knew more than Chris did, then Chris wanted that info. And if Pete had been right about the weird trinket, he wanted that, too.

Since the pocket watch was in the safe, separated from the jewelry box, that was probably his target. “If it’s what I’m looking for, then I’ll need to borrow it for a while.”

The girl looked up. She looked like Nathaniel with a feminine version of his square jawline. “I need it.”

Chris inhaled. He didn’t like being out in the open right after they’d broken into a cabin. “We’ll talk about that in a minute. First, let’s confuse anyone who happens to see us on the cameras.”

He led her downstairs to Deck Six, then outside and along the outer walkway towards the stern. The noon sun was bright and hot. Storm clouds still followed behind the Aria, back towards the horizon.

“Captain Silva said most of the cameras aren’t working.”

“Good. But still, keep your head down. Why were you talking to the captain about the ship’s security systems?” He led them back inside, across the ship. They passed the entrance to the quiet shopping Promenade and came outside to the starboard side.

The girl kept up. Obviously, if she broke into her uncle’s cabin to retrieve a pocket watch, she didn’t lack willpower. Chris was curious how she’d got involved in all this. He had the idea she didn’t have a clue about the Deviser, but she was keeping a tight lip regardless.

“Are you going to answer my question?” he asked.

“Give me my watch, and I’ll think about it.”

She wasn’t a pushover. He could respect that. They went to midship and inside. He led them downstairs.

At Deck Five, she grabbed his arm. “Not any lower.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. Dread sparkled in her eyes.

“Why not?”

Her face had paled, and her eyes were glued downstairs like she was watching for threats. She swallowed her fear and found her defiance. “Give me my watch, and I’ll tell you.”

He considered going down anyways to see her reaction. But he didn’t doubt her fear. Probably, she knew more about the Deviser than she realized.

They took a random path up and down, bow to stern, port to starboard, and all again reversed. Chris found a spot on a stern walkway outside on Deck Six, out of the wind and out of sight of any cameras.

It was an awkward space the staff had filled with three plastic lounge chairs. He sat down and invited her to sit.

The girl was another piece in the puzzle of Micah’s cult, so he wanted answers from her as much as he did from the contents of Nathaniel’s safe.

They sat facing each other, sideways on their lounge chairs. Out of the wind, the warmth of the Pacific day quickly had Chris sweating. The roof above them blocked most of the sky, so they could only see the storm clouds that followed the ship.

“I’m Chris.” He offered.

“Riley.”

“You’re Nathaniel’s niece.”

“Right.”

“How long ago did he take your watch?”

“Last year. My dad left it to me when he died.”

“Why do you want it?”

“To sell it and pay for school.”

“What is it?”

She laughed, confused. “An antique watch.”

“What do you know about Nathaniel’s cult?”

She shrugged. “He’s got hundreds of millions of dollars. He runs a huge mining company. It makes no sense that he’d hang out with that weird group of people. I guess it being a cult explains that.”

Chris considered how much to tell her. He’d stick to as little as possible for now. She didn’t need to think he was crazy quite yet. “Why are you on this ship?”

“To get the watch.”

“How’d you know he’d have it here?”

“An anonymous note.”

Someone was pulling strings to get her on board. Strange. “Who knew you wanted the watch? Could it have been someone from the cult?”

“Probably his maid. Nathaniel’s a dick to everyone. The servants saw a chance to get even.”

Chris wondered at that. He invented scenarios where Nathaniel purposely brought Riley onboard. But he had way too little evidence to make a real guess.

She didn’t know about Micah’s cult. So she couldn’t help him figure out Nathaniel’s plans. “What happened downstairs? Why were you scared to go down there?” Suddenly, her face became familiar. “Wait, you’re the girl who ran past me. You saw that thing on the hull.”

Her eyes went wide. “That was you. Did you see it?”

“Only for a second. Then it was gone.”

“That’s what attacked me on Deck Three.” Riley’s breathing grew heavy. The memory was stressing her out. “It was like a starfish, except the size of a horse and covered in tumors. It came up out of the floor in an oily patch of mini tentacles that matched what it has for feet.”

Chris had seen similar monstrosities in the overnight skyscraper. Not starfish monsters, but other impossible creatures that had breached the barrier between dimensions. “This was last night?”

She nodded.

“I’m guessing you ran to the casino, and someone shot at it?”

“How’d you know?”

“I hear things.” Okay, so Riley knew way more about the Deviser than she realized. But she could still walk away ignorant and happy if Chris could convince her to go back to her cabin and lie low.

On the other hand, he could use her help. An extra pair of eyes. And if he had to keep his head down because of the cult, maybe someone on his side would be useful. “That thing you saw, that’s why I’m here.”

“You said you’re not with the government.”

Chris chewed his tongue, deciding how much he could say. “I’ve dealt with a similar… anomaly before. I got tipped off that it would happen again on the Aria, so I came to stop it.”

“Who tipped you off?”

“One of Nathaniel’s cult. The dead kid.”

“You already know about that? You hear things quick.”

Chris nodded, mind racing. “Will you help me stop them?”

“Stop Nathaniel, you mean?”

“That, too. I don’t think he’s causing anything. I think he’s here to take advantage of the anomaly. That’s what I want to stop.”

“You’re calling this starfish monster the anomaly? You’re like a monster hunter?”

He hadn’t been clear. But he couldn’t be clear without sounding crazy. “I think it came from somewhere. I want to stop anything else from coming from there.” He sounded like an idiot.

“Deck Two,” Riley said with certainty.

“What’s on Deck Two?”

“That’s where the starfish monster came from. It crawled up through the floor. There’s some kind of machinery I heard in there. And if you go down to Deck One, there’s some silvery stuff dripping from the ceiling.”

Chris was surprised. She’d ran into more weird shit than he had.

“I think my uncle’s involved,” Riley continued. “He makes hundreds of millions of dollars by destroying mountains for their coal or natural gas or whatever. I’m sure he’s got some new method to destroy the ocean and make even more money. Maybe a side effect is mutated starfish. It’s like Godzilla.”

Chris chewed his lip. Pete had said that Nathaniel had found the new Aria. So Riley’s theory couldn’t be true: Nathaniel didn’t create whatever was on Deck Two.

But if Riley was right, the Deviser’s dimension was bleeding over down there. Whatever the purpose of Aria was, it was centered in Deck Two.

It sounded like a great place to plant his bombs. He could even skip over his half-baked plan to clog the sewage system. Plant enough explosive to damage whatever was in Deck Two, then when the cruise line sent other ships to evacuate the Aria, blow out the hull and let it sink to the bottom of the Pacific.

“What?” Riley was watching him think. “You went quiet.”

“I’d like to destroy whatever’s on Deck Two.”

“If it hurts my uncle, I’m game. I want photos first, though. To send to the EPA and get him arrested.”

“Fine with me. Just keep my face out of them.” Chris felt a hesitant confidence. This could work. He could stop the Deviser and still make it home to Eddie.

Smooth sailing, almost. The cruise line had no idea about his plans. They couldn’t stop him. The only potential kink was Nathaniel’s cult. He opened up the leather folder. “Let’s see what your uncle knows.”

An intercom speaker chimed from around the corner. Chris looked up, finally pulled from his narrow focus on Riley and their developing scheme. The storm clouds had drawn closer in just the time they’d been sitting here. And he was pretty sure the ship was slowing down and turning.

The captain’s voice came over the speaker. “As discussed, all guests must return to their cabins. We will be back to port in twelve hours. Meals will be served in your cabins. Again, a thousand apologies, and rest assured you will be fully refunded.”

“Wow,” said Riley. “They’re taking the deaths seriously. Or Captain Silva is worried about Deck Two.”

A wave of anxiety washed over Chris. He couldn’t let the Aria get back to port. In the overnight skyscraper, the anomalies had been contained inside the building. But he’d seen the monster starfish clinging to the outside of the hull. Sinking the ship in a shallow port could put everyone nearby in danger.

Chris felt himself grinding his molars. He now had a twelve-hour deadline to sink this ship.

26

Riley couldn’t believe her luck.

Right as she found Dad’s watch, not only was the Aria turning around to head straight back to California, but she was also getting her money back. Instead of a credit card bill that would take six years to pay off, she could sell the watch and start nursing school with a clean slate.

Nursing school still felt like forcing a square peg into a round hole, but it was better than nothing.

What did feel like a reason for living—at least for today—was screwing over Nathaniel.

Whatever earth-destroying machine he had down on Deck Two, she’d get evidence and send it to the EPA, FBI, ATF, and whoever else she could think of.

Today was shaping up to be the most satisfying day of her life.

As long as she could keep the image of the monstrous starfish out of her head. And the screams of that old man and woman in the casino.

She found herself staring at the storm clouds. Cool wind crossed over the stern of the Aria as the ship turned towards the dark horizon. They’d be passing right back under those clouds.

“We probably have a solid hour or two before anyone notices we’re not in our cabins.” Chris opened the leather folio on his lap.

Riley adjusted her position on the plastic lounge chair. “I’m rooming with my friend. She’ll notice.”

Chris looked up at her. “Will she call security right away?”

Krystal would assume that Riley was going after the pocket watch. “No.”

“Right. Then we’ve got an hour or two.” He thumbed through a short stack of paper. He gave half to her. “See if there’s anything about what’s on Deck Two. We have to move quickly on that, and I want at least a hint of what we’re up against.”

She took her share of the papers. She didn’t like how he made it sound like they were assaulting a defended military installment. “It’s just some mining machinery or something, don’t you think? Probably toxic or radioactive, but I assume that’s all contained.” Riley thought she sounded stupid. Of course it wasn’t contained. Something mutated that starfish. Now that sounded stupid. Radiation didn’t magically transform animals like in Roger Corman movies.

“Who knows what we’ll find.” Chris was already lost in his stack of paper.

The intercom chimed, and Captain Silva’s message played again. Riley’s nervousness at helping a stranger destroy Nathaniel’s plans once again was quelled by her excitement at claiming the prize she’d came for. “Can I see the watch?”

Chris handed it to her without looking up. “Don’t run off with it. We might need it downstairs.”

“Why?”

“If you’d look through those papers, maybe you’ll find an answer.”

Riley looked over the top sheet. “No, I mean, that’s a weird thing to say. Why would we need a pocket watch?”

That got Chris’s attention. His green eyes fluttered off to the right, the same way they had been when she’d asked him questions before, and he’d obviously invented answers. “Pete said it had something to do with your uncle’s machinery.”

Riley wasn’t letting him get away with such an obvious lie. “You didn’t know about Deck Two until three minutes ago.”

“I knew Nathaniel had something to do with the weirdness going on here. I just didn’t have an exact location.”

Riley held eye contact with him. He was still lying, but she couldn’t prove it yet. He had some other purpose up his sleeve. But if he wanted to mess up Nathaniel’s plans, he could say whatever he wanted. Riley was still on board.

Chris went back to his papers, and Riley inspected Dad’s watch for the first time.

It’d always been locked in a glass doored hutch. She’d never cared enough about it to ask to see it up close. Now that she held it, she could tell it wasn’t a typical pocket watch.

Chris spoke as he shuffled through the pages. “They think the building is nearing completion. Can’t be Richmond, that’s gone. Unless they mean…” he droned off as he read.

Riley kept her attention on the strange watch. There were the obvious design features that she already knew about: the round body with a diamond-shaped flip cover that kept visible the numbers two, four, eight, and ten. And the one diamond-shaped link in a chain of normal, oval links.

But the weirdness went beyond that. For starters, the metal felt even softer than gold. She was pretty sure she could squeeze a dent into it without trying very hard. What was softer than gold? Tin? Lead?

Chris flipped rapidly through the pages. “Here it says the creation is complete, but over here, it’s still being built. Both places suggest the cult thinks it’s getting bigger. Or maybe approaching. It’s like they think they’re writing scripture, so they’re writing in obtuse, fake Old English.”

Riley looked up to see if he wanted her to respond. He wasn’t concerned about her uncle's weird beliefs. She was holding what she’d come for. And the more she inspected it, the weirder it got.

Instead of a little knob to press to release the latch that opened the flip cover, there was a tiny gold switch in the bottom right. It was awkward to use—the release should be up top, so you could hold the watch in your palm and open it with your fingers. Instead, it didn’t seem designed for human hands.

It got even stranger when she did open the watch: no hour hand, no minute hand, no second hand ticking in staccato circles. The stupid thing didn’t even tell time! In the center of the face was a black stone. No, not black. It had swirls of color. It reminded Riley of a mood ring. She pressed her thumb against it to see if it changed color. It didn’t.

She held the watch up to her ear. It ticked. Nathaniel must have wound it recently. Except there wasn’t a winding key. Her stomach fluttered. What if there was a special winding key, and Nathaniel still had it, and not having it dropped the value of the watch?

But there wasn’t even a hole to insert a key. A bit of fiddling revealed that the front glass face and gold backplate rotated independently of each other. That’s how you wound it.

Riley gave it a few twists.

Chris grumbled, eyes glued to the papers. “If it’s a building, how is it approaching?” He tapped his fingers on the deck chair. “It never says it’s a building. ‘Building’ is a verb. It is building. What the hell is this about?”

The ticking grew louder and faster. Dark blue gears appeared from behind the mood stone, popping out into view with gyroscopic movement.

Chris looked up. “What’s it doing?” He reached for the watch.

Riley held it away. It thrummed in her fingers as the mechanisms spun faster. “I must have wound it too tight.”

The wind grew stronger with the Aria’s turn. The dark clouds were nearly out of sight, which meant that they were headed straight for them.

“Let’s not mess with the watch when we don’t know what it is,” Chris said.

Riley looked closer at the mood stone. Gears whirred in and out of view. The stone lightened in color from black to violet to red to orange. She thought she could feel the thrumming of the small watch all the way through her body down to her feet.

“Turn it off,” Chris said.

“How do you turn off a watch?”

The floor buzzed. The wall behind them joined it, and then the ceiling above. The silver railings rattled, silhouetted against the blue sky that the Aria was leaving behind.

Chris leaped up and grabbed at the watch. Riley tried to jerk away, but he grabbed her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong. He pried the watch from her fingers.

“Get off me!” Riley yelled. She punched his chest, but he came away with the watch. “That belongs to me.”

Chris held it away from him like it stunk.“It’s dangerous. It’s obviously the trinket Pete told me about. Forget using it. I’m tossing it.”

“Not unless you’ve got fifty-thousand dollars.”

But Chris was already walking to the railing.

Riley saw her chance at a future slipping away. She jumped at Chris, grabbed his arm with two hands, and yanked him backward.

“Let me get rid of it,” he grunted. “Can’t you feel it getting stronger?”

He was right. The watch itself thrummed at the same frequency, but the floor underneath them was vibrating in a rapid, irregular rhythm.

Her fear at losing her inheritance had distracted her from the bizarreness of what was happening. She wanted to be back in port and forget this entire trip. But she squashed that fearful desire because she wasn’t getting off this ship without her fifty-thousand dollar pocket watch.

Chris relaxed. He thought she’d been convinced.

Riley snatched the watch away.

“You don’t know what could happen!” Chris lunged for it.

Riley jumped back.

Then the ocean and the horizon did something Riley didn’t understand.

27

The blues of the water and sky, and the whites of the wispy clouds and wave crests, folded in on themselves and then unfolded back out. An opaque vista became translucent. An empty scene of ocean and sky became crowded.

Chris let out a high-pitched groan of terror. A wheezing death rattle of acceptance.

Riley could still see the calm ocean and sky. But in the same space, she also saw roiling orange shoals. Sharp, mountainous waves crashed and tore at bulbous rocky growths that protruded from the water. Even if the water were calm, there wasn’t space for the ship to have navigated the rocks. If they even were rocks. Pieces fell off in great chunks and then were replaced as organic movement squeezed new pieces out from the inside.

A swell taller than the Aria crashed into a rock and splashed upwards into the sky.

It didn’t fall back down.

Riley backed away from the railing. This couldn’t be real. Her legs felt weak. She tried to think of an explanation—Chris had slipped her LSD, or she was looking at a giant TV screen she hadn’t noticed before—but the impossible oceanscape behind the Aria brought with it a smell of cinnamon and rotten grass clippings. Seawater splashed onto the deck. It was orange and thick. Riley thought of sweet-and-sour sauce.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

She wasn’t willing to deny the reality in front of her, but if she could just reset her eyes, she knew she could get back to the regular Pacific ocean. She looked again.

No luck.

The organic rock outcroppings and orange, mountainous waves still created an impossible scene of chaos. Thick fog hid the sky.

But she could also see the calm, blue Pacific. Somehow, two oceans overlapped.

The pocket watch still buzzed in Riley’s hand.

“What is this?” she whispered to herself, forgetting Chris was with her.

When he spoke, she jumped like she’d touched a live wire.

“The place where that monstrous starfish came from.” Chris held Riley’s hand to pull her farther from the edge. “At least, I think.”

His hand was soft and warm. It felt safe in this chaos.

But what he said made no more sense than the orange ocean. The starfish couldn’t come from this place she was seeing, because it couldn’t exist.

One of the bulbous rock formations rose higher out of the ocean. Water poured off of it. Bits of itself fell into the sea, to be replaced by matter that emerged from fleshy sphincters.

Another rock formation rose at the same rate, and then another. Soon, dozens of the organic rocks rose out of sight. It formed a perverted city skyline.

The sound of an enormous splash came from somewhere behind the skyscraper rocks, like a meteor had hit the ocean. Riley caught glimpses of water shooting upwards into the fog, out of sight.

“Something’s coming,” Chris said. “We should get inside.”

Riley sensed it, too. The empty feeling of the ocean had been replaced by an animalistic need to hide.

But turning away would be like turning her back on a starved tiger. She was prey, but she’d already been spotted—no time to hide.

The skyscraper rocks shuddered. Pieces fell. Replacements emerged. The towers wriggled and tapped against each other.

Riley thought of the tiny black tentacles that had lined the walls of Deck Three and the thumb-shaped feet underneath the monstrous starfish.

The Aria passed another organic rock tower.

Riley thought of a toy boat navigating a thick forest of starfish feet.

“What’s below us?” Riley asked. Nothing was down there. Nothing could be that big.

“Let’s get inside,” Chris repeated.

Riley finally looked away from the ocean.

She could see the ship’s off-white, textured deck, and the silver railings, and the shiplap ceiling above. But like the dual realities of the ocean, here she also saw something else.

The overlapping deck was made of some cross between stone and wood. The ceiling above was sagging beams, revealing the bottom of the walkway the next deck up. Instead of a railing at the edge of the ship, the gap between floor and ceiling was vacant, an open space inviting Riley to fling herself off the overlapped Aria and firmly into the alternate ocean to await the approaching threat.

The invitation was clear in Riley’s mind, but it was not hypnotic by any means. She imagined falling towards the orange water, a wave reaching up to meet her, and undertow dragging her down to whatever fleshy giant these organic rock towers protruded from, where she’d be held until the arrival of the thing behind the rock towers.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

She feared what she would find. Was this phenomenon infecting the entire ship? Riley forced herself to believe that inside would be a sanctuary. Otherwise, panic threatened to consume her.

Chris’s hand in hers now felt more like a rubber duck instead of a lifeboat, but it was all she had. They ran around the stern, up the starboard side of the Aria. Riley kept her eyes and her feet far away from the open edge.

Animalistic grumbling thundered through the air. Riley’s ears hurt at the deafening sound.

The ship lurched under their feet, upwards, sending them to their hands and knees. The deck tilted with the stern raising behind them. The whole ship jolted twenty yards forward.

Riley heard herself scream. The off-kilter lilt of the ship started her sliding to the edge.

She covered her head, positive that the approaching threat had arrived, and the leviathan beneath them had lifted the ship as an offering.

A strange sensation in her hand.

She still held the pocket watch, but now it had stopped vibrating.

The ship was still at an angle. Riley slid towards the edge of the deck. She saw both the bronze railing with the blue ocean beyond and the empty gap above the orange maelstrom.

Chris scrambled after her, fighting for purchase.

She dug her fingernails into the deck. Rough splinters entered her fingertips.

The bronze railing grew stronger than the empty gap. The blue sky and white clouds became more solid than the low fog. The blue ocean with white wave caps drowned the mountainous waves.

The imitation skyline of organic rocky towers faded.

The leviathan beneath—and the sense of a more dangerous approaching threat—disappeared.

Riley crashed into the railing.

Chris slammed into her.

Before either could catch their breath, the Aria’s stern crashed back down onto the ocean.

Riley and Chris were lifted off the deck and then smashed back down onto it.

Riley gasped for air, the wind knocked out of her lungs. She stared at the blue sky like it was a glass of ice water and she’d just escaped Death Valley.

Alarms went off throughout the ship.

Chris sat up, chest heaving. “Don’t wind that watch again.”

