Poseidon
written by fallingwthstyle - illustrated by Hausinge and Sifl-senpai
CHAPTER 2: Midnight Minus 27 Days
CHAPTER 3: Midnight Minus 1 Day 11 Hours
CHAPTER 4: Midnight Minus 11 Hours
CHAPTER 5: Midnight
CHAPTER 6: Midnight Plus 12 Minutes
CHAPTER 7: Midnight Plus 1 Hour
CHAPTER 8: Midnight Plus 2 Hours
CHAPTER 9: Midnight Plus 4 Hours
CHAPTER 10: Midnight Plus 6 Hours
CHAPTER 11: Midnight Plus 7 Hours
Notes
Events in this story are taken mainly from the 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure. There are also two plot elements from the original novel by Paul Gallico (novel spoilers ahead):
One: In addition to the two children, Robin and Susan Shelby (Robin is the one who said "Shove it! Shove it! Shove it!" to his older sister before slamming their cabin's bathroom door in her face), their parents are also along on the cruise, and their marriage is failing; after the ship has capsized and Robin has gone missing (see below), Mrs. Shelby says some extremely cruel things to her husband in front of the other survivors, driving a final wedge into their marriage and leaving them to grieve for the loss of their son separately.
Two: They encounter another much larger group of people also trying to escape but heading in the opposite direction, when the ship's emergency lights suddenly go out, plunging them into complete darkness. This results in panic and a stampede where several people are trampled to death. By the time someone has found a light, Robin Shelby has vanished and is never seen again.
At the end of the novel, the survivors are standing on the deck of a rescue ship watching the S.S. Poseidon's stern rise high into the air (much like the Titanic did, except the Poseidon had capsized and been floating upside down for hours), before sinking beneath the waves. Robin's mother is praying that she isn't witnessing her son's death now, but just his burial.
There is an excellent fan-made trailer for the movie here.
This is the third in a story arc. In this 'verse, Kenny has been freed from the curse of endless deaths and rebirths, and has no memory of these having ever happened.
"Midnight" in the chapter titles refers to midnight New Year's Eve, approximately five minutes before the ship is struck by the tidal wave and capsized.
I don't own South Park, The Poseidon Adventure, or any of these characters, with the exception of Pete McCafferty.
CHAPTER 1: Midnight minus 1 day 17 hours
Stan wasn't sure what he thought would be different about the Mediterranean Sea, but he expected it to be different somehow, bluer perhaps. But now, watching the sun rise above its horizon, forearms resting against the enormous ocean liner's railing while it surged eastward almost straight into it, Kyle at his side, these waters looked no different than the Atlantic Ocean had yesterday.
They'd sailed through the nine mile wide Strait of Gibraltar last night, marking their passage into the Mediterranean. When they'd gone out on deck at six that morning, the mountains of the southern coast of Spain were disappearing behind them, and an hour later they were once again surrounded by endless open water.
Kyle looked at Stan and grinned. His hair looked like molten copper in the light of the rising sun. "I thought that was going to be it, Stan, going past Spain like that."
"Your oh holy shit moment?"
"My oh holy shit moment, yes." They had to speak up to be heard over the wind. "Seeing like fifty boats escorting us at two in the morning, those mountains just a mile away, and that full moon." Kyle smiled. He didn't need to mention what else they had done in this same spot five hours ago when this part of the ship had been deserted. He could see in Stan's face that he was remembering it too. "That wasn't quite it, but the oh holy shit moment was almost within grasp."
Kenny and Butters emerged from the double doors leading inside the ship and joined them. They had gone to their cabin to "put sunscreen on Butters' face" almost an hour ago, even though their group's four cabins were only a one minute walk away. They both grinned at their friends, knowing they'd been figured out.
"Kyle had his oh holy shit moment?" Butters asked, beaming happily, his fair hair rumpled by more than just the wind.
"Nope," Stan said, feigning unhappiness. "Just another close call."
"You've only got about two more days," Kenny said, actually sounding worried. Kyle had been waiting to experience the one perfect moment of this cruise, one that would give him the strongest memory he would take away from this whole incredible experience. "We dock in Greece at noon on New Year's Day..."
-Sifl-senpai-
"I think we're all still accounted for," Butters interrupted, heading off what might be an uncomfortable discussion for Kyle. Making sure no one had fallen overboard had been an ongoing mission of his since the start of the cruise, and Butters made it his business several times a day to find out where everyone in their group was, no matter how widely scattered they were throughout the massive ship.
"Yeah we are, as long as you two know where Tweek is," Kenny said. "We just went downstairs a couple minutes ago; Cartman's still in the casino with his fat ass parked in front of a keno machine, and we passed Wendy on our way back up. She had a 'Get out of my way, I'm going power shopping' look in her eyes."
Stan and Kyle both laughed. "Tweek's walking," Kyle said, accounting for the final member of their group. "He just zoomed by us about ten minutes ago."
"Did he slow down long enough to wave this time?" Butters asked. He put on his sunglasses (expensive aviator-style mirrored Ray Bans) and held his hand to his forehead to block the glare, squinting into the sunrise toward the bow of the ship. "Speak of the hyperactive devil...here he comes."
The other three looked in the same direction. Even from 100 feet away, Tweek was easy to spot among the other people on deck outside enjoying the morning; he was the only one currently powerwalking towards them. When Kyle had said 'Tweek's walking' it told them all they needed about his whereabouts. Tweek had discovered on the second day of the cruise that walking endless laps around the ship had remarkable calming powers that none of his medications had, and spent hours both day and night making endless circuits around 'C' Deck. The only one of their group who hadn't accompanied him on at least one of his walks was Cartman.
Tweek had been miserable for the first day and a half of the cruise. On the first morning, as the skyline of New York City disappeared into the wake of the ship as it headed east into the open waters of the Atlantic, he had been convinced that when this vacation was finally over and he returned home in two weeks, Craig will have evicted him from the house they had shared for almost two years, all his shit piled up in the front yard. Kenny and Butters had reassured him repeatedly that his fears were groundless; that Craig wasn't that big of an asshole, and even if he was, they would never let him be homeless.
Tweek had spent that first day cowering miserably near his friends, trembling and trying to suppress the tics that kept threatening to surface and overwhelm him. He knew his four best friends were avoiding being intimate with each other when opportunities presented themselves out of deference for his feeling about his own crumbling relationship.
At 8:00 the next morning, Tweek decided not to be a burden to his friends again today; he knew his presence was sucking the fun out of everything they did. Not wanting to be surrounded by strangers, and not wanting to be alone in the cabin he shared with Wendy, he reluctantly made his way down one flight of stairs to 'B' deck, where the gym and most of the stores and bars were. He headed straight for the casino, pausing a moment to look up in wonder at the enormous stained glass wall separating the ship's casino from the hallway; it was a sixteen foot tall floor to ceiling rendering of the Greek God Poseidon holding a trident. The casino was practically empty this time of day, and he spotted Cartman immediately, sitting in front of a keno machine. Everything about the way he was sitting told Tweek that he was losing, and badly. Knowing he would regret this, Tweek went over and sat at the machine next to him and fed a twenty-dollar bill into it.
"Good morning, Eric," he said, barely managing not to screech.
Cartman was staring stone-faced at the machine he was playing. He hit the 'start' button and watched another two dollars go up in smoke. "Tweek." His eyes were smoldering.
Even though Tweek already knew the answer, he wanted to try to make conversation. "Having any—ah!—luck?"
Cartman's eyes never moved from the display in front of him. "No." He looked ready to explode, and Tweek turned his attention to his own game. He picked eight numbers on the touchscreen to play based on his and Craig's birthdays along with 23 for both their ages. He bet a dime and hit the start button. He won nothing the first round.
Mr. Acres, the British steward, had spotted him and was bringing him a very large coffee. "Good morning, Mr. Tweak," he said, putting the coffee next to him. "And how are you doing, Mr. Cartman?"
"I could use another drink, you limey bastard."
Acres nodded stoically and went off to bring it. "You shouldn't talk to him that way," Tweek said, watching his keno machine light up as he won $25.
"Ey! Those other hippies rag on him all the time! Why can't I?"
Tweek's stomach dropped. He didn't want to get into an argument, and hoped Cartman would go back to his game and leave him alone. It wasn't to be though; Cartman looked over at Tweek's machine and sneered:
"How the fuck are you going to win anything betting ten cents?"
"I—I—think the key to winning keno is patience! I can play all day this way—"
"The key to winning keno is getting one good hit on a large bet," Cartman interrupted. "I can win $800 every time I hit the 'start' button. How much can you win betting a fucking dime?"
Tweek's stomach was tying itself in knots. He knew a truthful answer would just piss Cartman off even more than he already was, and Tweek would eventually have to get away from him too, leaving him with nobody to be around. Yet he knew he couldn't lie, since Cartman could just look at his machine and see the answer for himself. "A hundred dollars—and" He suppressed a shudder and went on, trying to be helpful. "You picked ten numbers to play. I'm only playing eight...so my odds are like—ah!—four times better than yours!"
He tapped his machine's start button, and his heart jumped into his throat when his machine lit up as he won $50. Cartman scowled and turned away, angling himself so his back was more toward Tweek, dismissing him. Tweek sighed miserably. Maybe Cartman would just leave him alone and let him sit quietly next to him. Even that would be better than being alone in his cabin with the blanket pulled over his head.
Since he was now playing with credits he had won rather than his own money, he increased his bet to fifty cents per game. Two minutes later he won $500. Cartman glared at him as Tweek stared at the reflection of his eyes in his coffee as he took a large swallow from it. Acres was back now with Cartman's drink; Tweek could smell the bourbon in the glass from three feet away.
Tweek hit the start button again...and won another $400.
"Goddamnit Tweek!" Cartman raged. "I'm glad at least one of us is having fun!"
"It's just luck..." he stopped and cringed when Cartman slammed his drink down on the table between them.
"I'm going to the bar to get drunk," Cartman said tightly. "Alone."
"Aah!" Tweek couldn't take it anymore. He almost ran out without collecting his winnings, but he made himself hit the 'cash-out' button on the machine he was playing and shook his foot vigorously while it printed and spit out a ticket. One of the attendants heard the machine and came over holding a large wad of cash. She took the ticket from Tweek's trembling hands, raised her eyebrows, and counted out his winnings to him.
"Congratulations, sir." The attendant said as she left. Tweek looked at the money in his hands and then at Cartman who was staring straight ahead angrily. He impulsively threw two one hundred dollars bills on Cartman's keno machine and ran out.
He stood in the hallway outside the casino leaning against the wall shuddering. Now what? he asked himself. Shopping with Wendy sounded worse than torture. He thought he might try his other friends again; maybe they would just let him hang out nearby while he pretended to sunbathe or something. He walked thirty feet to the grand staircase, the ship rocking gently beneath his feet. This was the lowest deck that passengers were allowed to go; there was an 'Authorized Personnel Only' sign on the wall beside the stairs going down. He went up one flight to the deck where their cabins were and walked a short distance, pausing alongside a connecting hallway that led toward their cabins as well as the bow of the ship. On his left was the cabin belonging to Mike and Linda Rogo, two people from New York who seemingly only spoke to each other shouting at the tops of their lungs. It was quiet now; they must be in another part of the ship.
Tweek walked over to the connecting hallway. Their four cabins were on the right; on the left was a large glass walled room with three vending machines for sodas and snacks, along with an impossibly old 'Missile Command' game. Tweek thought it would be a good gesture to bring drinks to his friends, so he went through the glass door and started feeding dollar bills into the machine that dispensed cans of soda.
A young boy of about ten was playing the Missile Command game. As Tweek's third soda selection dropped from the machine, the kid crowed triumphantly. He looked at Tweek with a big friendly grin. "High score again, sir!"
Tweek looked over at him and tried to smile like a normal person would. "Congratulations!" he said, feeling proud that that had come out sounding okay.
"Thanks!" The kid was busy using the buttons and joystick to record his newest high score on the machine. When he was finished, he jumped up from the stool and went out the door, throwing a "see you!" over his shoulder at Tweek as he left. Tweek pulled the last soda from the machine and, on a whim, went over to the video game. The kid didn't just have a couple of the high scores, he had logged the top eight, recording his initials (RES) alongside each one. Tweek smiled and set the five soda cans on the carpet. He dug a quarter out of his pocket and sat down. He played one game, and deliberately lost as soon as he had surpassed RES's best score by 20 points. He grinned, pleased with himself, hoping the kid came back later and saw the new high score with Tweek's initials (TNT) on top.
Tweek picked up the cans of soda and made his way down the main hallway to the double doors leading outside. They led out onto 'C' deck on the left side, near the center of the ship. They were propped open, bright sunlight pouring in through them onto the carpet. He took one step out into the daylight...and a jogger ran straight into him, almost knocking him off his feet.
"Gaah!" he shrieked. Two of the soda cans flew from his hand and rolled across the deck toward the railing. The jogger grabbed Tweek's arms, trying to steady him. Tweek looked at him panicked, but then realized that this man looked kind, not like someone trying to murder him; he looked like Kyle might look when he was about sixty, with short cropped red hair, a ruddy complexion, and a warm face, now filled with concern and guilt for having almost knocked someone over.
"Jeez, mister, I'm sorry!" the man said, keeping his hands on Tweek's shoulders only long enough to make sure he was going to stay on his feet. "Are you all right?" He patted Tweek's shoulders, then his back, as if trying to make sure he was in one piece.
"Uh!-yeah, I'm okay!" Tweek was both touched and calmed by this stranger's concern for him. "You just! Really startled me!" He started to lean over to pick up the two soda cans he had dropped, and the man who had run into him was already retrieving them for him.
"Here," the man said, gently squeezing the two cans before handing them to Tweek. "If these are ruined, I'll replace them—"
Tweek took them from him; the aluminum cans felt a bit tight but okay. "They're all right—really! One of them's mine anyway!"
"Well, I'll watch where I'm going from now on. I'm really sorry sir." He stayed another moment, then slowly took off toward the stern, trotting in the direction he'd been going before their collision.
Tweek watched the man jog away; for a sixty-something year old, he did okay, but his 'jog' was more like an awkward bow-legged waddle. Tweek knew he could easily keep up with him just walking fast.
The idea of walking a lap or two around the ship suddenly sounded very appealing.
He spotted his four friends about fifty feet away when the jogger went past them. None of them appeared to have noticed him or his collision with that kind stranger a minute ago, and Tweek was grateful for that. He looked at them for a moment, delaying the inevitable when he had to join them without spazzing out from nervousness. He hoped Kyle was wearing sunscreen; he could see even from here that Butters was.
He finally steeled himself and started walking toward them, thinking how nice it would be to have something to say to them besides 'hi, guys'. As he approached, something sort of clever actually occurred to him, and he liked his idea so much that he sped up.
Tweek thought that Butters looked incredible today. He was wearing knee length tan cargo shorts and a light blue Hawaiian shirt with white flowers on it; Kenny had bought that for him in one of the Poseidon's many stores yesterday because it looked like the one Butters had worn when they went to Hawaii together as kids. Rounding this off was a white wide brimmed hat to keep the sun off his face, the mirrored sunglasses that looked amazing on him (especially when he smiled), and a wide patch of zinc oxide sunscreen across his nose and cheeks.
Tweek approached them, more confident now because he had something to talk about for a moment, a conversational gambit he could toss out that maybe one of them would run with, and let him retreat into his safe place beside his friends, without them worrying about him every single moment.
Stan spotted him first. "Hey Tweek!" They all turned to greet him. Tweek felt like he was walking into a den full of friendly lions, like they didn't know they could tear him to pieces just by being too kind.
"Hey guys!" He hoped his smile didn't appear manic. "Hey, Butters," he said, turning to address him directly. "I was just—uh!--thinking: You've been wearing those sunglasses since yesterday. You better check and make sure you're not getting some kind of scary tan lines under them!"
Stan and Kenny exchanged glances, and Stan laughed. "He's got a point, dude." Kyle started laughing a moment later.
"Oh, no," Kenny said, reaching for Butters' sunglasses as if he were about to turn the page of a tragic novel. "Let's see this..." He slid the sunglasses off of Butters' face, took one look, and started chuckling.
No, don't laugh at him! Tweek thought frantically, and then relaxed again when it seemed that Butters was starting to laugh hardest of them all. He reached for his sunglasses and took them from Kenny, turning them around and holding them up to his face so he could look at himself in one of the lenses.
"Oh, shh...hamburgers," he said, laughing and shaking his head as he looked at his own reflection. He looked up at his friends, catching Tweek's eye as if to say 'thanks'. He had two white circles surrounding his eyes from the shadow of the sunglasses; the rest of his face was a light pink from the sun.
"No wait, we can fix this," Kenny said, still snickering. He used the pads of his index fingers to wipe some of the zinc oxide around on Butters' face, bringing it just to the edges of the white circles the sunglasses had made. "Just lose the shades for a while and let that part of your face catch up." He used a fingertip to spread more lotion across his brow. "Just don't stay out here too much longer today, okay?"
"Okay." Butters grinned and handed the sunglasses to Tweek, surprising him. "Here. You deserve to wear these for a while."
Tweek looked at them for a moment and then put them on. The bright glare on everything suddenly became comfortable. He looked up at his friends, and then out toward the ocean. The sky was now a muted gray; beneath the sun, the water was struck with a million shimmering points of light, now in sharp relief through the polarized lenses.
"Hey, that's a good look on you, Tweek!" Stan said, and Kenny nodded in agreement. Tweek looked around some more; everything looked much more serene now.
"Yeah, I—ah!—could get used to this!"
"They sell those down in one of the gift shops, you know, one deck below our cabins," Butters said. "If you want, I'll get you a pair...?"
Tweek thought about it; he thought hiding his eyes behind a pair of expensive sunglasses might be comforting; he always thought his eyes looked too manic. "Let me, ah, wear these for a while and see if I like them...but thanks!" He just remembered something. "Actually, I could buy my own pair. I just won $900 in the casino!"
"Oh, shit." Kyle started laughing again. "Was Cartman there?"
"Congratulations!" Kenny said, also laughing. "And I know Cartman was there. He's been losing at that same machine since last night."
Tweek suddenly smiled; this was the first time that earlier incident had seemed anything but terrifying to him. "Yeah...I was sitting right next to him. He kind of ran me out of the casino—"
"He can't do that!" Butters said, sounding a little angry. "You have as much right to be there as he does!"
"Ah! That's okay—it was...getting sort of awkward anyway. He'd been there all night, and it only took me ten minutes to win that."
Stan laughed hard, falling against Kyle. "Ah...that's the funniest thing I've heard since we got on this boat!"
They started talking amongst themselves, and Tweek settled in comfortably alongside them. He looked up several minutes later and saw the jogger who had almost knocked him over approaching them with his awkward waddling gait. The man (Tweek thought again that he looked like a 60-year-old version of Kyle) recognized him and waved. Tweek wasn't sure if it was just his sudden good mood or the confidence he felt wearing the sunglasses, but he suddenly waved back at the man as he jogged past.
"Hey, can I join you?"
The man stopped for a moment. He smiled and started away again. "Sure!"
"See you guys later!" Tweek said, waving and taking off after the man. The four watched them moving away, the older man jogging, Tweek just walking fast beside him. They appeared to be talking animatedly.
"Okay," Kyle said a long moment later. "I didn't see that coming."
"Tweek, making a new friend," Stan replied wonderingly. "This cruise may be the best thing that's ever happened to him." They talked for a few minutes, then fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the views and the fresh air.
"Let's walk up front," Kenny suggested, and they all nodded and started off in that direction. There was a long row of lifeboats lined up along the deck; Butters ran his fingertips along their hulls as they walked past. A few minutes later they spotted Tweek, now walking slowly toward them with the man he had left with, along with two other, also older people, obviously husband and wife.
"Tweek's making friends with old people," Stan observed. "Must be all this fresh air."
When they met, Tweek said, "Hey, did you guys know that one lap around the ship on this deck is exactly half a mile?"
"I did," Kenny said smiling. "I read it in the brochures."
"Oh!" Tweek said. "I almost forgot! These are my new friends...this is Mr. Martin"—he indicated the jogger—"And this is Manny and Belle Rosen. They're traveling together, and get this! They're also on this trip with Mr. and Mrs. Rogo!"
Everyone shook hands, introducing themselves. Manny Rosen said, "Tweek was just telling us of your misfortune to have cabins across the hall from them. They're noisy...but I've known Mike Rogo for almost thirty years; they're good people."
"They do get loud sometimes," Kyle said. "And sometimes over simple things, like what to order for dinner."
"Yes, that would be Linda," Belle said. Kyle thought she looked like his own mother might in twenty years; Belle and Manny were obviously Jewish, and a longtime, devoted couple. "She does get passionate sometimes."
"Passionate?" Kenny said, laughing. "She lectured him passionately last night for five minutes on which side of the bed she was going to sleep on."
Belle smiled. "I didn't say she always picked her battles well," Everyone laughed, and just like that they were friends.
"Don't you think Mr. Martin looks like Kyle will when he's that age?" Tweek asked. Somehow, he managed to not make it seem like too odd of a question. Despite still being winded from his walk, he was unusually calm.
"I was just thinking the same thing actually," Stan replied, studying Mr. Martin for another moment. "The resemblance is actually kind of uncanny."
Kyle said, "Then since we're on the subject, I was just thinking that Belle here looks like my mother might in twenty years." He looked directly at her. "That was a major compliment, by the way."
"Why, thank you dear!" Belle's cherubic face lit up with a warm smile.
"What about me?" her husband asked. "Do you think I look like your dad will someday?"
Stan and Kyle looked at him, then at each other, and laughed. "No...not so much," Kyle replied, and everyone laughed again. They talked for a few more minutes, and as their groups broke up they made plans to have lunch together. Tweek announced he wanted to walk a few more laps around the ship before then.
"Same time tomorrow then?" Mr. Martin asked, just before Tweek turned to walk off. "Two miles before breakfast? I'll try not to run into you next time."
"Ah!" Tweek was surprised and touched by this. "Sure!" He looked at his friends. "I'm going to do ten miles before this trip is over!"
"Twenty laps around the ship, Tweek?" Kenny replied, chuckling. "Good luck with that."
Tweek took off walking again, still wearing Butters' sunglasses. "You'll see!"
Lunch with the Rosen's and Tweek's walks around the ship with Mr. Martin in the morning and at all hours of the day thereafter became part of their regular routines. Tweek and the ten year old 'RES' continued trading high scores on Missile Command, although Tweek never saw him after their first encounter; he would check the game after his morning walks and find that the kid had returned to reclaim the high score, and Tweek would sit down and take it back again, putting his TNT on top of the list.