28

Riley kept her eyes on her feet as she hurried to her cabin.

The alarms had gone quiet, and Captain Silva had come over the intercom to announce that a mechanical problem had been fixed. No mention of how he thought the whole ship had been lifted and dropped.

Chris followed her. “If you don’t want to help anymore, I understand. But I really need that watch.”

Riley left the stairwell and entered the hallway. She hoped Krystal was in their cabin. She wanted to be near a familiar face after what had just happened.

It broke every rule of reality, and Riley wanted to get back to port, drive home, and forget about it.

That it had happened at all was traumatic enough. But Riley had felt something massive lift the ship. No animal was that big. No animal was a tenth that size.

And even that leviathan wasn’t what had really shaken her. As she’d seen the other world, she’d known without a doubt that something worse was approaching. Something evil or chaotic or just beyond anything she could understand.

“The watch, Riley,” Chris said.

Riley walked faster as if that would leave behind her memory of what she’d felt. “Stop following me.”

A trio of old women shuffled down the hall, complaining about being banished to their cabins. Riley squeezed past them.

Chris followed, earning a protest from the women.

“What if the watch does that again?”

The watch was in Riley’s pants pocket. She almost patted it to make sure it was still there, but she didn’t want to risk setting it off. “I won’t wind it.”

“But you’re going to sell it. Someone else will wind it.”

Riley scoffed. Selling the watch was the last thing on her mind right now. They reached her cabin door. “Forget the watch! Didn’t you feel that out there? Something coming for us? I swear it was as wide as the horizon.”

Chris nodded. “Let’s discuss it in private.”

“No,” Riley said. “I’m done with all this.” She unlocked her cabin and went inside.

The claustrophobic setup of two beds, a tiny loveseat, and a narrow dresser now felt cozy. There was plenty of ship between her and the outside ocean.

Krystal sat on the loveseat watching the same episode of Frasier that had been on last night. She looked up, excited to see Riley, and then her eyes widened as she looked behind her. “Hey! You can’t come in here! Get out.”

Riley turned around to see Chris shutting the door behind him. His unimposing demeanor had been replaced by a shaky determination. “I can’t let you leave with that watch. Not after what we just saw.”

Krystal launched herself up from the couch. She shouldered Riley out of the way to get in Chris’s face. “This is a private cabin. Get the hell out.”

Her physical response surprised Riley. She’d seen Krystal mad plenty of times, but trying to physically intimidate someone was new.

Chris rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. He easily had seventy pounds on Krystal. But Riley doubted he would actually fight her.

“Krystal,” said Riley, “let’s just call security and let them deal with him.”

“You call.” Krystal tied her hair back, not breaking eye contact with Chris. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t move.”

“We want him to move.” Riley picked up the phone. “He should leave.”

“Not without that watch,"

“You work for her uncle?” Krystal asked.

“No,” Chris said. “I’m here to stop what just happened from happening again.”

“You mean the ship shaking around?” Krystal asked.

Riley stopped in the middle of dialing for the operator. “Is that all you felt?”

“What do you mean?” Krystal asked over her shoulder.

“You didn’t see anything weird on the ship?” Riley had seen a different ship overlaid atop the Aria. Weird floors, open ceilings, no railings. She’d felt the whole ship lift and then drop. Alarms had sounded, so she’d assumed the whole ship felt the same thing.

“I’d just made it back here after the captain’s announcement in the theater. Everything shook like a stuttering earthquake, and then alarms started screeching.”

Chris looked as confused as Riley felt. “It felt like the ship hit one giant speed bump. Up and then down. You didn’t feel that?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t see anything different about your cabin?”

“No.”

Chris exhaled long and slow. “Maybe the watch isn’t as bad as I thought.”

Riley held her finger over the phone’s buttons. “Keep talking.”

“I thought it was merging realities. But if we’re the only ones who experienced all that, then maybe it was shifting our perception to both planes.”

Krystal kept herself as a barrier between Chris and the rest of the cabin. “Did any of that make sense to you?” she asked Riley.

“Kind of. I don’t know. Let him in.” She pointed at Chris. “You sit down. You’re wrong about it just being perception. We didn’t just see that other ocean—my clothes are still wet from those waves. And I’ve got bruises from getting knocked around.”

“Then it’s limited in its reach. The rest of the ship only felt a little shudder.”

Krystal backed up just enough to let Chris reach the loveseat.

Riley was torn between wanting to know more and wanting to know nothing. She wanted to go home, sell the watch, and figure out a new life. Find a path to something more than eating, working, and sleeping.

But if the watch was dangerous, she couldn’t sell it. “Tell me everything you know about what just happened.”

Riley sat on Krystal’s bed because sitting on her own bed would have her bumping knees with Chris. “What do you think my watch is?”

“Based on what just happened, I think when you wind it, you cross over with a different dimension. The dimension where your monster starfish crawled out of.”

“It crawled up from Deck Two. It’s a mutation from my uncle’s mining equipment.” Riley knew that wasn’t true, but it would be so much nicer if it were.

“What in the world are you guys talking about?” Krystal leaned on the dresser.

Chris rubbed his eyes. “Do you want her here for this?” he asked Riley.

“We’re supposed to stay in our cabins,” Krystal said.

“I want you to leave me alone. But I need to sell my watch. If I can do that without risking…” Riley gestured above them, “…all that, then I want to know. So start talking. Tell me everything you know.”

“I want to know who he is,” Krystal said.

“That’s a good idea,” Riley said. “Start with who you are and how you’re involved in all this. It’s obviously more complicated than what you told me earlier.”

Chris cleared his throat. “Okay. But if I tell you, you have to let me use the watch until we reach the port.”

“No,” Riley said.

“Alright. Then you get to wonder if you’re holding a time bomb in your pocket.”

Riley dug her fingernails into her palm. She was selling this watch. If she could do it without feeling guilty, then that’s what she wanted.

Also, she wanted to know what had just happened. She and Chris had shared a wild vision that left her bruised and had a real impact on the ship. Chris seemed convinced it was entirely real, and Riley couldn’t convince herself otherwise. She wanted to know everything she could.

“I’ll come with you,” Riley said. “Whatever you’re doing, you can use the watch, but I’m not letting it out of my sight.”

“That works,” Chris said cautiously.

“He still hasn’t said who he is,” Krystal pointed out.

Chris cleared his throat. “Remember on the news last year when that building in Richmond popped up overnight, and then a couple weeks later it disappeared?”

Riley nodded. The story had been all over social media. Most talking heads wrote it off as a prank. It still came up on the news once in a while when some scientist made another comment. So the actual experts weren’t taking it as a prank.

“I remember that. It was super weird,” Krystal said. “That billionaire lady disappeared.”

“Micah Rayner,” Chris said. “She was friends with your uncle.”

“You were involved?” Riley asked.

“I went inside,” Chris said. “I was lucky to survive.”

“What was it?”

“An overlapping of dimensions. There’s an entity over there—your uncle’s cult calls it the Deviser. It created the skyscraper to harvest us. Mankind, I mean. It meant for Micah to build replicas of the skyscraper and start harvesting, but Micah didn’t make it out.”

Krystal laughed. “Is he serious?”

Riley swallowed. “I think so. You didn’t see what I just saw outside. It was like some other world laid overtop ours.”

Riley watched her friend study her face.

“You’re serious? You’re drunk.”

“Not since last night.” Riley turned back to Chris. “So you know what the Aria is, then?”

He shook his head. “I expected another skyscraper. The Deviser wanted to start harvesting people. It lost its tool to do so. I figured it’d just try again. But then Pete—the dead kid from your uncle’s cult—tipped me off to the Aria. That it had appeared overnight. Sure, it could snatch away the several thousand people on board, but the Deviser isn’t after one-off smash-and-grabs. I don’t think it thinks much about us at all. In Richmond, it was setting up long-term harvesting. And the Aria doesn’t fit into that.”

Even with what she’d seen so far, Riley had to willingly suspend disbelief. Glimpses of a foreign ocean and an attack by a giant starfish didn’t mean there was an evil demon that wanted to eat her. But she had no other explanation. And Chris didn’t seem insane. He seemed scared.

“What do you think the Aria is, then? Why’d this Deviser send it over, if not to pick up where the building left off?”

“I don’t know. It’s some kind of Plan B. Or I wildly misunderstood the purpose of the Richmond building. But I expect we can find out for sure down on Deck Two.”

“And then what?” Riley asked.

“Destroy what we find. Sink the ship.”

“Hold up,” Krystal said. “Are you some kind of terrorist?”

“I’ll wait to sink it until everyone’s evacuated,” Chris said.

Riley felt out a hole in Chris’s plan. “You don’t know what the Aria’s doing. How do you know that sinking it will stop it?”

“I don’t,” Chris admitted. “But if it’s trying to suck people over to its dimension, it won’t find a lot of people on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.”

“That’s fair.”

“You can’t sink the ship,” Krystal said. “Riley, we’re turning him in, right?”

“Not yet,” Riley tugged at her hair. She shouldn’t have had this conversation in front of Krystal. It was too much to believe if she hadn’t seen anything. She didn’t want Krystal to turn Chris in and then for her pocket watch to disappear into an evidence locker. She shifted the conversation to something Krystal did know about. “What do you know about my uncle?”

“I know he took over Micah Rayner’s cult after she died. They think the Deviser is a happy, generous god. Nathaniel’s not here to destroy the ocean and get richer, as you suggested. He thinks he’s gonna help the Deviser’s plans for the Aria. I don’t know how much detail he actually knows.”

“You’re trying to blow up a ship,” Krystal said, “and you can’t even say why it needs to be blown up.”

“If the overnight skyscraper had fulfilled its purpose, there’d be thousands of people harvested every day. I assume the Aria is key to something just as devastating.”

“What’s ‘harvested’ mean?” Riley asked. “Eaten?”

“No. Taken. Tortured or forced into slave labor. I’m not sure. I saw glimpses of a few people after they were taken. I still have nightmares about them begging for help.” Chris raised the folder they’d stolen from Nathaniel’s safe. “Based on these writings, your uncle thinks these slaves were building something. Nathaniel came to the Aria because that project is complete. Still building, but complete, whatever that means.”

“If this were really true,” Krystal said, “then we should jump in a lifeboat and get away from this ship.”

“You should, yes,” Chris agreed. “And I’ll do the same thing once I stop the Aria from doing whatever the Deviser has planned for it.”

Riley found that Chris reminded her of Dad. His earnestness and worry. Dad always had a strange mix of joy at the simplicity of life and worry that any little accident could turn into a disaster. He’d invite Riley over for a walk around his block because the neighbor’s flowers were blooming, then change their route when he heard a police siren.

Chris felt as genuine as Dad.

He believed what he said.

But that didn’t mean it was true. He could be crazy. Or even if the horrors she’d just scene were real, Chris could be misinterpreting everything he’d seen.

Even accepting that what she’d seen upstairs was real, that didn’t prove all of Chris’s claims. The only facts she knew for sure were that she’d been attacked by a monster, she’d seen an overlapping world, and she’d felt a primal terror that something gargantuan from that world was coming for her.

Those facts didn’t prove Chris’s claims about this demon or about the Aria. An explanation that answered all the questions could still be incorrect.

But, if Chris was right, then she should help him. The building in Richmond was real. That couldn’t be explained. The starfish monster was real. The orange, violent ocean was real.

If Chris was right, and she helped him, then she’d stop the horrors she’d seen today from spreading.

If he was wrong and she helped, then law enforcement wasn’t going to care about her stories of monster starfish when they arrested her for helping sink a cruise ship.

On the other hand, if Chris was right and she didn’t help, then her watch was a ticking time bomb. She couldn’t sell it with a clean conscience. By himself, Chris might fail. Riley wasn’t any sort of secret agent, but an extra pair of hands and eyes might make the difference. If she didn’t help and the mystery of the Richmond skyscraper repeated itself in a California harbor, she’d blame herself for the deaths.

So it came down to whether or not Chris was right. Whether there really was some demon thing in another dimension trying to harvest people.

“Here’s what I’ll do,” Riley said.

“Oh, come on,” Krystal interrupted. “You’re not seriously thinking of helping this psycho?”

“Everything he said about Nathaniel lines up with what I know,” Riley said. “And it fits the crazy things I’ve seen since last night.”

Chris waited patiently with his hands on his lap.

“Here’s what I’ll do,” Riley repeated. “I don’t know if what you say is true. My uncle’s obviously involved in what’s going on down on Deck Two. And that’s where the starfish monster came from. And I think your friend—Pete, you said his name was—was down there before he died. I’ll go down there with you. Let’s see what’s on Deck Two. If it matches what you’re saying, then I’ll help you. If it’s just an engine room or something, then I’m keeping my watch and turning you in.”

Chris chewed on his cheek. “I don’t know what we’ll see down there. You’re the one who said that’s the source of everything.”

“That’s my offer. Krystal’s right. I don’t know you. You could be some psycho who looked up a few facts about Richmond and about my uncle.”

Chris nodded. “I think you’re right that Deck Two is the source. Let’s go check it out.”

Krystal shook her head. “I feel like I should go with you to make sure he’s not a rapist.”

Riley thought of Krystal’s ear-shattering scream when the lights went out last night. She didn’t want her sneaking around with them. “I’ll be fine. You stay here.”

Krystal looked worried for Riley, but she was obviously anxious about the stories Riley and Chris had told. “Are you sure?”

Chris stood up and handed his wallet to Krystal. “Here. My IDs and everything. If I’m a murderer and Riley doesn’t return, you’ll know exactly who I am.”

Krystal took the wallet.

“Ready?” Chris asked Riley.

“Now?” Riley was surprised.

“We’re headed for harbor,” Chris said. “Clock’s ticking.”

Riley gathered her nerve. “Okay, let’s go.”

29

The hallways were empty.

Riley found that uncomfortable. With all the guests in their cabins, the Aria felt like a ghost ship.

Since it had appeared out of nowhere—from another dimension, according to Chris—she supposed it was a ghost ship.

Riley led the way down the hall to the elevator lobby.

“We need to go to my cabin first.” Chris walked softly behind her.

Riley peeked around the corner. She didn’t know how the crew would be enforcing the order to stay in your cabin, but junctions like lobbies and stairwells seemed a good place to set watchmen.

“We’re going straight to Deck Two,” Riley said.

“I need my supplies. If what we see down there is from the Deviser, then I’m destroying it.”

The lobby looked clear. Two silver elevator doors. A wooden door to the stairwell. Bright kitschy paintings on the wall.

Riley walked toward it. “I’m not getting caught with a man carrying explosives. I want to see what’s down there before I decide to believe you.”

Chris grumbled. “I could just go get my equipment anyways.”

“And I could sit in my cabin with my watch until we reach California. If you want the watch down there, it’s without your bombs. You’ll probably set something off and kill us both anyways.”

“I’ve practiced.”

“Somehow, that’s not reassuring.”

They reached the lobby. Riley leaned around the corner to look down another hallway, across the ship.

Bobby the porter stood fifty feet away, patrolling the opposite elevator lobby.

“Krystal,” Riley whispered to herself, “I’m liking your boyfriend less and less.”

“What is it?” Chris looked around the corner and then ducked back out of sight. “That guy keeps showing up.”

“He part of your conspiracy, too?”

“No. He’s probably just the staffer that the security team thinks is most intimidating.”

Riley laughed at the idea of the spikey-haired 20-year-old being intimidating. Although, he did obviously work out. “He’ll turn around, and then we’ll head for the stairs.”

Chris stayed back while Riley leaned half her face past the corner. She prayed Bobby wouldn’t look directly her way.

Sharp footsteps echoed up the near stairwell. Multiple people, moving quickly.

Chris tugged Riley’s arm. “Get out of sight.”

Riley froze. There wasn’t time to get back to the next bend in the hallway. They were stuck in plain view.

The wooden door muffled barked orders, and then it swung outward. Those orders grew clear. “Check that lobby, then catch up.”

An old man in a blue linen shirt appeared in the doorway. His face was heavily wrinkled, and his hair was in dreads.

Riley had seen him sitting at Nathaniel’s table.

He stepped into the lobby. He held a handful of zip-ties in one hand. His other hand stayed behind his back.

He saw Riley and Chris and froze. “You’re not crew.”

“No,” Riley agreed.

“You should be in your cabin.” His voice was gravely and with a southern hillbilly accent. Riley could believe that Nathaniel really was in a cult that worshipped a weird god, because otherwise, he’d only associate with his fellow New England pretentious pricks.

“You should be in your cabin.” Chris was on the balls of his feet, leaning slightly towards the old man, ready to pounce.

“I’m heading there now.” The old man stuttered through the lie. “I mean it. Stay in your cabin. It’s safer.”

He looked around the lobby once more, and not seeing what he was looking for, went back through the door. His footsteps tapped upwards.

Riley looked towards the opposite lobby. Bobby the porter was out of sight. His patrols must have taken him out of earshot. “That was one of Nathaniel’s friends.”

“I recognized him,” Chris said. “What’s your uncle up to?”

“Not my problem right now. They’re headed upstairs. We’re headed down.”

Riley heard Chris’s teeth grind. “I don’t like it. Pete said Nathaniel’s here to help along the Aria’s purpose. Could be bad. But let’s focus on the task at hand.”

Riley led the way into the stairwell, and they headed down.

30

The last place Riley wanted to be was Deck Two.

But here she was.

The stair landing was the same as any other: art deco light fixtures on the walls, bright patterns on the carpet, stairs up and down, and a wooden door out of the stairwell.

Riley didn’t let herself hesitate. She pushed on the door. It was still locked.

Chris caught up. “Is this the same stairwell you were in before?”

Riley nodded. “Somebody yelled at me from the other side in a garbled language I don’t know.”

“I don’t hear anybody now.” Chris knocked softly. He jerked his knuckles away. “What the hell?”

Wood from the door stuck to his fingers like a paste.

“Oh yeah. The door was a weird texture.” Riley flicked the surface. It rippled like a pond. “Did you see anything like this in Richmond?”

Chris’s face went pale. “Sort of. Once we get through, I’d stay far away from the walls.”

“And how do we get through?”

“Whatever’s in there is messing with structure, so I’m thinking…” Chris grabbed the silver doorhandle with two hands. He yanked with his whole body.

The handle and backing plate ripped out. It took with it the handle on the opposite side, leaving an open rectangle in the door. Chris stumbled but caught himself.

A dull orange glow came through the hole, the same color of the ocean water she’d seen outside.

“No stopping now.” Chris reared back and kicked the door with the bottom of his foot. His leg broke through, and he gasped. His leg sank down through the softening wood.

Riley grabbed him under the shoulders to pull him free. The door let him go easily. A chunk fell to the floor where it shattered and splashed into gravel-sized pieces.

In the bottom right quarter of the door was now an opening big enough to crawl through.

The patterned carpet continued to the other side but lit with an orange hue instead of the fluorescent white light of the stairwell.

“Do you believe me yet?” Chris asked.

Riley ducked down to see inside. “So far, I’ve seen a rotten door.”

“That behaved more like mud than wood.”

As far as Riley could tell, Deck Two was set up like Deck Three. A lobby with seating and art on the walls. Corridors with the doors spaced out enough that they were probably meeting rooms rather than guest cabins.

The difference being that everything had an orange hue. Ochre seeped over everything like an infection. It pressed in on the light fixtures, smothering their weak white glow.

“I’ll go first,” Chris said.

“No argument here.” Riley watched him crawl through the opening. When he didn’t burst into flames or melt into soggy flesh like the door, she followed.

She stood in a lobby. The floor sagged under her feet. The air smelled of cinnamon and rot.

Potential energy buzzed in the lobby and through Riley. Something was poised to happen, she could feel it.

Chris tested the floor by bouncing. “It’s soft, but there’s a firm layer underneath. It should hold us.”

Riley imagined sinking into the floor to come out the Deck One ceiling, strained into liquid silver threads. “Let’s hope so.”

Two hallways extended out from the lobby. One stretched down the port side of the Aria, and the other led across midship to the starboard side.

“Shouldn’t there be crew patrolling?” Chris asked.

“The cruise line told Captain Silva to leave it alone,” Riley said. “Probably bribed by my uncle.”

“Easier for us, I guess,” Chris said.

“Where should we start?”

“Room by room.”

They walked down the port hallway, checking each door. These weren’t locked, but they were soft and fragile like the stairwell door. Riley had been right in her guess that these were event rooms. Every other space on the cruise ship was packed tight with purpose. Empty and open like the event rooms were, they felt unnatural.

“It’s like it was flooded,” Riley said. “Rotten floors and walls, everything tinted a murky orange.”

“That color isn’t a physical stain,” Chris said. “The light itself is infected.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s how light is on the other side. At least from what I saw in Richmond.”

“You’re saying we’re already crossed over?”

He shook his head. “The space is overlapped. Or actually, that doesn’t feel quite right. The building in Richmond was overlapped. This feels more obviously foreign. I don’t know what it is. We haven’t crossed over, but something’s not right.”

The farther they walked towards the stern, the deeper their feet pressed the carpet into the floor. Orange light grew thick until it blurred the view like fog.

“We’re getting closer,” Chris said. “To something.”

They continued checking rooms, which remained empty. They reached a stretch of the hallway where the wall between them and midship was blank. No doors.

“What’s on the other side here?” Riley asked.

“In a normal ship, crew or staff offices. We’re directly over the engine, so probably engineering equipment.”

“And in this ship?”

Chris tapped on the wall. His knuckles left divots. “Probably what we’re looking for.”

Fog limited their view to twenty feet ahead. They plowed forward, looking for a door inward.

“Stop,” Chris hissed.

Riley froze. The fear in his voice sent goosebumps down her neck.

“Hear that?” he whispered.

Riley squinted into the fog and listened. Soft squelching. Hundreds of tiny footsteps like a stampede of rodents.

Or a giant starfish with hundreds of tiny feet.

Chris looked back and forth down the hallway. “Which way is it coming from?”

The barrage of wet tapping surrounded Riley. She needed to flee, to get off this deck and hide in her cabin until California. She couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from, so it sounded like it was all around her.

“In here.” Chris pulled Riley through a door on the port side of the hallway.

Inside, another empty meeting room. Open dividers split the room into four sections, each with its own door to the hallway. Small circular windows let in dull light from outside. The gray color through the windows said that the Aria was nearing the storm clouds.

Chris held the door cracked wide enough to see through.

“Shut it,” Riley hissed.

Chris shushed her.

The cacophony of wet footsteps drew closer.

Riley didn’t dare move for fear she’d make noise and draw the creature’s attention. She stood ramrod stiff behind Chris, watching over his shoulder through the cracked door.

A dragging sound joined the wet footsteps. Something was swooshing over the carpet.

The monstrous starfish came into view. It was taller than Riley—its top was two-thirds of the way to the ceiling. Its thick appendages made it wider than the hallway, and on either side, it reached up the wall. It glided like a real starfish in a nature documentary, a steady movement from its hundreds of feet, sporadically propelled faster by reaching forward with its longest limb.

Riley tried not to think of the old man and woman in the casino, yanked underneath to be torn into by the thing’s razor-sharp beak.

Chris swallowed a gasp.

Terror made Riley go weak. The creature would hear Chris’s breathing.

Then Riley saw what shocked Chris.

As the starfish passed by their hiding spot, it dragged two bodies. Their legs, still wet with blood, disappeared under the monster’s rear appendage. Their arms and heads hung loosely behind the bloody mess of their torsos.

Riley heard herself let out a little moan of grief.

The first body was a woman in her sixties that Riley didn’t recognize.

The second body was a pink-haired old woman who’d stolen a bottle of tequila for Riley and Krystal. It was Marjorie.

It was too much. Riley shouldn’t have come down here. There was no point. Forget Dad’s watch. Forget selling it. She’d toss it into the ocean. She could make minimum wage for the rest of her life. Lots of people did it. She just wanted off this ship.

The starfish dragged Marjorie and the other body out of sight, in the direction Riley and Chris had been heading.

Chris eased the door open.

Riley kicked the back of his shin, but he ignored her.

He stuck his head into the hallway. The wet footsteps grew quieter.

“Is it gone?” Riley breathed.

Chris shook his head. He motioned for her to look.

Hoping to find a clear path back the way they came, Riley leaned her head into the hallway. The way back was clear, at least as far as she could see through the orange fog.

Chris put his hand on her cheek and made her look in the direction the starfish had gone.

Thirty feet down the hallway, the starfish was raised up onto the tips of its limbs. Its top pressed into the ceiling, making a reversed crater in the softened tile. A wicked-looking beak hung down from its belly, its tip hooked and barbed.

It dropped down onto Marjorie’s corpse, its limb bending like a spider’s. It sprung back up, Marjorie’s corpse pinned to its belly, and then thrust itself at the inner wall.

The corpse pressed into the drywall, but instead of forming a crater, Marjorie disappeared through the wall like flour through a sieve.

Chris winced.

“What the hell?” Riley whispered.

The starfish hooked the other corpse. It pressed the body through the wall, and then its own mutated body pressed through.

That was how it had come up through the floor last night.

“We have to tell Captain Silva,” Riley said. “He doesn’t know what’s down here. If we tell him, he can send security. They have guns locked away, don’t they? This is bigger than us.”

“Take a breath,” Chris said. “It’s bigger than us, and the Captain, and guns.”

“Someone’s gotta kill it.”

“It’s not the starfish I’m worried about. It’s what it’s doing, and why.” Chris walked out into the hallway.

Riley followed but planted her feet once she was out there. “We’re leaving. Or at least I am.”

Chris cautiously walked to where the starfish went through the wall. “Hiding in your cabin won’t save you. That’s what the old dead ladies were probably doing.”

“Her name was Marjorie.”

Chris looked back at Riley. “You knew her?”

“Just on the cruise.”

“I’m sorry. It’s traumatizing to see that happen to someone, even if you barely know them.”

“So let’s go.”

“Are you listening? There’s nowhere to go. We’ve got to stop whatever’s happening on the other side of this wall.” Chris pointed to the spot where the starfish had disappeared. “Or we’ll be starfish food just like your friend.”

“It wasn’t eating them. It didn’t eat the kid in the pool, either.”

“It’s doing something with them. Not just taking them, like the building did in Richmond, but killing them first. I don’t know what the Deviser wants with dead bodies. But either we find out and stop it, or more people die.”

He was right. It shouldn’t be Riley’s responsibility, but Chris was right. If they ran to Captain Silva, he wouldn’t believe them until he saw it with his own eyes. And how many people would the starfish kill until then?

“Fine.” Riley walked over to Chris. “How do we get through this wall?”

“It’s an overlap in dimensions,” Chris said. “We need to see the other side.”

Fear boiled in Riley’s gut. She’d have to wind the watch again.

31

Riley took a deep breath.

“You ready?” Chris asked. He wrapped his hands around hers.

In her hands was Dad’s pocket watch. Before, she’d felt primal terror that something gargantuan and evil was approaching through the orange ocean. That fear bubbled inside her again. “What if something big notices us again?”

“Only wind it a little,” Chris said. “Half a turn. Enough for us to find a way through the wall.”

Riley closed her eyes. What she’d seen outside couldn’t be real. It was an ocean from a foreign dimension—that was getting harder to deny. But the way those fleshy rock towers had lifted out of the water, and the deep floor of the ocean and risen up to meet them like a whale swallowing kelp…

It wasn’t real. She couldn’t accept that anything could be that massive. The water had moved, light had shifted, it had been an optical illusion.

And Chris had a point. If she just barely wound the watch, the overlap would be short.

Before doubt could overtake her, Riley twisted the bottom of the watch. She felt tiny vibrations as it ticked back to its neutral setting.

The port hallway of Deck Two shifted to let another hallway occupy the same space.

Riley’s nose was assaulted with a stronger smell of rot. The dragging sound returned, along with the hundreds of tiny footsteps. The foreign corridor stretched in the same directions as the familiar one it overlapped, but that was where the similarities ended.

Orange fog hung thick around their knees. Riley couldn’t see the floor, but it felt stiff and brittle under her feet. Shifting her weight brought creaking and cracking noises.

The walls were bare, without decoration or light fixtures. They were made of an uneven chalky substance that broke free in small puffs and drifted downward.

The outer walls were skeletal. Great gaping holes revealed the meeting rooms, or what had been the meeting rooms. Now they were mazes of naked beams and studs. Riley looked through the nearest to look straight out into the wild orange ocean. She saw the fleshy rock pillars.

This alternate Aria rose and fell with rough seas. Riley had to work to maintain her balance.

The inner wall of the corridor—the wall the starfish had pushed Marjorie’s corpse through—was solid except for an opening as wide as three typical doors.

Through the wide doorway, Riley saw Marjorie’s dead hands dragged out of sight. The fog near the floor didn’t extend into the central room, furthering her theory that it was dust from the corridor walls. Inside the room, the floor was gray marble with swirl patterns that looked like language.

Riley inched closer for a better look inside.

A gasp and a cry from behind her.

She whirled around.

Chris grabbed her around the shoulders before she could even see what he was keeping her from.

People—or their silhouettes at least—crept up out of the shadows in the meeting room, pawing their surroundings blindly. They whispered disbelief to each other. Riley counted six dark figures.

She suddenly remembered walking onto the Aria yesterday morning and seeing a dark, smeared face through a window. That was one of these. “What are they?” She asked Chris quietly.

Chris hushed her, but it was too late.

All six shadows turned to look directly at her.

32

Chris felt his heart pounding from his toes to his fingertips.

This eager girl had caught the attention of the shadowy people lurking on the other side of reality.

Where his little finger used to be, he felt a phantom pain. He’d lost that finger when a recent victim had reached out for help.

That’s what Chris had to assume these ghostly figures were. People dragged over to the Deviser’s dimension.

But the victims he’d seen in the Richmond building, they were fresh. Members of Micah Rayner’s search party. They screamed and begged for rescue, something that Chris had no idea how to give.

He thought of Leon, the happy building hacker turned inspector hired by Micah, who’d disappeared in the basement, then showed up again crawling through an orange fog, fleeing something Chris never saw.

Chris pulled Riley away from the staring silhouettes. He didn’t know why they were shadows instead of the dirty, injured people he’d seen last year. But his gut said they were also victims from our world, dragged over.

“What are they?” Riley asked. “I saw one yesterday. Through a window when we arrived at the ship.”

“Don’t let them near you.” He risked a glance backwards at their destination: an opening through the interior wall. He expected the shadow people to lunge forward, begging for help, damning him and Riley to their same fate.

But they watched cautiously. One in the front turned its head to another, who nodded. As a group, they all stepped backwards.

They weren’t in torment. Maybe Chris’s assumption was wrong. Maybe they were something else entirely. Not working for the Deviser, or they’d have grabbed Chris and Riley. Maybe they were victims dragged over who’d escaped whatever Leon had been fleeing—living in the fringes to avoid detection.

That might mean…

“Do you know Leon?” Chris asked. “Or Dr. Terry? They were taken.”

“What the hell?” Riley hissed.

The silhouette in front went still. Hard to tell without facial expressions to go on, but the body language said Chris had struck a nerve.

“I tried to help Leon.” He waved his hand. “He took my finger.”

The lead silhouette stepped forward, leaning forward to get a better look at Chris. Chris impulsively backed away. Another shadow person pulled the first back, a gentle, compassionate gesture.

Asking had been pointless, Chris realized. He felt guilt about failing to rescue anyone but himself and Eddie. He wanted to hear that they were still alive. That they had a chance, at least. But assuaging his guilt wouldn’t sink the Aria. Gotta maintain priorities.

The alternate corridor flickered.

Chris tugged Riley’s hand. “Through the door, before the watch unwinds.”

The lead silhouette stomped hard on the floor to get their attention. Chris turned around to look.

It pointed at an angle up to the ceiling. No, beyond the ceiling. It gestured with two hands like it was impressed by something gargantuan in the sky. Then it pointed back down at its feet.

Something gigantic is coming here.

It put a finger over its lips. The silhouettes backed back into the shadows.

They were hiding. They wanted Chris and Riley to hide, too.

“Something’s approaching,” Riley said. “I felt it upstairs. It’s closer now. Can’t you feel it?”

Of course he did. He didn’t want to admit it, but the certainty inside him that a threat was on its way pushed him towards madness. In Richmond, when he’d looked out from the top of the skyscraper and seen an endless, flat plane, his sanity felt like it was loosening. An hour ago, when they’d seen the other side, he’d felt some Leviathan move the ship. And he’d sensed something worse trudging through the bottomless ocean, its sights set on the Aria.

His human mind couldn’t stand it. He wanted to close his eyes and forget reality.

So he couldn’t discuss it with Riley. He could only keep racing towards the next step, which was to get through this opening before it closed back up.

Chris pulled Riley through the doorway.

Chris caught only a glimpse of an active warehouse floor, giant stone buckets pouring thick sludge into each other, down a chain that ended with molds of anchors shaped like hieroglyphs. And then the watch went still.

They were back in the normal Aria, as normal as it was. A solid wall behind them. Darkness before them.

The soft rise and fall of the ship beneath their feet.

In the quiet dark, the sound of hundreds of tiny footsteps and two corpses being dragged.

“It’s in here,” Riley said. “Do you hear it?”

He did, and it wasn’t enough to drown out the certainty of approaching doom.

Chris couldn’t let his mind stray down that path.

“We have to see where it’s going.” He clicked on a flashlight.

33

Riley used her phone’s flashlight to supplement Chris’s pocket Maglite.

Where in the alternate Aria, Riley had seen some sort of factory floor, this was clearly meant to be a large meeting room. Space for rows of folding chairs. Thick dividers pushed into the walls. The space could fit several hundred people.

But it had been added to.

Riley inspected the center of the room from afar, trying to figure out what she was seeing.

Her first thought was: pizza dough.

There was a pile of something that reached to the ceiling that had the consistency of cookie dough.

But none of her amateur baking had ever included corpses.

Facedown on the floor, a ring of corpses lay with their heads buried in the pile of dough. Glowing, silvery strings reached out from the hands and feet to stretch across the floor all the way to the walls.

It was a glowing silver web with corpses stuck into the dough at its center.

Riley looked down. She and Chris were standing on the cords. She picked up her feet to make sure she hadn’t been stuck to a spider’s web. She hadn’t.

“Look,” Chris whispered, barely loud enough to hear.

The starfish was on the far side of the dough pile. Riley watched it rear back and then push Marjorie’s head into the substance. It did the same with the other corpse.

“Let’s get away from the door,” Riley said. “It’ll head back this way to keep hunting.”

Chris nodded in agreement. As quiet as they could, they walked over the glowing cords to huddle in the room’s opposite corner. The tendrils squished under Riley’s feet. Silver liquid squeezed out.

They switched off their flashlights. After a moment, they heard the starfish go back through the wall.

“Someone else is going to die,” Riley said. “We have to warn Captain Silva.”

“You can do exactly that,” Chris said. “After we get a closer look.”

Without waiting for her response, he walked to the center of the room.

Riley followed, despite her gut warning her to flee. They left little silver puddles for every tendril they stepped on.

As they approached the doughy pile in the center of the room, the stench of death tickled the back of Riley’s throat. The corpses with their heads stuck into the strange substance weren’t being kept alive or even preserved—they were rotting at a normal rate.

Chris walked behind the little hill.

Riley stood still, staring at the bodies at her feet. They wore the sundresses and Hawaiian shirts of the Aria’s guests. Their skin was wrinkled, although that might have been exacerbated by death.

Riley had only seen a dead body once before, on a tour of an emergency room with a church youth group twelve years ago. A doctor had walked out of a patient’s room, cursing. Riley had peeked inside to see a man younger than her father dead on a bed. A nurse said something about a heart attack. Her church leaders had politely ignored the death to continue listening to their tour guide.

The bodies on Deck Two of the Aria were different. This wasn’t a man dead before his time after a doctor fought his best to save him. These were thirty or more murdered retirees.

She considered whether “murder” was the right word. The starfish was an animal, not capable of understanding right and wrong.

But Nathaniel had helped this all come to be. Even if he wasn’t directly helping… whatever this was… he’d still been involved with the cruise line sending this imposter Aria out to sea.

She decided “murder” was a perfectly fine word for the situation.

What she didn’t know how to explain was what was happening to the corpses’ hands and feet. Their fingers had disappeared, replaced by six or seven silver, organic cords that splayed out in all directions, stringing overtop other corpses to run out into the room and create a glowing web.

The same thick tendrils had burst from the corpses’ feet, through their shoes, and into the room.

Riley picked a tendril to follow with her eyes. She hadn’t seen the end of one yet. She wanted to know where they went.

Against her better judgment, Riley inspected the doughy substance that made up the hill. It was nine feet high, just short of the ceiling. It had a diameter of at least fifteen feet. It looked like pizza dough rising in the fridge, except it pulsated. A baseball-sized chunk fell onto a corpse with a splat. Whether the sound was the dough or the body giving way, Riley didn’t know.

The pile of dough pulsated more violently. Where the chunk had fallen, more mass pressed out from the inside to take its place.

Just like the rock pillars in the foreign orange ocean.

But if those things had been the teeth of some leviathan, this was a cancerous growth.

She realized it had been at least a minute since she’d seen Chris.

She called his name. He didn’t reply.

34

As Riley stared at the corpses on the floor, Chris had felt a pull from the other side of the blob.

That’s what it looked like to him: a beige version of the blob from the 80s horror remake. Except this one wasn’t mobile.

At least, he hoped it wasn’t.

Either way, Chris wasn’t going to touch it.

He high stepped over the thick bundles of silver tubes. He needed to see on the other side of the blob.

It was obvious, to one part of his mind, that this urge wasn’t real. It was being implanted in his mind, and that made it dangerous.

But just like learning about pheromones doesn’t dampen your sexual urges, knowing that this urge to explore was implanted didn’t dampen his need to see.

Chris circled the blob.

The room on the opposite side was more of the same. Organic silver tubes reaching out from the corpses and across the floor. They climbed the walls like vines, hiding any other entrances to the room.

The impulse to explore died down. Here he was, in the Aria’s belly, no doubt standing next to the reason he was here, and he’d just cut himself off from the one person who wanted to help.

He should hurry back around before Riley got worried.

As he turned around, he couldn’t help but look at the shuddering surface of the blob.

Shapes rose and fell in its flesh. They raised the surface without breaking through.

The movement was hypnotic.

Chris lifted his hand to catch the next shape that rose.

A triangle cracked in two pressed outward against the blob’s skin. Chris grabbed it between thumb and forefinger.

Beneath the blob, the rigid shape crumbled.

A spark jolted Chris’s fingers, made his wrist spasm, and shot up his arm.

The room shifted.

He once again saw the other side of reality. The blob still sat in the middle of the room, but now instead of an empty space with silver tubes covering the floor, it was a factory floor in a desiccated ship.

Cement vats the size of dumpsters hung from pulleys. Thick silver liquid splashed out of them.

Decay had struck the floors and walls. The joists and studs were mostly whole, but gaps revealed an orange mist beneath them and the orange ocean outside. Pillars of rock blocked his view of the horizon.

Again, the sense of something approaching struck him like a shockwave. But now he realized it wasn’t some gigantic creature taking mammoth steps through the ocean—it was extending its form, growing to reach farther.

The farthest rock pillar he could see disappeared, enveloped by the approaching insanity. Chris couldn’t understand what he was seeing. It wasn’t fog, but it wasn’t solid either. Colors shifted like an oily rainbow, but there was also something mechanical about the structure, like a chain of spinning gears.

This wasn’t the Deviser. But maybe it was what the Deviser’s slaves were building.

Chris shook his head, trying to shake off the hypnosis from watching the shapes beneath the blob’s surface. He was too calm about this.

Riley had panicked about something approaching, and now he was staring at it. No, he was staring at the furthest tip of its reach. And it was inching its way towards the ship.

Again, that wasn’t quite right. It was approaching the decaying ship on the other side of reality. But when it got here, what then?

A cement vat overturned with a creaking groan. Viscous silver liquid splashed down a culvert in the floor towards the beige blob, which pulsed as it soaked up the liquid, like a great throat expanding and contracting with each gulp.

Clarity snapped back into Chris’s mind. It threatened to morph into panic. He’d suddenly understood the purpose of this blob, the reason for the Aria.

He hopped over a gap in the floor, circling the beige blob, knowing that he was still on the wrong side of reality.

Riley would be standing right here if Chris could find his way back out of the Deviser’s dimension.

His only idea was to try to get out the way he came in.

He closed his eyes and thrust his open palm against the blob’s skin.

An electrical charge stiffened his arm.

The room shifted.

He was back in the enclosed central room of Deck Two on the Aria.

The only light came from the silvery tubes covering the floor and Riley’s flashlight beam around the blob. She must have gone looking for him.

His relief at escaping the other side didn’t calm him. He hurried around the blob to tell Riley the new threat he’d discovered.

35

Riley breathed a sigh of relief as Chris came around the circle of dead cruise guests, completing his own inspection.

“You sure took a while,” she whispered, not sure what she was hiding from. The monster starfish was out on another hunting trip.

Riley stopped as she got a better look at Chris. His eyes were wide. He scratched at his nose like an addict. He was out of breath.

“I know what it is.” The words burst from his mouth. “You felt that thing on its way. When we were upstairs, and you wound the watch, you felt the mammoth thing coming. Not the giant sea monster under the old ship on the other side. That’s its own thing. You felt the giant, foreign threat barreling towards us.”

“Slow down.”

He was talking like a tweaking auctioneer.