The morning they sailed into the Mediterranean Sea, their regular routines were disrupted considerably. Promptly at 11:00, Mr. Acres emerged from the double doors carrying a container with beverages for them. Just as they'd planned yesterday, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Butters all turned to him and said, "Good morning, Mister Acres," in unison, like a small class of third graders greeting their teacher.
"Gentlemen," Acres replied, trying not to smile, knowing his usual formality wasn't required with this group. He'd been taking his morning breaks with this lively and friendly bunch from Colorado since the third day of the cruise. He handed out their drinks (sodas for almost everyone—sugar-free for Kyle—and a large black coffee with a lot of sugar for Tweek for when he came around next), then lit a cigarette and leaned against the railing, looking out over the ocean as he smoked and made small talk with them.
"Gentlemen," Acres said finally. "There's something we should probably talk about." He sounded serious for once.
"Okay...what's up, Mr. Acres?" Stan asked.
"The captain has ordered life lines rigged around all decks." As if on cue, two uniformed crewmen emerged from the double doors carrying long coils of ropes and began rigging them to the ship's railing, increasing their height and giving people something more to grab onto. "We're heading toward some bad weather this afternoon. It could get pretty rough; you won't want to be out here on deck when we go through it. The ship's doctor is expecting a lot of seasick passengers."
"Oh," Kyle said. "Good." Stan grinned and poked him in the side with his elbow. Kenny was listening avidly to everything the ship's head steward said.
"The thing is," Acres went on, more quietly now, not wanting anyone beside this group to overhear. "That's the official version that we're supposed to tell passengers. What I'm not supposed to say, and I'd appreciate it if you keep this to yourselves, is that they're having some sort of trouble in the engine room. There's a broken pump down there, and they've been trying to take on more water for the ship's ballast tanks, but without that pump they can't...the ship's riding higher in the water than it should be. It could be a rough couple of hours."
They took that in for a moment. "Okay, thanks Acres," Kenny said. "When's this weather supposed to be here?"
Acres held out his arms in an 'I don't know' gesture. "Sometime early afternoon I gather, sir. We're heading straight into it, so you'll see it coming a long way off. And in my experience, the sea will start getting rough even before you start to see the storm."
They all looked instinctively toward the bow of the ship. The sky was a flawless blue, all the way to the horizon.
"Tweek's not gonna be happy," Butters said. "He'll miss being able to walk!"
"I thought about that, sir" Acres replied. "He could walk up and down Broadway until we get past this, if he would be all right with walking inside." He saw their puzzled looks and explained, "It's a service corridor, sirs, two decks below your cabins. It runs the length of the ship, and it's usually mostly empty. It's one deck above the engine room, so it's a bit noisy, and it's a ship's personnel only area, but—" Acres reached into his coat pocket and took out two things, and handed Butters one of them, a bright yellow guest pass. "Have him take this, and if anyone says anything to him, just have him say Mister Acres said it was all right for him to be there."
He gave Stan the other thing he'd brought, a small foil packet of ten blister-packed pills. "I have to get back for the lunch crowd, but I got this from the ship's doctor. He said if any of you are likely to get seasick, swallow one of these when the sea starts getting rough, before it gets too bad."
"Kyle's going to probably need one," Stan said, looking at the pills. "Maybe Butters, too. Thanks Mr. Acres, we appreciate all this, and the heads up."
"It's my pleasure sir. Be careful today." He went back inside. He enjoyed spending his morning breaks with this group, and taking extra good care of them as the ship's head steward. He wasn't quite ready to call them by their first names yet (Especially 'Butters'...Americans could be such odd people!), but maybe by the end of the trip he might feel comfortable with it. Butters had been quietly tipping him $100 a day to look after them, but he would have done all that for them anyway (except for Mr. Cartman, who was an insufferable ass.)
"Well, this is going to suck," Kyle said. "I want to stay out here as long as we can, maybe go up front and watch it come in."
Stan put his arm around Kyle's shoulder. "Sounds good to me, dude." He turned around. "How about you guys?"
Kenny and Butters looked like they were already discussing it. "Yeah, just for a little while, though," Butters said, a little morose. "Kenny don't want me out in the sun too much longer."
"We'll have to break the news to everyone else," Kenny said as they started strolling toward the bow of the huge ship. "Tweek's gonna freak."
Stan laughed. "Jesus, I hope not! He's been doing great the last few days."
The four made their way about four hundred feet to the bow of the ship. By the time they got there, the seas were obviously beginning to get rougher, and the horizon was now smudged with dark clouds, gray thunderheads rising into the blue sky above their own reflections.
"Mr. Acres wasn't kidding!" Butters said as a wave broke against the bow of the ship, sending a plume of salt spray up. They could feel the deck of the ship pitching more beneath their feet. Even though the sun was still shining brightly overhead, the air was getting noticeably cooler.
"This looks like it could get mean," Kenny said, eyeing the dark clouds gathering in front of them. Even though they were a long way off, they still looked threatening, and they were heading right into them at 25 knots, or almost 30 miles per hour. "We should get inside soon." He took Butters' hand. "Let's go, okay? This shit makes me nervous."
"Here." Stan broke off five of the blister packaged pills Acres had given them, keeping five for himself, and handing the rest to Kenny. "You might see some of our group before us. I'm going to take one now, just in case. Uh, Kyle...?" Stan tore into the packet and handed Kyle one of the chalky little tablets.
"Sure," Kyle said, putting it in his mouth and washing it down with the rest of his soda. It tasted like mint chalk. "We'll be in in a few minutes, Kenny," he continued. "I just want to see this a little longer."
Stan and Kyle watched them walk away toward the stern of the ship, then turned to face forward again, leaning against the railing. They were at the very front of the ship. Stan poked him playfully with his elbow. "Hey! You want to be Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet?"
Kyle grinned. "Neither one! Their cruise ended in disaster, remember?" Nevertheless, he half-heartedly threw his arms out to his sides. "I'm king of the world," he deadpanned. Another wave broke against the ship, this one sending up a spray that would have drenched them if they'd been standing ten feet toward the stern.
"Shit, dude!" Stan said nervously. "Maybe we'd better get inside too."
"Yeah, I think you're right." The wind picked up suddenly, lifting his hair from his forehead. They set off together toward the stern, where the sky was still a bright blue behind them. Stan took one last look over his shoulder at the approaching storm, thinking of everything that had happened to finally put the seven of them on this ship.
CHAPTER 2: Midnight Minus 27 Days
Kenny raised his wine cooler bottle and clinked it against Butters'. "This is going to happen tonight." He was smiling happily, while at least three other conversations swirled around them. "You can feel it too, can't you?"
Butters took a sip of his drink. "I can, Kenny! I really can...and we'll know in half an hour."
There was a lot of excitement at their house, much of it from Kenny's enthusiasm, which had been unwavering for the past two days. A dozen people were scattered around the living room and kitchen of their house, all gathered tonight for a purpose: The Mega Millions lottery game jackpot had soared to $450-million, and the entire country was infected with lotto fever. South Park was no exception, and they were gathered together to watch the drawing later, each of them hoping one of them would win and change all their lives.
Wendy (Doctor Testaburger, Stan reminded himself; she had been an emergency room physician at Hell's Pass for six months now) was talking to him, sitting on the couch while looking at her single lottery ticket, a strip of paper with five sets of numbers on it. Kyle had gone to fetch fresh drinks, leaving an empty space on the couch on Stan's other side.
Wendy said: "So...just so we're clear: If one of us actually wins tonight, we're all going to retire and live in mansions for the rest of our lives, and go on that New Year's cruise to the Mediterranean Sea; and if someone just misses the jackpot and wins $250,000, we're still going on the cruise but we can forget the mansions."
"That's about it," Kenny replied. He and Butters were squashed together in their recliner. There was a small stack of cruise line brochures on the table in front of them, and Kenny had been handing them out all evening like Halloween candy. He was completely convinced that someone was going to win tonight, and that a few of them were actually going on this insane New Year's vacation across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea in three weeks. "Butters figured out that with the airfare to New York, the cruise tickets, visas, airfare home from Athens and so on, it should cost about seven thousand dollars apiece. It'd be awesome if eight or ten of us got to go."
Craig Tucker said irritably: "You know...the only reason I agreed to come to this is because I want to see your faces when nobody here wins. And even if one of you assholes actually does win, I don't want to go on that cruise, so I'll just take the money."
"Craig shalt not be a buzzkill," Kenny pronounced solemnly. Craig had been nursing the same Big Gulp cup of bourbon and water for the past hour and was starting to get extremely drunk, and Kenny made a mental note to make sure that Tweek drove them home later. Tweek had been drinking nothing but coffee all evening and was his normal jittery self.
Kyle came back with two wine coolers, handed Stan one of them and sat down on the couch beside him again. He pulled his lotto ticket from his shirt pocket and studied it again.
Butters looked down at his own ticket, which held just a single set of numbers, reading them to himself yet again. They were 09, 11 (for his birthday, September 11); 23 (for his age), 17, and 45 (because he had been born at 5:45 in the afternoon). He and Kenny had laughed over his choice of the megaball number, 14; they had chosen it because it was the combined total length in inches of their erect dicks. They had carefully measured each other just for this, giggling helplessly. Kenny's megaball number was 15, because he wanted to round up ("It's almost fourteen and a half, Butters!") but Butters had insisted on rounding down because this was the way things were done ("almost only counts in horseshoes and nuclear warfare Kenny, and besides, if Stan's dad had measured us, it'd be in the twenties!")
Cartman arrived to the party last, only twenty minutes or so before the drawing, hurrying through the front door and heading straight toward Kyle. He was clutching an absurdly thick stack of lottery tickets, probably hundreds of dollars' worth. Craig lifted his head from Tweek's shoulder, suddenly interested.
Cartman walked up to Kyle and barked: "I need to talk to you. Now."
"Yeah, hi Eric, nice to see you too," Stan said.
"Oh geez, Cartman," Kyle said, eyeing his stack of lottery tickets; it was at least the thickness of a couple decks of playing cards. "I wonder what about...Jews and numbers? How much did you spend on all that, anyway?"
"Three thousand, two hundred and eighteen dollars, Kyle," Cartman answered immediately and glared at him. "Are you going to help me or what?"
Stan laughed. "Two hundred...and eighteen dollars, fatass? Let me guess: That was every bit of money you had."
Cartman ignored him and stared at Kyle. "Well?"
"Help you do what, Cartman?" The conversations all around them had stopped; Craig was trying not to throw up in his drink from laughing while Tweek rubbed his shoulder nervously.
"Organize this into some kind of logical order...Kahl" Cartman replied, as if it should be obvious.
"You want me to organize three thousand sets of lottery numbers into some kind of logical order...in twenty minutes?"
"Not up to it, huh? I thought you were hard core Jewish, Kyle; guess I was wrong."
"Give me this!" Stan was still laughing as Kyle stood up and snatched the stack of tickets from Cartman's hand and started rifling through them. "This is a mess, Cartman! These are all quick picks...there's no way to do anything with this before the drawing. You're going to have to just go through them one at a time later to see if you won anything."
"Nothing you can do, ah, Kyle?" He was starting to sound less hopeful. "Losing your Jewdoo, maybe?"
"Stop insulting my religion, asswipe!" Everyone in the house was listening now; it had been some time since most of them had been treated to a good Kyle/Cartman argument. "And yeah, if I had about three weeks and you were paying me a lot of money, I could enter all these into my computer and let it hunt for winners."
"Guys," Kenny said laughing and holding up his hand. "Call a truce or something. Cartman, go get a drink. We'll help you check your tickets afterward."
"We will, huh? Nice of you to volunteer me." But Kyle was grinning as he handed the tickets back to Cartman. "Yeah...we'll help you check." He rolled his eyes.
Cartman went into the kitchen to make himself a drink, and soon after he returned, whatever show none of them were watching on the TV cut away to a commercial break, and the familiar music of the lottery drawing drew everyone's' attention.
"Turn it up!" Token called from across the room. Butters held up the remote and turned up the TV volume. Several people had pens ready to write down the winning numbers.
The white ping pong balls swirled inside the lotto machine, and as one rose to the top, the announcer said: "The first number is...twenty three." Butters raised his eyebrows, his eyes flicking back and forth from his ticket to the TV as the second number came up: "Nine." When the third number—"Forty-five"—came up, Butters poked Kenny sharply in the ribs with his elbow and pointed at his ticket.
"Holy fuck, Butters!" Kenny said as the fourth number ("eleven") came up next. "He's got those four numbers! He needs a seventeen now—"
From the TV: "Seventeen."
Half the people in the room shouted something, and bedlam started breaking out around them. "Holy crap, Butters!" Kenny said. "He just needs a thirteen!" Butters had just won $250,000 and now it was down to the last ball to decide whether he won that or the enormous jackpot. Butters was bouncing in his seat, staring at his ticket. Several people began chanting: "Thirteen...thirteen..."
"And the mega ball number is...Twenty one."
There were a lot of groans, but Kenny was thumping a hyperventilating Butters on his back, and Stan and Kyle got up from the couch to sit on the arms of the chair and started gently pummeling him too.
"You just won a quarter of a million dollars dude!" Stan said happily while Butters stared unbelievingly at his ticket. "Holy shit...we are actually, actually going on this cruise!"
Kenny looked ecstatic. "I knew someone here was going to win tonight. I just knew it!"
Cartman was looking through his stack of tickets despondently. Everyone else gathered around Butters to congratulate him.
After a few minutes, Kenny asked, "All right...so who's actually going to go on this cruise with us?"
"We are!" Stan answered immediately. As vice-presidents of McCormick-Stotch Enterprises, Stan and Kyle had plenty of freedom to take two weeks off for a vacation.
"You know I'm going," Cartman said without looking up from his tickets. He pulled one from the stack, eyeing it ruefully. "There's two dollars I won."
"I've got some vacation time coming," Wendy said. "I'll put in for it tomorrow...hell yes I'm going!"
Token shook his head. "Much as I'd like to, I have to bow out. But you guys are going to have a great trip. Take lots of pictures." Jimmy, Bebe, Thomas ("No, I...shit cock! ...can't go either") and Clyde all had other plans for the holidays as well.
That left Craig and Tweek. Craig slurred, extremely intoxicated, "I'm going to my uncle's in New Hampshire to go hunting over the holidays. And you don't really have to give me any money."
"That's good to know," Kenny said. Tweek was shaking his head, looking at the floor.
"I dunno," he said. "I—ah!—would sort of like to go on that cruise!"
"Go ahead," Craig replied darkly, taking a large gulp of his drink, dismissing him.
Tweek sighed sadly. "I won't go without you," he said quietly, without the slightest tic or tremor.
There was an awkward silence. Kenny finally broke it. "So...six of us then?" He looked around the room for last minute takers. "Darn...I was hoping for at least a couple more."
The party began breaking up after that. Butters whispered something to Kenny, and they managed to separate Tweek and Craig and keep them there after everyone else had left. Kenny cornered Craig next to the front door.
"Dude, no offense but—" Kenny glared at Craig. "You need to quit being such a fucking dick to Tweek. And give me your keys; you're not driving home. Butters said to tell you he'll pay for your trip to New Hampshire if you knock off the bullshit."
Craig pulled his keys from his jacket pocket and handed them to Kenny. "Whatever man," he said and went out the front door. Kenny watched him weave his way to the driveway and get in the passenger door of his truck.
Butters had Tweek in the kitchen under the pretext of helping carry dishes and empty glasses from the living room. "Kenny's in the other room getting Craig's keys. He's bein' awful mean to you...are you all right?"
Tweek shook his head sadly. "I don't know man!" He was wracked by a violent shudder. "He gets this way when he drinks, you know? And..."
"Well, hey!" Butters wanted desperately to cheer him up. "If you want to go with us, just say the word! He can go to his uncle's and you can spend the holidays cruising half way around the world with us guys!"
Kenny came into the kitchen and deliberately bumped into Butters. "Craig went to wait in his truck," he said, handing Tweek Craig's keys. "He might even be passed out by now. Are you going to be okay?"
"I—I think so." He was agitated, obviously wanting to leave. Kenny took a step back so he wouldn't feel cornered.
"Hey, when you get home," Butters said. "If you don't feel safe..." he gestured, indicating their home. "Y'know?"
Tweek nodded vigorously. "Okay man. Thanks!"
Once Tweek had left, Kenny and Butters finished cleaning up the mess from the party, then went upstairs to their room. They had just gotten undressed and into bed when headlights splashed across their bedroom window and they heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. They looked at each other and sighed. "That'll be Tweek," Kenny said. Butters got out of bed first wearing just boxers and went to the window to look outside.
"Yep, that's his car. Looks like he's just sittin' there, too."
Kenny was already up and putting on his robe. "Guess we'd better make some more coffee."
"Oh, Kenny!" Butters sounded distressed. "He just got out...and got into the back seat. I wonder if he's thinkin' about sleeping there?"
Kenny scratched his head. "How about you make the coffee while I go outside and see what he's doing?" They went down the stairs together.
"All right. Just be careful y'don't sneak up on him. Make sure he sees you coming, or he'll be replacing both the upholstery and the sunroof."
Kenny laughed, hard. "Okay, Butters." Butters went into the kitchen and Kenny opened the front door after turning the porch light on. He saw Tweek sit up in the back seat and look at him. Kenny walked over, and Tweek leaned over and opened the back door and bowed his head. Kenny saw immediately that he was crying.
"Oh—hey, now!" Kenny looked helplessly over the top of the car, then slowly climbed in next to Tweek. He hesitated a moment, then put his arm over Tweek's shoulders. "What's all this?"
"Oh God!" Tweek pitched forward, pressing his face into his knees, rocking back and forth sobbing. Kenny rubbed his shoulders, waiting. He looked up and saw Butters coming out the front door. "Me and Craig had a big fight after we got home! He—GAH!—told me he doesn't want me to go to New Hampshire with him." Tweek looked up as Butters joined them, standing just outside the car looking in at them, then buried his face in his knees again. "I think he's ashamed of me!"
"Aw, man." Kenny rubbed his shoulders harder, rocking him. "Why don't you come inside and we'll sort this out."
"Can I just stay out here? I don't—don't want to be any trouble."
"Tweek, it's twenty degrees outside!" Butters said. "It'd be a lot less trouble if you just come in now than if we have to spend ten minutes talkin' you into it and then you just do it anyway." Kenny looked up at him gratefully; he didn't think he would have been able to be as blunt. Butters voice softened: "Come on, man."
Tweek looked up miserably and nodded. He followed Kenny out of the car and they went inside. Once Tweek was sitting on their couch he was calmer, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve, and Butters left him with Kenny to bring in coffee. He returned a moment later with three cups: Two regular size ones, and one of Kenny's enormous beer steins; it held 84 ounces, was carved and painted with intricate skulls and roses, and was ridiculously big. Butters had filled it with coffee the way he knew Tweek liked it: Strong and black, with a lot of sugar. Tweek looked at it and laughed through his tears, reaching for a tissue from the box Butters had also brought and blowing his nose.
Tweek started talking after he'd drunk some coffee. "I—I just don't think he wants me anymore!" he said mournfully. "If he goes to New Hampshire, I'll be by myself over the holidays...oh god!...I do want to come with you guys!"
"Good!" Kenny said, gripping his shoulder and rocking him. "And we want you to come with us!" Butters was nodding vigorously.
"But!" Tweek shrilled. "There's six of you, and three cabins! If I go, that's seven! And then you have to get another cabin..." He shook his head violently. "It's too much money just for me..."
"Uh huh," Butters said angrily. "You just don't worry about that, mister. If you want to go, then you're going."
Kenny said: "Tweek, I was hoping eight or ten of us were going to go, so we were counting on getting at least four cabins anyway. Seven is better than six..." He looked up at Butters and smiled. "And Tweek, there's another practical reason why you should go with us." Kenny waited for Tweek to look at him, and when he finally did, he continued: "Right now there's six of us going, and three cabins, like you said. So it'll be me and Butters, Stan and Kyle...and Wendy and Cartman." Kenny grinned and gave him a playful shove. "Let that sink in for a minute."
Tweek hiccupped; it was almost a laugh. "I see what you mean!"
"Yeah! Now if you go with us, then you and Wendy can share a cabin. She likes you dude, and you'd be a hell of a lot better bunkmate for her than fatass would be. The two of you will probably hardly ever even see each other. Then we can just stick Cartman in a room by himself and everyone's happy."
"And we'll make sure Eric gets the shittiest cabin!" Butters chimed in, and Tweek finally laughed for real. Anytime Butters swore was hilarious to him. "Come on, Tweek! We want you to come."
Tweek nodded, drying his eyes on another tissue. "All right. Ah—thanks!"
"Good. Then that's settled." Kenny tapped Butters' ankle with his big toe, hoping to remind him of something. "Then let's get some sleep." Kenny stared pointedly at Butters when he said that. Butters apparently got the message as he nodded at Kenny.
"I—ah!—guess I'll sleep on the couch..."
"Maybe," Butters said, looking to Kenny for guidance.
"Tweek," Kenny said carefully. "Craig told us, like six months ago when he had that accident and thought he'd have to spend the night in the hospital that you can't sleep by yourself. He said you have really bad nightmares and toss and turn all night. If that's still a problem for you...we have a king sized bed, so there's plenty of room..."
Tweek was shaking his head. "Nuh—this is why I was going to sleep in my car! I don't want to be—"
"Any trouble," Butters finished for him. "We know. You're not...so come on."
Tweek bowed his head and said sadly, "No wonder Craig thinks I'm a freak!"
"Ah, don't say that man!" Kenny's arm was still on Tweek's shoulder and he gently pulled Tweek toward him, urging him to get up. They climbed the stairs together and went into the darkened bedroom. Butters nudged Kenny and turned on their black light. Tweek gasped; every surface of the room except for the floor was covered in myriads of glow in the dark stars. They were on the ceiling, the walls, doors, furniture, the headboard of the bed...
"Oh my God...Tweek whispered reverently. "This is awesome."
"And when we do this..." Butters turned off the black light again, leaving just the stars glowing. "It's almost bright enough to read by for a couple minutes."
"We think there's something like 7,000 stars in here now," Kenny said, as if Tweek had asked. He climbed into bed. "Butters wants me to yank up the carpet in this room and put some kind of black linoleum shit down so he can do the floor too, but I told him we have to draw the line somewhere."
"And I told Kenny we can draw it at not putting any under the bed." Butters lay down next to Kenny, both of them moving to the far side of the mattress so Tweek would have room. He pushed his legs into the blankets. "Nobody would see them there, anyway."