“It’s not just a giant monster on its way. Or maybe it is. But it’s not walking here. It’s growing to get closer. Not like this blob. I don’t think we can fully understand what it is.”

Riley swallowed. She didn’t get what he was saying, but she didn’t want to think about what she’d felt both times they’d seen the other dimension. “You said you know what it is. I thought you meant this pile of dough. Or the Aria. Do you know what my uncle’s trying to do?”

“He doesn’t, but I do. Look at this.” Chris picked up a silver thread. It broke off from a dead hand. Liquid dripped onto the floor. “This juice comes from the other side. It squeezes through with this blob. Then it gets here and mixes with matter from our reality.” He kicked a dead foot.

“But why?”

“Because it’s coming. It wants to stretch into our reality. Or to build itself bigger into our reality. But it has to get the space ready first. You can’t build a skyscraper until you build the foundation. The Deviser can’t build this… thing… into our world until it’s prepped our world.”

Riley tried to process everything he was saying. “It’s terraforming the ship?”

“The ship, the ocean, whatever it can reach.”

“You just walked around the dough. How do you know all that?”

“You looked out at the ocean and knew something was coming. I did the same thing just now.”

Riley could accept that. “What happens when it gets here?”

Chris shook his head, finally slowing down now that he’d said everything he’d wanted to. “I don’t know. Worse than Richmond, though. The Deviser shepherded people into cities, stealing slaves all the while. I think those slaves have been building this thing, except it’s also alive and growing. And now that people are all close together, whatever it is will come for us.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’ll be bad. Nuclear holocaust, Biblical plagues, end of the world bad.” He jerked his head to look at the pile of dough. “But this is the terraformer. If we blow it up, maybe it stops. Not enough terraformed space, the Deviser’s creation can’t cross over.”

Riley didn’t follow his explanation, but she didn’t want to. “What does my uncle have to do with this?”

Chris was already walking back to the wall they’d passed through. “He knows it's coming. He just thinks it’s Santa’s sleigh filled with toys. Come on. You wouldn’t let me bring my explosives, so now we have to go get them.

“Okay. Let’s go get your bombs.”

She expected him to grin like a troublemaker boy given firecrackers, but he only nodded solemnly. “The quicker, the better.”

Riley hurried to catch up. They reached the spot in the wall where they’d come through. It was solid, but Riley pulled the pocket watch back out.

Her foot caught on a glowing tendril. It ripped in two. Where before, the silver liquid had squeezed out under her foot, now it spurted out of the broken cord to splash on the wall. It dripped down the drywall.

The drywall soaked it up, and where it dried, the wall stayed an ashy, porous texture.

“Ah shit.” Chris picked up another tendril, ripped it apart with two hands, and then aimed the hose at the wall where they’d come through.

The Aria’s wall soaked up the silver liquid and then vanished. Their path into the hallway was clear.

The liquid had dripped onto his hand. He flung it at the wall across the corridor. As that wall absorbed the liquid and then dried, it revealed the decaying wall and studs that they’d seen after Riley wound the watch.

“See, this is what it’s doing,” Chris whispered, fear infecting his words. “It’s terraforming the Aria. Bringing the other side over here.” Chris held Riley’s hand and guided her through the opening. They hurried down the hall. “If this ship docks back in L.A., that thing will reach through surrounded by millions of people.”

“Let’s go get your bombs,” Riley said again.

As they ran back through the fog to the stairwell, knowing she was going to come right back here to destroy that pile of doughy flesh, Riley realized she believed Chris. She couldn’t prove what he was saying, but it fit what she was seeing, and her gut told her she had to help stop it.

The sooner they could get the explosive back here, the better. She imagined the exploded and burnt dough would smell terrible.

They reached the door that they’d crawled under to enter Deck Two. She ducked through.

The stair landing was exactly as she’d left it: stairs up and down, art deco stylings for the light fixtures and carpet patterns.

The only difference was now Uncle Nathaniel and Aunt Wendy stood waiting for them.

36

Nathaniel and Wendy blocked the door to the stairwell. His gray hair was pulled back tight enough to tug on his forehead and cheeks. Wendy’s caring eyes were discomforting next to her husband’s threatening stare.

Two of their group—their cult, according to Chris—were with them: an Asian woman in her thirties, hair in a bun, wearing a bright yellow blouse, and the old man who’d confronted them in the lobby upstairs.

The old man held what looked like a glued-together plastic toy pistol. He wielded it like a real weapon, aiming it at Chris.

The way Nathaniel smiled at Riley made her sick. Like they’d been playing a game, and he’d won. Or she was prey, and he’d caught her.

“Little Riley,” he said, smoothing his suit jacket against his sides. “I haven’t seen you in months, so imagine my surprise when the one working security camera in this stairwell shows you running down to Deck Two. And with the infamous Chris Haberman, no less.”

The only escape route would be through her aunt and uncle. And Riley had to assume the old man’s plastic pistol was real.

She avoided touching her pocket that held Dad’s watch. But now that Nathaniel knew she was on the ship, he’d know she was the one who stole it. Her best bet would be to argue her case to Captain Silva, and hopefully, the cruise line would let a judge decide who the watch belonged to. “Wait,” she said, “how’d you get access to security footage?”

“Captain Silva has seen fit to relinquish command of the ship.”

Chris scoffed. “You hijacked the ship? Did you kill the captain?”

The old man laughed. “Didn’t have to. He got real timid after I showed that blocky security fella that 3d-printed guns work just as well as classic steel.”

His woman friend adjusted her feet nervously. Riley didn’t think she was comfortable with the murder they’d committed.

These weren’t professionals. Maybe there was a way out of this.

“This is a joke, right?” Chris shook his head. “You only have one pistol down here. I’m guessing that means you don’t even have enough to go around. And there’s only what, twenty of you?”

“I won’t hear this from a worthless soul like yours,” Nathaniel snapped.

“Congratulations!” Chris laughed, which made Riley wince. Nathaniel reacted strongly to ridicule. “You killed the chief of security. And you’ve got a couple of guys with guns on the bridge, ordering the ship to turn around?”

The Asian woman nervously burst out, “The Aria will fulfill its purpose!”

Riley thought the woman would have a different tone if she’d actually seen the dimension that birthed this ship.

“Aren’t you some kind of multi-millionaire? Micah at least had her ex-military goon with her for the Richmond building. You’ve got internet rejects with homemade weapons. Did you take over the armory? There are more security officers, and they’re armed. Are you monitoring the radio? I guarantee someone’s called for the help, and the Coast Guard is already on its way. Maybe even the Navy.”

“None of that will matter,” Nathaniel spat. “The Deviser’s purposes will be fulfilled. It won’t be long now. Society will take another great leap forward.”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “That’s what Micah thought, too. Until she got up close and personal with the Deviser’s handiwork.”

Riley kept watching the old man with the gun. He wasn’t watching her. Maybe she could jump him. He couldn’t be the strongest guy—he looked so frail.

Nathaniel pointed a long, boney finger at Chris. “You’re a murderer.”

Chris shook his head. “I roughed up Micah some, but she went crazy. Killed herself. Or the building killed her. Hard to say, really.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“You interrupted your hijacking to come ask me what happened in the building? My phone number is in the book. You could have asked any time.”

“I read your stories online. You’re a deceiver, sent to weaken the believers.”

“But now you’re asking questions? No wonder you couldn’t take charge until Micah died. You can’t even stick to your own edicts.”

Nathaniel’s face went red with fury.

Riley had heard enough. “Uncle Nathaniel, what are you doing?”

“Helping the world.”

Riley pointed behind her. “You can walk down this hallway and see dead bodies. Their heads are stuck in some kind of goop, and something’s draining out of them. It’s terraforming our world so something can reach through.”

“Build itself through,” Chris said.

Wendy covered her mouth. Nathaniel wasn’t phased. “I don’t pretend to understand its methods, only its purpose. The Aria is preparing the way. It’s John the Baptist to the Deviser’s next gift.”

“This thing you’re worshipping isn’t about advancing mankind,” Riley insisted. “It’s killing people.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Nathaniel. “Lies from a thief.”

Riley wanted to laugh at the irony of his accusation, but the gun pointed at her and the monstrosities behind her toned down the humor.

Wendy spoke up. “I’d like to talk with Riley.”

Everyone turned to look at her. The cult must have been accustomed to Nathaniel speaking for her.

Nathaniel stammered in surprise. “Of course. Don’t go far. And be careful.”

Wendy gave her husband a knowing look. She pulled another plastic pistol out of her purse to show Nathaniel that she could protect herself and then motioned for Riley to follow.

Riley looked at Chris.

He shrugged. “I’ll try to convince these guys the Deviser is bad news. You work on your aunt. If they’re too stubborn, I guess we’ll have to break out the big bombs.”

The old man laughed. “Yeah, right. You don’t even have a gun.”

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at Chris.

Chris’s attempt to give veiled instructions to Riley might have been too obvious. Riley didn’t know how Chris would survive this, but her best shot was going with Wendy.

She followed her aunt into the stairwell and upstairs.

37

On Deck Four, Wendy led the way outside.

The ship was once again turning, this time away from the storm. Half the sky was thick with gray clouds, and the other was bright blue. The early afternoon sun made Riley squint. A strong wind whipped her hair around. It lifted orange dust off her shoulders.

“I’m glad you received my invitation,” Wendy said.

Riley whirled on her aunt. “You sent the postcard? Why?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d thought for sure it was a servant getting petty revenge. But Wendy wanted Riley here?

Wendy strolled down the walkway, ignoring her husband’s order to stay close. Riley followed.

“The watch belongs to you,” Wendy said. “There’s no denying that. Nathaniel thinks you’re only interested in its monetary value. But I have more faith in you. I know you want to follow the path your father abandoned.”

Riley chewed on Wendy’s words. What did Dad know about the watch? If he’d abandoned a path, it sounded like he was part of Nathaniel’s cult at one point but later gave it up. With the watch, he must have seen enough to stop worshipping the Deviser, whatever it was.

It changed her whole perspective of her dad. He’d known about this other world and shut himself off from it. He’d kept living life as an actuary, working long hours for insurance companies, then coming home to enjoy his free time. Riley thought of all the times Dad had commented on the beauty and freedom of a blue sky. She’d always thought “freedom” was a strange description of a sky, but that made sense now.

“I wish you’d say something.” Wendy leaned on the rail to look out at the sea and sky.

This was an opportunity. Wendy wanted Riley on their side. If Riley could win enough trust, she could help Chris destroy the fleshy machinery on Deck Two. Blow it up and sink the ship before it could terraform enough space for the approaching monster to reach through. Or not a monster, but the Deviser’s building project, according to Chris.

And that wasn’t even the only threat. There had to be more giant starfish.

She thought of the tall rock formations in the orange ocean, the way they’d all risen up at once like an ocean-sized jaw closing.

If she didn’t stop the doughy machinery on Deck Two, the Aria would become a nightmare. Her fake story to Wendy had to be perfect.

“I found Dad’s old journals,” Riley lied. She quickly realized she needed a reason for how unknowledgeable she’d be. “Or just one. I think there were more that he must have thrown away.”

Wendy smiled. It triggered a forgotten memory in Riley of a Thanksgiving or Christmas when she was a toddler, and a darker-haired Aunt Wendy sat cross-legged on a scratchy carpet floor, teaching Riley to play Candyland.

There had been a time when Dad and Nathaniel were friendly. But before Riley started kindergarten, they cut their relationship down to cold holiday get-togethers.

“When did Dad stop believing?” Riley asked.

“You must have been four or five,” Wendy said.

So that added up.

“But I wouldn’t say he stopped believing,” Wendy said. “He found a different way to worship.”

“Different from Nathaniel’s way?”

“And my way, and Micah’s way. We were searching for the next time the Deviser would reach over. I believe your father decided that it was more important to prepare himself for that moment and then let it find him. Even more important, to prepare his daughter for that moment.” Wendy pulled Riley in for a hug. Spindly arms wrapped around Riley’s shoulders. “And now that moment has found you.”

Wendy smelled of rose-scented soap. Riley daintily removed herself from the embrace. Playing the part was one thing. Physical affection with her crazy aunt was a bridge too far.

“I don’t understand,” Riley said, so Wendy would read her disgust as confusion. “What moment is this?”

Wendy looked delighted to explain. “The Deviser will bless the world again. Previous gifts will seem like baubles compared to what we’re about to see.”

“Which is…”

“We can’t comprehend the coming gifts until they arrive.”

“What were the old gifts?” Riley asked.

Wendy tilted her head like a confused puppy. “You said you read your father’s journal.”

Riley swallowed. She’d apparently botched a basic tenet of the faith. “Like I said, I think there were a lot more. I only got bits and pieces.”

“How about you tell me what you know, and I’ll fill in the rest.”

Riley exhaled. “Let’s see.” She walked farther down the ship, towards the bow. For a moment, she considered grabbing Wendy’s purse and running. But there’d still be time for that if Riley failed to convince Wendy she was being earnest. Instead, she recited everything she’d experienced and learned from Chris in the most positive way she could. “I know there’s another world, or dimension, or something. Something lives there that sometimes reaches over and leaves things behind.”

“The Deviser’s gifts, yes,” Wendy said.

“I know some people have been watching for it for a long time.”

“Generations,” Wendy agreed, not noticing that Riley was repeating back what she’d just told her.

“I know the gifts benefit all of mankind.” Another fact Wendy herself had told her.

“It might be safer to say that the gifts give mankind the opportunity to benefit ourselves.”

“What do you mean?” Riley jumped on the opportunity to let Wendy convince herself that Riley was a believer.

“Well, for example, when the Deviser sent over a stack of mud bricks millennia ago, it was only enough to build a few huts. But wise men and women now knew that bricks could be constructed. They figured out how and then made more. The same thing with glass, or steel structures, or even air conditioning.”

Riley ran through all that in her head. Chris had said the Richmond skyscraper was a culmination of the Deviser’s gifts. Combined with Wendy’s eager sermon, that meant the Deviser’s gifts were advancements in building technology.

A strange reason to worship something. Most religions promised an eternity of happiness—the Deviser let you skip trade school.

“What else did you learn from your father’s journal?” Wendy asked.

All Riley could think of was the horrific view of the ocean, the starfish jamming Marjorie’s head into that doughy foreign substance, and the terror that even though there was something gargantuan beneath the surface of the orange ocean, the real threat was still approaching.

“I don’t know a lot of facts and details,” Riley riffed. “What I really got from the journal was how Dad felt about it all.”

Wendy nodded. “He always was a sensitive man. Not afraid to share his feelings.”

Riley couldn’t believe that worked. “I know he wanted me to use the watch, but I’m not sure what it does. I’m so sorry for being so aggressive about getting it back. I had no idea you wanted it for the same reasons.” She faked a giggle. “I thought Nathaniel was just being a dick.”

Wendy let out a gasp that turned into a grin between girlfriends. “He can be that way sometimes. His passion for life shows itself differently from your father’s.”

“I came here to get the watch so I could take it home and figure out how to reach over like my father wrote about. That’s what he called it: ‘reaching over.’” She found herself slipping more easily into the invented story.

Riley didn’t believe for a second that Dad was preparing himself for the Deviser to return or whatever nonsense Wendy claimed. The man she knew loved each moment of life, in the moment that it happened. He wasn’t obsessed over the future. Now that she knew Dad knew about the other world, it only made sense that his passion for life was fueled by knowing he’d avoided getting grabbed away into that unnatural world.

She didn’t understand why he’d kept the watch, but she understood why he’d kept it from Nathaniel. She imagined he’d wound the watch, been taken to the other side but managed to escape, and then realized Nathaniel wouldn’t believe him without testing it for himself. And Dad wouldn’t have wanted Nathaniel to risk that. So Nathaniel thought Dad had lost his faith, when really Dad was keeping Nathaniel from acting on his own faith to kill himself. Or to bring about a catastrophe.

“You went quiet there,” Wendy said.

Riley blinked. She’d lost herself in thought, trying to figure out Dad.

“You were telling me why you accepted my invitation.”

“Right,” Riley said. “I thought the watch had something to do with what my Dad called ‘reaching over.’”

“And what have you learned so far?” Wendy asked.

“The watch has everything to do with reaching over.”

Wendy nodded. “That’s what Nathaniel tells me.”

“You haven’t seen for yourself?”

“No, but I will soon. This ship is a gift from the Deviser. We’re here to discover and spread that gift.”

Chris’s theory was right. Nathaniel wanted to help along the purpose of the Aria. And now that Riley knew that purpose was terraforming enough of this world to allow the Deviser’s creation to cross over, she was ready to do anything to stop it. “I’d like to help,” she told Wendy.

“I know,” Wendy said. “Let’s go back and tell your uncle.”

Riley hoped the fake smile on her face would convince Nathaniel as well as it worked on Wendy. She had no firm plan yet, only a vague idea of freeing Chris so he could sink the ship under their feet.

She tried not to think of all the ways this could go wrong.

38

Riley walked side-by-side with her aunt back inside, leaving the salty humid air behind them. The ship’s air conditioning felt freezing for the first few moments.

Riley wondered if Wendy said a prayer of thanks to the Deviser over that luxury.

She shook her head. It was all crazy, and the sooner she could get Chris free so he could do his thing, the better.

“Your uncle may need some convincing that you’re returning to your father’s original path,” Wendy said. “But you leave that to me. Just smile and compliment him. Say that bit about how you would never have stolen the watch if you’d realized he wanted it for the same reason.”

Riley nodded. “You know him better than me.”

“You’ll get to know him, though. Once he comes around, he’ll be so happy that his family is back on the path.”

They walked downstairs.

With all the guests still hunkering down in their cabins, the lobbies and stairwells were eerily quiet.

Riley wondered what was happening on the bridge. Chris had suggested that the crew would quickly retake it. And if not, the Coast Guard would send a boarding party soon. There were probably already helicopters on the way.

Riley would need to help free Chris quickly, so she could distance herself from the cult. Probably not a good idea to be mingling with the group that the military would be aiming automatic weapons at soon.

Hoping to project confidence and throw Nathaniel off-balance, Riley stepped ahead of Wendy to be first down the stairs back to the landing on Deck Two.

The landing was empty.

The door to the Deck Two hallways was still closed, and its lower quarter was still ripped out.

Orange fog drifted through the gap to cover the art deco carpet up to Riley’s ankles. It sunk down the stairs out of sight.

Riley walked to the door. The landing floor sank under her feet, like the floor close to the center of Deck Two. “It’s spreading,” Riley said aloud. They were running out of time.

“What’s spreading?” Wendy asked. “Where did they go?” She fished through her purse for a two-way radio which she spoke into. “Nathaniel? Where are you?”

A sharp clap echoed up the stairs from below.

Wendy gasped. “Was that a gun?”

Before the casino last night, Riley would have been asking that same question. But now, she recognized the firing of a pistol. “Did the crew already hit back?” she wondered out loud. Or had Chris overpowered the old man to take his gun?

“Oh god, Nathaniel!” Wendy ran for the stairs.

Riley followed, then stopped herself. She didn’t need to win Nathaniel’s trust if Chris had already escaped. Her number one goal here was to help Chris blow up the dough pile that was welcoming over the Deviser’s creation. That meant she needed the explosives from Chris’s cabin. She didn’t even know where that was.

So she did need to find Chris.

Problem was, she had no idea what was going on downstairs.

Was Chris already free? He had to be. Either he’d snatched away a gun, or he’d ran and the gunshots were aimed at him, or the crew attacked, which meant that Chris would have been able to escape.

Wendy screamed.

Riley cautiously crept down the stairs, craning her neck to peer around the corners.

On the Deck One landing, Wendy pressed her back against the wall, head turned, and eyes squeezed shut. At her feet lay the body of the Asian woman from the cult. Three blood splotches dotted her yellow blouse.

Riley walked downstairs. She ignored her aunt’s weeping to step over the corpse.

Through the door, the dripping silver threads had disappeared. They’d finished their job, and now Deck One was terraformed, the first crack in the opening doorway to the other side.

39

Riley stepped through the door. Another gunshot clapped from somewhere ahead.

Riley had to find Chris so they could get his explosives, and she didn’t even know if Chris was playing cat-and-mouse with the cult or if the crew had hit the armory and then came hunting for the cult. But those concerns got pushed aside by the room in front of her.

Orange mist drifted up to knee height. A brittle metal floor creaked under Riley’s weight. Spots empty of mist revealed themselves to be holes in the floor where the mist sank out of sight.

Flotsam and jetsam littered the deck. A propeller bigger than a house lay crooked on the floor. Riley looked up and realized she couldn’t tell if there was a ceiling above. Only an orange blur.

She frantically turned back around, convinced the wall and door would be gone. But she still had an escape route. A rectangle view of the stairwell lit by fluorescent light. Wendy was hunched over her dead friend, giving chest compressions.

Riley walked deeper into Deck One, avoiding the spots empty of mist and giving the junk a wide berth. She passed wide around an ornately decorated wooden staircase that was whole but on its side. Smaller debris dotted the floor, too, like scattered narrow mattresses and rusty stoves and cookware.

It was like someone had built the imposter Aria out of prefabricated pieces and then tossed the extras here. Or this space had been created from the junkyard of the imposter Aria’s construction.

Riley couldn’t tell how far the room went on. The wall behind her was the only one visible.

Deck One felt less like the bottom level of a cruise ship and more like a cavern she’d stumbled into.

Except if she stood still and paid attention, the floor still rose and fell ever so slightly. She was still at sea.

Something skittered along the toppled staircase. A chorus of taps as feet struck the wood. Riley crouched to stay out of sight and get a better look.

Her heart pounded in her ears. The movement didn’t sound like the monstrous starfish. Too staccato. Too light.

A jagged shell appeared over a banister. Riley thought of a bicycle helmet tripled in size and made of bone. It would have looked like a fiddler crab, if not for the eighteen-inch, single-jointed, pencil-thin legs that it walked on and the four-inch pair of pincer jaws that stuck forward from underneath the shell.

Riley held her breath. She had no way to defend herself against the jagged pincer blades.

The lanky fiddler crab explored the stairs, lowering itself to snip through the hardwood several times.

Another gunshot snapped through Deck One without an echo.

Riley focused on its source: behind a loose pile of steel framing studs.

The fiddler crab continued its exploration of the stairs. It had been unfazed by the gunshots.

A male voice shouted unintelligible instructions from the same direction as the gunshot. The voice was deeper than Chris’s, so it was either the cult hunting Chris or the crew hunting the cult who were hunting Chris. Riley wanted to go in that direction.

The fiddler crab had turned its jaws toward the voice.

It wasn’t deaf.

It lowered itself between its many legs, looking like a daddy longlegs, or the monster starfish reaching down to pick up Marjorie’s corpse. Then it stayed like that.

Riley counted to thirty. The crab didn’t move.

Maybe it wasn’t a predator. Maybe it heard the voice as a threat and was preparing itself to flee.

Riley couldn’t wait any longer. Still hunched down, she walked toward the propeller to circle wide around the fiddler crab.

With a dull click, the crab straightened its legs to launch itself at Riley. It reversed its legs midair, so she saw eight pointy bones surrounding quivering pincer jaws, all hurtling through the air at her face. The feet would dig deep into the sides of her skull while the jaws carved their way to her brain through her nasal cavities.

Riley dropped to her stomach. The fiddler crab rocketed over her. One foot hooked her hair enough to pluck out a small patch and send the crab spinning.

Riley winced at the sudden pain.

The damned thing was definitely a predator. She ran for the pile of steel studs.

A glance behind showed the fiddler crab climbing the giant propeller. It leaped again.

Riley prepared to dodge, but it sailed over her. It landed with its pincers facing her, between Riley and her goal.

The thing was smart enough to cut her off. For all she knew, this was the dominant species in this world. Hell, this could be the Deviser itself.

The thought of kicking the Deviser and sending it flying sent her into a fit of giggles. This was some kind of shock. She was in a warped cruise ship deck, fleeing a predator fiddler crab, and her mind was ready to crack.

Riley pulled herself together. She wasn’t going to die like this.

The crab lowered itself again.

Riley sprinted to the side. Its jaws grazed her back, and then it was sliding along the floor, scraping, trying to right itself.

She wouldn’t be able to outrun this thing. If she could find someone with a gun, the crab looked solid enough—poking enough holes in it should kill it like anything else. But Riley wasn’t willing to gamble that she could find somebody on her side faster than the fiddler crab could catch her.

An open space beyond a yellow lifeboat had less orange mist than everywhere else. Riley ran for it.

As she got closer, she saw enough gaps in the mist where it sank into holes in the floor that it was like running across a giant game of Chinese checkers.

She heard the fiddler crab skittering behind her. Riley ran straight towards a hole. There was a sharp click, and the skittering stopped.

Riley breathed deeply and then dropped again.

The crab sailed over her head and right down through a hole in the floor.

Riley leaned over jagged metal edges to look down into the hole.

It was a lower deck of the Aria. Some kind of basement below Deck One. Untouched by the changes that had infected Deck One. Just pipes and big metal boxes doing who-knows-what to keep the ship running.

The fiddler crab lay on its side on a corrugated steel walkway. Its freakishly long legs curled up underneath it. They dried out as Riley watched. The pincers crumbled next, followed by the tougher shell. Within seconds, the predator crab was a pile of ash.

It couldn’t survive in the regular world. The monstrous starfish must have been an exception. Or maybe specially designed.

But otherwise, what survived over there couldn’t come over here. Or vice versa, with where Riley was standing right now.

So blowing up the doughy mound on Deck Two might actually stop this disaster.

Riley got back on her feet and ran towards the pile of steel studs.

She slowed as she approached so as not to startle anyone with their finger on a trigger.

She circled the rusty metal.

The barrel of an automatic rifle pointed at her nose, inches away. Riley felt the blood drain out of her face. Surviving two run-ins with monsters didn’t supply any lasting bravery when facing down gunpowder and lead.

Wielding the gun was a sweaty, terrified porter named Bobby.

40

Ever so carefully, Riley raised her empty hands.

The rifle shook in Bobby’s hands. His sculpted muscles couldn’t compensate for the shock he’d faced. Riley noticed that he was resting the rifle’s barrel on the back of his wrist. His left hand hung limp, skin red and blistered.

Cold determination in Bobby’s eyes was slowly replaced with recognition. “You’re not one of them. You’re that guest who was talking about monsters on the hull.” He kept the rifle aimed at her nose.

“Do you believe me now?” Riley wanted to check around her for more fiddler crabs, but she didn’t dare move and set off Bobby’s panicky trigger finger.

Bobby grunted. “I believe your terrorist friends killed Bengsston.”

A gunshot went off behind him, far away. Bobby snapped around to look, then jerked back, remembering Riley.

“I’m not with the terrorists,” Riley said. She tried to see where the other gunshot had come from. Farther into Deck One, the debris was closer together. Lifeboats, lounge chairs, dining tables—all the pieces of a cruise ship—along with the construction materials themselves like steel studs, piping, and marble tile.

It appeared the crew had armed themselves, just like Chris said they would, and chased Nathaniel’s cult into this junkyard maze.

“If you’re not a terrorist, and you’re not one of them,” Bobby said as he poked Riley with the barrel, “then what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean by ‘them?’” Riley asked.

“The shadowy people.”

The ones she’d seen after winding the watch on Deck Two. “What are they doing?”

Bobby waved his limp, burned hand. Riley thought of Chris’s missing finger that he attributed to them.

“If you’re not with the terrorists,” Bobby said, “then leave.”

“I need to find my friend. They had him as a hostage.” She figured she shouldn’t mention the explosives.

“Let the security team handle it.”

“You’re a porter.”

“I’m auxiliary security.”

“You don’t have a clue what’s going on.” Riley motioned around them.

Bobby, who had been letting the rifle droop, raised it again.

Riley showed her palms. “You’re in over your head. There’s something insane going on right now. My friend knows about it and is trying to stop it.”

Bobby looked doubtful, but he obviously liked the idea of someone else being responsible for dealing with this madness. “Is he with the terrorists?”

“No. They’re in favor of all this.”

He shook his head and slowly blinked. “It’s not a dream. I thought for sure it was when I came through that door. Then I got separated, and those shadowy people threw a chunk of plywood at me, and it burned so bad.”

That wasn’t what Riley expected to hear. “It wasn’t them touching you that burned?”

“I didn’t let them get close enough. But all this junk in here is like salt and ice on your skin.”

Riley inspected the pile of steel studs. “Like a chemical burn?”

“An instant one, yeah.”

“Why don’t you leave?” Riley asked him. “Let the shadowy people deal with the terrorists.”

“It’s my job,” Bobby said.

“Your auxiliary job.”

“They killed Bengsston.”

“You’re willing to die just to be the one who delivers revenge?”

“You’re willing to die to find your hostage buddy?”

Riley didn’t want to die. She hated her jobs, she missed her dad, she had no clear path out of her dead-end life, but she desperately wanted to return to that life. Even still, she’d seen the Deviser’s world. She’d sensed what was approaching and the horror it would bring. She couldn’t let that happen. “I’m gonna try to find him without dying,” Riley said.

“Do you think he’s still a hostage?”

“I doubt it,” Riley looked around.

Three shadowy figures were slinking towards Riley and Bobby. Their features drifted in and out of focus—one moment, they were blurry silhouettes, and the next, they were dusty and scarred people, two men and a child. Tattered clothes hung on emaciated bodies. Wide eyes and sunken cheeks conveyed urgent desperation. They needly something badly from the newcomers.

Two more of them had approached the pile of steel studs. They heaved against the side, trying to topple it onto Riley and Bobby.

Metal creaked.

Riley backed away. “Move back,” she warned.

Bobby saw the fear on her face. He whirled around and squeezed the trigger. The approaching shadows shuddered with the impact of the rifle rounds, but kept coming.

The close rifle shots deafened Riley.

Bobby hadn’t seen the shadows pushing the steel pile of chemical burns waiting to happen.

“Look out!” Riley yelled, but Bobby was too focused on the three in his sights.

Riley grabbed his elbow to yank him out of the way as metal crashed down, the sound muted after the rifle shots. The floor shook with the impact.

Bobby looked at what she’d just saved him from. “Thanks,” he mouthed.

Five figures still approached. Orange dust-coated cracked skin.

“They keep trying to shove us into the junk around here,” Bobby said.

Riley barely made out his voice through her muffled hearing.

“That’s how I got separated. They wrapped Carlos in a rug. He screamed.”

One of them stepped in front of the others. Dark hair was now dusty dreadlocks. It took three tattered shirts, a pair of jeans, and a skirt to keep her body covered.

“How long have you been here?” Riley wondered aloud.

The lead woman opened her mouth to speak, but only a raspy whimper came out. She shook her head. She pointed at Riley and Bobby, then pointed back to the exit.

“You’re harboring terrorists,” Bobby said. “We’re not leaving.”

“They don’t know anything about the cult,” Riley said.

The woman shushed Riley, her eyes wide with fear. She checked their surroundings, then made a shoo-ing motion with her hands and again put her finger over her lips. Get out. Be quiet.

“I’ve already run into the little monster crabs,” Riley said.

The woman shook her head. She pointed all around, waved her finger, and pointed upwards.

The threat wasn’t here yet. It was still outside the boat.

It had to be the building project that Chris was talking about. The threat she’d sensed when she’d seen the other side. He said it was built by slaves and also was now building itself.

If enough space had already been terraformed for it to cross over, then all of this was pointless. She had to hope there was still time.

Riley checked over her shoulder. Bumps and creaks all around them. She thought she saw movement in the dark space above stacked rows of dressers.

“I can’t go until I find my friend,” Riley told the woman.

She bared her teeth in anger. They weren’t warning them out of compassion. The lead woman motioned to the two men to take the child away. They didn’t want Riley and Bobby to draw the attention of the threat and bring it to their… home? Hideout?

As the two men led away the child, the second woman stepped up next to the one in charge.

Riley dug in her heels. “I’ll leave as soon as I find my friend.”

The two women picked up short steel studs to brandish them like clubs.

Bobby fired the rifle. The impact struck the women, but made no visible damage to their bodies.

The lead woman’s companion lowered her makeshift club. She tilted her head back to look upwards. She spoke frantically, but Riley was deafened by Bobby’s gun.

Riley felt the air pressure rise, like when an AC unit kicked on without an open door or window.

Bobby continued firing.

The two women shifted back to blurs and crept away.

Following their lead, Riley put distance between herself and Bobby, who fired until his magazine went dry.

Pain blossomed in Riley’s ears, whether from the rifle or the increasing air pressure, she couldn’t say.

Bobby looked around. He asked Riley a question she couldn’t hear. He looked up into the darkness.

A twisted red rope shot across the room. It appeared out of the shadows behind the stack of dressers. It stretched taut four feet above the floor to strike against the plastic hull of a yellow lifeboat. Blood splattered against the yellow plastic.

Riley fell backwards, landing on her rear. Orange fog covered her up to her ears.

Bobby aimed the empty rifle at the lifeboat, where the red cord now stuck firm. It was a crimson tightrope, as thick around as Riley’s thumb, made of smaller threads twisted around each other.

The threads were translucent. Blood pumped within, carrying along dark specs.

Riley crab-walked backwards away from Bobby.

A strand of blood vessels shot out from the hull of the lifeboat, from the exact spot where the first strand had struck. It stretched across the room, latching itself to the stack of dressers. The drawer face it stuck to should have been too weak to hold the artery so tautly. The drawer should have slid out and let it droop. But this wasn’t following the laws of physics that Riley learned in high school.

The two artery strands now roped off Bobby, leaving him a narrow corridor.

Riley yelled, “Get away!” She still sounded muffled.

Bobby ducked to go under.

A third strand burst out of the dresser drawer face. It pierced through Bobby’s forehead and attached itself back to the lifeboat.

Riley’s impulse was to scream, but she choked on saliva on the inhale.

Bobby dangled from the bloody, twisted cord. His forehead and the back of his head remained intact. No blood dripped down. The back of his skull hadn’t blown out.

His eyes opened wide. He gasped. He grabbed at the cord in front of him. His hands stuck to it.

He cried for help, but Riley froze. He looked for her out of the corner of his eye, unable to turn his head.

The cry for help devolved into a scream of agony.

His whole body lurched two feet down the cord. Again, three feet this time. Then it dragged him thirty feet all at once. He smashed into the dresser drawer hard enough to daze him.

The next strand dragged him now, quickly toward the lifeboat, tracing its path in reverse.

Riley realized her ears were recovering because she heard bones snap when Bobby smashed into the plastic hull.

As the first cord of blood vessels dragged Bobby away into the shadows from where it had first emerged, Riley thought she saw his body shrinking as it was pulled within the twisted arteries.

Riley sat frozen, praying that the mist hid her from the invading cords.

Another cord burst out from the lifeboat’s hull, from the spot where it had last touched. It shot deeper into Deck One. Riley suspected that if her hearing had fully recovered, she would have heard shouts or gunshots from that direction to draw its attention.

She felt like a coward for not leaping up to help Bobby. But she was alive. And what could she have done? No way she could have yanked him away from it. One of those steel studs might have enough force to break the cords, but it would have burned through her fingers before she could swing it.

Still, if she survived this, she knew she’d never get that view out of her head, of Bobby’s limp corpse getting dragged out of sight while it was pulled into the artery.

As her hearing more fully returned, a rapid-fire clicking sound reached her ears. She held still and looked around, trying to pinpoint its locations. It was quieter than the fiddler crab or starfish. More like a watch.

She checked Dad’s watch, but she hadn’t accidentally wound it.

Finally, she realized where it was coming from: the taut blood vessels that still hung between debris. They were organic in every way that Riley could see, but from inside, they whirred and clicked as if driven by clockwork.

They were the edges of the self-building creation that Chris warned about. Riley felt confident in that. She hoped they were just the edges, and this small part crossing over into terraformed space would still die like the fiddler crab if it went too far.

Riley swallowed a giggle. It was absurd. Riley thought of fleeing but quickly discarded the idea.

This couldn’t be happening, and she desperately had to stop it from happening.

As quietly as she could, she followed the blood vessels deeper into Deck One.

41

As Riley’s hearing returned, she heard shouting and gunshots.

The sparse junkyard of Deck One—with its orange fog and scattered holes in the floor—now felt like a bloody spiderweb.

The strand of twisted blood vessels shot from surface to surface, deeper toward the commotion.

Riley followed, trying to be quiet enough not to be noticed but fast enough to find Chris before it was too late.

The journey felt far too long. If her sense of direction held, she was walking left-to-right across the ship. It shouldn’t be this wide. But when she looked down into one of the holes in the floor, she saw the same normal subbasement that had killed the fiddler crab.

A nearby gunshot startled her. Someone was running up ahead—the old man with the 3d-printed gun. He saw Riley but paid her no attention. He limped badly, his old bones not used to this level of effort.

Two uniformed crew members came into view, chasing the old man. They carried semiautomatic rifles like Bobby had.

Riley ducked into the fog. The crew would see her as another terrorist.

The old man ducked under a taut strand of blood vessels. Riley didn’t know how far the front end of the thing had gone. She didn’t know if the whole strand was dangerous or just the furthermost front tip.

The crew apparently hadn’t seen the damage it could do yet. One wasn’t careful enough ducking underneath. The blood vessel snagged his shoulder. His feet jerked forward, and he bounced on the line.

Riley lowered her eyes and plugged her ears. She couldn’t help, and she didn’t want to watch that again.

She counted to thirty and then looked up. Only the orange fog, the scattered junk, and the maze of twisted arteries.

The second crew security must have tried to help and been taken, too.

Riley checked over her shoulder for the old man cult member, then continued in the direction they’d all three come from.

A flailing body came sliding along the bloody cord. It was dusty and scarred already—one of the shadowy people. It bellowed in anger as it flew past Riley.

Their invasion had drawn attention to the shadowy people’s hideout. Riley tried to think of a way she could have stopped this, but she was a latecomer. She wasn’t the one who’d led everybody down here.

She walked around another lifeboat on its side and then navigated an open area spotted with holes. Ahead, she heard shouting, close enough to nearly be intelligible.

A gun battle came into view.

Three security crew had fanned out around an upside-down prefabricated swimming pool. They each aimed their rifles at it. One shouted for someone to show themselves, but if they’d been firing, Riley didn’t imagine anyone could hear each other.

Riley couldn’t see who was underneath the pool shell. It had to be Nathaniel. He was the only one left.

She had to know if Chris was with him. She slowly circled wide around the crew.

The blood vessels hadn’t reached this far yet, probably distracted by hunting the shadowy people. A single strand stretched behind the crew, but Riley couldn’t see where it came from or headed.

Gunshots from under the pool shell. The crew returned fire. Riley used the distraction to dash for cover behind a truck-sized pile of cafeteria trays.

She peeked around. From this angle, she could see underneath the crooked prefabricated pool.

Her uncle sat with his back against the fiberglass pool wall. He held one pistol trained on Chris, who lay on his stomach. The other he held ready to fire again at the crew.

Riley needed a plan. Some way to get Chris to stay down and Nathaniel to expose himself.

The solution was suddenly obvious.

She cupped her hands around her mouth to shout, “The Deviser’s arriving!”

Chris’s head popped up. He spotted Riley. She motioned for him to stay down.

At the same time, Nathaniel looked around eagerly. Then he saw who had shouted. Riley had convinced Wendy but never got the chance to convince her uncle she was on their side. He didn’t trust her.

He stayed behind his cover.

A half-success.

Something zipped through Riley’s wall of cafeteria trays. Plastic shattered.

Her shouting had drawn the attention of the crew. They thought she was a terrorist.

Riley followed Chris’s lead to drop to her stomach and bury her face in the floor. Cold metal cooled her cheek.

She tried to think of a way to warn the crew about their guns attracting the blood vessel. There was nothing she could do.

A few moments later, one of them screamed. She couldn’t see them, but she could see Nathaniel watching them.

His bushy gray brow furled in confusion. He shook his head.

Riley saw Chris speak, but whatever he said, Nathaniel just shook his head more vigorously.

Right now, he was probably searching for justification for why the Deviser’s realm would be so dangerous if the Deviser was the benevolent deity he believed.

Gunfire as the crew defended themselves. It was too late.

Riley saw horror on Nathaniel’s face. He ducked back under the pool.

Riley waited for the blood vessels to find Nathaniel. A minute passed. Five.

She looked behind her. The twisted artery had taken off in another direction.

Nathaniel must have realized the same thing. He spoke loud enough for Riley to hear. “The Deviser protected us. It knows I’m on its side.”

“It doesn’t know you exist,” Chris said.

“I don’t pretend to know its purposes, but I can interpret its actions. It’s protected us.”

“Then why did you hide?” Riley yelled.

Nathaniel stood up. “You two come with me. We’re going back up to Deck Two to make sure the naive crewmen haven’t interfered with the Deviser’s machinery.”

So he did know about the pile of dough. That had to mean he knew about the bodies. Chris had no chance of convincing Nathaniel that the Deviser was evil. Her uncle had already accepted that committing evil was okay. Whether he thought the ends were justified didn’t change the fact that he was dangerous.

“Get up, both of you!” Nathaniel aimed his pistols at them both.

No way he’d be able to hit her with that plastic gun from forty-feet away while also distracted by Chris. But if Riley ran, Nathaniel might take it out on Chris. She walked to them.

“If you’re going to kill us,” Chris said, “kill us.” He crawled to his feet.