Tweek looked directly at both of them and solemnly said, "Gnomes." He grinned, and a moment later they were all laughing hysterically.
"Oh Jesus Christ!" Kenny cried. "There went my final argument."
Tweek carefully laid down on the bed next to Butters. "I'll help you with the carpet, Kenny."
"That's swell, Tweek." Kenny was still laughing as he lobbed one of his pillows at Tweek's head. "I'm going to hold you to it."
Tweek settled the pillow under his head and looked up at the ceiling. "You know...you guys are—ah—really good friends."
Butters leaned over to pull the blanket up to his chin. "So are you, Tweek." His eyes narrowed; Tweek was already asleep, snoring quietly.
"Wow," Butters whispered. He rolled over, wrapping an arm around Kenny and burrowing into the blankets. "I've never seen anyone fall asleep that fast; not even you, Kenny." He kissed Kenny's neck. "I love you...good night."
Kenny kissed Butters' forehead. "You're a good man, Leopold. I love you too...sweet dreams."
Kenny and Butters awoke together the next morning. Tweek wasn't in bed and they thought he'd left, but then the smell of bacon cooking reached them. They got dressed and went downstairs. Tweek was just putting bacon, eggs, and toast onto two plates and looked up when they walked into the kitchen. "Ah! I—I was going to bring you breakfast in bed!"
"You didn't have to do that, Tweek!" Butters said. "And how come you don't have a plate?"
"I want to get home and check on Craig," Tweek replied, pouring two cups of coffee. He had refilled Kenny's beer stein and had already drunk most of it. "Guess I'll...go see if I still have a home." He drained the last of his coffee.
"Okay, Tweek," Kenny said. "Will you call us later and let us know how things are? And, you know, you can come here anytime, okay?"
Tweek nodded gravely. "Thanks, guys. I will. Uh...just thank you."
After he'd left, Kenny and Butters sat down and ate the breakfast Tweek had made. "I hope he's all right," Kenny said.
"I know. Craig's been drinkin' a lot lately. Maybe he needs to get help?"
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Butters finally said: "Y'know, it's be less hassle if we just buy all the cruise tickets now and put that lottery ticket in the safe. We can cash it in when we get home."
Kenny nodded, and after breakfast Butters called their travel agent. He booked seven airline tickets to New York, seven cruise tickets from New York to Greece, and seven tickets back home from Athens with a layover in New York. Tweek called later that afternoon; it seemed there was an uneasy truce in place with Craig, so Tweek wasn't homeless. Craig left for New Hampshire three days before their own vacation began, and Tweek stayed with Kenny and Butters during the final buildup to their own trip. Three days later, seven of them left for New York for what they expected to be the vacation of a lifetime.
CHAPTER 3: Midnight Minus 1 Day 11 Hours
"For Christ's sake! I know what to do with suppositories! Just get them out of here!!" Linda Rogo screamed from the cabin across the hall.
Even if their door had been closed, Stan and Kyle would have heard her; they heard most everything the Rogos fought about. A moment later, they heard her husband's voice, softer and placating: "Aww, hon..."
Kyle burped a sort of laugh, even though he was about to puke his guts up again. He, along with over half the people on the ship, was suffering from motion sickness as the ship was tossed in the rough seas. He was lying on his side on the bed, his head hanging over the mattress with a waste basket below him to catch his vomit; it had already caught a considerable amount. Stan was behind him, spooning him and trying to brace him as the ship pitched violently. Even as Kyle was barely managing not to throw up again, and they were both clinging to the bed against the rocking of the ship, they were laughing at the ridiculous exchange they had just heard from across the hallway. Stan looked up, saw the Rogo's cabin door across the hall open, and said quietly: "I think we're next, dude."
"Oh, thank God," Kyle moaned miserably. He retched and spat up another mouthful of foul tasting liquid. There was a firm knock at the door.
-Hausinge-
Stan sat up. There was a kindly looking older man standing at the door, appearing harried but clearly in charge and clearly a doctor with a very alert looking nurse beside him carrying a medical bag. "Doctor Caravello," he said crisply, not waiting to be invited in as he stepped over to the bed.
Stan tried to give them as much information as he could as quickly as possible. "We're glad you're here, doctor. He probably has the same sea sickness everyone else does...but you should also know that he's a well-controlled diabetic, and he had a single kidney transplant about fifteen years ago. He's done great with it...at least so far."
The doctor took this in with obvious interest. "Nurse," he said, looking at the woman who was already shaking a thermometer and swooping in to do a thorough exam.
"Can you hold this under your tongue honey, or do you think you need to barf again?" she asked him, kneeling on the floor next to the waste basket, holding the thermometer up to Kyle's face. Kyle nodded and opened his mouth and she slid the thermometer under his tongue, already reaching for his wrist to take his pulse. She slid a blood pressure cuff onto Kyle's arm and pressed a button on the gadget attached to it, and the cuff tightened around his arm with a soft hum. Stan stepped back to let them work, and Kenny and Wendy came into the room to stand next to him. Butters was standing just outside the door, looking both guilty and terrified.
"Pulse is 104, doctor. His blood pressure is..." The nurse waited for the machine to show its readout. "100 over 74."
"Have you checked his blood sugar recently?" the doctor asked Stan.
Stan nodded. "Yes sir, about twenty minutes ago. It was good...105. That's about average for him." He showed the doctor Kyle's meter.
The doctor nodded and knelt down to examine Kyle himself, grasping one of his hands and pinching the skin on the back of it, then squeezing one of his fingertips hard for a moment to see how fast blood flowed back into the nail bed. "You're showing some signs of early dehydration, son," the doctor said, pulling down on Kyle's cheeks to peer into his eyes. The slightest bit of yellowing there would prompt a medical emergency, perhaps requiring Kyle to be transported to a landside hospital; fortunately his eyes, while bloodshot, were free of any signs of jaundice. "Right now I think you're okay...but you're going to need to get some fluids into you and keep them there soon."
"What do we need to do, doc?" Stan asked, stepping forward. The nurse was already reaching into the medical bag and retrieving two small packages. Each one looked like they contained a single miniature Tootsie Roll.
"Well, as you probably heard just now, we're prescribing the usual for this, a Compazine suppository for the nausea, one now and another in eight hours if he's still feeling sick. Your neighbor across the hall is obviously well-versed on how to use it, but just so we're clear, you don't swallow it, you stick it up your ass." Kyle laughed, then retched and vomited again.
The doctor went on, speaking to Stan: "I would usually be less blunt, but I have at least sixty more passengers to see...but I want you to make sure your friend gets some fluids into him." The nurse pulled a Gatorade bottle from the bag, and the doctor said: "Give them two, please." He took the two bottles from her and handed them to Stan. "If he doesn't get at least one of these down and keep it there in the next hour or so, get in touch with me through the switchboard. Wait fifteen minutes after he gets the suppository for some of his nausea to pass before he starts. Small sips only at first, and try to get him to eat something salty afterward, like pretzels or something"
Wendy stepped forward. "Doctor, I'm an ER physician in Park County, Colorado." She was already digging into her wallet for her credentials. "I'd be happy to help with a few of your patients, if I'm allowed to that is, and if it'll help."
The doctor took Wendy's credentials eagerly and studied them. "Doctor... Testaburger? I'd be glad to pass a few of them on to you. If you could take eight or ten of these off my hands, you'd make my day a whole lot better."
"Of course." Wendy took her paperwork back. "Handing out suppositories is first year stuff." The ship rocked again, only this time more violently, heeling over dangerously with an audible groan as its superstructure was pushed to its limits. Everyone instinctively grabbed something to brace themselves against the sudden tilting of the floor beneath their feet. Several things in the room toppled over and crashed to the floor, and from outside the cabin they heard the sounds of breaking glass and several people shouting. For a few moments it seemed like the ship wasn't going to right herself again at all and just keep rolling over, but then she slowly recovered and leaned less precariously the other way with another groan. Stan realized with horror that Kyle had been on the bed alone during that, and had barely managed to keep himself from being thrown to the floor. He sat back down on the bed and put his hand on Kyle's shoulder.
They all looked around at each other, relieved that they were still upright. Wendy broke the nervous silence that had fallen, her voice a shaky laugh: "I'm pretty good with sutures, too."
"Good, but—" Dr. Caravello said, looking around nervously. "Any injuries, or anything besides sea sickness, please just give back to me." He was clearly trying to take charge again. "If you could pass out suppositories to sick people after the quickest physical exam you can manage, that would be a huge help. If you see anything that looks like a stroke or a heart attack, get in touch with me immediately through the switchboard. We'll call them and tell them to give you as much courtesy as they give me." The nurse picked the cabin's bedside phone off the floor where it had just fallen to place the call.
The doctor continued: "If anyone is showing signs of being dehydrated, give them a bottle of Gatorade and tell them to drink it slowly, I gave Mr. Broflovski two bottles because I want his gimp kidney to start getting busy again. And because your cabin has been the best stop I've had all day, and I've seen almost fifty passengers already. It's refreshing not to have to deal with morons." That last was directed at Stan and Wendy. "If anyone gives you a hard time, call the switchboard and hand them back over to me."
"I'll go with her," Kenny said. "No one is going to give her a hard time."
"Good. Let's take this out into the hall so Mr. Broflovski can start getting better." Stan herded everyone out, nodding gratefully at the doctor.
"I hope you feel better soon, Kyle!" Butters called from the door, as he looked at Stan with a worried expression. Stan nodded at him, and then closed the door, locked it, quickly went back to the bed and lay down behind Kyle again. He tore open one of the small packages the nurse had given them where Kyle could see what he was doing, and then reached over Kyle's hip for the buckle on his pants. He unsnapped it, pulled down Kyle's zipper, loosened up everything and gently tugging his pants and underwear down together. Kyle could feel cool air blowing across his ass.
"Really, Stanley?" Kyle whispered. He would be beyond humiliated if it were anyone else doing this for him right now. For some reason, he thought about playing Guitar Hero with Stan years ago, in his living room 5,000 miles away.
"You only call me Stanley under the direst circumstances," Stan said. He gently pressed the waxy capsule against Kyle' anus. "I guess this qualifies, huh?"
Kyle snorted. "God, Stan. How come you always know exactly the right thing to say, no matter how fucked up everything is?"
"Because we're the super best friends, dude," Stan said without hesitation and gently pushed the suppository in. His finger only stayed long enough to ensure it had been delivered, then carefully withdrew. He gently pinched Kyle's ass cheeks together with his fingertips, as if to help push the suppository in further by sheer force of will.
They cuddled for a long time afterward, after Stan had pulled Kyle's clothes somewhat back into place and covered them both with the sheet. The ship was noticeably rocking less. "Kyle...how do you feel now?" Stan checked his watch; it had been almost fifteen minutes.
"Better." It had been awhile since he'd retched or brought anything up. "Thirsty, even. I think I should have some of that Gatorade."
"Just sip a little, okay?" Stan said, sitting up and reaching for one of the bottles. He helped Kyle sit up, letting him lean against him while he unscrewed the lid of the Gatorade bottle and handed it to him, ready to take it back if he gulped it. Kyle took a small sip, then another, and handed the bottle back. He sat up straighter, leaning against the headboard, Stan moving to sit up next to him, happy to see some of the color coming back to Kyle's face.
"Notice that the storm is almost over?" Kyle said. He managed a weak smile "It fucking figures...two minutes after you shove a goddam horse pill up my ass, the weather clears up. The doctor should have made me his first stop."
Stan laughed, at Kyle's joke plus his relief that he really was feeling better. Kyle took the Gatorade back and had a couple more sips. He went on: "This is like that time at the water park when we were kids, when all the water turned into pee. And just because I could hold my breath longer than anyone else, I was elected to swim down and open that valve, and then the army came to rescue everyone, ten seconds after I drank—" He stopped himself and sipped more Gatorade. "You know what, just forget I had that thought."
"I won't ever mention it," Stan replied, already deciding to give him a huge ration of shit about it later, when he was back on his feet and feeling normal again.
Kyle settled back against the headboard. "I'm feeling, like, a million times better already."
Stan rubbed his shoulder. "Good! The doc said you should eat something salty, like pretzels. Why don't I run across the hall and get a couple of bags?" Kyle nodded and Stan stood up. He spent a moment deciding between putting on his slippers, his Nikes, or just wearing his socks and decided on the socks. He opened their cabin door and stepped out into the hall.
The Rogo's cabin door opened a moment later, and Mike Rogo stepped out. He appeared distracted, looking at his feet for a moment, before looking up and noticing Stan. He regarded Stan for a moment with a withering look.
"The doc said she should eat some pretzels," he finally said. He sounded quite angry about this.
"Yeah," Stan said, stepping forward. "I was just going to get some for Kyle."
Mike Rogo seemed lost for words for a moment. He was a big, burly man wearing a white tee shirt, suspenders, and a perpetually angry expression. Stan recalled hearing somewhere (probably during one of their 'conversations') that he used to be a detective on the New York City police force.
"They have stuff like that there?" he asked, looking across the hall at the three vending machines behind the glass wall.
"They have potato chips, pretzels, all kinds of stuff," Stan replied, starting to walk across the hall. Mike fell in behind him, and Stan pulled out his wallet once he was standing in front of the row of vending machines. He saw one of them had Rold Gold Pretzels and put a dollar bill into the machine and pushed the button under them. The pretzel bag dropped to the slot at the bottom, and Stan bought another bag for himself then moved to his right to buy two bottles of water.
"Shit..." Mike said irritably behind him. He pulled a ten dollar bill from his wallet; it was apparently the smallest bill he had, and the machines only took dollar bills.
"Here," Stan said, handing him his last three dollars. "Just pay me back whenever."
Mike took the three bills and stared at them for a moment. "Thanks, kid." He still sounded angry; Stan was beginning to think that was just how he was all the time. Stan began to walk away as Mike made his own purchases. "You know, this is the first vacation we've been on since we got married." He sounded more sad than angry now. "First real chance we've had to get away."
Stan stopped and turned around. Mike was holding two bags of pretzels and regarding them thoughtfully. "Yeah...?"
"I hated seeing her get sick like that. Linda's had a hard life; I just wanted her to have a good time on this cruise." He stood up straighter, as if suddenly realizing he was pouring his heart out to an almost total stranger who had just loaned him three dollars. "She was really sick for a while."
Stan sighed, not sure how to answer. He surprised himself when he replied: "Kyle's diabetic. And he had a kidney transplant when he was a kid. I was pretty worried, too."
Mike's eyes went from his pretzels to meet Stan's. He regarded him coolly. "Is he feeling better now?" They started walking back toward their cabins.
"Yeah, he is. I don't know if it was that...horse pill, or just that the storm ended right after he used it."
"Yeah, I'm probably going to catch hell from Linda for that too," Mike said, and laughed for the first time since Stan had met him. They smiled at each other, seeming to form an uneasy friendship. They arrived at Mike's cabin door. "Wait here a minute.I'll go get your money." He went inside, returning a moment later with three dollars. He offered Stan his hand and they shook. "Thanks again, kid. I'm Mike, by the way."
"Stan Marsh. Um...good night, Mike. I hope Linda feels better."
"Thanks, Stan. Same for Kyle."
Stan crossed the hall to their cabin shaking his head. He tossed the two bags onto the bed and sat down crossed legged next to Kyle. He had almost finished the first bottle of Gatorade and reached eagerly for one of the pretzel bags.
"I just had an interesting conversation," Stan said. He told Kyle about his encounter with their loud neighbor from across the hall. "He's not really that bad of a guy. That constantly being angry thing he's got going on...that's his normal baseline, dude."
Kyle laughed, spraying pretzel crumbs. He wiped his mouth. "Tweek's terrified of both of them. Let's not make dinner plans with them just yet, okay?"
"Sure. Speaking of food, do you think you'll feel up to some lunch soon?"
"More like a nap really." They finished eating their pretzels in silence, and Kyle lay down on the bed facing away from Stan, knowing that he would lay down behind him so they could spoon. Stan did, tracing his fingers through Kyle's curls, smoothing some of his hair from his forehead. He had sweat a lot while he was sick.
Kyle lay still for a moment enjoying the attention, then rolled over, facing Stan and pressing his face against the collar of his shirt. He slid a hand under its hem, running his fingertips through Stan's chest hair and stopping at his right nipple, caressing it lightly. "Hey, Stan?" he whispered, pressing a kiss against Stan's throat beside his Adam's apple. "Thank you."
Stan was taken aback. "You're welcome, Kyle. Um...for...?
"For taking such good care of me," Kyle replied as if it were obvious. "I really thought I was dying for a while there. And I know the doctor was worried about my kidney. When Mrs. Rogo yelled that about suppositories, I kind of pictured going into the bathroom and...having to do that by myself. And I didn't think I'd even be able to stand up." He smiled and kissed Stan's throat again. "You handled that with your usual aplomb ...my mother would be proud of you."
"Aw." Stan laughed. "I love you, Kyle! Of course I'm going to take care of you."
"I love you too." Kyle put his cheek on Stan's chest, still caressing him inside his shirt. "And"—he tapped Stan's chest with his index finger "—because you took care of me, I'm going to take care of you later. Right after midnight? You're going to give me the best ass pounding you've given me all year."
Stan's eyes widened. "Oh, really now?" He suddenly laughed. "Wait—that'll be the only one I've given you all year..."
"Stan...play the cards you're dealt."
"Yes, sir," Stan replied, laughing.
Kyle got up on one elbow and grinned at him. "But first I need to rest up for it." He reached behind Stan and turned off the bedside lamp. Their cabin had no window, so the only light now was the one coming from the bathroom.
Kyle lay back down with his head on Stan's shirt, caressing his chest hair again. He was asleep a minute later, and Stan closed his eyes, listening to him softly snoring.
~
Two hours later, Kenny and Butters were standing outside Kyle and Stan's cabin. "Do you think we should knock again?" Butters asked nervously. Kenny had rejoined him five minutes ago, Wendy's rounds of the ship finally complete.
Kenny reached for the doorknob. "Stan said if they were fucking, they'd lock their door," he replied, turning the knob and walking into the dimly lit room. He took one look at the two figures huddled under a sheet on the bed and held up his hand. Stan and Kyle were both deeply asleep, Stan's face now pressed against Kyle's back, each snoring softly to their own rhythm.
"Oh, geez," Butters said quietly, smiling. "Kyle must have been exhausted after that."
"I don't have the heart to wake them," Kenny replied, pulling Butters close as they looked at Stan and Kyle sleeping peacefully together. "Why don't we see what kind of mischief we can get into for a couple hours without them, okay?"
Butters grinned at him. "Let's just stay away from our cabin, or I know what kind of mischief we'll get into!"
Kenny snorted laughter and they turned away and quickly walked back out into the hallway, closing the cabin door quietly behind them. Wendy, Dr. Caravello, and the nurse were standing nearby, conferring together. Wendy was scribbling notes in the patients' charts she'd been given and handing them to the nurse.
"I went to ten cabins and handed out a grand total of six suppositories," Wendy said to the doctor as Kenny and Butters joined them. "That storm ended, and everybody started telling me they were feeling better."
"And passengers are cancelling their appointments," the doctor said cheerfully, writing his own notes on his stack of charts. "I think the crisis is over."
Tweek walked up to them, having climbed two flights up the grand staircase from Broadway. He looked winded, and the shirt he was wearing was drenched with sweat. "That was awesome!" he said happily. He mopped sweat from his forehead with a towel and grinned. He'd bought his own mirrored sunglasses three days ago and they were currently perched atop his head in his wild mane of blonde hair. "It was like walking in a giant sauna!"
"We're going up on deck," Butters said. "To see what's left up there after the apocalypse. You coming?"
"I'm going to take a shower first!" Tweek replied. He was happy, and also remarkably calm. Stan had been right: This cruise had done wonders for him. Or at least wearing himself out walking for several hours a day had. "I'll see you guys in a little while!" He went into his cabin, pulling his shirt off his scrawny frame even before he'd closed the door.
Kenny, Butters, and Wendy made their way down the short hallway and outside the ship. The late afternoon sun was sinking toward the ship's wake behind them.
Butters pointed out a small gathering, maybe thirty people in rows of chairs, listening to an outdoor church service. They wandered in that direction, pausing a short distance away to listen. Butters leaned his forearms against a railing, Wendy and Kenny settling on either side of him. The preacher was tall, dark haired, and extremely charismatic; his rhetoric soon drew them in.
"You know," Kenny said after several minutes. "If Father Maxi were half as interesting as this guy, I'd probably go to church more."
Butters nodded at him, and saw over his shoulder Belle and Manny Rosen approaching them, accompanied by Tweek. He had showered, put on fresh clothes, and was escorting Belle by her forearm, her husband on her other side. Kenny and Butters turned to greet them. "This is quite an interesting sermon," Kenny commented. "I've seen him around the ship a few times. I had no idea he was a priest."
"That's Reverend Scott," Belle said fondly. "He is quite something. We gather his church has sent him somewhere on this side of the world to do missionary work."
"I like what he has to say about personal responsibility," Manny took his wife's hand. "About asking God to work with you to solve your problems, not asking him to solve them for you."
"Isn't that right, Robin?" Reverend Scott suddenly said, speaking to his congregation but clearly addressing a ten year old boy in the crowd, who looked up and grinned.
"Right!"
The Reverend continued, leaning over a railing, using it as a pulpit. "So...what resolutions should we make for the new year? Resolve to let God know that you have the guts and the will to do it alone! Resolve to fight for yourselves, and for others, and for those you love."
Butters was fascinated by the sermon. Kenny's attention was elsewhere. "I've been seeing that kid all over this ship too," he said. "He was up here on deck a couple hours ago during that storm, heading toward the bridge."
"So have I!" Tweek laughed. "We've been, ah, trading high scores on that missile command game near our cabins." He explained what he meant.
The service was ending when Kenny said, "Maybe we should go check on Stan and Kyle again."
"Stan and Kyle are fine," Kyle said, joining them with Stan in tow. "Going to church now, Kenny?"
"Just observing from afar," Kenny laughed, happy to see Kyle on his feet again. "While staying spiritually uncommitted."
"Which is Kenny's way of saying he doesn't want to give up part of his Sundays to go to church," Butters said. He squeezed Kenny's hand affectionately. "You're not fooling anyone, mister!"
"Maybe we could discuss our spiritual affiliations in the dining room," Stan said. "Kyle and I are starving. Anyone for an early dinner?"
"I've been walking for three hours!" Tweek replied. "Yeah! I could eat something." Just before he turned away, he looked over at the church crowd and caught 'RES' (he now knew the R stood for Robin) staring at him, and wondered if they would meet again before the cruise ended, or just keep trading high scores on their game separately without ever speaking again.
CHAPTER 4: Midnight Minus 11 Hours
The next afternoon was much colder and sunny with calm seas. After an enormous lunch, five of them gathered outside on deck in their usual place. Cartman was still in the casino trying to win back some of the almost $2,000 he'd lost since the beginning of the cruise, and Wendy was in her and Tweek's cabin taking a nap.
"If this wasn't the last day of the cruise," Stan said. "I'd be tempted to take a nap too. I might go a lap or three around the ship with you, Tweek, just to wake up."
Tweek grinned. "I'm not moving until I've had time to digest some of that lunch." He belched, loudly enough for other people nearby to hear. Stan couldn't help noticing again the wonders this cruise had worked on Tweek; his usual tics and jitteriness were virtually gone.
As if reading Stan's mind, Kenny asked: "How're you doing Tweek? Okay?"
Tweek nodded. If one of them had asked that the first day of the cruise, Tweek thought he might have jumped off the ship. Now, he simply appreciated their concern. "I'm okay. I, uh...if nothing else, at least I won't be homeless when we get back to South Park."
"That's right you won't!" Butters said. "If it comes to that, you can stay with us as long as you need to. And it won't come to that! You know what they say absence makes the heart do."
He nodded again. "Thanks, man." He pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head, remembering Butters' experience of a few days ago. He looked over Kyle's shoulder and saw ten year old 'RES', his Missile Command game rival, standing a short distance away, watching them and trying to be inconspicuous. Tweek wondered why he was there and what he was up to.
Ten year old Robin Shelby had been hoping for an excuse to go over and talk to one of this interesting-looking group of men for two days now. Seeing 'TNT', his missile command friend, standing with them during church yesterday, obviously part of their group, had given him the perfect excuse to walk over and start a conversation. Hopefully it would give him the opportunity to speak to the dark haired one alone. He realized that TNT had just spotted him and that the time had come. Robin mustered up his courage and walked up to Tweek. "Hey, you're TNT, on the Missile Command game, aren't you?" His heart was slamming in his chest, hoping this group would accept him.
Tweek grinned, delighted to be face to face with his opponent at last. "And you're RES." He shook Robin's hand. "I'm Tweek. That's been a fun game!"
"What's the R and the S stand for?" Stan asked.
"Robin Shelby, sir," he said with a friendly grin, shaking Stan's hand next.
"I'm Stan Marsh. This is Kyle..." They shook.
"Kenny McCormick," Kenny said, shaking his hand next. "We'll make a deal with you. Don't call us 'sir'...and we won't call you 'kid', okay?"
Robin looked puzzled for a moment, unsure if he was being made fun of. The smile on Kenny's face told him he was joking. "It's a deal, sir—uh, Kenny!"
They laughed, and Butters shook his hand last. "Hi. I'm Butters."
"I saw you yesterday," Kenny said, sounding admonishing. "Going up to the bridge during that storm. I'm not sure you were supposed to be walking around outside then."
"Yeah." Robin's bright eyes darkened for a moment with anger. "I got in a lot of trouble with my mom and dad for that, too. They grounded me from going back to the engine room—"
Kenny and Butters both laughed. At Robin's confused look, Kenny said: "Sorry, man. We're not laughing at you...uh, it's a private joke." He grinned at Butters. "Right?"
"At least I'm not the only one who ever got grounded!" Butters laughed.
Their casual banter with him had made Robin feel at ease, but the difficult part was still ahead. He waited for a moment when Kyle was distracted by something Kenny was saying, then nudged Stan. "Hey!" he whispered. "Can I ask you something?" He tipped his head toward the doors, indicating that he wanted to do this in private.
Stan cocked his eyebrow. "Sure, Robin, give me a second." Stan waited until Kyle was finished talking to Kenny and said, "Hey, I'm going inside for chips and sodas. Robin, you're elected to help carry." Robin nodded and they went inside the ship together.
"There, that was easy enough," Stan said as they walked down the corridor deeper into the ship. Robin seemed introspective as they walked past their four cabins and entered the brightly lit glass-walled room together. Stan dug out his wallet and stood in front of the soda machine, feeding dollar bills into it. "So, Robin...what's up?"
Robin looked nervous. Stan almost expected him to start knocking his fists together like Butters would. "Well, sir...I don't know; it's kind of embarrassing."
Stan folded his arms across his chest. "Well. Okay...look at it this way, Robin. I'm not going to judge, and if it's something really embarrassing and you don't think you can face me afterwards, there's fifteen hundred people on this ship, and you can easily disappear in them until the end of the cruise. And once we dock tomorrow, we'll probably never see each other again."
Robin nodded, thinking how much sense that made. He would never get another chance like this, so he roused his courage and blurted out: "Stan, I saw you and Kyle holding hands two days ago. And...I saw you kiss him. And..." he trailed off.
Stan's eyebrows shot up. He was sure Robin hadn't asked to talk to him in private just to bash him or preach religion to him; and a moment before Robin said anything else, he figured out on his own why Robin had asked him here.
"That's so cool," Robin said, looking at the floor. He took a deep breath. "I guess you're the first person I ever came out to, Stan." He looked up again. "Should I go disappear now?"
"Huh." Stan cocked his head. "You better not." He couldn't help but smile at the relief that flooded into Robin's face.
"Oh, good," Robin whispered, perhaps not meaning Stan to hear. He continued, louder: "I haven't been able to tell anyone before. None of my friends, definitely not my sister or parents..." He trailed off.
Stan sighed. "God, I know exactly how hard that is too, dude. I'm glad you came to talk to me."
"I am too, sir." He sounded humble.
"Do you have a best friend back home, Robin?" Robin's eyes brightened as if he had been hoping to talk about him.
"Oh, you bet I do! Pete McCafferty." Robin said happily. "He moved to my neighborhood a year ago. He's one year older than me, but he got held back a grade in school, so we're in the same class. But he's real smart, Stan! He plays the guitar...and he tries to sing." Robin trailed off, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. "He's not very good, but he tries hard. Look—"
Robin brought up a picture on his phone and handed it to Stan. It was a class photo of a smiling boy with dark brown hair and bright, friendly eyes. Stan thought he looked a little like Clyde Donovan had when he was about twelve. Robin reached over Stan's hand to push a button on his phone, and another picture came up: Pete, sitting cross-legged on a floor, leaning against a bed and holding a guitar in his lap. "That was in my room," he said, pushing the button again, bringing up a picture of Pete and Robin in a swimming pool, both clinging to an inner tube and smiling up at whoever took the picture, wet hair plastered to their foreheads.
"Ah," Stan said, touched by what Robin had shared with him. "He's a nice looking kid."
"He's my best friend," Robin replied, as if it was obvious. He took his phone back from Stan and gazed at the picture for a long moment before putting his phone away.
"Yeah. Kyle was my best friend when we were around your age, too. You're what, Robin? About ten?"
"I'll be eleven next month," Robin said proudly. "And Pete turns twelve one week later."
Stan nodded. "You...love him, don't you?"
"Oh God, yes!" Robin looked like he'd been dying to say this to someone. "I'm in love with him. I knew you would understand! It—it feels really good to talk to somebody about this."
"I know it does, Robin. It's not easy at your age," Stan said. He leaned against the corner of the vending machine as if preparing to have a long talk with him. "Seriously, Robin: Once we're finished here, come talk to my friends again. They're going to love you, man." Robin was beaming happily. "Those four guys back there? We've all been friends since we were like eight years old. And...my Kyle? I've known him since we were in preschool, dude."
Robin's eyes grew wide. "Wow...you've been together your whole lives then."
"Well," Stan replied, chuckling. "We've been friends for our whole lives, but we didn't figure out the whole being in love with each other part until we were seventeen. But we compared notes afterward, and it turns out we were both in love with each other since we were ten, and we were both too scared to say anything to each other about it."
"Oh, gosh," Robin said, thinking of his own situation.
Stan continued: "And Kenny and Butters?" Stan removed their sodas from the vending machine, handing three to Robin and keeping three. "Those two were friends since they were eight...and they fell in love with each other five days after me and Kyle finally got together." Stan smiled. "That was quite a week."
"How did they...?" Robin started to ask, and then rephrased his question. "Why did it take them so long?"
"Kenny found Butters being abused by his dad, and pretty much rescued him from that. They've been together ever since that night. Kenny's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet."
"What about Tweek?" Robin would always think of him as TNT, his rival on Missile Command. He glanced at the game and saw that Tweek had taken back the high score again, and remembered he only had about a day to reclaim it before the cruise ended. "I...hope he has somebody too?"
"Ah." Stan was about to put a dollar into the next machine to buy pretzels. Robin's comment made him pause. "He does...but that's kind of a sore subject with him. They're having problems. It might be best not to say anything to him about that."
Robin nodded sadly. "Okay...I'm sorry to hear that. He seems nice."
"Tweek's a great guy," Stan said. "He's really, really high strung though. He's been that way his whole life...but he's devoted, you know?" Stan tried to find the right word to describe what Craig was to Tweek, and went with one Butters would use. "His fella, Craig...he's got a drinking problem. It makes him mean sometimes, and he takes his anger out on Tweek a lot."
"That sounds like my parents." Robin looked at the floor. "They've been fighting for months. I think they were hoping this cruise would fix things, but they just fight here, too. My sister thinks they might be getting a divorce."
Stan shook his head. "Ah, man. I'm sorry to hear that, Robin."
"I just wish people would get along, you know? If I had someone to love, I'd never fight with them, or be mean to them." He looked at Stan gravely. "I can't wait to see Pete again."
"I bet." Stan pulled bags of pretzels and chips from the vending machine. "You ready to come and really meet my friends?"
Robin nodded. "But...would you tell them? That was..."
"Kind of exhausting?" Stan said, smiling. "Sure I will." Robin looked at him and smiled gratefully. They made their way back down the hall and outside. Kyle looked up at them curiously.
"Guys," Stan said as he and Robin passed out snacks and sodas. "Robin had a reason for coming to talk to us: It seems we all, ah, play for the same team."
"Oh, cool," Butters said quietly.
"That's not easy at your age, is it Robin?" Kenny asked, echoing what Stan had said, and Robin was grateful for the gravity with which he asked. These people really did understand.
"No sir. It's not." He didn't say anything about the ache he felt when he was with Pete, how much he wanted to hold him and kiss him and—tell him how he felt. He had an idea these four men already knew what that was like.
"Show them those pictures you showed me, Robin," Stan said, and they ducked into the hallway to get out of the sun. Tweek put his sunglasses in his shirt pocket as Robin proudly showed them his pictures of Pete, and told them about their classes together, and how they were together outside of school every minute that they could be.
"I wish I could talk to him like I'm talking to you guys," Robin finally said. "I just don't know if I can wait until I'm seventeen."
"Aw, man," Kenny replied. "You know, the best thing to do is just enjoy every bit of your time together. If it's meant to happen, then it'll happen. That's how it was with us." He patted Robin on the shoulder affectionately. "You'll be okay, trust me."
Robin nodded. "Thank you, Kenny."
After they'd talked a few more minutes, Robin noticed that Tweek had a wistful, faraway look, staring out toward the ocean. Robin nudged him. "Hey! You want to go play Missile Command?"
Tweek looked at him and brightened immediately. "Sure!"
"It was great meeting you guys!" Robin said sincerely, looking around at each one of them. "I'll see you again before the cruise is over, right?"
"You bet, Robin," Stan replied. "We need to trade email addresses or Facebook pages or something. Our cabins are right across from those vending machines, so stop by in the morning before we dock. Kyle and I are in room 81C. I'd like us to stay in touch."
Robin nodded happily. "I'd like that, too." He followed Tweek inside the ship.
"Wow," Kyle said, once they'd left. "That was great."
"It's hard to believe we were once that young," Kenny said, putting his arm around Butters' waist. "Poor kid; I hope everything works out for him."
Stan replied, "You should have seen the look on his face when he told me, and I didn't, you know, reject him. I think he's feeling a lot better, just finally having someone to talk to for a while. He's really in love with his friend, and since he can't tell him that, he told me instead. I think that meant the world to him." He nudged Kyle. "Hey, I think that was my perfect oh holy shit moment."
"Well, good for you Stan," Kyle said, grinning. "Mine's still coming...you'll see."
CHAPTER 5: Midnight
"There's got to be a morning after—"
"Oh, Christ, if I have to hear this fucking song one more time," Cartman said irritably, throwing his fork onto the tablecloth and pressing his hands to the sides of his head. It seemed to be the band's signature song; this was the third time tonight they'd performed it.
Mr. Acres set a fresh drink in front of Cartman. "They're not so terrible, Mr. Cartman." He had to speak up to be heard over the noise of the hundreds of people around them. His full staff of stewards was on duty, making their way through the crowded dining room, refilling drinks and clearing away dessert dishes.
"Yeah, I know Acres. You 'rather fancy them.' Sorry if I don't fancy the sound of a cat being strangled with a bagpipe, but I just don't get the appeal."
Stan almost spat a mouthful of chocolate mousse pie laughing. "Jesus, Cartman! They're not that bad."
"Nothing that an icepick in the eardrums won't cure." Cartman tossed back half his drink in a single gulp, then sat back and loosened his tie. They were all dressed in their finest suits; Tweek was even wearing a black tux.
Stan looked behind Wendy and spotted Robin making his way across the crowded dining room toward their table. He smiled and patted the back of the empty chair next to him on the opposite side from Kyle, and Robin sat down.
"My mom and dad are arguing again," he said without preamble as he leaned his arms on the table. "I thought I'd come and sit with you guys for a while, if that's okay?"
"We're glad to have you, Robin," Stan told him. He felt Kyle's hand on his leg underneath the table.
"I wrote this down for you," Robin said, removing a slip of paper from his suit pocket and handing it to Stan. It had a phone number and two email addresses written on it. "I really hope we can stay in touch after this cruise is over."
"I'd like that too," Stan said. "And you can find me on Facebook. I'm Stan Darsh." He spelled it for him as Robin wrote it down, and also gave him his email address, their phone number and Kenny and Butters' home and business numbers.
Robin stayed with them for fifteen minutes, enjoying being with people who were laughing and having a good time instead of constantly arguing. He and Tweek made plans to play Missile Command again tomorrow morning before the ship docked. He finally looked at his watch. "Hey, it's 11:40," he said. "I guess I'd better get back to my table before midnight."
"Okay, Robin," Stan replied. "Stop by our cabins in the morning to say goodbye if you get a chance."
Robin nodded. "I will." He offered his hand and they shook. "Thank you, Stan. I really mean it." Robin looked at everyone at the table individually. "I'm glad I got to meet you guys." He walked off to rejoin his family on the other side of the dining room.
"Who's the kid?" Cartman asked.
"Just someone I played Missile Command with a few times," Tweek replied. He was starting to feel nervous and twitchy again and thought about going for another walk around the ship after the party was over.
Kenny and Butters were whispering together; they looked up and Kenny said, "Guys, we've decided not to stick around for midnight. I've got a headache and Butters is tired, it's going to get noisy as fuck in here...anyone else want to leave early?"
"I'll go just to get away from that music," Cartman grumbled.
Stan and Kyle nodded to each other. Stan asked, "Where do you want to go, Kenny?"
"Let's go up on deck," Kyle suggested. "We can ring in the new year under the stars."
"Yeah!" Tweek said happily. "I can do my ten mile walk! If I start at midnight, I'd be done before 2:30."
Stan seemed agreeable to this idea as well, but Kenny was shaking his head. "Guys, that storm we had yesterday really cooled things down. It's pretty cold up there, and with a thirty mile an hour wind, it might be really uncomfortable."
"We've got jackets with us." Kyle seemed eager to get going. They'd finished their meals half an hour ago, and everyone was just waiting around to ring in the New Year.
"Where do you want to go, Kenny?" Stan asked again. "As long as it's somewhere we can all be together at midnight, I don't really care."
Kenny smiled and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Well, I don't know about midnight...but I do know I want to be balls deep in Butters by 12:30."
"Sick, dude!" Cartman cried while everyone else at the table laughed. Butters put a hand over his face blushing, and Kenny nudged him affectionately.
Kenny continued, "Seriously, why don't we just go hang out in the hallway right outside our cabins? I don't need to hear hundreds of people shouting 'Happy New Year' and singing Auld Lang Syne. I bet it'll be deserted there...and it could be just the seven of us." He turned to Tweek. "And if you still want to do your ten miles, I'll go with you if we can start at seven tomorrow morning."
"And I'll go too" Butters said. "Well, maybe not the whole ten miles, but I'll go as far as I can."
"Maybe Mr. Acres will let us sneak out of here with a couple bottles of champagne and a bottle opener," Kyle said, holding up a fluted glass and draining it in one gulp." Acres, ever the perfect steward, was right there to refill his glass. Butters caught his sleeve and whispered to him, and Acres smiled and walked off.
"Consider it done Kyle," Butters said, grinning.
Acres returned a minute later with a small cardboard box with no less than four bottles of champagne, a stack of small plastic cups, and a bottle opener. "I'll just pop round tomorrow morning to pick up that corkscrew," he said, handing the box to Butters, who immediately passed it over to Kenny.
"Thanks, Mr. Acres!" Kenny said as they all rose from the table at once. "Happy New Year!"
"Same to you sirs, thank you!" He was already moving toward another table to refill someone's glass. The seven of them walked toward the nearest exit. From across the room, Robin held up his hand in a wave, and they all waved back, even Cartman.
They made their way down the corridor toward the grand staircase, laughter and conversations echoing in the empty hallways around them. It seemed they were the only ones on the ship who weren't in the dining room; apart from them, this part of the ship was deserted. Cartman had already confiscated one of the champagne bottles from the box Kenny was carrying and was digging the corkscrew into the top of it as he walked.
"This is going to be the best New Year's ever!" Wendy said as they reached the grand staircase. They made their way down two flights of stairs to their deck. The champagne bottle in Cartman's hands opened with a bang, the cork bouncing off the ceiling and landing at the bottom of the steps. A geyser of foam erupted from the bottle. Cartman slurped up some of it as the rest ran down his hands onto the carpet. Kenny took the bottle from him, took a swig from it and handed it to Butters who took a small sip and passed it to Tweek. Stan stopped long enough to pick up the cork and put it in his pocket. A thirty second stroll took them past the room with the vending machines and they spread out along the wall by their cabin doors. Cartman, Wendy and Tweek formed their own group a short distance away from the other four, who had paired off.
"What time is it, Kyle?" Kenny asked. Kyle had set his watch earlier to the ship's chronometer.
"It's..." he looked at his watch and paused for a moment. "Exactly two minutes to midnight!" He kissed Stan, pressing their lips together hard while his arms circled Stan's back. He could see Kenny and Butters doing the same; Butters had Kenny backed up to their cabin door with his forearms framing his head while Kenny's hands were molded to Butters' ass through his dress pants.
"Jesus, Kyle!" Stan whispered urgently, pressing himself against Kyle while their tongues mapped the familiar territory of each other's lips. "At this rate I'm not even going to make it to midnight."
"I know," Kyle breathed. "Just a few more minutes..."
Cartman was still standing with Wendy and Tweek, and had an enormous cigar in his mouth that he was lighting and puffing into life.
Even from two decks below and at least a hundred feet away, they could hear the emcee in the dining room say: "Ladies and gentlemen! It is exactly...fifty seconds to midnight!"
"He's four seconds slow," Kyle said, looking at his watch.
"Christ, Kyle!" Cartman said. "If you hurry, you might be able to get there before midnight and tell him."
Kenny opened the second champagne bottle with a loud pop. He gulped at the foam that shot from the mouth of it and handed it to Butters. Butters took a sip while Kenny started on the third bottle. Wendy and Tweek both had their cameras out and were taking dozens of pictures.
They heard the countdown from ten start and joined in, Kyle pointedly staring at his watch and counting off numbers four lower than everyone else. When everyone else was on "four", he shouted, "Happy New Year!" His voice echoed through the empty corridors.
At the stroke of midnight they heard bedlam from the dining room two decks above them. The Poseidon's horn blew a single mournful blast. The tattered strains of the band playing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' filtered down to them.
They heard the enormous crowd beginning the familiar melody of 'Auld Lang Syne'. All seven of them joined in, unselfconsciously belting out the words, their voices echoing up and down the empty halls. Cartman had his thick arm over Tweek's shoulder and they were crooning together with surprisingly good harmony.
The second verse of the song came around. The seven of them looked around at each other for a moment; only Cartman and Tweek knew the lyrics and continued the song, looking at each other for a second, each surprised that the other knew the words. Their harmony was astonishingly good
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp !
and surely I'll be mine !
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
"What does that even mean?" Stan asked.
"It's an old Scottish poem," Tweek said. None of them had ever seen him look so serene as he went on. "I...I think it's about two strangers who meet in a bar, and they don't know each other well enough to buy each other drinks, so each...buys their own pint, and then they drink a toast to the old times together. At least that's what my dad told me once."
"Stan, this is it!" Kyle said, looking into Stan's eyes and going on to explain what he meant as if Stan didn't already know. "This is my perfect oh holy shit moment. When this cruise is over, this right here is the time I'm going to remember most from it."
Wendy raised her camera and snapped a picture, Kyle barely looking away in time from being blinded by the flash. "There!" she said happily. "Now you'll have something to remember it by."
Kyle pressed Stan against their cabin door. His lips brushed the rim of Stan's ear as he kissed it and continued, "I figured something else out just now. This whole trip has been one big oh holy shit moment. Meeting Robin, and his coming out to you? The sex we had outside when we went through the Strait of Gibraltar? Even when I thought I was going to puke up Cartman's kidney...that was an oh holy shit moment too. You took such good care of me, Stan...and I knew you wouldn't let me die."
"It's about time, Broflovski," Kenny said, his words muffled by Butters' lips against his mouth. Butters snorted laughter and glanced sideways at Kyle for a moment, then turned his attention back to Kenny. Butters had Kenny backed up against the wall eight feet away and was slowly humping his leg.
"Jesus, dude," Stan said, also watching them. He backed Kyle against the wall, framing his head with his forearms, and gave him a deep kiss. "They're not going to make it until 12:30, and at this rate neither am I." Kyle kissed him back, and then looked in the other direction; Wendy, Tweek and Cartman were doing some kind of almost group hug, their faces inches apart, sharing something. Wendy was saying something to Tweek so quietly that they couldn't hear, but Tweek was nodding vigorously. Kyle turned his head to look the other way again. Butters now had the side of his head resting on Kenny's chest, looking straight back at Kyle and smiling contentedly. "Oh yeah fellas..." he breathed.