Nathaniel pointed his other pistol inches from Chris’s nose. “I still want your account of the Richmond building.”

“And me?” Riley asked.

Nathaniel opened his mouth in a stunned expression that looked like Dad. “You’re my niece. Wendy wanted you to be here. I expect you’ll need significant convincing to serve the Deviser, but I can be very persuasive with family.”

“Then why couldn’t you get the pocket watch from my dad?” Riley couldn’t help but prod him.

Nathaniel’s lips tightened into a fine line that disappeared into the many lines on his aging skin. He stuck Chris with the butt of one of the pistols.

Chris grunted and rubbed his jaw.

The light plastic pistol didn’t have the effect Nathaniel was apparently hoping for.

Before Riley could stop him, Chris jumped on the opportunity. He grabbed Nathaniel’s wrist and punched him in the gut.

Nathaniel whimpered in pain, the blow striking hard without any youthful fat to dampen it. But he was still determined and furious. He swung the other pistol around toward Chris.

Riley saw it in slow motion, her uncle’s lanky arm swinging toward her friend. She tackled him.

Her shoulder connected with the back of his ribcage. Something cracked inside.

Nathaniel screamed.

Riley felt sick to her stomach. She’d never had a broken bone and had certainly never felt someone else’s bones break under her.

Chris collected both pistols.

Nathaniel rolled over to look up at them, but the determination on his face had been replaced with agony.

Broken ribs hurt. And the depression just below his shoulder said that his collarbone had snapped, too.

Chris handed Riley a pistol. “Are you okay leaving him here? We can’t let that machine upstairs run any longer.”

“We shouldn’t leave him.” The pistol felt awkward in her hand. Lighter than she’d imagined a gun would be, but still as deadly.

“I’m not carrying him back through here,” Chris said. “I won’t risk my own life for his. Not when that machine upstairs is still pumping, and we’re the only ones who know it needs to be stopped.”

Riley realized he was right. Her own guilt about leaving Nathaniel to die was less important than stopping more of the Aria from becoming like Deck One. Or more of the world. There was no reason to assume it would stop with the ship. “We’ll come back for him afterward.”

Nathaniel started to protest, but the pain made him wail even louder.

Riley scanned their surroundings.

Where before there had been one strand of twisted arteries, now there were two crisscrossing each other.

It was searching for them.

“The door’s that way.” Chris pointed out through the chest-high blood webbing. “I don’t know what that rope is. Is that what killed the crew? That’s what you were warning about?”

Riley nodded. “Let’s not try to go back through there.” She led the way to an open spot in the orange mist, ignoring Nathaniel’s whimpers. Peering down into the hole, she could see a normal hallway with copper pipes and ductwork along one wall. “We go down, find a stairwell, and head back up.”

Chris got on his hands and knees to stick his head down through the hole. “It’s some kind of maintenance deck.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“It doesn’t look like the Deviser’s dimension.”

Riley swallowed her annoyance. “Exactly.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s ours, though.”

Riley wasn’t about to let her fear wander down that rabbit hole, and she sure as hell wasn’t sneaking past that bloody clothesline of death. “I’ll risk it.”

Making sure her finger was off the pistol trigger, Riley stepped out over the hole and dropped down.

42

In the maintenance deck hallway, the heat and humidity weighed down on Riley. Her clothes were quickly drenched in sweat, and she saw the same happen to Chris.

Gaps spotted the ceiling, revealing the terraformed Deck One. Orange mist drifted down to dissipate in the untainted corridor.

“It’s still spreading,” Chris said.

“How much does it have to spread for that thing to get through?” Riley asked.

“I don’t know. I suspect the red ropes that you saw are connected to it. They’re not trying to come through down here yet, so we must still have time.”

They found a back stairwell, simple tile steps, and painted drywall.

“Shouldn’t the crew be down here maintaining the ship?” Riley wondered aloud.

“Probably distracted by the cult. Not to mention…” Chris pointed at a gap in the ceiling.

Through the orange mist, Riley could just make out a bloody cord tautly hanging in the air.

They went up the stairs.

The next landing up, the doorway bulged outward like a blister ready to pop.

Riley and Chris ignored it and kept upwards until Chris stopped them at Deck Six.

“My cabin’s on this level.”

They went through the door and found themselves in an interior crew and staff hallway.

An orange-shirted staff member nearly bumped into them. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Sorry,” Chris said. “Just heading back to our cabin.”

They jogged down the hallway, looking for a way to the guest section of the ship. Riley wondered how much of this ship she’d never seen.

Behind them, the staff member yelled for someone to find a radio. The staff knew about the terrorists. Riley and Chris were out of their cabins during a lockdown. It didn’t look good.

They passed two more surprised staff members before finding their way out. They found themselves just outside the shopping promenade.

“This way,” Chris said.

Together, they ran into the hallways of guest cabins. Riley tried not to think about how many of these were empty, already invaded by the mutated starfish. She hoped Krystal was still okay.

They reached Chris’s cabin. He fumbled with his keycard, and then they were inside.

Riley waited while he pulled out his suitcases.

“You kept bombs in your bags?”

“Just the pieces.” He unzipped the first one and started dismantling the frame. “And they’re well-hidden. Grab my shaving kit from the bathroom.”

Riley did as instructed. As she tossed it on the bed, she noticed a photograph on the nightstand. It was Chris and a little boy. “You’re a dad?”

“Yep.” Inside the framing of his suitcase were plastic bags of different color powders and gels. The framing itself came apart into little cubes, one inch by one inch.

“You’re out here risking your life with him at home?”

“He understands. He was in the Richmond building with me.”

Riley was stunned. “You brought him inside?”

“Hardly. I chased him to bring him out.” He mixed the powders and gels into each cube, then snapped them each shut. There were twelve in total. “These are strong enough to blast a hole through a three-inch-thick steel wall if you secure them right.”

“How do you set them off?”

Chris dug through his shaving kit for a tube of toothpaste. “I filled this with the catalyst. When we’re ready, snap off the lid of the cube, squeeze in a drop from the tube, then snap the lid back on. Within ninety seconds… boom.”

“Then let’s go.” Riley’s stomach flipped at the thought of going back down to Deck Two, but she would do what needed to be done.

A pounding came at the door. “Chris Haberman! Riley Green! Open up, or we’re coming in!”

43

Riley froze at the yelled orders from outside. “How do they know I’m in here?”

“I don’t know.” Chris replaced his bomb-making components and closed his suitcase. He left the toothpaste tube full of catalyst on top. “Maybe the cameras are working again. Either way, we can’t let them get in the way of stopping the Deviser.”

“I’m not hurting anyone innocent,” Riley said.

The newcomers pounded at the door again. “Last chance, or we break it down!”

“It’s the crew, right?” Riley said. “Not the cult?”

“The cult couldn’t break down a door,” Chris said. “Go ahead and open it. If things go south, I’ll cause a distraction, then you take the suitcase and run for Deck Two. Put this in your pocket.”

Chris handed her the toothpaste tube.

Riley breathed deep, then went to open the cabin door.

As soon as she turned the knob, a bulky security guard shouldered the door open wide. He aimed a rifle at Riley’s chest.

“Down on the floor!”

Riley obeyed. The carpet was rough under her chin.

The security guard entered the room. Chris got down on the floor, too. Two people stepped over Riley. Another large crew member conscripted into armed security and a smaller man.

“Riley, isn’t it? You can get up.”

It was Captain Silva.

Riley stood up. She brushed off her pants, feeling the catalyst in her pocket. She avoided looking at the suitcase on the bed.

The first security guard kept his gun at Chris’s back. The second aimed his rifle at Riley until Captain Silva gently pushed it by the barrel down to aim at the carpet.

“You have to evacuate the ship,” Riley said.

Captain Silva blinked impassively. “No. Not with the terrorists still running loose. They murdered Bengsston. He’s been my friend for a decade.” Blood was splattered on his white jacket lapels. He’d been close when it happened. Riley wondered if Nathaniel had pulled the trigger. “Until they’re in the brig, it’s not safe for the guests to leave their cabins.”

“The ones who came downstairs are dead,” Chris said.

Captain Silva seemed to remember that Chris was even there. “You were downstairs. You’re still alive.”

“I’m not one of them,” Chris said.

“He’s not,” Riley confirmed.

The look Captain Silva shot Riley said his trust in her was far from absolute.

“He came to stop them,” Riley insisted.

“Stop them from what?” Captain Silva demanded. “They murdered my chief of security, took over the bridge for twenty minutes until half of them were gunned down, and for what? To turn the ship around? You’ve been down to Deck Two. The cameras aren’t working down there. My crew hasn’t returned. Before I send anyone else, what is on my ship? Why do these terrorists care?”

Riley looked at Chris. He shrugged and shook his head.

“It’s that unimportant that you’re shrugging?” Captain Silva was red in the face.

Riley didn’t know how much to explain. She wouldn’t convince him of anything unless he saw it, but if she invited him down there, she couldn’t bring along the explosives. Still, she didn’t think she could lie and get away with it.

“You wouldn’t believe it without seeing it,” Chris said. “The Coast Guard’s on their way, right?”

“The Navy,” Captain Silva said.

“Even better. Evacuate the ship. All the cult members that went downstairs are dead.”

Riley didn’t correct him to say that Wendy was still alive, and they had agreed to go back for Nathaniel.

“And my crew who went after them?” Captain Silva asked.

“Also dead,” Riley said.

“You witnessed their deaths?”

Riley nodded.

“Could you have helped?”

“Maybe,” she said honestly. “But I was too scared.”

“Scared of what? What’s down there?”

Riley shook her head. “I can’t explain it without you thinking I’m crazy. But if I take you to go see it, we might not survive, and then no one would call for the evacuation.”

Captain Silva tightened his mouth. “Peters.”

The guard with his gun on Chris answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Return to the bridge. Wait for my order to evacuate the ship. If you don’t hear from me for thirty minutes, start the evacuation without me.”

Peters jogged out the open cabin door.

Captain Silva pointed to Chris. “Get up. The two of you will escort Garret and me to Deck Two.”

The other conscripted crew member stood straighter.

“Wait for the Navy,” Chris said. “I’m telling you. We can’t keep you alive down there. We can’t necessarily keep ourselves alive down there.”

“Then why were you down there?”

“To stop it.”

“Stop what?” Captain Silva insisted.

Chris’s shoulders sank. “It can’t be explained quickly enough.”

“And that’s why you’ll show me. Garret?” Captain Silva motioned for Garret to lead the way out of the cabin.

The guard walked into the hallway. His eyes widened, and his cheeks paled. He jumped back into the cabin and slammed the door.

“What are you doing?” Captain Silva pulled the crew member away from the door and opened it himself.

“Wait!” Riley reached for him, but the door was already open.

The mutated starfish blocked the door outside. It was reared up, covering the entire open doorway. Hundreds of feet wriggled around its wicked beak mouth. It thrust its mouth into the room.

Captain Silva fell backward.

Garret found his courage to raise his rifle, pull the trigger, turn off the safety, then fire.

Riley’s ears went muffled and ringing again.

Rifle rounds tore into the starfish’s flesh. It didn’t slow down.

Riley helped Captain Silva scramble to his feet. They backed deeper into the room. She felt hands on her waist.

Chris was reaching into her pocket for the catalyst. He had an open steel cube in his other hand. He dumped out half the contents and added twice as much catalyst as he’d told her. The lid snapped on.

The starfish managed to squeeze one of its arms through the doorway. With an unnaturally fast swing, it knocked Garret’s rifle away. The crew member jumped backward, looking around for another weapon. He put himself between the starfish and Captain Silva.

Chris ran forward. He threw the cube into the starfish’s beak. The thing’s arm circled behind him and yanked him closer.

Riley screamed his name. She ran forward to grab the starfish’s arm. Wriggling feet jabbed at her hands. Chris’s own hands were buried in the tiny forest of starfish feet on either side of the mouth, pushing against the starfish’s efforts to bring him to the snapping razor-sharp jaws.

Riley pulled as hard as she could. She turned back to Captain Silva and Garret. “Help!” she screamed, although her hearing was still muffled.

The two men came to help. They pulled the arm back. Chris slipped out of its grip.

He yelled something Riley couldn’t hear and motioned to the back corner of the cabin. All four of them pressed against the back wall.

The starfish struggled to get the rest of its body through the door.

Chris dragged up a mattress to hold it between them and the starfish.

Then three things happened very quickly.

An invisible freight train crashed into Riley, hitting her inside and out all at once. She smashed into Garret, who hit the wall.

The sound of a sharp explosion burst through Riley’s muffled hearing.

And wet bits of starfish flesh splattered all over the room.

Chris lowered the mattress. He squeezed his eyes tight and groaned. He’d been a step closer to the explosion than Riley.

Riley’s ears rang louder than a cell phone. She hoped that wasn’t permanent. The bed and walls were covered with thick red blood and small chunks of flesh. A strip of skin with little feet still shuddered on the dresser.

Riley turned around to see Captain Silva wide-eyed, with starfish blood dripping down his cheek.

He spoke, and Riley read his lips. “What was that?”

“That’s what attacked me last night,” she said.

He nodded. He must have seen enough of the starfish in the security footage to believe her. Odd shapes on the grainy video made sense now that he’d seen the thing in person. “That’s what’s on Deck Two?”

Garret had recovered from the blast and now shakily held his rifle trained at the busted doorframe and splattered hallway. “Are there more of them?” he asked.

Riley didn’t know. She looked to Chris for the answer, but he was bent over, hands on his knees, breathing deep. The blast had knocked the wind out of him.

Riley realized she had the perfect opportunity to manipulate Captain Silva into letting Riley and Chris free to destroy the fleshy machine on Deck Two.

“Yeah, there’s more. We followed one down there and found a whole nest. You ever seen the movie Aliens? That’s why you’ve gotta evacuate the ship.”

“There’s a queen?” Garret asked.

Riley ran with it. “Five times bigger than this one. Bigger jaws.”

Captain Silva watched her with a raised eyebrow. “Why did you go down there? Why did your uncle’s terrorist cell go down there?”

“I told you,” Riley said, feeling Captain Silva’s trust slipping away, “Chris and I followed one down there. I don’t know how my uncle’s involved. You said yourself your bosses told you to leave Deck Two alone, and you thought Nathaniel was involved in that. It’s probably some bioweapon he’s creating.”

“He was creating,” said Captain Silva. “You told me he died.”

“Right. The point is, every few minutes, the queen squeezes out another of these things, and they go hunting. You gotta get everyone off the ship.”

“And you?” the captain asked.

“We want off this ship, too.”

He nodded. He spoke into his radio, but no one responded. “It does seem time to evacuate. I’ll head to the bridge to organize it. Garret, see that Mr. Haberman and Miss Green make it to their lifeboat.”

“I’m supposed to keep you safe,” Garret said.

But Captain Silva was already navigating the cracked and broken floor to head out of the cabin and out of sight.

Chris zipped shut the suitcase.

“Leave your things,” Garret said.

“Either I take this, or I fight you the whole way,” Chris said.

“Fine. Follow me.”

Riley and Chris followed him through the starfish viscera and out into the hall.

44

Once Garret led Riley and Chris outside into the salty air, it wasn’t hard to convince him to leave them alone.

“Half the guests have arthritis,” Riley said. “They need more help than we do. We’ll wait here until we can board the lifeboat.”

The conscripted crew member was too shellshocked from the starfish attack to argue. If Riley had told him the safest way home was to jump overboard and start swimming, she suspected he’d comply.

That left Riley and Chris standing in the shade of Deck Five, looking out at the Pacific swells, feeling the humid warmth of mid-afternoon. The ship had once again turned back toward California, and they were sailing under the storm clouds that had been following them since yesterday. Even the increasing wind and the threat of impending thunder felt like a solid anchor of reality after her jaunt through Deck One.

“You ready?” Chris asked. He opened his suitcase to hand six explosive cubes to Riley and stuff six more into his pockets. “I’ve got the catalyst.” He patted his back pocket.

In no way was Riley ready. She could wait here, get on the lifeboat with the other guests, and let the Navy handle the threats on Decks One and Two. Except they weren’t here yet. And every second she delayed was another second that the Deviser terraformed the ship, making space for its self-creating creation to come through.

Until now, she’d spent her adult years floundering, angry that she was stuck delivering food and serving coffee, beaten down by a lack of purpose. But without that poverty and lack of purpose, she wouldn’t have taken such a big risk to reclaim Dad’s watch. Without the terrible hand that life dealt, she wouldn’t have been here to help Chris. Chris would have tried to stop the Deviser, and Nathaniel would have killed him down on Deck One.

So this was Riley’s purpose, at least for right now. Life had set her up to make sure she boarded this counterfeit Aria so she would stop the Deviser.

If Nathaniel’s and Wendy’s beliefs about the Deviser were true—if the thing really had guided mankind’s advances in construction—then maybe there was another entity out there like it that guided individual lives. Interdimensional guardian angels.

Or maybe fate was all dumb luck.

Whether it was God or a roll of the dice, she felt a purpose behind it, and she was ready to act.

“I’m ready,” Riley said.

As they headed back inside, crew and guests trickled outside. The crew raced towards their lifeboats and started yelling their lifeboat numbers for the guests.

Nobody could be bothered to notice Riley and Chris heading in the wrong direction.

They ducked inside and into the starboard midship stairwell. Riley had left Wendy crying in the stairwell at the opposite side of the ship. Riley hoped to avoid her aunt.

They passed guests on the stairs, accompanied by armed security. One mean-looking woman with an assault rifle told them they needed to evacuate, but when they kept running downstairs, she stuck with the old people she was helping.

Riley and Chris passed the Deck Three landing. There were no guest cabins below Deck Three, so the stairs grew empty.

At Deck Two, Riley stopped. “What’s our plan?”

Chris rubbed his chest and winced. “Run fast. Mix half the bombs. Shove them into the blob. Run fast again. Then we head as far down as we can and do the same thing to send this ship to the bottom of the ocean.”

“I’m not going back into Deck One.”

“Your uncle is still there.”

“I said what I said.” She’d changed her mind about going back for him. Riley wasn’t risking her life to save the guy who wanted to help bring over the horrific world she’d glimpsed.

“When did you change your mind?” Chris asked.

Riley wasn’t sure. When she’d realized her life had meaning. If she was meant to stop this supernatural disaster, then she could be meant for other things, too. It wasn’t worth risking giving that up to save the life of a murderer and psychopath. “I want to live,” she said and opened the door into Deck Two.

45

The Deck Two corridors had shifted further into the other dimension.

The ship that this counterfeit Aria overlapped with was falling apart. Gaps in the floor presumably dropped into Deck One, but cloudy shadows blocked the view.

The walls on either side of the corridor were mostly studs, allowing Riley to see inside. The shadow people were all gone. She hoped they’d fled, but she suspected they’d been taken.

Riley and Chris walked until they came to the same entrance as before. The opening in the wall was still there, a gap from the crossing over of dimensions.

Inside, the giant ball of fleshy dough had grown. It now took up at least half the room. Over fifty bodies were stuck into it at the bottom.

“So many,” Riley whispered. Maybe her story about a whole nest of starfish wasn’t just a story. She couldn’t believe just one could have brought this many people.

The silvery cords that extended from the corpses’ hands and feet had grown so numerous that they hid the floor in multiple layers.

Riley couldn’t take her eyes off them. Every little glowing pulse that passed through the strands was a tiny bit more of the other dimension prepping this one for invasion.

Chris stepped into the room. The strands burst under his shoes. “Nothing to do but walk on them.”

Riley followed. It felt like walking on wet spaghetti, except they burst like stepping on a large beetle. “What do we do? Just shove the bombs into it?”

The pile of dough had become a hill, expanding like actual dough left to rise. Riley didn’t want to touch it, but she didn’t know if sticking the bombs to the outside would do enough.

“You don’t want to touch it. We need a pole of some kind,” said Chris. “To shove them inside.”

“We don’t have it.”

“One at a time, then. Blow up one edge, set the next bomb deeper inside.”

Riley knew if she hesitated, she might lose her nerve and run away. So she forced herself to approach the foreign machinery.

Glowing strands popped under her feet. The dough smelled of rotten vegetables now. She didn’t remember if it had smelled earlier. Now it was pressed against the ceiling, expanding outwards.

Riley took a steel cube from her pocket. She snapped off the lid.

Chris squeezed a healthy dollop of catalyst into the cube. Riley snapped the lid back on.

“Now shove it in,” Chris said. “We’ve got about thirty seconds.”

Riley resisted the impulse to throw the cube. She didn’t know if the bomb would bounce off the surface.

She closed her eyes and thrust her hand at the dough, opening her fingers at the last second to shove the cube against the soft surface.

“No!” shouted Chris. “Don’t let your skin touch it.”

Too late, as the bomb broke the surface, her fingers pressed into the dough. Lightning ran up her arm into her mind. The silvery lights shooting across the floor turned a deep violet. Chris faded in and out of view. The whole ship faded out of view.

Riley found herself above a furious orange ocean, clinging to a rock. Wet wind whipped against her skin. She kept her eyes on the rock in front of her, terrified of what was below her in the ocean or out on the horizon.

The rock was cold under her fingers, but rumbled like a car’s engine. A piece broke off, and she slipped but managed to jam her foot against a small outcropping. The broken piece was replaced by more rock that pushed out from within.

“Chris?” she called.

She thought she heard an answer, but it was swallowed by the crash of waves against the rock. She forced herself to look around.

It was the same ocean she’d seen when she’d wound Dad’s watch, only now there was no ship. The rock she clung to was one of countless in these eternal shoals.

Below, the ocean was threateningly shallow. A solid surface flashed into view sporadically as the waves rose and fell.

A blood-red web of taut arteries was suspended above the ocean floor, between the rocks. It dragged human forms along its maze-like paths, their directions less random the longer Riley watched. The captured people moved toward the horizon.

Riley wanted to look, but her mind refused. Some part of her could sense the threat of insanity in that direction. If she looked, it would be beyond comprehension. And the fear that gripped her was not that an ancient entity was waiting to be seen, silhouetted by the horizon, but rather that she would see one key feature of this scene of waves and rocks and too-close ocean floor, and the whole picture would come into focus, and she would no longer be able to ignore that she was in a mouth, clinging to one of a million teeth, waiting to see if she would be swallowed before the approaching creation snatched her away for itself.

“The Deviser,” she whispered to herself. The world around her told her that was false, that the Deviser couldn’t be understood in such simple manners as having a mouth or teeth. This was only a natural threat in the Deviser’s world, equally ignored by the scheming deity until it could prove useful in the Deviser’s great construction.

Riley felt her head turn toward the horizon. She could feel that it would drive her mad, but she couldn’t go on not knowing.

Hands closed around her waist. They pulled.

Riley tumbled onto Chris. Both fell into a tangle of silvery strands.

“Are you awake?” Chris was already dragging Riley by her arm.

She jumped to her feet.

“It’s about to go off. Run!”

Riley let Chris drag her back towards the door. Her body and mind had reached the precipice of understanding and then been yanked away. She felt a mixture of disgust and grief. And then an explosion knocked her to her knees again.

It wasn’t as bad as when Chris killed the starfish. Riley stood back up.

A chunk the size of a pickup truck was missing from the massive pile of dough. Silvery strands went dark.

Chris winced. “I thought it’d do more.”

Riley’s mind found its way back to the present. She was stopping that other world from crossing over. As badly as she needed to see what was over there, her desire to survive was stronger.

“So we use more explosives,” Riley said. She pointed to the dead strands. “It’s working.”

“I don’t know if we have enough. But what other option do we have?”

They trudged back to the hole they’d created.

Gunshots roared from behind them. Riley felt the air pop next to her face. Chris yelled and fell over.

Riley spun around.

Nathaniel stood in the doorway. He’d found one of the crew’s assault rifles. Wendy stood behind him, arms behind her back. She wept silently, but her expression was cold.

“Don’t make me kill you,” Nathaniel called. “I won’t let you interrupt the Deviser’s plans.”

Riley yelled back, “You don’t understand what it is.”

And as she knelt down to help Chris, she thought to herself that neither did she.

46

Riley knelt over Chris. Dead strands popped under her knees.

Blood soaked into Chris’s shirt right in the center of his belly. He lifted his head to look at himself. “I’m okay,” he wheezed and then groaned in pain. The blood spread until it covered his whole gut.

“Put pressure on it,” Riley put Chris’s hands on the wound. That’s what they did in the movies.

Nathaniel yelled her name. He enunciated both syllables. It pulled her away from the tiny disaster she’d been sucked into. She looked up.

She and Chris were a few feet from the missing chunk of doughy foreign machinery. The floor of the whole room was filled with silver pulses, except for the dead spot underneath them. The expanding dough pile had a chunk carved out of it that she could walk into and spin around with arms wide, not that she wanted to.

Nathaniel and Wendy still stood in the doorway, thirty feet away, too afraid to come in and disturb the Deviser’s plans. Or maybe they were too afraid of the Deviser’s plans, eager to help them to fruition, but scared to get used as a human corpse battery.

Riley turned her back to them. She couldn’t solve that problem yet.

Chris had bunched his shirt over the wound. The bleeding had slowed. “In case I don’t make it out of here, tell Eddie I didn’t get taken. Tell him I stopped the dark world from crossing over.”

“We haven’t stopped it yet.” Riley bit her tongue. That’s not what she was supposed to say here. She was supposed to say that Chris could tell Eddie himself.

Nathaniel yelled again. “Get back from there. I’ll do what must be done.”

“Do you think he’ll shoot you?” Chris wheezed.

“Probably. He’s a dick.”

“You could throw a bomb.”

“He’d definitely shoot me then.”

Chris strained to lift his head again. “I’ve still got that plastic pistol. How’s your aim?”

“I’m not Annie Oakley. I can’t draw and aim that fast.”

“What would you say to continuing with our work and hoping he doesn’t shoot?”

“Maybe I can buy us some time.” Using her body to block Nathaniel and Wendy’s view, Riley helped Chris pull the rest of his steel cubes from his pockets. She yelled over her shoulder. “Wendy! I’ve seen it. I touched this, and I saw it. A whole different world.”

Wendy responded with hope in her voice. “You saw the Deviser?”

Riley thought of the leviathan whose tooth she’d clung to, of the deep primeval knowledge that even that incomprehensible creature was like a cockroach to the Deviser. She thought of the web of blood vessels, a vanguard to the arrival of the Deviser’s creation. “I saw him. He’s getting his next gift ready.”

“Riley,” Nathaniel called more calmly. “Come over here and talk.”

Riley brought out her own bombs. She opened the toothpaste tube. “How much in each?” she whispered.

“A little less than you’d use to brush your teeth. That’ll give us about a minute to get away.”

Riley yelled to her aunt and uncle, “You come over here. If you touch this, you can see, too.”

Wendy spoke excitedly to Nathaniel, too quiet for Riley to understand.

“Before I do this,” Riley whispered, “can you stand up?”

“I’ll try. You might have to drag me.”

Chris wasn’t a huge man, but Riley still guessed he weighed close to 200 pounds. “I’ll try.”

Riley saved half the explosives for the ship’s hull. She snapped off the lids of the others, quickly added in the catalyst, then snapped them shut.

She walked into the gap in the dough. The air in here buzzed with energy. She wasn’t about to touch the surface again, so instead, she threw one cube as hard as she could. It broke the surface and stuck inside.

Nathaniel yelled at her. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

Riley threw two more.

“I swear to god I’ll shoot you.”

“I want to see him again!” she yelled back. Let them puzzle out how throwing these little cubes would help her see the Deviser.

She threw the last of them into the dough.

Chris was crawling to his feet.

“He stays down,” ordered Nathaniel.

Riley counted backward in her head. How long had it been since she put in the catalyst? Fifteen seconds? And it wasn’t an exact timer anyways. She counted down from thirty to give herself a buffer.

Chris stood hunched over, hands over his belly. “Not the worst pain I’ve felt,” he said through gritted teeth. Blood dripped past his missing finger and down his pants.

Riley scooped up the remaining explosives from off the floor where she’d left them. She held them in the crook of one arm and put her opposite arm under Chris’s shoulders.

Twenty-five seconds left.

“He stays where he is.” Nathaniel raised the rifle back up to his shoulder.

“That’s not what the Deviser wants,” Riley answered.

Wendy touched Nathaniel’s back and whispered something.

“You don’t know what it wants,” Nathaniel’s tone was accusatory but unsure.

Twenty seconds left.

Riley helped Chris limp away from the bombs. If this were even the size of the first blast, they were still too close to survive.

“I said stop!” Nathaniel yelled.

“We’ve already been blessed,” Riley riffed. “Our turn is over. We have to leave.”

“That man is no friend of the Deviser’s.” Nathaniel was practically frothing with hatred and frustration.

Chris mumbled an undoubtedly snide comment, but he was breathing too hard for Riley to understand it.

Fifteen seconds. They were ten feet from the doorway. Nathaniel wouldn’t miss from this range.

Wendy pushed the rifle’s barrel down to aim at the floor. “She’s trying to help. Listen, honey. This is Tommy’s little girl. She’s been looking for the Deviser her whole life. She just didn’t know it until recently.”

Nathaniel looked his wife in the eye. “I don’t know. You didn’t see her downstairs. She repeated this deceiver’s lies.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t confused. But now she’s clearly communed with the Deviser. It was her turn, like she said. Now maybe it’s our turn.” Wendy took Nathaniel by the hand and led him into the room.

Ten seconds left.

Riley didn’t want to kill her aunt and uncle. “Wait, stay here and talk with me first.”

“Wendy’s right,” Nathaniel said. “It’s our turn.”

“Do we need these?” Wendy reached for the bombs that Riley carried against her chest.

Riley jerked back. “No!”

Nathaniel ripped them away from Riley, his elderly hands still strong. “You won’t keep this from us. We deserve this more than you.”

Chris mumbled again.

Nathaniel raised the rifle. “And after this, I’ll deal with him.” He pulled Wendy toward the center of the room.

Five seconds.

Riley couldn’t save them. They didn’t deserve it. She hurried Chris for the door. Chris stumbled, but she kept him on his feet. Guilt welled up inside Riley. She couldn’t leave her aunt and uncle to die.

“They’re bombs! Drop them and run!”

Nathaniel and Wendy turned back around as if seeing Riley’s face would tell them whether or not to believe her.

Riley saw her father in Nathaniel’s jawline and nose. And saw herself. If Dad had stayed in this cult, would Riley be as dangerously naive as her uncle right now?

But it was a pointless thought. Dad hadn’t stayed. He’d seen the danger and left. Riley had never heard about the Deviser until yesterday. She wasn’t meant to worship it. She was meant to stop it.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Wendy and then waited for the explosion.

Lights pulsed across the floor. Wendy and Nathaniel stared at Riley. Wendy held onto Nathaniel’s elbow like she was escorting him to a formal party. The expanding dough behind them shuddered in time with the silvery lights. It hadn’t done that before. Maybe it sensed the bombs.

“Sorry for what?” Wendy asked. Concern appeared on her face, showing that she finally understood that Riley had been lying, that she had no intention of seeking the Deviser, that it wasn’t anyone’s turn to see it.

Riley braced for the explosion.

It didn’t come.

“Keep walking.” Chris forced the words out one at a time.

Riley remembered the buffer she’d added when she started counting.

“You hold on a moment,” Nathaniel said.

The room exploded.

47

Standing in the doorway, Riley and Chris were plenty far away from the first explosion.

But Nathaniel and Wendy were halfway between, and Nathaniel was carrying another six bombs.

The first blast hit Riley like a soft ocean swell. The second knocked her off her feet to slam her into the corridor wall behind her.

The sound of the explosion hit next, and Riley’s hearing went quiet.

Riley sat on the floor. Pain in her chest sharpened with each breath. Warm blood trickled down the back of her neck. She must have split her head open when she hit the wall. The whole world felt fuzzy, and her thoughts moved in slow motion.

She thought she’d bruise on every inch of her body that had been facing her aunt and uncle.

At the thought of Nathaniel and Wendy, Riley looked back into the room.

The silver lights from the strands had gone dead. Now the floor was covered in what looked like floppy spaghetti noodles, except for where Nathaniel and Wendy had been standing—which was marked with a crater into the floor—and at the center of the room.

Riley’s sluggish mind didn’t want to look at the center of the room yet. She stood up. Her legs hurt like they’d been beaten with baseball bats, but they weren’t broken.

The crater where Nathaniel and Wendy had been standing wasn’t empty. Two sets of legs lay askew in the depression. Wendy’s feet were still attached, but Nathaniel’s weren’t. Riley didn’t see their upper bodies anywhere. That close to the bombs, they were likely in hundreds of charred pieces.

Riley suddenly remembered Chris. Her mind clawed away some of the fog. She looked around to find him lying on his side against the corridor wall. His gut was bleeding profusely again.

Riley rolled him over. She used both hands to put pressure on his wound. “Are you still here?” she asked but couldn’t hear a thing.

Chris’s eyes fluttered open. His skin was several shades lighter. He’d lost so much blood. He asked her something.

Riley shrugged. “I can’t hear you.”

He mouthed the words again, slowly, and then made an obvious show of looking into the room. “Did it stop?”

“I don’t know. We have to stop your bleeding.”

Chris lifted a hand to point through the door. “Make sure it stopped.”

Riley knew he was right. She had to make sure the terraforming had quit, that the approaching evil couldn’t get a foothold. But she couldn’t just leave Chris here to bleed out.

Relying on first aid she’d seen in movies, she used Chris’s belt and his bunched-up shirt to keep pressure on the wound. She pulled it tight until the bleeding slowed.

“I’ll be right back,” she couldn’t hear herself say.

It took focus to keep her balance on her aching legs and with her painful breathing. But she staggered back into the central room of Deck Two. She saw what her cloudy mind had tried to refuse to see.

The bombs had decimated the doughy machinery. Before, it had been like rising bread dough, lifted up to press against the ceiling and then bulging outward. The corpses shoved into it had been fully enveloped in the expanding foreign flesh.

Now, the bombs had worked better than Riley dared hope. Shriveled and burnt chunks of dough littered the floor, interspersed with the dead strands. Only the lowest part of the great ring of dough remained.

Riley approached what looked like a massive bird’s nest made of burnt pizza dough. It was waist-high. The first hole they’d blown in the side of it now served as an entrance to the ring.

Corpses stuck out from the dough. At least their feet and ankles.

Riley looked around for any sign that the machinery still worked. Somehow, this doughy growth was powered by dead cruise guests, sent silvery liquid through these thousands of strands, and prepared the space to welcome the foreign dimension. Now there were no lights in the tangles under her feet. Did that mean it had stopped?

In the center of the nest, the explosion had punched through the floor below. Riley could see down into Deck One.

A yellow lifeboat on its side. A pile of steel studs.

It was still the tainted space she’d explored. Only now, there was no dark fog to block her view. The floor of Deck One was only twenty feet down. When she’d been down there, Deck One had seemed at least twice as high, even before the fog stopped her from seeing any higher.

Destroying the machinery must have sent a shockwave through the already-changed space but not fully brought it back.

Riley leaned her head down through the hole. Deck One was thick with arteries. Red threads were woven around each other, crisscrossed between the detritus.

The Deviser’s creation was getting closer. She could sense it in her gut.

A fiddler crab with lanky legs and sharp pincer jaws skittered under the pile of steel studs. Riley went still so it wouldn’t notice her.

She held herself so stiff that it worsened the pain in her ribs.

Her job wasn’t done yet. The gathering of blood vessel cords meant that the Deviser’s creation was still approaching. If it brought enough of itself into this terraformed space, would it then be able to keep going?

She thought of the fiddler crab she’d seen earlier. It had shriveled up upon touching this reality.

More specifically, when it touched salt water.

Gears turned in Riley’s head.

A hand rested on Riley’s shoulder. She jolted and nearly fell down the hole into Deck One. She turned around.

Chris had made his way over. “It’s still there?” she barely heard him ask.

She nodded.

“The Navy’s coming.”

Riley finished the thought for him. “That’s not enough. They’re here for the cult. They won’t know what’s coming.”

Chris breathed deep, swallowing his own pain. “If that thing gets a foothold, it could keep coming through.”

Riley felt empty. They’d stopped the terraforming, but the doorway it had created remained open.

“We still have to sink the ship,” she said. “Earlier, I saw that crab monster disintegrate when it touched our ocean water.”

Chris finished her thought. “So if we flood Deck One, nothing else should be able to come through.”

“Exactly.”

“But I’m out of explosives.” Chris closed his eyes and breathed deep. He was going to pass out any minute.

“What else can we use?” Riley asked.

“Maybe there are cleaning chemicals that could work,” Chris said between breaths, “but we’re running out of time. The Navy will get here and stop us.”

Riley’s mind raced. “I might have an idea.”

48

Riley was on her own for this. No way could Chris help in his condition.

Riley guided him back to the corridor, sat him against the decaying wall, and made sure the makeshift bandage was still stopping the bleeding.

Then she got to work.

Dead cords still layered the floor, all connected to the blasted dough pile in the middle.

Circling the edge of the room, she ripped every strand before it disappeared into the walls. Silvery liquid dripped out. Riley hoped that it didn’t need to be lit up and powered to do its job and that enough of the liquid remained in the tubes.

Her arms ached from the repeated effort of ripping the tubes in two. Her ribs screamed in pain if she bent over too quickly. Making it halfway down one wall took her ten minutes.

She checked down the hole in the center of the floor. The web of arteries was even denser. Now, where multiple strands crossed at the same point, chalky flesh was growing.

They were running out of time. The thing was building itself, gaining its foothold.

Riley assessed how many silvery strands she’d ripped. This had to be enough.

She scooped up as many strands as she could into her arms and dragged them to the decimated dough ring at the center. She heaved her armful down into the hole. The broken ends fell twenty feet to the Deck One floor. The slack between ends slid rapidly into the hole.

Riley dragged the rest of the broken strands to toss them in.

The safest next step would be to run to the stairwell, down to Deck One, and then find the dangling tubes. But in the time it had taken to throw down the dead strands, the chalky flesh on the taut artery web had doubled. Something was growing. Building itself.

Riley steeled herself for the jump down. She made sure she had enough clearance on the landing and then slid down an armful of strands like a fire pole.

Several broke under her weight, but she reached the floor of Deck One intact.

The crack in her ribs rubbed together during the descent. She breathed slow and shallow to control the pain.

She took in her surroundings.

The ceiling was still visible. The room itself stretched out farther than she could see. Leftover ship parts still lay scattered around the room. The fog that had gathered up to ankle heigh was now gone, too.

A web of pulsing red arteries was suspended at chest level. It extended all around, out of sight in all directions. Every string of it stayed perfectly level at chest height.

She stood in an open spot, the twisted blood vessels less than ten feet away.

Riley couldn’t hope to spot the end of the trail of arteries—the piece that flew from surface to surface, hunting down people to drag them back along its length to wherever it came from. She could only move ever so cautiously and hope that it didn’t notice her.

She gathered up the dangling tubes. Silvery liquid dripped onto the floor. Deck One was already terraformed, so the liquid did nothing.

Riley searched frantically for a hole down to the subdecks. Without the orange mist, it was harder to spot.

She crawled under the red web, dragging along the leaking strands. They rubbed against arteries and chalky flesh.

After a few panicked moments, she found a hole down to the maintenance deck. The hole revealed a woven steel walkway, the walls lined with plastic conduit and metal pipes.

The limp tubes were just barely long enough to reach. She stuck the broken ends down into the hole.

The silvery liquid dripped down into the maintenance deck. Each drop smacked against the steel walkway and echoed down the corridor.

Now that she was attempting her plan, Riley felt certain it would fail.

If Riley could terraform the lower hull of the Aria, it should turn as decrepit and decayed as she’d seen in Deck Two and Deck One.

The gaps in the floor and walls she’d seen on those two decks had appeared quickly.

She hoped holes in the floor of the maintenance deck would appear as quickly. Flooding the decks with salt water would kill the rest of the mutant fiddler crabs. It should stop the Deviser’s creation from crossing over, too. It had to.

A tearing sound grabbed Riley’s attention. A hunk of chalky flesh clung to an intersection of arteries. It was dry and formless, the size of a basketball. It flopped out from itself with another ripping sound. It extended, unfolded, hooked onto another suspended blood vessel.

Now that she’d noticed it, Riley heard ripping all around her. Another noise joined it, a gentle clanking like finely oiled gears. Throughout Deck One, the web of arteries was building itself.

Far back into the terraformed deck—past stacks of cafeteria trays, piles of art deco wainscoting, and toppled lifeboats—a low mass was rising up towards the ceiling. It extended to either side and as far back as Riley could see. It grew higher toward her like a slow wave.

She squinted, trying to understand what she was seeing. What she’d first thought of as chalky flesh now looked like boney hide, like the inside of a turtle shell, as if the entirety of Deck One and wherever it led were already inside this self-building creation. The wave of boney hide lifted higher. Great wheels turned within, stretching the skin in slow rotations.

The longer Riley looked, the deeper she saw. This fleshy surface was just that: a surface. The true form of the Deviser’s project confused her senses. She felt in her fingertips the scent of rotting grass clippings. She smelled a goal of infinite expansion. Her tongue tingled with a vision of all existence reforming itself into the raw matter the Deviser needed to further its construction.

Her ribs hurt.

The pain snapped Riley’s attention away from the slowly approaching, nearly-here, apocalyptic tidal wave.

All Riley had to stand in its way was its own organic machinery.