"I love you guys," they heard Cartman mutter. There was a long moment of silence, the only sound the faint and constant background drone of the engines that powered the ship.
That sound was something they had become so accustomed to that when it changed suddenly, its timbre growing louder and deeper, they all looked around nervously at each other. They felt the ship shudder as its engines revved and begin leaning gently to starboard as they felt it going into an abrupt turn. A moment later, an alarm began ringing, an urgent claxon horn joined a moment later by a second alarm, a shrill ringing bell that seemed to be coming from everywhere.
"Hey, what the hell!" Kyle cried, pulling away from Stan. Butters had his hands pressed against his ears and was looking around nervously. For some reason, the ship was turning very sharply, and they found themselves abruptly having to lean against the wall to stay on their feet. The ship was heeled over every bit as much as it was yesterday during the storm when they had been certain for a moment it was about to roll over. They could hear things falling over inside the cabins around them.
Tweek found himself standing between Cartman and Wendy with his back pressed against the wall to keep his balance. He was the only one who saw the danger looming above them as the ship canted even farther over: The three large vending machines behind the glass wall. Cartman seemed oblivious to the obvious danger.
"We have to move!" Tweek screeched, tugging on Cartman's arm. He eyes never left the menace across the hall. Wendy was already hurrying toward Stan and Kyle, her hand sliding along the wall as she walked to keep her balance.
"Those machines are chained down, Tweek!" Cartman said, not sounding entirely certain. Tweek could barely hear him over the sounds of the alarms.
"Come on, you idiot!" Tweek screamed, yanking Cartman's arm until he had no choice but to follow Tweek down the hall, not stopping until they were with Wendy again. The seven of them were now clustered together, waiting for the ship to right herself again. They looked up as a sound reached them from outside the ship like an approaching train, only it came much too fast, and as the noise rumbled over them, they felt the ship rise up like an elevator ascending too quickly and then slam down into the sea on her side with a deafening roar, throwing all of them off their feet.
Kyle found himself face down on the wall, which had suddenly become their floor. He knew he was screaming, but it was drowned out by the noise of what sounded like the ship tearing itself apart. Stan crawled on top of him, his arms and legs trying to wrap themselves around every part of Kyle from above as Stan said loudly against his ear: "I love you, Kyle!" Kyle realized that Stan thought this was the moment they were going to die, and knew with sudden terror and certainty that he was right. He turned his head and met Stan's eyes and mouthed "I love you, Stan," too frightened to find his voice. Stan wouldn't have heard him anyway.
All three vending machines toppled forward, two of them crashing through the glass wall in a shower of broken glass and flying soda cans. The third machine along with the Missile Command game fell through a moment later, the latter slamming into the wall three feet from Cartman. The chain that once secured one of the machines to the floor slashed through the air and struck Cartman on the side of the head. Tweek was lying on the wall with his hands over his ears shrieking, and none of them could hear him over the ear shattering roar of the ship.
Kyle looked from Stan's terrified eyes to what was happening next to them. Kenny was lying on top of Butters with his arms wrapped around his head, face pressed to his ear, probably telling him the same thing that Stan had said moments ago. Kenny suddenly reared his head back, glaring up at the opposite wall which was now looming above them, large shards of glass still falling a few feet away from them. "Come on you bitch!" Kenny screamed, as it still seemed for a moment there was some chance the ship might somehow right itself again.
Objects—furniture, luggage, pieces of broken walls and ceiling—started tumbling down the connecting hallway thirty feet away. Kyle realized with horror that a few of those objects were people, who landed hard on the falling debris and stopped moving.
The ship lay on its side for only a moment longer and then continued its relentless roll. They found themselves sliding or rolling up—no, down—the wall toward the ceiling as, outside, the upper decks of the ship thundered down and buried themselves beneath the sea.
The noise grew to an earsplitting crescendo as suddenly, three decks now above them, everything in the engine room that once powered the great ship broke loose from their mountings under stress they had never been designed to withstand. Generators, turbines, enormous boilers each holding 1,500 gallons of scalding water, metal tanks filled with fuel and oil, all broke away from the floor and landed on the ceiling of the engine room, the fuel tanks exploding and killing dozens of hapless crewmembers in an orgy of death and destruction.
The noise started to abate as the ship finally settled, now upside down in the water. They all heard Kenny say wonderingly: "Jesus Christ, this fucking ship just capsized."
Then the lights went out, plunging them into complete and utter darkness.
CHAPTER 6: Midnight Plus 12 Minutes
"Oh God!" Tweek screamed in the blackness. "Oh my God!"
"Somebody make a light!" Kenny shouted at the same time a spark flickered by Cartman. It took him three tries to get his lighter lit, and when he finally did, he held it over his head, its weak light only reaching a few feet around him, revealing the upside down nightmarish landscape around them.
They were lying on the ceiling of the hallway, the carpeted floor now eight feet above. The thin faux mahogany veneer of the ceiling had been interspersed with squares of frosted glass for lighting. Now reversed to become the floor, everything was broken and crumbled, exposing the thin steel girders that formerly held the ceiling in place. The single light from Cartman threw harsh waving shadows on everything. Everyone began talking loudly at once; Tweek was crying hysterically, seeming about to panic and run blindly into the darkness.
"Guys!" Kenny shouted, his voice rising above the din enough to get everyone's attention. During the moment of silence that followed, he said, emphasizing each word: "We're still floating."
They looked around and realized he was right. A few moments ago it had appeared that the ship was about to plunge to the bottom of the sea. But now, even though they were upside down and everything around them was in ruins, the ship was floating as calmly as it had been twenty minutes ago. Cartman began slowly walking toward the others, holding the lighter over his head. They all instinctively walked toward him as well. A moment later, a few lights along the ceiling—their new "floor"—flickered on, casting a wane glow on everything.
"Oh thank God!" Tweek breathed. They could look around now and see the full scale of the disaster. One of the most striking things was all the knobs on the cabin doors lining both sides of the hallway were now at head height.
"Shit, Cartman, you're bleeding!" Stan said. The dim lights had revealed a cut across the side of Cartman's head; the collar of his dress shirt was drenched with blood. Wendy rushed over to him, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to press against the side of his head.
"It isn't that bad of a cut, Cartman," she told him a moment later. "Scalp wounds always bleed a lot; you're going to be fine. Here, hold this against it."
She turned around to look at the others. "What do we do now?"
"We don't stay here," Kenny said immediately. "I don't know how long we're going to float, but we don't want to be in here if this ship does sink. We need to find a way to get outside."
"Then what?" Tweek asked desperately. "Even if we're outside! If this ship sinks—"
"They would have sent out an SOS," Stan said, facing Kyle but speaking to everyone. "Help is on the way."
"How do you know they sent an SOS?" Tweek was desperate, still looking ready to panic and bolt.
"Tweek!" Kenny snapped. "Those alarms started going off at least a couple minutes before we turned over. They had time, trust me."
"We all heard the engines speed up, even before those alarms went off," Wendy said. "They knew something was about to happen."
"Exactly!" Kenny put an arm over Butters' shoulder. "We have to get outside the ship while it's still floating. Even if it goes down, there'll be enough stuff floating around afterward that we can hang onto something until help gets here. Come on guys...let's talk about it while we're doing something, okay?"
"Oh God, Kyle!" Tweek screamed. "What if we'd gone up on deck before midnight, instead of coming here? We'd all be dead!"
Kyle shook his head; he had something else on his mind. "What about all those people in the dining room?" he asked desperately. "Our friends were down there!"
"I don't think we can help them, Kyle!" Stan said. "They were two decks above us before the ship turned over. They're two decks below us now—"
"And even if we could get to them," Kenny added. "That dining room went the full width of the ship. A lot of those people in there must have fallen..." his voice trailed off as he thought about it. A lot of the New Year's celebrants in the crowded dining room would have fallen a hundred feet or more when the ship capsized. "We were in about the best possible part of this ship."
"Robin was down there, Stan!" Kyle cried. "And the Rosens! And—"
"Kyle!" Kenny grabbed his arm, and once he had Kyle's attention he shook his head. "We can't help them."
Kyle stared at Kenny for a moment, then looked away. There was a low rumbling from the ship, as if something enormous had shifted deep in her bowels. He realized the hopelessness of it; they would be lucky if the seven of them got out with their lives. There was no way to know how long the ship could float this way.
"We have to get ourselves out of this," Kenny said, looking away from Kyle to speak to them all. "If we make it out, we can send help for them...but we have to get moving. We're floating...but we don't know how long we're going to be."
"Acres said they couldn't fill the ballast tanks with water," Stan said hopefully. "If that means they're full of air, and they're above us now, that might help us float for a while."
"That's right!" Kenny said. His confidence was beginning to rally them. "Guys! The easiest way to get outside is how we've been doing it for the past ten days. We just have to get down that hallway and we're there. It's only a hundred feet or so, and once we get out there, we can just camp out on the hull of the ship until help comes."
"Shit!" Tweek screeched. "Let's go!" He started to walk off and Kenny grabbed his sleeve.
"Guys, wait!" Kenny said, letting go of Tweek and holding up his hand. "Look...let's don't panic. Someone should probably check and make sure we can get out that way first before we all go. We'll just be wasting time if we get there and those doors are locked or something. Does anyone need anything from their cabins? Butters? What about us?"
"I don't need anything except you Kenny," Butters replied immediately.
"I could use my medical bag," Wendy said, eyeing the cut on Cartman's head.
"And my keys have a flashlight on them!" Tweek said. "I should get those in case these lights go out again."
"All right," Kenny looked around, clearly taking charge at that point. Stan looked at him gratefully. "You two get what you need, and someone should check out that hallway and make sure we can get through. Why don't I go and do that?"
"I'm going with you Kenny, okay?" Butters said, stepping closer and grabbing his hand.
Kenny looked down the passageway they would have to go through to get to those double doors that led outside. Even with everything upside down the whole way, it looked as safe as anything else around them did. He wanted to keep Butters occupied to try to keep his mind off what was happening, and he didn't want to be more than a foot away from him right now. He came to a decision.
"All right. Butters and I are going to go down that way and make sure we can get through. You guys get what you need from your cabins." He looked Stan in the eyes as if putting him in charge of this detail, not sure how he'd suddenly become their leader but happy to assume the role. Someone had to, and getting Butters to safety wasn't something he was willing to trust to anyone else.
Stan met his gaze and nodded, relieved to be taking on the role of second in command. He turned to look at Wendy. "Let's get the stuff from your cabin first."
"This is surreal," Kyle said a minute later as he watched Wendy fit her key into the doorknob of her and Tweek's cabin, now almost a foot above her head. The door swung open, and she stepped over the foot-high transom into the room.
The bedframe was the only thing that had been bolted to the floor. It hung suspended above them; the mattress and all their luggage had been tossed around and scattered across the ceiling. She spotted her bag immediately and retrieved it. Tweek rummaged through the debris and luggage under his feet and came up with his keys. He turned on the small penlight on the key ring for a moment, satisfying himself that it worked.
~
Kenny and Butters made their cautious way down the dark hall toward the exit doors. It was extremely slow going; they had to step between the steel girders and around the broken ceiling panels, walking on the metal decking underneath. It took nearly ten minutes to walk a distance that used to take only one. The exit doors were open and swinging freely on their hinges to the gentle rocking of the ship.
"Oh Buttercup, look at this!" Kenny said reverently. They looked out the doors, and Kenny realized that getting away from the ship would simply be a matter of jumping into the water some twelve feet below and swimming a short distance. Two of the ship's lifeboats were floating nearby, tethered to the Poseidon by the ropes that would have been used to lower them into the water during a less dramatic emergency. The sea was so flat and calm that it had an almost oily quality, the reflection of the full moon flittering like quicksilver on its smooth surface.
"We're going to be okay!" Butters said, looking at Kenny hopefully.
"I'm tempted to leave you here," Kenny told him. "While I go back and get the others. But that's not going to happen."
"Don't you dare leave me alone here, mister!" Butters replied. He was still terrified, despite the easy exit that lay ahead of them all. Kenny nodded, taking his hand as they backed away from the door.
"Okay. Let's go back and get the others so we can get the hell out of here."
They made their way back down the hall, approaching their group five minutes later. Their progress was faster now that they had become accustomed to walking between the steel girders under their feet. Wendy had her medical bag, and was putting a large bandage on the side of Cartman's head.
Kenny called ahead to them, eager to give them encouraging news. "Guys, we just have to get down that hall and we're outside, and then it's—"
Something enormous rumbled loudly overhead, and a bright flash of orange light lit the hallway like a giant flashbulb.
A 500 gallon propane tank, one of twelve that had once been a part of the equipment lining the deck of the engine room and supplied the enormous kitchen as well as the Poseidon's heating system, had finally broken loose from its mounting brackets, fallen thirty feet to smash against the ceiling of the engine room, ruptured on impact and exploded. The blast tore through bulkheads and deck plates, reaching the deck where the seven people from Colorado were about to attempt to get outside. The shockwave knocked Kenny and Butters off their feet and sent a wave of superheated air billowing past them.
"Oh, Jesus!" Kenny screamed, whirling around to see the fire, and the tons of twisted steel and debris that had turned the hallway into an alien landscape of burning wreckage. The still burning remains of the propane tank had landed midway between them and the exit doors, setting everything around it on fire. Butters grabbed Kenny's arm fearfully, both of them thinking the same thing: If they had delayed their return by less than a minute, they'd both be dead now.
Kenny realized something even more disturbing: Their easy escape route had just been hopelessly blocked.
CHAPTER 7: Midnight Plus 1 Hour
"Shit!" Kenny screamed. "Shit!" He grabbed Butters' arms. "I should have made you wait outside!"
"I wouldn't want to be out there by myself!" Butters shouted. He threw his arms around Kenny. "I—I wouldn't have known what happened to you if I was outside! Kenny...I would have found a way back in if you'd left me there!"
Kenny nodded grimly, already looking around for another way to get outside. "All right." The fire in the hallway they'd just passed through was growing bigger, feeding on everything it could find around it. "We have to find another way out."
"We could go up a deck!" Kyle said, pointing toward the upside down staircase down the hall in the other direction. "Where the casino is? Go up there and try again."
"Okay." Kenny nodded. It seemed like the only other idea at the moment, and at least the way to the grand staircase was still clear. The seven of them made their careful way along the corridor, toward the center of the ship. Even from a distance, they could see getting up an upside-down set of stairs would be a challenge.
They gathered at the bottom of the grand staircase and looked at each other helplessly. The stairs were a shocking, incongruous sight: polished mahogany handrails and carpeted steps that they had once taken for granted were now upside down, rendering them useless. The steps themselves were now on the underside of a ramp that rose at a steep angle to the deck above them.
"Let's figure out a way to get up this," Kenny said, eyeing the upside down stairs and the steep ramp they'd have to climb. "If we can tie a rope or something at the top of that, we can pull ourselves up."
"I can get up there!" Tweek announced. "I think I know where there's something we can use too."
Kenny looked at him, surprised. "Okay..."
Tweek took a few steps back from the ramp of the upside down stairs, then ran toward it, pistoning his legs hard and leaning forward as he ran up the ramp. When he was two-thirds of the way up, he threw himself forward, grabbed onto the mahagony railing underneath the ramp, and managed to pull himself the rest of the way up and squeeze through the narrow gap at the top of the ramp onto the ceiling of the deck above.
"All right Tweek!" Stan shouted as they watched Tweek's shoes disappear into the near darkness overhead. A moment later, they heard him scream.
"Tweek!" Kenny shouted. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, Jesus!" Tweek screamed. "There's dead people up here!" They could hear him gasping. "Yeah, I'm all right...oh, Jesus!" A moment later they heard the sound of breaking glass.
Kenny was about to attempt to get up there the same way Tweek had when Tweek reappeared in the gap at the top of the stairs. He pushed something thin and gray through the gap and called down, "Here!" It was a flat gray emergency fire hose; he threw one end of it down the ramp and tied the other end to the railing. "Pull yourselves up with this!"
"Shit, Tweek, this'll work!" Kenny said, picking up the hose and tugging on it. The knot Tweek had tied above them held easily.
"I'm going up next," Cartman said, brusquely stepping forward and grabbing the fire hose from Kenny.
"Yeah, that sounds fair Cartman," Wendy sneered.
Cartman ignored her as he easily pulled his way up the ramp, ducking into the same narrow space that Tweek had moments ago. "Screw you guys," he said as his shoes disappeared into the gap next to where Tweek knelt.
The five still below looked at each other in frustration. "Okay Wendy, you're next," Kenny said, handing her the hose.
"Kenny, can you come up next?" Tweek called down. "So you can help me get everyone else up?"
"Well, where the fuck is Cartman?" Kyle shouted. "Let him help you!"
"He..." Tweek looked as angry as Kyle felt. "He took off! Come on Kenny!" He grabbed the hose and shook it. "I need someone else up here!"
"He fucking left?" Kenny shouted irritably. "God damn it..." He grabbed onto the hose and walked up the ramp, pulling himself up hand over hand, and dragged himself with Tweek's help onto the ceiling of the next deck. He looked around. It was much darker on this level, there were several obviously dead people nearby...and there was no sign of Cartman. "Jesus Christ...Wendy, you come up next," he called down.
Tweek grabbed his arm. "I know where he went," he said quietly. "How about you help them up while I go get him?" He stood up and turned toward the casino on the opposite side of the gloomy hallway.
"What the hell, Tweek?" Kenny asked.
"I'll be back in a minute," Tweek replied and walked off.
Kenny looked down. Wendy was already pulling herself up the ramp, and Kenny helped her onto the ceiling. In another minute, the rest of them were once again together.
Tweek made his way through the near darkness toward the casino in the same direction he'd watched Cartman walk a minute ago. The enormous stained glass wall had shattered when the ship capsized, covering the ceiling with broken shards of multicolored glass. Tweek picked his way through this, kicking aside larger pieces of broken glass with the toes of his black dress shoes. He stepped into the casino and spotted Cartman immediately, crouching next to one of the overturned gambling machines and stuffing money that had spilled from it into his pockets. There were several more bodies near him. When Cartman saw Tweek, he raised his arms triumphantly, both hands stuffed with money.
-Hausinge-
"Oh, yeah! Yeah! I got my money back!" He let a shower of bills drop from his hands to float to the ground by his knees.
"You fucking artard!" Tweek closed the gap between them in two steps, grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, and roughly pulled him to his feet.
"Ey! I'll share!" He held two one hundred dollar bills out to Tweek. "There's plenty here for everyone--!"
Tweek smacked the money out of his hands. "You idiot!" He grabbed Cartman and pulled him close until their faces were inches apart. He was furious at having to waste time on this. "The ship could sink any second! We have to get out of here!" Tweek pushed him away. Cartman looked shocked, then angry, then made as if to start throwing punches. Tweek shoved him back and raised his fists. "I'm not fighting you, Eric! Now let's go!" He grabbed Cartman by one of his raised arms and started dragging him toward the door.
"Let go of me you faggot!" Cartman pulled his arm free and threw a punch which widely missed, and Tweek countered by punching him in the gut. Cartman doubled over and fell, landing between two wrecked keno machines, gasping for air.
"Knock it off, Eric." Tweek stood over him with his fists raised, threatening to send one into Cartman's face. "We have to get off this ship, don't you get that?"
"What the fuck is going on?" Stan came into the casino followed closely by Kenny.
Tweek turned to them and said angrily. "He's in here stealing money."
Kenny looked at Cartman with disgust. "What an asshole you are." Cartman still couldn't draw a breath to answer. "You can stay here, for all I give a shit." He looked back at Tweek. "We have a problem. We can't find a way out of here."
Stan asked a question that made no sense to Tweek. "How much do you think one of these keno machines weigh?" He gave one an experimental shove with his foot, and the overturned machine barely moved.
"A couple hundred pounds maybe?" Kenny replied. "Too much to try to carry. But there's lots of tables and chairs in here we can use."
"Do you mind," Cartman gasped, slowly standing up again. "Telling me what you're talking about?"
Kenny picked up two well-padded swiveling saloon chairs and shoved them roughly toward Cartman. "Here. Take these and carry them back." He turned his back on Cartman and addressed Tweek. "There's no way to get to the outside of the ship on this deck, so we're going up another one. Grab a couple more of these barstools and come back to the stairs and we'll show you what's going on." He and Stan each picked up two chairs, and the four of them made their way from the casino back to the upside down grand staircase.
"I—I see the problem!" Tweek said as he looked up toward the top of the reversed stairs. This deck had been designed with retail and restaurant space in mind, and was a full two decks in height so individual establishments could be two stories high. These stairs were reversed like the previous ones, but rose into darkness at a steeper angle a full fourteen or sixteen feet. There would be no sprinting up this.
"Unless you guys know another way up, this is it." Kenny took the chairs that he had carried and set them against the ramp on top of an ornate brass and wood bench and a jewelry display class he had put there three minutes ago. "Wendy said there's another set of stairs like this one about five hundred feet away. Oh, and some elevators in between, and we obviously can't use those."
Kenny took the chairs Stan had brought and added them to the pile. Wendy had found a set of freestanding shelves from one of the taverns and added it to the growing pile at the bottom of the ramp. "I figure we start stacking up a bunch of crap here, until one of us can get up to the next deck with a rope. Call it a...ladder to heaven, I guess. Guys," he looked around at everyone. "I...really don't have any other ideas here."
"Kenny, you're doing great," Kyle said. "Hell, if I was in charge, we'd still be one deck below."
Kenny nodded. "Thanks, Kyle. Look...let's start finding whatever we can use to add to this, and start looking for anything else we might need. We could use a better rope, and we might want to keep an eye out for some flashlights; Tweek was right about these lights probably going out again, and we don't want to be caught in the dark."
Stan took Kyle's hand. "Hey...there's a lot more of those chairs and some tables and stuff in the casino. Let's start there, okay?" Kyle nodded and they went off in that direction together.
Kyle went inside first. As soon as he'd stepped into the dark and overturned casino, he felt Stan's hand grabbing his shoulder. He turned, and Stan wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug. Kyle grabbed him and they clung to each other.
"Kyle..." Stan breathed against his neck. "I don't know if we're going to get out of this or not, but in case we don't, I wanted to make sure you know that having you for my best friend for pretty much my entire life...is the second best thing that ever happened to me."