The dead strands now dangled from the hole in the floor of Deck Two, down past the red web of arteries, and through a hole into the maintenance deck.

Riley hugged the bunch of dead strands, squeezed tight, and slowly dropped to her knees. It was like squeezing out a gigantic toothpaste tube.

Liquid splattered against the maintenance deck floor.

Riley squeezed out the tubes again, getting every last drop she could. She peered down into the hole.

A silver puddle covered the walkway left to right and was five feet wide.

It wasn’t enough.

One hole in the hull wouldn’t sink the ship. There were failsafes against that. She’d seen Titanic. Even that would have stayed afloat if the iceberg had only punctured in one spot.

If she had all the time in the world, she’d run back up to Deck Two, throw down more strands, and find another hole down to the maintenance deck.

But she didn’t have that time.

The suspended blood vessel web was closing up around her, boney skin connecting the arteries. She ducked underneath and thought of blanket forts as a kid.

Riley had one more option.

She didn’t want to try it. She shouldn’t have to. Dad’s pocket watch was still worth enough money to let Riley escape minimum wage. She deserved a better life.

But right now, she felt purpose. Problems like money could be figured out later. This was the moment life had led her to.

It wasn’t a pocket watch. It was an inter-dimensional hand grenade.

Riley pulled the watch from her pocket. She twisted the lower half over and over until it wouldn’t twist anymore. Then she leaned down into the hole and chucked the watch as far as she could.

She didn’t wait to see the results. On her hands and knees, she crawled like mad for the stairwell.

49

Chris didn’t want to die.

He sat in the decrepit Deck Two hallway. The ship shifted under him. Riley’s plan must have worked. The ship would flood. The salt water would stop the Deviser’s creation from fully crossing over.

Chris coughed. Blood spurted from his gut through his fingers. He didn’t know how much blood he’d lost already, but his shirt was soaked.

The explosion had knocked him down onto his face. His nose was broken. Blood dripped over his lips, but he couldn’t wipe it away without taking pressure off the gunshot wound.

Damn, that hurt.

Success tasted bitter.

He’d found the Deviser’s next attempt, boarded the ship, found Micah’s cult, recruited Riley to help, and together they’d stopped the terraforming and now cut off the Deviser’s creation from crossing over.

His death wouldn’t change the fact that he’d stopped the Deviser. Not just survived it, like back in Richmond. Not just saved a single person, like he’d saved Eddie. But actually stopped the thing from fulfilling its plans.

But that was bullshit.

That didn’t make dying okay. Eddie was still at home. And sure, his grandparents loved him, but they’d only be around another ten or twenty years.

Chris wanted Eddie to have a father and for Eddie’s kids to have a grandfather.

He wasn’t going to die here.

But he couldn’t get up. Not without taking the pressure off his gunshot wound. And he didn’t think he had much more blood to lose before he passed out.

He tried once more. He shifted, covering the wound with just one hand, so he could use the other to push himself to his feet. But once again, the blood came too fast. He dropped back to sitting.

His mind raced. He would think of something. He had in Richmond. He had so far on the Aria.

Another attempt to stand, this time keeping both hands on his gut. Pain exploded in pockets in his gut, his legs, his ribs. The rotting floor rushed up to meet his chin.

At the impact, blood spurted through his fingers.

Chris lay on the floor with his eyes closed. He harbored no illusion that pure willpower would let him stand up and walk. But there had to be a way to get out of this alive. To get home to Eddie.

His belt. If he could slip it out of his belt loops, he could tighten it around his bullet wound to slow the bleeding. Then he could use his hands to crawl out of here.

That required taking his hands off the wound and letting it bleed faster. Chris had to take that risk. The other option was slowly bleeding out while he waited for Riley to come rescue him.

Chris breathed deep. He took one hand away from the bullet wound. Immediately, the bleeding picked up, making his other hand slippery.

He fumbled with his belt buckle. With shaking fingers, he managed to undo it. But when he tugged on the belt, it wouldn’t come loose. All his weight was sitting on it.

Chris gathered his strength, then lifted up on his knees. He yanked his belt free. He lost his balance and fell back onto his face.

Despair flooded Chris’s mind. This was too much. He was getting so tired. Everything hurt. His head felt light. He tried to pull the belt around his gut, but his arms were moving so slowly.

He thought of Eddie. His son, who he’d rescued from the Richmond building. Who he’d adopted from the foster system. Who he’d worked so hard to help trust and hope again.

Chris tried to fling the belt around his back. All he succeeded in doing was pushing more blood out of his stomach.

Eddie had grandparents who loved him. They would be around long enough for Eddie to finish high school. That would have to be enough.

Chris let his body relax.

Strong hands reached down to take the belt from him. They tightened it around his stomach. It hurt like hell, but the bleeding slowed to a trickle.

Chris gathered the strength to look up. “Riley?” If she was back already, then her plan must have gone perfectly.

But instead of Riley, it was a tall, blurry figure. When it spoke, Chris thought he recognized the voice. “They haven’t forgotten you. The Deviser’s technicians. They remember you and your boy.”

Chris tried to focus his eyes, but the figure was a blurry shadow in a blurry hallway. He tried to remember how he knew this voice, deep and warm, but his thoughts were muddled.

The man lifted Chris to his feet. Chris’s head spun. Dizziness turned to nausea.

The man placed one of Chris’s hands on the wall. “Get out of here. And the next time you see the Deviser’s handiwork, leave it to someone not already marked.”

Chris steadied himself against the wall. By the time the hallway stopped spinning, and he turned around to see who’d helped him, no one was there.

Survival instincts smothered curiosity.

Chris began his slow walk to the stairwell.

50

Riley fled through Deck One.

She spider-crawled under the web of blood vessels and the blanket-fort of flesh that was growing between the strands. She heard metal gears clinking together as the Deviser’s creation built itself.

She raced toward the stairwell, or at least where she thought it was. Lurking claustrophobia weakened her sense of direction.

She passed a hole down into the maintenance deck. The rushing of water echoed up. Salty humidity accompanied the noise.

Motivation fueled her retreat. Success. The ship was sinking.

She wanted to wait for the water to rise to make sure that it had the same effect on the growing creation as it did on the mutant fiddler crab. But that would be pointlessly risking drowning.

A grating wail sounded from ahead.

The Aria’s alarm system. Riley raced towards it.

She finally spotted an end to the insanity of Deck One. A straight wall extended out of sight in either direction. A doorway into the stairwell.

She reached the doorway and crawled through. She turned around for one last look into the terraformed, invaded space.

Above the suspended web of blood vessels, hills of skin stretched and circled with the movement of machinery within.

Beneath the web, the salt water was splashing up from the holes in the floor.

Riley strained to see if any of that water made contact with the blood vessels or flesh between them.

She couldn’t tell, and she wasn’t waiting around to find out. She’d know soon enough.

Movement from within.

Three mutant fiddler crabs raced on their spindly legs away from the rising water towards the stairs. The razor jaws snapped.

Riley fled.

She ran into the Deck Two corridor to find Chris limping towards the door. She ran to help him. “Do you still have that pistol?”

Chris took a moment to process her question and then pulled the plastic gun from his waistband.

Automatic gunfire erupted from up the stairs. Something louder and bigger than the crew’s rifles.

“Toss the gun,” Riley said.

Chris threw the pistol into one of the decaying meeting rooms.

She helped him to the door. “Help!” she cried.

A soldier in camo and body armor stormed through the door. “Down on the ground!” he ordered.

Riley helped Chris comply. “We were hostages,” she cried.

The first soldier kept his gun trained on them, while another approached and checked them for weapons. “They’re clear.”

“The ship is sinking!” Riley didn’t have to pretend to panic. If they didn’t get out of here quick, they really could go down with the ship. And with the opened doorway, drowning wouldn’t be the worst possible fate. “The terrorists set off a bomb. There’s water coming up from downstairs.”

“Are there any more explosives that you know of?” asked the first soldier.

“I don’t think so. The last bomb, they killed themselves with it.”

“There’s no more terrorists down here?”

Riley shook her head.

A third soldier came in. “Water’s rising fast, sir.”

“Alright, let’s get out of here.”

The soldiers helped Riley and Chris up the stairs, away from the Deviser.

51

The soldiers carried Chris. Riley followed them up to Deck Three, where they led the way to the Aria’s disembarking station.

The storm clouds had opened up. Rain blanketed the ocean swells with little pockmarks.

Riley took in the deep blue of the Pacific under cloud cover. It wasn’t orange. It wasn’t the other dimension. The terraforming hadn’t extended beyond the lower decks.

She leaned over the railing to look down into the ocean, hoping not to see a web of red blood vessels. But she couldn’t see past the waves and raindrop ripples.

She could only hope that the salt water would stop it just like it had stopped the fiddler crabs.

A gangplank connected the cruise liner to a smaller Navy ship. Already, the walkway was a steep path upwards. The Aria was taking on water quick.

Riley followed the soldiers onboard. Chris was whisked away to a medical bay.

Before Riley was ushered inside, she saw yellow lifeboats bouncing in the waves. She hoped everyone made it off the Aria.

Her hand went to her pocket so she could text Krystal. No service. She’d taken her phone with her so she could take pictures of Deck Two for proof that Nathaniel was violating EPA regulations. The idea felt so naive now. That was only a few hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime.

The small Navy ship bounced on the waves. Corpsmen tended to Riley’s wounds as they traveled from lifeboat to lifeboat, taking on more passengers.

Riley asked after Chris several times, but they kept telling her there wasn’t any news yet.

She spent the time peering through the windows into the ocean, praying that nothing was down there.

About half an hour after Riley boarded the Navy ship, a wave of gasps worked its way from outside. Riley pushed past arriving cruise guests to get back outside.

Heavier rain drenched her hair and shoulders. The temperature had dropped with the growing storm.

The Aria sat low in the water. The bottom rows of round windows were already below the ocean’s surface. Waves lapped at the Deck Four walkway.

Riley looked frantically around for why everyone had gasped. Dark clouds filled the sky. Blue waves with white crests splashed over the railings. She pushed to the edge of the Navy ship, certain she’d see the web of blood vessels just under the ocean’s surface. But the increased rain created an opaque blanket of tiny splashes.

Gasps again.

The Aria lurched downwards like it had been tugged. Steel groaned, louder than the soft rush of rain.

The small crowd took a collective step backwards, leaving Riley at the railing, staring intently into the water.

Its stern disappearing quicker than its bow, the Aria sank and rotated until its bow pointed at the sky. A muffled crack sounded from under the water. A shockwave rippled outward. The remainder of the ship sank within seconds.

The ocean scene left behind was one of stormy swells, yellow lifeboats, and small Navy vessels. A larger gray ship lingered far off.

It took another hour for the small vessel to gather all the cruise guests it could fit. Riley stood at the railing in the rain the entire time, watching the water, looking for any signs of red artery webs, hills of skin, or escaping monstrous crustaceans. She saw only the Pacific.

She grew confident that the Deviser’s creation had been stopped. If it had kept spreading at the same speed as when she’d last seen it, it would have burst out of the ship within minutes of her escape.

Sinking the Aria had stopped it.

Riley didn’t know the consequences of dropping the terraformed Deck One to the bottom of the ocean. Was there still an open doorway where the Deviser’s self-building creation could reach through? Would the orange and blue ocean mix?

Or would the Pacific kill any invaders? Riley had never seen the doorway itself. She imagined it was merged space somewhere on Deck One. The salt water might destroy the foreign matter in the merged space and shut the doorway.

If it didn’t, there was nothing she could do now.

She felt confident that sinking the ship was the right choice. She desperately hoped everyone had escaped before it sank. But at least the Deviser’s creation hadn’t taken over the ship as it sailed back for California.

A corpsman found Riley to tell her that the doctors were ready to update her on her husband. It took her a moment to realize he meant Chris.

She went inside to learn that Chris had lost a lot of blood, but transfusions had stopped that threat. Punctured organs had leaked other threats, but the surgeons had helped there as well. Chris would recover.

They asked about the gunshot wound. Riley played dumb. They told her someone from the FBI was flying in to talk to her.

Riley shrugged. An investigation didn’t worry her. Nathaniel’s cult had hijacked the ship, at least for a few moments. The FBI would blame them for the ship sinking. Riley had enough emails saved over the past year of trying to recover Dad’s watch that would prove she wasn’t friendly with her uncle.

She wandered back to the large room with the cruise guests, not sure what to do next.

Riley spotted Krystal. She was holding a blanket around a tiny old woman’s shoulders.

For the first time since she’d bought their tickets, Riley relaxed. She joined her friend in helping the guests.

Epilogue

Riley stretched the packing tape over Krystal’s last box. Krystal walked in from the kitchen, still staring at the diamond on her finger.

“We get it,” Riley laughed. “You’re engaged.”

Krystal squealed. “I know, right? I landed a good one.”

Riley was happy for her friend, but the apartment would feel empty until she found a new roommate.

“Aw, don’t be said,” Krystal said. “We’ll still get lunch every week. But you’re paying, with that big raise.”

The coffee shop had made her a manager. Not a huge raise, but enough to cover the apartment by herself if she wanted. Which she didn’t. Instead, she’d quit her gig work delivering food and finally enrolled at the community college.

Her life’s purpose wasn’t to work at the coffee shop. It probably wasn’t to be a nurse, either. But maybe once she figured out a purpose, a nurse’s salary would fund it.

Anytime her mind wandered back to her reason for being, she thought of those few hours on the Aria when she’d helped Chris stop that madness from spreading into this world. There hadn’t been any doubt in why she was doing what she was doing.

But there was no practical way to seek out another situation like that. Plus, it would be stupid. She’d almost died. And almost been yanked away into another dimension.

And Chris had told her to avoid anything like that. He said he’d made the mistake of thinking only he could stop it, and it had almost cost him everything.

While Krystal took one last stroll through the half-empty apartment, Riley opened her phone and scrolled to Chris’s contact info.

They kept their conversations vague, assuming the FBI might still be watching them.

The feds believed Riley’s reason for being on the ship. It helped that it was true, and there were plenty of emails and texts of her trying to get Dad’s watch back and then discussing her plans with Krystal.

The feds were less ready to believe that Chris was a random passenger who just happened to be taken hostage by the terrorists. They knew he’d been in Richmond. They knew that Nathaniel was connected to the old billionaire lady who died in Richmond. So they pried at Chris, trying to figure out his involvement.

But Riley covered for him. She said they’d hooked up on the cruise before she tried to steal from Nathaniel, and that’s how he got caught up with the cult. Captain Silva told his own story to exonerate the two of them. Based on the FBI’s questions, it didn’t sound like her and Chris’s story lined up with Captain Silva’s, but that wasn’t enough to accuse either of them of being involved with the terrorist activities.

After all that, Riley still found herself wanting to call him. It wasn’t romantic—not that she was ruling out that possibility. It was a desire to understand what they’d stopped from happening. What risks might still exist. And why Chris—after purposely boarding a cruise ship he knew came from the Deviser—now said they should never investigate any of it again.

And maybe just a little, a desire to feel a taste of that purpose she’d felt when they’d stopped the Deviser’s creation.

* * *

Chris’s finger hovered over Riley’s contact info.

He sat in his parents’ backyard, overlooking a sprawling vista of southwest Virginia’s rolling hills. Thunderclouds gathered in the distance, but that was common for afternoons in the mountains.

It was Saturday, which meant he had a short respite from his long-term substitute position at the middle school. Free time made it harder to keep his mind from wandering.

Lately, in the months after they’d stopped the Deviser’s creation on the Aria, he couldn’t get the Deviser out of his head.

But he’d stuck to the warning he’d received. Stay away. The Deviser’s Technicians still remembered him. They still remembered Eddie.

Chris didn’t want to know what a Technician was. He trusted the warning.

After he’d recovered from the gunshot wound, he’d thought of that moment again. He’d realized he recognized that voice.

Roberts. Micah Rayner’s right-hand man. A cultist for the Deviser, until inside the Richmond building, he’d realized the Deviser was anything but benevolent. The bodyguard had saved both Chris and Eddie’s life multiple times.

He’d been taken by the building but was somehow, somewhere still alive.

And Chris trusted him. If he said to stay away, Chris would stay away. Someone else would stumble upon the Deviser’s next attempt at crossing over or at harvesting mankind. Chris could only hope that unfortunate soul would be able to stop it.

“Dad!” Eddie yelled from the back deck.

Chris turned around.

Eddie had grown another seven inches since last summer. In all his preteen lankiness, he was now eye-level with Chris.

Eddie bounded down the stairs. “Mike’s riding his bike over, and then we want to go to Rodrigo’s house. Can you drive us?”

“Sure.” Anything to occupy his mind.

Despite trusting that Roberts was both earnest and correct about his warning, Chris felt on edge. Everywhere he looked, he expected to see warped space like on the top floors of the Richmond building, or on Deck One of the Aria. Every time he heard footsteps outside his bedroom, he expected the monstrous crustaceans to come crashing through the door. In every moment of silence, he expected to hear more whispered warnings from his taken friends.

It all felt like something was coming. He couldn’t even say why. It felt like his body and brain knew deep down that the Deviser was active again.

“Dad?” Eddie slowed his walk through the grassy yard. “You zoning out again?”

“Yeah, sorry. I got lost in thought.”

“Thinking about the skyscraper?”

Chris hadn’t admitted to Eddie what had happened on the Aria. As far as Eddie knew, the only supernatural threat Chris had faced was in Richmond.

“No,” Chris lied. “Just thinking about how great it will be once you can drive yourself everywhere.”

Eddie didn’t laugh. “I’ve been thinking about the skyscraper a lot. Cam messaged me. She’s been thinking about it, too.”

“I didn’t know you still keep in touch.”

Cam lived next door to the Richmond building. Or now, she lived next to the empty lot where it used to be. She’d explored it with Eddie before they’d realized what it was. She’d kept Eddie alive until Chris could find him. Chris loved her for that.

“We don’t really,” Eddie said. “She messaged me to ask if I’d been thinking about the top floor. She had a weird dream or something.”

“What about you?” Chris asked, not wanting to know the answer.

Eddie hugged himself across the chest. “Weird dreams, yeah. Something’s hunting me through the top floor, only it’s also changing stuff all around it as it goes. Making it all better.”

The Technicians.

“Dreams are just dreams.” Chris feigned a happy inflection. It soured his twisting gut. “Gotta forget them and go about your day. Come on, I’ll get my keys.”

Chris put his arm around his son to guide him inside. But Eddie stayed rooted to the ground.

“You know what’s really weird? I think my dream has something to do with the news about the oceans.”

A chill ran down Chris’s spine. “I haven’t checked the news today. What about the ocean?”

“Not just one. All of them. They’ve dropped like eighteen inches in the past six months.”

Chris sat down on the grass. The world spun. Water levels were dropping. He and Riley had sent the Aria to the bottom of the Pacific. The Aria contained a doorway to the Deviser’s world.

The ocean was draining into the Deviser’s world.

Eddie leaned down. “What’s wrong? Do you think it’s related? Do we need to do something? Is this like the skyscraper again?”

Chris cleared his head. Roberts had warned him, and he intended to heed that warning. “It’s got nothing to do with us.” He stood back up, hiding his imbalance. “I’ll take you to play with your friends.”

As they walked inside, an understanding grew inside Chris that he wouldn’t be able to heed Roberts’ warning. Eddie’s dream couldn’t just be a dream. Something was hunting Eddie. There was still a doorway at the bottom of the ocean.

He had to protect his family. He had to warn somebody about the draining ocean. He’d start figuring that out tonight.

But until then, Eddie was an eleven-year-old who wanted to go play with friends. And Chris was Dad, who made sure no matter what dangers the world hid, his son would live today happy and unafraid.

A SPECIAL THANKS

Dear strange, adventurous reader,

I have to thank you. Without readers like you who enjoy the weirder side of horror and suspense, I would be lonely with my stories. But every time a reader enjoys my books, I know I’m a little bit less alone with my strange taste in horror.

I wrote my first novel, BOOM, when I was just out of college, unemployed, and renting a small room in Richmond, Virginia. But I was unsure of it and so I sat on it for nearly ten years, writing a couple more novels in the meantime. It wasn’t until I was knee-deep in a marketing career, potty training toddlers, and worried about mid-thirties problems like mortgages and health insurance that I thought, “I should do something with these books.” So with encouragement from fellow writers, I dove into the publishing world.

I can’t thank you enough for making this possible. I’m glad our strange tastes have found each other, and I hope you enjoy my other novels just as much as this one.

If you can spare a moment, share your thoughts by leaving a review. That small effort on your part means to the world to me. It helps me grow my audience by luring readers like yourself to books like mine. I would be forever in your debt. Not a large debt, but one that lasts forever.

Thank you again! Let’s meet again soon in another book.

WANT YOUR NEXT STRANGE HORROR READ?