Kyle stared into Stan's eyes wordlessly and nodded as Stan continued. "The best thing was figuring out that we loved each other when we were seventeen. Being with you for the last six years has been the most incredible thing anyone could ever ask for. I've had a wonderful life Kyle, thanks to you"
"We're going to make it out of here, Stan," Kyle replied. "Help's on its way, we're still floating, and we're doing something to try to save ourselves. If we just find a way outside this ship, we'll be okay." He smiled and reached up to stroke Stan's cheek with his fingertips. "You're not getting out of giving me that ass pounding this easily. It's just going to be a couple days late."
Stan laughed, but it was sad and forced. "I hope so, Kyle. I can't stop thinking...if Kenny and Butters had stayed in that hallway one more minute, we would have lost them both."
"I know, Stan." Kyle closed his eyes, shuddering at the memory of that explosion. "Maybe somebody was watching out for them, like they're watching out for us."
Stan nodded. "Let's get some of these chairs out of here." They each picked up two more of the chairs and carried them back to the grand staircase. There was smoke rising from the fire on the deck below them now, and they both hoped it didn't get any worse. There was a fire on this deck as well, but it was much smaller and farther down the hall.
"We need more stuff at the bottom," Kenny was saying to Butters as Stan and Kyle set their four chairs in front of him. "You know, to make the base wider." With the addition of two more benches and a dented sunglasses display case, the pile was now nearly four feet tall. Butters was standing on top of it, leaning his back against the ramp and reaching down to take a chair that Tweek handed up to him and adding it to the pile.
Stan looked admiringly at what they'd already accomplished. "Shit, this is going great! We'll keep bring you stuff; that's a good idea, putting Butters up there."
"He's the lightest," Kenny replied. "If we can get about twelve feet of stuff under him, he should be able to tie that hose off up there and we can all climb up." He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Stan and Kyle to whisper: "And I wanted to give him something to do, you know?"
"This is going to work, Kenny," Kyle said. "Come on, let's keep this moving."
They went back to the casino again, and this time Kyle went deeper inside. The bar had been located all the way against the back wall, facing the door. It was now suspended twelve feet over their heads; dozens of liquor bottles had fallen from the shelves behind it to shatter against the ceiling. He kicked the toe of his dress shoe through the piles of fragrant broken glass and suddenly saw something that made him grin.
"Holy shit, Stan! Look what I found!" He knelt down and carefully pulled a heavy duty aluminum Maglite flashlight from the debris. He clicked it on and a bright beam of light illuminated the carpeted floor overhead. There were three more of these flashlights there, and he retrieved them all, testing each one.
"Awesome, dude! Let's get these and some more chairs back." Kyle tucked the four flashlights under his arm, picked up two more chairs and followed Stan back into the hallway.
"Look what we found Kenny!" Kyle said a minute later as they approached him, turning one of the flashlights on and shining it at the ceiling between them.
"Awesome! Why don't you guys take one of them and keep working together, and the rest of us need to make sure no one is alone without one." Kyle handed Kenny one of the lights and another one to Tweek who was returning with another one of the benches as well as a coil of white nylon rope he had found. He gave the last one to Wendy, who was redressing the bandage on Cartman's head.
They kept at it, and half an hour later, they had managed to build an eight-foot tall pile. Butters was still balancing on top of it, leaning against the ramp. They needed to get at least another four feet underneath him before he had a shot at being able to tie the rope to something.
"This is going way too slow," Kenny said, climbing on top of a display case to hand Butters another chair. As if to punctuate this, there was a deep rumbling from above them, and a brilliant flash of orange fire a long way down the corridor. The ship rocked violently with the force of the second explosion. Butters screamed as he felt the platform slipping dangerously beneath him, and even though the pile shifted somewhat, he managed to hold on.
"Are you all right Butters?" Kenny shouted up to him once the rumbling of the explosion had died down.
"Y—Yeah, Kenny, I'm okay." He looked around himself. "Let's just keep going!"
They continued working and half an hour later as Stan and Kyle were both carrying a large table from the casino, the emergency lights along the ceiling suddenly flickered once and then went out, and they were once again in darkness.
They heard Tweek scream. Stan and Kyle dropped the table they were carrying. Stan pulled one of the flashlights from his coat pocket and shined it toward Kenny, who was shining another one toward Butters. Tweek and Wendy made their way out of the darkness toward them, and they all looked around at each other helplessly.
CHAPTER 8: Midnight Plus 2 Hours
Robin Shelby had never felt two hours of sustained terror before, and imagined it must be like what wartime soldiers on the front lines must feel. He had experienced brief moments of it in the doctor's office when he learned he had to have a vaccination, and his fear of the pain of the needle filled him with terror for a minute or so; and he had felt it to a lesser degree on the first few days of each new year in school, when he had gone to his new classrooms with a feeling of dread that had tied his stomach up in knots for days before he finally settled in. Pete had protected him from bullies last September at the start of the new school year, and this had been his best year yet.
Nothing in his almost eleven years' of life had prepared him for being on board one of the largest ocean liners ever built suddenly capsizing in the middle of the night, leaving him and a few people struggling to survive.
Reverend Scott had gathered a dozen other survivors from the dining room and led them through the galley, and higher and deeper into the ship, their goal to reach the engine room where they hoped for rescue through the hull of the overturned ship. Mr. Acres had been killed a half hour after escaping the dining room when he fell from a ladder on the inside of a ventilation shaft they were climbing after the second explosion. They had continued onward, finally arriving at Broadway with only one deck to go before the engine room.
Mr. Scott had suggested a short rest break (primarily for the Rosens, who were struggling to keep up) and had suggested a few of them go looking for things they could use. They had encountered another, much larger group of survivors, and he wanted to convince them to follow their group, instead of going toward the bow of the ship which he was certain was under water. Robin had set out with two goals, the first one being to find anything useful like Mr. Scott had said, and with the five lifejackets he was carrying, he had found the first item on his list. He had actually found a dozen lifejackets, but could only carry five of them: Two around his neck, one over each shoulder, and one in his hands.
He had just found the second thing he was looking for, and he tipped his head to the side to read the upside down sign on the door, which read: GENTLEMEN.
The doorknob was just above his head. He reached up to pull it open and stepped over the foot high transom into the reversed men's room. The stench hit him first, before the sight of the carnage. Only the cramping in his guts made him step further inside. Four upside down toilets were suspended above him, each enclosed in a stall, their doors swinging slowly on their hinges to the gentle swaying of the ship. Each toilet had spilled the contents of whatever holding tank they emptied into onto the ruined ceiling. Long streamers of toilet paper hung down beside each one. Along another wall, urinals and sinks also hung suspended, a geyser of water shooting straight down from one of the faucets.
Then Robin spotted the body and cringed. He had seen plenty of dead people in the last two hours; the worst had been the ones he had seen as his group had made their way through the ship's kitchen. Many of them had been burned beyond recognition, even after having been torn up and broken during the capsizing of the ship. Burned flesh smells like burning rotten potatoes.
This body ignited a sense of pathos in Robin that none of them had before. He had always had a good imagination, and it was a curse now as he tried not to picture the terror of this young man's final moments. He was laying directly under one of the toilets, curled up on the ceiling, one side of his head crushed and bloody. His pants and underwear were bunched up around his ankles.
Robin stared for several seconds, then stepped away from the filth under him and set the life preservers he was carrying down. He took off his suit jacket. He had wanted to hang onto it, even though it was now covered with dirt and stains; it had been a gift from his grandmother. He felt like he was giving up something more important than just a piece of clothing as he leaned down and carefully placed his jacket over the body, not covering its head but trying to preserve whatever modesty it might have left in its final resting place. The thought that this room could be flooded at any moment, and most certainly would be eventually, never left him for a moment.
As he straightened up, he saw something orange on the ground in front of the body. He reached down; it was an orange Bic lighter. There was a pack of cigarettes in the man's shirt pocket as well. Robin flicked the lighter several times, satisfying himself that it worked, and then put it in his pants pocket. After a moment's thought, he took the cigarettes too, putting them in his shirt pocket, silently thanking the dead man. Adults sometimes functioned better when they had cigarettes and he was depending on adults to save him, and he told himself he had now found two more possibly useful things. Just let his parents try to take either of them away from him now!
Then, because he couldn't wait any longer, he turned away and walked toward the nearest corner. One of the emergency lights was right next to him as he dropped his pants, squatted down against the wall and relieved himself, hoping that no one else walked into this room in the next minute, burying his face against his knees trying to be brave and not cry.
Once the cramping in his stomach had passed, he looked at the toilet paper streamers hanging down from above beside the upside commodes and finally used the monogramed handkerchief that his grandmother had also given him to clean himself. He wiped his eyes, told himself to be strong, and stood back up, buckling his pants again.
He picked up the lifejackets, giving the body he had covered one more look. "I'm sorry," he said to it, having a hard time looking away from its slack and motionless face. He didn't remember ever seeing this man before during any of his trips through the engine room with Charlie. He put two life jackets around his neck again, and carrying the other three like before, he made his way back over the door's transom and into the hall.
There were more people passing through the corridor now, all heading toward the bow of the ship. Robin noticed that they seemed like they were walking ever so slightly downhill, and realized that it meant that the ship was beginning to settle that way. Soon—minutes, hours, he didn't know—the stern of the ship would rise high up into the air, just like the Titanic did, as more water filled the capsized ship and pulled the bow deeper underwater. He went a few feet in the direction they were going, wanting to tell them that they were headed the wrong way, but he knew he was just a kid in an upside down world of adults and no one would listen to him. He turned to look over their heads for his group, and spotted his sister and Mr. Scott about thirty feet away. There were probably fifty people between Robin and them, and Robin felt himself being pushed along as they tried to hurry in what Robin was now certain was the wrong direction. He saw they were walking toward the open pit of a set of upside down stairs, and started to turn around to return to his group.
At that moment, the ship's emergency lights flickered once and went out. There was a moment of shocked silence as everyone stopped talking, then in the distance a man screamed as the unrelenting darkness drove him to panic. "Oh my God!" someone else yelled, and Robin felt people running past him, one of them almost knocking him over.
Just before the lights had gone out, Robin had spotted a doorknob a few feet away. He felt along the wall desperately for it, hoping to be able to get inside somewhere away from what he knew was about to become a terrified stampeding mob. His own urge to bolt madly was overwhelming, but he forced himself to stay calm as he ran his hands along the wall. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob for a moment, then someone pushed him, and he felt himself being carried along in the darkness by a mass of bodies all rushing in the same direction. It was all he could do to keep his feet underneath him and not fall and be trampled. He was being carried toward that hole up ahead, and wondered if these people realized they were heading toward a death trap.
The hallway turned into a mob of panicked, screaming people. Robin heard cries of pain coming from a few feet away in the blackness, and realized it was people falling by the dozens into that pit. He tried to stand his ground, but there were too many people pushing him along, and he screamed when he felt the ceiling disappear from beneath his feet.
Robin landed hard, but the life jackets he was carrying cushioned much of the fall. Now he had to get up and move quickly, because people were still falling from the deck above, and one of them could land on him at any moment.
He took two steps into the terrifying darkness and felt someone shove him. Robin fell to his knees, then was pushed down onto the ceiling. Even over the bedlam, he clearly heard the wet snap of the index and middle fingers of his right hand breaking as someone stepped on them. The pain hit him a moment later and he screamed in agony and fear. It felt like two of his fingernails had been torn from their beds.
No one had fallen from the deck above for several moments, and even the sounds around him were getting quieter as the panicked people continued to scatter. Robin rose to his knees, holding his right wrist with his left hand, then slowly stood up. He wasn't even sure where the nearest wall was anymore, and he took a careful step forward, his foot hitting something that felt like someone's head.
He started crying harder, but even as he was crying, he was also trying to think of how he could help himself.
He remembered the lighter he had found. He had put it in his right front pocket; he had to use his left hand to reach for it, and as he did he felt his cell phone brush his fingertips, and had a better idea.
He took out the phone instead of the lighter, and still working with just his left hand, he brought up Pete's school photo. Even as he gazed longingly into the eyes of the boy in the picture, he also realized that the phone made enough light for him to see a few feet around him. He deliberately didn't look at his injured hand, not wanting to see it. He held the phone in front of him, using its faint light to guide his feet carefully over the wreckage on the ceiling. The faint shadows on the walls and floor above were just one more thing that terrified him. He knew his progress was slow, but at least he was moving. He also knew his cell phone battery wouldn't last very long...but there was still the lighter.
He looked up at the hole he had fallen through, and knew there was no way he was getting back up there without help. He screamed: "MOM!" and there were only echoes, then silence. "Mr. Scott! Help!" There was no answer. Robin looked around desperately, wishing he had more light. He knew there was another way up to that deck he had been on, one that would be possible for him to climb, and started slowly walking, looking for familiar landmarks.
He looked at Pete's picture on his phone, and began talking to it as he made his way slowly uphill. "I'm glad you're here, Pete. I mean, I'm glad you're not really here. I'm glad you're at home safe. But I'm glad you're here with me like this." He held the phone close to his face, wishing he could touch the glowing screen with his other hand. "I love you, Pete." The tears started coming again, only this time it wasn't from the pain in his broken fingers, it was from his longing to see Pete for real again, to be wrestling in his backyard on his trampoline or watching television with him while they made fun of the people in whatever show they were watching, laughing hysterically while eating pizza. "If I get out of this, I have to talk to you, okay?"
His eyes blurred while he imagined Pete whispering words of encouragement to him, telling Robin that he loved him too, and Robin slowly continued walking. It was all he could do not to scream from the agony of his broken fingers.
He continued in the same direction for some twenty minutes, what he sensed was uphill toward the stern and the direction that should take him closer to his group one deck up. He was just coming to a small connecting passageway that he thought he recognized when his phone began flickering. "No!" he cried out, bringing the phone close to his face for one last look at Pete. The phone died, once again plunging him into that terrifying blackness. He sank to the ground and buried his face against his knees, crying miserably. He was alone again, his hand was in agony, there was so much destruction around him that trying to move without some kind of light was dangerous, and he was ready to just give up. He never thought he would ever be hoping for a quick death.
After five minutes, he forced himself to move again. He exchanged his phone for the lighter and held the flame over his head, looking both ways at the new corridor he had reached. The flame only lit about ten feet around him, and he couldn't spot anything else that looked familiar. He finally decided to keep going in the same direction and began walking again. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw, just for a moment, a flash of light a long way off in the darkness.
-Sifl-senpai-
Robin put the lighter out and stared into the inky blackness. There it was again, a quick flash of light, just for a moment, far ahead of him. Then he saw another one, even farther away.
"Help!" he screamed. "Help me!" He had no idea if whoever was out there would be willing to help a frightened, injured kid in the middle of this disaster, but then from far away, the light shined directly at him, and began bobbing from side to side as it came closer, sending harsh shadows swaying across the walls. Robin began stumbling toward it, holding his injured hand in front of him, looking at it for the first time. The index and middle fingers were unnaturally bent at the first knuckle toward his palm; blood dripped from the torn nails, and his shirt sleeve was drenched with it. Robin couldn't see into the glare of the approaching flashlight, but the person holding it should be able to see him by now. He hoped that whoever was coming toward him was kind.
"Jesus Christ!" The voice was familiar. "Robin?!"
"Stan!!" Even as he was crying, he had never felt such relief as he did when he saw his friend Stan coming out of the darkness towards him. Stan lowered the flashlight toward the ground. Robin held his injured hand up higher, and Stan's face went from relief at seeing him to shock and horror.
"Oh Jesus," Stan said quietly, leaning down slightly to Robin and putting his hand on his shoulder. "Okay, okay. You're going to be all right now. We're going to take care of you. There's a doctor with us. Come with me—can you walk?"
Robin began stumbling alongside Stan back the way he had come, crying even harder, but now it was with relief. Stan kept talking softly to him, his hand never leaving his shoulder, telling him over and over he would be okay, and Robin knew he was right. He knew the doctor would probably set his fingers, and it was going to hurt terribly and probably make him scream, but then it would feel better and it was the right thing to do. His friend Stan would take care of him while it was happening, and even though his broken fingers ached more than he ever imagined pain could hurt, and he knew he could die at any moment if the ship sank, for the first time in nearly three hours, he felt momentarily safe.
Other people were coming toward them out of the darkness, flashlights casting more of those terrifying shadows. "Wendy!" Stan shouted toward them. "We need help here!" She stepped forward, Kyle right behind her.
"Robin?" Kyle's voice was horrified as he knelt down beside him.
Wendy was already reaching for his arm to examine him. "I'm not going to touch your fingers yet, Robin," she said when he tried to pull his arm away. "I just need to look at them, all right?" He reluctantly let her take his wrist to examine him; Stan and Kyle both aimed their flashlights at Robin's hand. Stan still had his hand on Robin's shoulder.
"You're going to be all right." Kyle said, and Robin gave him a grateful look, wiping tears with his left hand. A moment later, he shrank back against Stan, overwhelmed by the sight of four more people approaching him. It was the whole group from Colorado, his friends as well as the fat guy he hadn't really gotten to know. Tweek was staring in horror, his hands covering his mouth.
"Hey guys," Stan said before they had closed in on them completely. "Let's back up and give him some air, okay? Wendy's got to examine him...and probably set his fingers." He looked at Kyle and shook his head, trying to silently tell him he should go too.
"You're going to stay, right Stan?" He was still crying hard, terrified of the far greater pain to come. Stan looked up at Kyle, and he shook his head, trying to convey the message I gotta do this one myself, dude. Kyle nodded and looked down at his flashlight.
"Of course I will, Robin."
"Come on guys," Kenny said, grabbing Kyle's arm to lead him away. "Let's go." He leaned closer to Kyle and whispered, "I need to talk to you anyway."
The group walked back down the corridor, stopping some thirty feet away beside the upside down stairs. Kenny put his arm over Butters' shoulder and kissed his cheek. "Stay here for just a minute, okay? I'll be right back." Butters looked terrified but nodded.
Kyle and Kenny walked a little farther up the hall and Kyle asked quietly, "What is it, Kenny?"
"The ship's not floating level anymore," Kenny said. There was fear in his eyes. "I just noticed it a couple of minutes ago. I think the bow's starting to sink."
Kyle looked down at the shattered ceiling beneath his feet. He could feel it now too, a barely perceptible tilt in the once-level surface. "How long do you think we have?"
From far down the dark hall came a sudden, sharp scream of pain, followed quickly by another. Kenny closed his eyes painfully and Kyle put a hand over his. Robin was sobbing hysterically while Stan's voice quietly uttered unintelligible comforting words.
"I don't know Kyle!" Kenny said. His eyes were damp. "Minutes...hours? I don't know. Oh my God, I just want to get us out of here. I want to get Butters out of here...and him." He looked in the direction the cries were coming from. Kyle looked closely at their leader and saw that he was starting to fall apart.
"Yeah. I know Kenny. We just have to keep moving. It's the only plan we've got." Robin's crying was tapering off.
"I'm going to mention what I just told you to Stan. I don't think we should tell anyone else yet, though. They'll figure it out soon enough." He stopped talking because Butters was walking toward them from the shadows. He didn't stop until he had his face pressed to Kenny's chest and they were holding each other. "It's going to be okay, baby," Kenny whispered to him, rocking him gently from side to side.
They could see Stan's flashlight moving toward them now, Stan leading the way with an arm around Robin's shoulders, shining a flashlight at their feet. Wendy was two steps behind them, holding a second flashlight aimed at the ground in front of them. Robin was looking down as he walked, rubbing his eyes with his left hand; his right had a large, bulky white bandage on it.
"Hey Robin," Kenny said when he joined them a moment later.
"Hey." Robin sniffed once and looked up, his eyes shiny in the glow of their flashlights.
"You were really brave back there," Kenny said awkwardly.
"Uh!" Robin shook his head. "No I wasn't! I screamed like a girl."
"Damn right you did," Kenny said immediately. Kyle looked at him sharply, and Kenny finished: "And so would any of us if we'd just had two broken fingers set without anesthesia. I stand by what I said: You were brave back there."
Robin nodded. "Thank you, Kenny." He was still fighting tears, but the corners of his mouth twitched with a slight smile.
"Robin, what happened to you?" Kyle asked. "Why were you...by yourself?"
"Mr. Scott sent us out to find stuff we could use. I got separated from them when the lights went out. I fell and...someone stepped on my hand."
"Jesus, Robin." Stan squeezed his shoulder. "You're with us, now, okay? We're going to take care of you...and we're all going to get out of here."
"Who were you with, Robin?" Kenny asked. "Besides Mr. Scott."
"My sister and parents. The Rogos. Mr. and Mrs. Rosen, Mr. Martin, and 'Nonnie.' She was the singer in that band." Cartman and Tweek were walking toward them, giving up on trying to reach the next deck the way they had been.
"Jesus," Kyle said, relieved that a lot of their friends had at least survived the capsizing and were somewhere else on the ship, also trying to escape.
"Mr. Acres was with us, too." Robin looked down at his feet. "But he was killed an hour after the ship turned over—"
"Acres is dead?" Cartman exclaimed, sounding dismayed.
"Yuh-yes, sir. We were climbing up a ventilation shaft. That second explosion knocked him off the ladder. Mr. Rogo tried to save him, but..."
"Jesus," Stan whispered as he took in Robin's story.
"Robin?" Kenny said. He put his hand on Robin's shoulder. "Do you know where we are?"
"Yes, sir." Robin looked around at the wrecked corridor. "We're one deck above...I mean below... Broadway, and two decks below the engine room, near the center of the ship."
"We can't escape this way," Kenny said, aiming his flashlight toward the staircase they had been trying to get up. "Or...it's going to take too long. Do you know another way we can get to the engine room from here?"
Robin took Kenny's flashlight with his left hand and used it to look around. Even upside down, this part of the ship seemed familiar...but it wasn't an area he had spent a lot of time in. He finally spotted a familiar door with an upside down CREW ONLY sign and suddenly remembered exactly where he was, and something nearby that Charlie had shown him. "Sir, I do know another way up! We can all get right up to the engine room this way!"
"Where is it, Robin?" Kenny asked. "Can you take us there?"
Robin pointed the flashlight down the hall, downhill toward the bow of the ship. "It's that way, maybe a hundred feet?"
"Shit...toward the front. I was afraid of that." Kenny thought for a moment. "Stan, let's you, me, and Robin go check this out. Kyle...maybe keep them working on that pile of crap under the stairs, just in case, but let's keep Butters off of it. Robin, are you up to showing us this?" Robin nodded, eager to be useful.
"Kenny, can I come with you?" Butters asked nervously.
"Butters, why don't you stay here and help them, okay? We'll be back as soon as we can."
Butters nodded unhappily. "All right. Just...shine your flashlight at me once in a while, so I know you're okay."
"You bet I will. Let's go guys."
They set off down the hallway, Stan and Kenny carrying flashlights, Robin walking between them, holding his right hand awkwardly in front of him so he wouldn't bump it on anything. Kenny and Stan helped him over a couple larger pieces of debris. As they got closer, Robin began looking for familiar landmarks; he didn't want to let them down now that they were depending on him.
"I can't believe you guys went with me to find this," Robin said, finally spotting the short passageway he was looking for.
"Why wouldn't we, Robin?" Stan asked, genuinely curious. They stopped when Robin paused in front of a short connecting hallway and looked down it. Each side of it was lined with upside down lockers; what he wanted them to see was at the very end, maybe fifteen feet away.
"My parents...none of the group I was with believed I knew anything about this ship. I tried to tell them things a couple times, and they ignored me. Mr. Rogo told me to be quiet, even."
"Jesus Christ," Kenny said irritably. "You probably spent more time in this part of the ship than the rest of them put together."
"Yes sir, I did." He took Stan's flashlight and aimed it down the hallway. "This is it, sir."
Kenny's eyes widened as he looked where Robin was shining the light. At the end of this short passageway was a set of ladder rungs bolted to the wall. On both the ceiling below and the floor above were solid-looking hatches, each about three feet square with a large red handle attached to an elaborate locking mechanism.
"Those are water tight doors," Robin explained, stepping forward, Kenny and Stan following him now. "If you go up that first one, you'll come out on Broadway. There's another ladder and hatch above this one, and it'll take you to the ceiling of the engine room. There used to be a catwalk right underneath it."
"Amazing," Kenny said as they stood together, looking up at the first hatch. "This will be a piece of cake." He took one step up the ladder, holding his flashlight above him and shining it on the first hatch. "Hey, why don't you guys get back, just in case. And one of you needs to go back out into the hall and shine that flashlight at Butters for me."
Kenny waited until they'd moved away and done as he asked. Then he climbed eight steps up the ladder and reached over his head to open the hatch. It dropped open on its hinges, several gallons of water pouring from the deck above and splashing down below his feet. He shined the flashlight above his head onto the next deck. "I'll be goddamned," he said, climbing the ladder the rest of the way.
Stan and Robin heard him open the hatch on the deck above. A moment later, Kenny called down: "Stan! Start getting everyone down here. This is the way to the engine room."
CHAPTER 9: Midnight Plus 4 Hours
They helped Robin up first, Stan climbing the rungs directly behind him to brace him against the ladder, and Kenny reaching down to help lift him up by his armpits. Once Robin was in the engine room and Wendy and Tweek were with him, Kenny climbed back down to join Stan again to keep everyone moving and help carry supplies up.
Butters was the third from the last of their group to go up. He had a long coil of rope over his left shoulder. "You'll be up soon, right Kenny?"
"Of course I will. I need to talk to Stan for a second, and we'll be right up." He watched Butters climb up and disappear through the first hatch, then took Stan's arm and led him back out into the main hall.
"What is it, Kenny?" Stan asked.
Instead of answering, Kenny shined his flashlight down the dark corridor toward the bow of the ship. Perhaps fifty feet away, they could see debris choked water lapping against the shattered ceiling. As they watched, the edge of the water slowly crept closer.
"We have to hurry," Kenny said quietly. "We don't have much time."
As he climbed the second ladder behind Kenny, Stan thought they would be home free once they'd gotten to the engine room. As soon as he emerged from the second hatch, he realized they had just traded one set of problems for another.
The engine room was three decks high, and ran the length and width of the ship. There were no upside down staircases to climb; instead there was the wreckage left after the ship had capsized, turning the once orderly engine room into a mountainous pile of wreckage and corpses. Nearly a third of the ceiling toward the front of the ship was underwater, the water's edge slowly creeping closer as they watched. Several fires burned out of control throughout the room and the air was hot and acrid.
Kyle wandered a couple dozen feet toward the bow and sat down on a tilted section of catwalk. Next to him was the open pit of a stairwell, and four feet below where he was sitting was a pool of water that descended into darkness.
Robin was looking around in wonder. He had spent many hours in this auditorium-sized room, and seeing it in its current state was mind boggling. His gaze was drawn to an area high overhead near the stern of the ship, and was about to tell Kenny and Stan why this was the place they needed to try to get to when Kyle abruptly cried out.
"Hey, what the fuck?" Kyle yelled in surprise, jumping to his feet and looking down into the water-filled stairwell. Stan and Kenny rushed over to see what the matter was.
-Hausinge-
Perhaps ten feet below the surface of the water, someone was frantically waving a flashlight. After several seconds, whoever was down there hadn't made any effort to surface.
"Jesus Christ, someone's down there!" Stan cried. All three looked over at Robin, realizing it might be someone from the group he had been with earlier, and that whoever it was might be drowning at this very moment.
Kyle pulled off his dinner jacket and dropped it at his feet. He took the flashlight from Stan and said as he sat down, "You know why I have to do this."
Stan nodded, knowing exactly what he meant, why he was the right person for the job, and unhappy about it anyway. Kyle always could hold his breath longer than any of them. He dangled his feet into the stairwell and then jumped feet first into the water, flipping himself around underwater and swimming down. What he saw a moment later confirmed their suspicions. Reverend Frank Scott was pinned by a large piece of debris, frantically waving a flashlight, air bubbles starting to escape through his mouth and nose. A long piece of rope tied to his waist disappeared into the gloom in the direction he had come from.
Kyle braced his feet against the wall of the stairwell, grabbed onto the debris—a large section of bulkhead he had become trapped under—and pulled, lifting it enough for the reverend to pull himself free. He swam past Kyle with barely a glance and shot to the surface. Kyle watched him until he saw he had reached safety and was about to continue swimming the other way to see where the rope went when he was met by another completely unexpected sight: Plump, cherubic Belle Rosen swimming down, her clothes billowing around her like giant sails. Their eyes both widened in surprise as they met. Kyle pointed in the direction the reverend had gone and frantically gestured with his hand, pointing up. She nodded and continued on, surfacing a few moments later. Kyle waited until her frantically-waving legs disappeared as she was helped from the water and he knew she was safe, then aimed the flashlight toward the rope and continued swimming that way. He had plenty of breath left
He pulled himself along the rope another dozen feet and came to another stairwell. He rose quickly, shooting to the surface a moment later.
The first thing he saw was Mike Rogo crouched down on a steel catwalk at the edge of the stairwell two feet above the water's surface, holding the other end of the rope Kyle had followed. His wife and Manny Rosen were behind him, the latter looking anxiously into the water and startling when Kyle appeared. Kyle noticed several other people—Mr. Martin and Robin's older sister among them—and he was suddenly filled with rage when he saw Robin's parents, standing several feet apart from each other, looking at him curiously.
Kyle pulled himself up out of the water, shaking off Mike Rogo's hand as he tried to help with a loud "Get off me!" His eyes were locked on Jane Shelby's as he strode angrily over to her.
Kyle wanted to be anywhere but here. His once-nice clothes were heavy and cold; his feet were soaked inside his dress shoes and his ankles chafed painfully against his wet socks. He wanted a hot shower in a clean and right side up bathroom. He wanted to be in a bed with freshly laundered sheets and Stan next to him. And he wanted to punch this mousy looking woman in the face; but instead he told her what he knew she most needed to hear right now.
"Your son is thirty feet away on the other end of that rope, and he could really use his mother right about now."
"Robin?" Jane said, her hands flying to her mouth. "He's over there?" She brushed past Kyle, never slowing down until she was at the edge of the catwalk about to leap into the water.
Kyle saw what she meant to do, and a moment before she jumped in, Kyle shouted, "He's hurt!" He winced as she leaped feet first into the water and disappeared, realizing that his words were probably echoing in her mind as she pulled herself underwater along that rope, imagining all sorts of terrible things.
"Belle?" Manny Rosen cried fearfully. "Did you see her? Is she all right?"
"She's fine, Mr. Rosen," Kyle hastened to assure him. "She passed me just as I was freeing Mr. Scott from some wreckage that had fallen on him. I watched them both swim up to the engine room together."
"Oh, thank God! She went in to help him."
"Why the hell did she go?" Kyle asked, looking pointedly at Mike Rogo who was a good ten years younger and 50 pounds lighter.
Mike caught his look and lowered his eyes. "She was some kind of underwater swimming champion...thirty years ago. Manny agreed she was the one who should go after him."
Robin's father walked over to Kyle "What...happened to Robin?"
"He fell down in the dark, and someone stepped on his hand. He's got two broken fingers." Kyle was looking at the rest of this group: He was relieved to see that Mr. Martin had survived as well; he was comforting the young woman singer from the ship's band.
Mr. Shelby bowed his head. "But...he's all right?"
"No, he's not all right!" Kyle snapped, his fury now directed at Robin's dad. "I just said he has two broken fingers! He's scared shitless, and the two of you have been acting like your arguing is more important than taking care of him. Why the fuck was he ever more than three feet away from you?"
Kyle felt a twinge of guilt as Richard Shelby lowered his eyes and turned away to walk toward where his wife had disappeared moments ago. "Look," Kyle said, grabbing Richard's arm. "One of us set his fingers for him. He's going to be fine. But...he could really use the two of you to act like goddam parents to him, at least until we get off this ship. Or until we..." Kyle's voice trailed off. Until we sink and die.
Robin's dad nodded miserably. He looked like he was about to say something, but then just turned away again and jumped into the water.
"So, you've been to the engine room?" Mike Rogo asked.
"I just came from there. I saw Mr. Scott's flashlight waving around underwater and jumped in. Something had pinned him, and I got him out just as Mrs. Rosen was swimming down. Look, we all need to get back over there. I don't know how much longer this ship is going to stay floating." He looked at Robin's sister and added sarcastically. "It was nice of your dad to make sure you got across okay. Do you want me to help you?"
She shook her head. "No...I can do it." She sat down on the edge of the catwalk, took ahold of the rope and lowered herself into the water.
"What about you two?" Kyle asked the Rogos. They looked like they'd be okay as well. He looked at Mr. Martin and the singer. "Can you two make it?"
"We'll be fine," Mr. Martin replied, but the young woman he was with looked terrified.
Mike surprised Kyle by asking: "Is...Stan all right?"
Kyle cocked an eyebrow at the unexpected question. "Yeah. He is. In fact, our whole group is okay, except for some cuts and bruises. Um...thanks for asking."
"Yeah," Mike replied. He lowered his voice. "We're going to go next. Can you give Manny a hand getting across?" Kyle nodded.
"Come on, hun," Mike said, lowering himself into the water and reaching up to help his wife down. A moment later they had disappeared, and Kyle turned his attention to the almost-elderly Manny Rosen.
"Just take a real deep breath," Kyle told him, "and pull yourself along that rope. It's only thirty feet or so; I'll be right behind you."
In less than a minute, Kyle rose to the surface, coming up alongside Manny. A very relieved Stan was right there to help him out of the water. The water level had risen a foot in the short time Kyle had been gone.
When everyone in both groups was finally together in the engine room, Frank began to explain what they needed to do; Kenny was relieved to pass leadership of both groups over to him.
"Can we take a five minute rest?" Wendy interrupted Mr. Scott quietly, holding Belle Rosen's plump wrist with two fingertips to take her pulse. "Mrs. Rosen is not going to be able to do much more climbing, and I'm also worried about Eric Cartman. I think he may a concussion." They both looked at him sitting on a section of steel catwalk holding his head and looking dazed.
He nodded grimly. "Five minutes, and then we've got to get moving again." He looked around for Robin. "Robin, what were you saying earlier about the hull being thinnest next to the propellers?"
"Right up there is where we need to go sir!" Robin replied, pointing with his left hand. "See that red valve?" They could easily see what he was pointing to. Perhaps 25 feet above them was a large valve; it was round, had six spokes like a wagon wheel, and was bright red. A small wisp of steam from a defective weld rose from the pipe connected to it. "Right behind that is the entrance to shaft alley. That's where the hull is thinnest."
Mr. Scott looked at Kenny and pointed. "We should be able to start climbing there." Kenny looked where he was indicating and nodded.
The engine room had once contained a series of wide steel catwalks running along the outside walls, all connected together by ladders and other walkways crisscrossing the width of the ship. When the Poseidon had capsized, much of this had been torn away by the tons of falling machinery that had once made up the ship's engines and other mechanical systems. Kenny ran his gaze up the catwalk, mentally mapping out a possible route up to that valve.
They began the slow, arduous climb up. Kenny and Frank Scott alternated the lead, plotting out the safest route for the others to follow. The group gradually spread out forming a human chain about thirty feet long with the Rosens bringing up the rear, Mike and Robin's father staying back to help them, and Tweek helping Cartman who was having increasing trouble with his balance. After 45 minutes, they finally reached the summit and began making their way toward the stern.
Kenny and Frank had just inched their way across a particularly narrow section of catwalk, leaving a dozen feet to go to the red valve and the entrance to shaft alley. Kenny turned and anxiously watched Butters, who was next in line. Butters looked down nervously; below him was a sheer drop of some 25 feet with twisted wreckage awaiting anyone unlucky enough to lose their footing and fall from here. He sat down, not trusting his sense of balance to walk across it and scooted along until the catwalk widened again and he got up onto his knees. Linda Rogo was behind him; she walked across the gap while her husband watched from the wider part of the catwalk behind her, her arms outstretched for balance. One of her hands was close enough to Butters that he considered reaching up to take it to help her across.
There was a brilliant orange flash and an appalling explosion as one of the ship's boilers suddenly exploded two hundred feet away. The ship rocked violently; Linda's terrified eyes locked onto Butters' as her arms pinwheeled madly and she tipped backward with a scream toward that awful precipice behind her.
Without even thinking, Butters reached out and grabbed one of her wrists, yanked hard on it and fell backward, pulling her back from the brink. She tumbled forward, landing fully on top of him, their faces inches apart. Her eyes were hard and amazed.
From twelve feet away, Mike Rogo had seen everything. His Linda, thrown off balance and tipping toward the abyss below, certain he was going to watch her fall to her death as her arms flailed helplessly. Mike was a bitter, hateful man; no one else knew the tenderness Linda could bring out in him, at odd moments during the day or in bed late at night.
He felt his entire life slipping away when Linda fell toward that pit, and then that strange little man with the platinum blond hair had grabbed her arm and somehow pulled her back.
He had enough time to lock eyes with her for a moment before there was another explosion, this one less powerful but much, much closer. Mike was thrown face down onto the catwalk, and when he looked up again, an enormous cloud of hot water and steam was pouring onto the catwalk ahead of them from a break in the pipe next to the red valve.
"Reverend Scott!" Robin Shelby shouted. "The hot steam! It's blocking our escape!"
CHAPTER 10: Midnight Plus 6 Hours
Kenny was exhausted. He had done all he could to get them this far, and now the only path to the place they needed to be was blocked by a scalding cloud of steam. He was ready to curl up and die, and falling asleep seemed like a really good idea right now. He realized that things had gone from extremely bad to completely surreal when he noticed that he was starting to hallucinate as well.
Except for him, nothing in this enormous room was moving, and everything had gone deathly silent. It was as if time had frozen: Robin Shelby was standing with his left arm out pointing, his lips pursed in the midst of saying a word, Reverend Scott was glaring angrily at the broken steam pipe, and Linda Rogo was pushing herself off of Butters. They were like statues; even the smoke and flames from the numerous fires below were motionless.
Kenny turned his head and looked at the cloud of steam. It was no longer a cloud; now, it was a million tiny droplets of water suspended motionlessly in the air, each one no bigger than a pinprick. There was no sound.
He turned his head at a movement out of the corner of his eye. A man he had never seen before stood up behind Robin's parents. He wore a white robe and had a soft halo of gold light over his head. Kenny was not a religious man, but he had seen enough paintings in his life to recognize him immediately: It was Jesus Christ, the son of God. Jesus stepped around the Shelbys and walked across the catwalk to stand in front of Kenny.
"Hello, my son," this person who couldn't possibly be standing there said.
Kenny dropped to his knees, because he didn't know what else to do. He looked up into the kind face above him.
"We're...we're all going to die now, aren't we?"
Jesus didn't answer; instead he said: "Kenny, I know you don't remember me." Jesus raised his hands, about to lay them on Kenny's head.
"Jesus, please," Kenny begged, reaching up to take the Lord's hands. The fact that the son of God was standing before him could only mean one thing. "I don't care what happens to me. Just...please. Let Butters go to heaven. And Robin. And Stan and Kyle...and Tweek..." Kenny stopped, realizing he was praying while he was clutching the son of God's hand. Nothing seemed real anymore.
"My son," Jesus said, very real and somewhat urgently. "There are things you don't remember that I have to remind you of, and there's not much time left. It is why my father has stopped time for us now, but we have to hurry." He pulled his hands away from Kenny's and held them to the sides of Kenny's head. "If you'll permit me..."
Kenny could only look up at the Son of God with hope. If it meant saving Butters, he would do anything. He whispered: "I don't remember you. But I know who you are." He nodded, giving Jesus permission to do whatever he had to do.
Jesus pressed his hands against the sides of Kenny's head...and Kenny's vision went black and he almost passed out as a flood of memories he had forgotten came rushing back, things that felt like they had just happened yesterday.
Memories of dying hundreds of times, of being shot, of burning to death, of being hit by every sort of vehicle imaginable, being torn apart by animals, being killed when Cartman's Trapper Keeper went on a rampage, being electrocuted...He remembered clearly the last time he had died, when he had been told by this very same man (while they were both in hell) that he would return to live a normal life, with no memories of all these past deaths. That had been some three years ago, and until this moment he had forgotten about this as well, being freed from that lifelong curse of endlessly dying and returning.
Kenny remembered talking to Jesus (and Satan!) dozens of times in the past, and spending time in both heaven and hell. Hell had always seemed like a much more interesting place, but all he wanted right now was to go to heaven with his friends. He remembered how much dying hurt no matter what form it came in, and hoped the people around him would have a quick and easy death...especially Butters and Robin. He had suffered enough with his broken fingers and indifferent parents. And Butters! If the ship went down with them still inside, Kenny would hold him and kiss him while everything around them exploded or flooded or whatever it did during their final moments together. Kenny would hold Butters' face against his chest, shielding his eyes and ears and head from whatever final death blow the ship dealt them. No matter what happened, and no matter how terrifying and loud and painful it was, Butters would know during the final seconds of his life just how much he was loved. Kenny would make sure of it.
Kenny counted on Stan and Kyle to take care of each other during those moments, and hoped Robin, Cartman, Wendy, and Tweek managed to find comfort in each other as well. He had done all he could do to save them, and having Jesus appear to him was a sign that it hadn't been enough.
But no matter what happened during their last moments, Kenny was certain of one thing: At least they would have to go through the agony and terror of dying only once.
Kenny looked up at the son of God, no longer worshipfully. He was angry, and it was building up to a white hot rage
"What the fuck, Jesus?" Kenny was suddenly on both speaking terms and a first name basis with the son of God. And he was furious to be in this position. "So now that I remember all this shit, all those times I died before. What—"
"Kenny." Jesus' calm voice quieted Kenny at once. "You are not all going to die. Just you...and just for a short while. You'll be back very soon. It was necessary for my father to call upon you to do this, to prevent a much greater tragedy."
Kenny remembered how much dying hurts and felt his heart clench at the thought of having to do it again.
"My son, even before Leopold won that money, you knew you would be here, didn't you?"
Kenny thought back to that night at their house and realized it was true. He had pretended to have the normal amount of doubt, but deep down inside himself he had known with absolute certainty that they would be aboard this ship. Now he knew why: It had all been orchestrated for some reason.
As if Jesus had read his mind, he went on: "You are here for a reason, my son. This disaster wasn't supposed to happen, but my father foresaw it months ago, and ordinarily he would have simply allowed it to happen; unfortunately there are a few people who would die on this ship who cannot be allowed to. Your group, and you especially my son, are here to prevent that."
"By dying myself," Kenny said bitterly. "Even if I come right back, it still hurts...and I'm sure Butters will have to see it happen." He sighed. "Who is it I'm saving?"
"Belle Rosen, for one. She's on her way to meet her grandson in Israel. If this meeting never happens, and she never becomes the great influence on the child that she is supposed to, he will not go on to find a new method of crop production for arid regions of the world. Linda Rogo will have a son who becomes a very influential politician. Robin Shelby will one day make a discovery that makes it possible to produce nearly unlimited amounts of electricity safely and at very little cost, again in the world's poorest places. And finally, Reverend Scott's writings about his missionary work will someday be highly influential, and affect the policies of many big governments in third world countries. These writings are what bring the other three together."
Jesus looked at Kenny sadly. "You and your group have already saved three of them. But unless you act soon, Reverend Scott will die, and if he does then his books on his missionary work will not be written, and the work of the other three will never take place. You'll not only be saving another life on this ship now, but you will be saving tens of thousands more later on."
Kenny was beginning to realize what he was expected to do: Someone had to stop that cloud of scalding steam so they could reach their final destination, shaft alley. The valve that would do that was almost at eye level to them but three feet beyond the edge of the catwalk and some four feet below the former floor of the engine room. Had the ship been right-side up, reaching it would have been a simple matter. With the ship capsized, it was just outside of reach from the catwalk, with a sheer 25 foot drop below it.
"Reverend Scott is about to sacrifice himself by jumping from this platform to grab the valve, closing it, and falling to his death. You don't have to do this, Kenny. But if you do, I promise you will be back in minutes, and you will have secured your place in my father's mansion someday...you and Leopold's.
Kenny looked down at the deadly abyss he was expected to fall into once he'd closed that valve. He knew falling from that height might not be immediately fatal, leaving him battered and broken but still alive, and Jesus read his thoughts.
"Kenny...you might want to try to fall so you land on your head; otherwise you may not die in time for you to be resurrected before the ship sinks."
"I know, Jesus." He knew his time was growing short. "I just—don't want to do this!"
"I know how much it hurts to die, my son. After all, I did it myself, once."
Kenny took a deep breath, steeling himself for what was about to happen. "Okay...let's do this."
Jesus nodded to him, and the particles in the steam cloud began moving, Robin lowered his arm, and Reverend Scott shouted while looking up angrily: "What more do you want of us? We've come all this way, no thanks to you!" He was already tensing to leap out into the void and grab the valve. "We did it on our own with no help from you!"
Kenny strode three steps to Mr. Scott and pushed him back just as he was about to jump. "Uh uh, Preacher!" he snapped. "I'm doing this."
Kenny took one last look at the valve, carefully gauging the distance to it and leaped. His hands caught the rim of the valve just as a child's hands would catch the rungs on a set of playground monkey bars,
"Kenny!" Butters shrieked. "What are you doing?"
Kenny ignored him, ignored everything around him except his fingers and their grip around the outer rim of the valve. He tightened the fingers of his left hand and reached up with his right, grabbing one of the spokes of the valve and pulling it down toward him. As soon as the valve had made that first one-quarter turn, the amount of steam being pumped from the broken pipe was lessened by half. Encouraged by this, he allowed himself to rest for only a moment before letting go with his right hand again to reach up and give the valve another quarter turn. Two more quarter turns and the valve was closed, the cloud of steam gone. Kenny could feel the valve vibrating in protest under his trembling fingers. Water dripped from the walls where they needed to go next. "You can get through now!" he shouted, still holding on to the valve, not yet ready to die. "Keep going!"
Butters tore his eyes away from Kenny and looked around at the others desperately. Everyone else was staring helplessly at Kenny as they waited for the last of his strength to fail and for him to fall. Butters was the only one actually trying to do something, but he was shaking so badly that he couldn't even tie a simple knot in the rope in his hands, let alone any sort of lasso. "Somebody help me!" he screamed.
Richard Shelby saw what he was trying to do. Memories of two years of cub scouts with Robin suddenly came back to him as he grabbed the rope from Butters' hands, quickly tied a small loop in one end and then passed the other end of the rope through it, creating a much bigger loop.
Reverend Scott saw what Robin's father was doing. "Kenny!" he shouted. "We're going to get a rope to you! Just hang on!"
Butters screamed: "Hold on, Kenny!"
Kenny's hands were already slipping on the red paint of the valve. "You'd better hurry!" He wrapped his fingers around the metal, his arms getting weak even as hope suddenly blossomed because Butters was trying to save him.
Richard Shelby had the rope and was estimating how hard to throw it to get the loop to fall over Kenny's head. He took aim and threw the rope, and it glanced off the back of Kenny's neck and fell toward the abyss below.
"Again!" Richard cried, hauling the rope back up and preparing for another attempt. This time the loop fell directly over Kenny's head, and with a couple careful movements of his neck, Kenny got the rope down around his neck. If he let go now, he would be hung. With a yell, Kenny let go of the valve with his left hand and managed to work that arm through the loop so the rope was now under one armpit. He managed to repeat the maneuver with his other arm.
Several people moved forward to grab onto the rope behind Richard and Butters. Stan observed, "As soon as he lets go of that valve, all the slack's going to go out of that rope and he's going to slam into the wreckage underneath us. He might not be able to hang on."
"No he won't!" Mike Rogo said angrily. He grabbed onto the rope as close to Kenny as he could and lay face down on the catwalk, holding his arms straight out over the void. "Now listen to me all of you! I can't hold his weight; you have to do that! I'm just going to stop him from hitting the catwalk too hard."
Butters was already grabbing onto his piece of the rope tighter, understanding what Mike wanted to do. Stan, Kyle, Linda, Reverend Scott, Tweek, and both of Robin's parents grabbed onto the rope behind him.
"You have to take all his weight!" Mike said again, grabbing his part of the rope tighter. "The moment he lets go, start pulling in all the slack. I'll keep the rope as far away as I can."
"Mike!" Kyle cried, letting go of the rope and removing his dress shirt, leaving him in just a now filthy tee-shirt. "Put this around your hands at least!" He handed Mike the shirt, and he took it and wrapped it around his hands to protect them from rope burns.
"Kenny!" Stan shouted. "You see what we're going to do?"
Kenny nodded, staring down at the hell he had been expecting to die in. I love you, Butters, he thought wildly.
"Just let go, Kenny!" Mike called out to him. "We've got you."
Kenny held on a moment longer, than released his grip on the valve. He plunged straight down...then the slack on the rope disappeared as eight people hauled back on it, and even as he was jerked upward and toward the catwalk, Mike managed to stop him from slamming into it. The rope whizzed through Mike's hands, ripping Kyle's shirt away immediately and tearing painfully into his palms, but he still held on long enough for Kenny to swing against the catwalk gently. Mike rolled away, clutching his hands to his chest as the other people on the rope pulled Kenny up to safety.
Kenny looked up to see Jesus, standing between Reverend Scott and Frank Shelby. He smiled at Kenny. "That's not quite how we planned this, my son...but okay." Kenny blinked and Jesus was gone. A moment later numerous hands were helping him up onto the catwalk, where he collapsed and rolled onto his back.
"Why did you do that, Kenny?" Butters screamed, falling on top of him, hugging him and covering his face with kisses. "You could have been killed! Why did you do that?"
Kenny wrapped his arms around Butters. "Because I knew you would get that rope to me in time." He looked around, suddenly confused. Why had he done that? For just a second it had seemed like there had been someone else in this hell with them...but that was impossible.
He looked up at Butters' soot and tear streaked face. "I knew you'd get me out of there." Kenny didn't know anything of the kind; he was certain that when he had leaped for the valve, he would die soon afterward.
Butters laid his head on Kenny's chest, and turned to look at Mike Rogo. Linda was crouched next to him, and they were both staring at Butters while Wendy reached for Mike's hands to examine them. There was an expression on both of the Rogos faces that seemed foreign to them: Compassion and understanding.
"Thank you for helping him," Butters said simply, looking at the blood on Mike's hands.
"I guess we're even, huh?" Mike replied gruffly. His expression didn't match his voice at all.
Linda smacked him in the back of the head. "You bastard! He just saved my life. Say 'thank you' to him!"
Mike kissed her and said, "Okay, hun, Jesus.
Kenny and Butters stood up together and were about to move toward Mr. Scott, when they each felt a hand on their shoulders. They turned to face a very humble looking Mike Rogo, who looked directly at Butters as he said: "Thank you."
Butters pulled away from Kenny and wrapped his arms around Mike's barrel chest. "Thank you!" Mike looked around helplessly, his bleeding hands upraised behind Butters' back.
"Come on," Mr. Scott said from the front of the line. "Let's get moving!" He crossed the final few feet and opened the access door to shaft alley. As soon as the panel was open, they all heard it: Noises, lots of them, coming from outside the ship.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, someone's out there!" Kenny shouted. He looked around desperately, spotting a short piece of pipe that had broken off of some piece of machinery. He picked it up and started hammering on the underside of the hull with it. Mr. Scott and Mike found similar pieces of wreckage, and within moments all three of them were beating on the hull over their heads and yelling at the tops of their lungs.
"Hold it!" Mr. Scott shouted. They stopped for a moment, the sounds overhead coming from outside sounding closer and more urgent.
"Again!" Kenny screamed and started beating on the hull once more. The noise they made was deafening; Susan Shelby held her hands against her ears crying while her brother and parents tried to comfort her. Kenny held his hand up a moment later and shouted: "Wait!"
They stopped, and this time they heard ten solid metallic knocks from outside the steel hull of the ship, directly over their heads.
"Yes!" Kenny screamed, hammering the piece of pipe against the hull three more times before stopping and throwing it to the catwalk. Butters threw his arms around him and they hugged each other tightly.
A moment later, they heard a faint hissing sound from outside the ship. A spot on the steel hull over their heads the size of a quarter glowed red, and a shower of sparks and molten metal fell from it. The acrid smell of burning iron filled the air. "Get back everyone!" Kenny shouted.
They moved back from the shower of sparks and watched as the spot slowly moved away from them, beginning to form a line. Someone outside the ship was using a cutting torch of some kind to cut a hole through the hull. The line slowly grew longer, letting a thin ribbon of daylight in; once it was three feet long, it turned a corner and continued on. Two minutes later the torch had made a three foot square cut through the steel, and with a couple of powerful blows the section of the hull fell and crashed onto the catwalk in front of them. Two men, both in red life jackets and one of them wearing the uniform of a Coast Guard captain looked down on them through the hole. Kenny had never been more relieved to see the sky behind them.
"How many of you down there?" the captain called down with a thick Greek accent.
Kenny and Stan looked at each other, both of them realizing that they had no idea how many people were now in their party. They both started to count, but Mr. Martin saved them the trouble when he called up, "Eighteen!"
The captain exchanged glances with the other man outside. "Is that all?"
"Did you save anyone else? Anyone from the bow?"
The captain shook his head. "No." He stood up, and the eighteen people began surging forward. They helped Robin and his sister up first, followed by Belle and Manny Rosen. Five minutes later, Kenny and Mr. Scott were the last two left below and as Scott pulled himself outside, Kenny took one final look around before climbing up through the hole. He looked around in wonder at a world where, except for the hull of the capsized ship beneath his feet, everything was suddenly right side up again.
CHAPTER 11: Midnight Plus 7 Hours
Kenny wrapped his arms around Butters from behind, resting his chin on Butter's head and looked around. There was a helicopter on the hull of the ship fifty feet away, its rotors spinning noisily. Three ships, a Coast Guard vessel and two smaller fishing boats, were moored nearby.
"We have to hurry," the Greek captain said. "This ship isn't going to be floating much longer. There's room for six of you on the helicopter; the rest will have to go by boat."
"The Rosens should go," Kenny said, looking at Wendy. "And probably you and Cartman should too. Who else?"
"Robin," Jane Shelby said. "He and I—"
"Mom, I'm going to stay here," Robin interrupted her. "Let some of these other people go instead."
James Martin stepped forward. "I'd like to take Nonnie out of here," The young woman who was clinging to him appeared nearly catatonic with fright. Robin's mother looked uncertainly at them and then her son again.
"His fingers will be fine, Mrs. Shelby," Wendy said. "Let's let these two go ahead of him."
She reluctantly nodded and put her arm around Robin's shoulder. While six of them made their way to the helicopter, the Captain began herding everyone else to two large inflatable rafts tied up next to the hull of the overturned ship. Two minutes later, both rafts were being paddled toward the Coast Guard ship, Stan and the Captain manning the oars of one raft, Kenny and the other rescuer in the other. They used a rope ladder to climb aboard the Coast Guard vessel and soon they all gathered together near the bow, watching as the two fishing boats drifted closer to the capsized Poseidon in what Mike Rogo announced was going to be "some sort of half-assed salvage operation."
"I hope they don't send anyone inside," Butters said tiredly. "I've seen enough people die to last me a lifetime."
Several crew members began passing out blankets and bottled water to the survivors. The Captain stepped forward carrying a very large portable phone.
"Your cell phones won't work this far offshore," he said, looking around at them. "But this is a satellite phone; it'll work anywhere. One of you can call your family back home and have them call the rest of your families. If you still have them, your phones should start working in a couple hours."
Stan reached for the proffered phone and looked around at their group. "Why don't I call my mom and have her call the rest of our families?" Just as he was about to begin entering his parents' number, there was a sudden outcry from several people around them.
"There she goes!" Robin shouted, pointing. There was a rush to the railing as the capsized Poseidon's bow abruptly dipped into the nearly calm sea. Her stern slowly rose high into the bright morning sky, her three propellers like enormous fans, as a loud groan issued from her as her superstructure was strained past its limits and everything loose inside fell toward the bow. The two fishing boats had reversed their engines and were backing away from the doomed ship. Stan wondered if anyone was still alive in there, dying before their eyes. The ship was nearly vertical when it began to slip beneath the surface with almost quiet dignity. The sea churned and roiled after the stern finally vanished beneath the water.
Mrs. Shelby detached herself from the railing a minute later and turned to speak to her son. "Robin, why don't you come inside with us now?" She looked at him expectantly.
Robin looked back at her for a moment and then shook his head. "No, Mom. I'm going to stay up here with my friends." He wasn't asking for her permission. "You guys go argue or something, okay? I don't want to hear that right now." He took two steps to stand at the railing alongside Stan, still speaking directly to her. "These guys helped me back there more than you and Dad ever did. I'm going to stay up here with them for a while." He turned his back on her and looked toward the debris-filled oil slick where the Poseidon had been just minutes ago.
Stan watched Robin's mother's eyes fill with tears. "All right, Robin," she said sadly. "Come inside when you want to."
"He'll be fine," Stan told her. "And he'll be right here with us, and when he wants to join you later, one of us will walk him there, okay?"
Once she'd left, Robin leaned his forearms against the railing between Stan and Tweek and stared out at the ocean. Stan cleared his throat and said cautiously, "Robin, I'm pretty sure your mom knows the friends you're hanging out with are a bunch of gay guys."
"I know she does," Robin replied. "I kind of had a talk with her when we were on that raft. She seems okay about it; and I told her I'll never forgive her if she messes up things with me and Pete."
Three hours later as the sun beat down nearly straight overhead, the coast of Greece began to emerge on the horizon in front of them. The captain approached them and said, "You should be able to use your cell phones now."
Tweek reached into the pocket of his ruined tux, surprised that his phone was even still there. He pulled it out and opened it, saw he was indeed getting a signal and was surprised to see that he had 37 texts and 1 voice message, all from C. Tucker. He wanted to hear the voice message first.
He pressed the phone against his head, barely able to hear the voice on the other end over the bad connection and the wind. Craig's voice, sounding distant and broken: "Tweek...I swear to you, if you just come home I'll never drink again. I..."
The message ended. Tweek played it four more times, getting more excited each time, listening for some hidden meaning in those fifteen words and not finding one. He read through his text messages next, each one some variation of call me now, each looking more desperate than the last.
He nervously entered Craig's number into his phone; the international call took quite some time to complete, and when the phone finally began ringing, it was answered immediately.
"Tweek!"
He closed his eyes. "Craig."
"Oh man, are you okay? I mean..."
"Yeah, I'm fine. We all made it out, all seven of us, about a half hour before the ship went down."
"I heard on the news there were eighteen survivors. Jesus Tweek, I was hoping you were one of them." There was an awkward silence. Craig, whose voice almost never betrayed any kind of emotion, added sadly: "You hate me now, don't you?"
Tweek rubbed his eyes. "No, Craig. I don't hate you. But I can't go back to how things were before either."
"Oh Christ, I know it. Tweek, come home to me. I'll stop drinking; I'll...I swear I'm going to fix this, okay? I've been thinking for hours that you might have died believing I didn't care."
Tweek smiled happily, wiping a tear from his eye and suddenly missing his sunglasses.
Craig continued, "If you want me to, I'll check myself into rehab; or whatever I have to do, I'll do it, okay?"
"Okay...ah, I gather we're flying to New York tonight, and then flying back to Colorado tomorrow. We'll talk about it when you get back from your uncle's."
"I have a better idea: How about I meet you in New York and you come to New Hampshire with me for a few days, and we'll fly home together."
Tweek's eyes widened. "You really want us to do that?"
"Of course I do. I have a lot of shit I need to fix with you. Call me when you find out when you'll be getting to New York. Tweek...I can't wait to see you again."
Tweek smiled. "I love you too, Craig. I'll see you tomorrow." He closed his phone and walked back to the rest of the group in time to hear Stan saying into his phone: "It's all right, Mom. I'm fine. We're all okay. I'll call you again when we get to the airport. Yeah, okay...you too. Bye." Stan closed his phone, stared thoughtfully at it for a moment, then walked over to Robin.
"Hey." Robin looked up at him. "It's seven in the morning in New York. Why don't you call Pete and see if he's awake."
Robin's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Really?" He eagerly reached for Stan's phone.
"Sure, man." Stan held the phone out for him, seeing he'd had trouble using it with just one hand. "Here, just go ahead and put in the number." Robin punched ten numbers into the keypad with his left hand, and Stan handed him his phone and went to sit down next to Kyle and Kenny. Butters was sleeping with his head on Kenny's shoulder.
"That was really nice, Stan," Kyle said.
"I had to, dude. You know?"
"Pete!" Robin said happily into Stan's phone. "Yeah! I'm okay! Well...I have two broken fingers and I have to go to the hospital and get a cast—" His eyes locked with Stan's. "Yeah, it hurts! One of my new friends set it, she's a doctor. I... I'm on a Coast Guard boat. We'll be in Greece in like an hour, and I guess we're all flying home together tonight." Butters was awake now, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Kenny nudged him and caught his eye, gesturing with his chin towards Robin.
Robin suddenly looked embarrassed. "It's really good to hear your voice too, Pete!" He looked at Stan helplessly. Stan made a shooing motion with his hand, and Robin nodded gratefully and walked to the other side of the boat, his voice fading.
"Sweet," Kenny said, looking after him. He looked at Stan and Kyle, who were also watching Robin talking intently into the phone. "I still say it's hard to believe we were ever once that young."
"I sure hope those two are going to be okay," Butters sighed.
Robin came back ten minutes later, walking slowly and carrying Stan's phone. He sat down next to Stan, giving the phone back after a long moment. "When we were saying goodbye," Robin said in a low voice. "Neither of us wanted to hang up. We just kept saying, 'okay bye, see you soon', back and forth to each other. He finally said 'I love you man' and hung up." Robin stared off toward the horizon. "He's going to meet me at the airport! He said he didn't care if he has to skip school, or hitchhike...he said he'd be there. And he said he wants to be the first person to sign my cast." Robin smiled. "But I told him he'd have to be the eighth. I want you guys to sign it on the plane tonight."
Nine hours later when the eighteen of them were on board a commercial jetliner the cruise ship company had chartered for the flight to New York, Robin filled his cast with signatures from all the survivors, leaving a large area on the cast next to his wrist clear for Pete to sign.
EPILOGUE - Midnight Plus 6 Years
Like they did every December 31st, the seven survivors of the Poseidon disaster gathered together at Butters' and Kenny's house. They'd quit 'celebrating' the arrival of the New Year, and instead got together to reminisce about how they'd all almost died on this night. Kyle had thought this might go on for a year or two, but now that it's been six, he'd begun to accept that this was going to be a regular fixture in their lives, at least for a while.
Craig was the only outsider they allowed into this gathering. He and Tweek were sitting next to each other on one of the couches having a whispered conversation. Tweek was drinking coffee from Kenny's skull and roses beer stein; Craig had a can of Mountain Dew.
"It's almost midnight," Kenny said, picking up the TV remote. "I guess we could watch the ball drop." It was a rerun from two hours ago on one of the local networks; they gathered around to watch the crowd in Times Square go insane as midnight rolled around. They were quiet as the New Year arrived, but when the crowd began singing Auld Lang Syne, they all sang along, both verses. Tweek and Cartman had taught them the lyrics the first year they'd done this.
At 12:05 the phone rang. "This is sort of late," Kenny said, turning the TV down and getting up to answer the phone. "Hello?" He listened for a moment with a puzzled expression, and then his face suddenly lit up happily. He snapped his fingers, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
"Robin! Hey, man, how are you?" He listened for another moment, and then interrupted. "Hey, Robin, hang on a second...let me put you on speaker phone, okay? We're all here, all seven of us!" Everyone gathered around Kenny as he flipped a switch on the side of the phone. "There. Now we can all hear you."
"Hey, guys!" The voice was deeper, but there was no doubt that it was Robin's.
"Hey Robin," Stan replied first.
Without a pause came the same voice: "Hey Stan!"
"Hi Robin," Wendy said. "How's your hand doing?"
"Hi Wendy...or is that Dr. Testaburger? It's great now; it's like nothing ever happened to it."
"That's wonderful to hear, Robin. And you can call me Wendy...or Dr. Cartman."
Robin laughed. "So you and Eric...?"
"Hey Robin," Cartman interrupted. "Yeah, we figured if we could survive being in a shipwreck together, we'd probably survive being married to each other too." He put one of his huge hands around her waist and pulled her to him.
The other Poseidon survivors took turns saying hello. Once they'd made their way around the room, Craig deadpanned: "Hey Robin."
From the phone: "Uh..." They could hear laughter on the other end, coming from two different people. "Who's that?"
"This is Craig Tucker."
"Oh...hey Craig! So you and Tweek are still..." Robin's voice trailed off.
"Yeah. Me and Tweek are still." Tweek was standing behind Craig and nuzzled his neck happily.
"I'm really glad to hear that." The sincerity in his voice shined through, even though the tinny-sounding speaker. "And hey, there's someone else here, too. Say hi to Pete!"
"Well, hey Pete!" Kenny said. There was a chorus of hellos from everyone in the room.
After a few moments, Robin said, "Hey, I, uh, finally told Pete all about you guys. We're...together now too."
"Aw, that is fucking—sorry—that is awesome, Robin!" Kyle replied. "Um, how long have you two been...?"
"Fifty one days," Robin and Pete both answered, laughing.
"Not that anyone's counting or anything though," Butters said. "Congratulations you two, that is wonderful!"
"Thanks," Pete said, "It is pretty nice." They could hear the smile in his voice. "Hey, we wanted to ask you guys something. Robin and I want to drive out west for a couple weeks this summer after we graduate high school, go hiking and camping a couple days maybe, and neither of us have ever seen real mountains—"
Robin interrupted. "And we looked at your town on the map, and there's lots of mountains there. The thing is, we have to kind of do this on a budget. We were sort of hoping..."
"You want to come stay with us?" Kenny said happily. "Sure! Come stay as long as you want to; we'll show you all the mountains you'd ever want to see."
"Great!" Pete said. "Uh...and I wanted a chance to thank you guys in person for, you know, helping Robin."
"Oh dude, that was our pleasure," Stan said. "You have no idea how happy we are that you two called. We're grinning like a bunch of idiots here; well, all except for Cartman, but he's a heartless sociopath."
"Ey!" Cartman said. "Watch it, hippy!"
They talked for another ten minutes and once they said goodbye and hung up, the four couples stood together looking at the phone. Kyle took one of Stan's hands in both of his.
"Hey Stan?"
"Yeah, Kyle?"
"Next year...how about we celebrate New Year's...instead of this fucked up anniversary of the disaster we lived through?"
Stan looked around the room and saw that all eyes were on him. He leaned forward to give Kyle a kiss.
"Sounds good to me, dude."
The End
AFTERWORD
In the movie, after the hole had been cut through the hull and the rescuer called down, "How many of you down there?" James Martin had answered "six." To get from six to eighteen I added the seven people from South Park, Robin's parents...and saved three peoples' lives (four, counting Robin's death in the novel): Reverend Scott, Linda Rogo, and Belle Rosen.
The first time I saw The Poseidon Adventure was when I was 14, and I became rather obsessed with it. Because he was so close to my age, I identified pretty strongly with the Robin Shelby character. It wasn't until months later that I read the Paul Gallico novel, and it was my first major experience with a movie being very different than the book it was based on. I took Robin's death in the novel pretty hard...and the opportunity to write this story 40 years later sort of became a way to set something right with the universe. I figured while I was in there I would save a few more, so I gave them all happy endings. I just wish I could have saved Mr. Acres too.
Thank you for reading!
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