Neil sat slouched on a barstool, his elbow resting on the counter. A glass of whiskey stared up at him, the backlit countertop sending golden waves rolling across his face. His hair dangled from his head. The fabric of his shirt pulled tightly against his stomach. Broken bottles were scattered across the counter like eggshells. Behind the bar, a pair of feet poked out, belonging to who Kerrie believed to be a dead bartender.

Neil turned his head to meet Kerrie's eyes. She didn't recognize the person behind them. The Neil she met years ago had faded, deteriorating as the years passed until the last little bit was snatched away when Kerrie refused to marry him. He was broken, yes. But there was also something wrong. He looked sick. His skin was pale, droplets of sweat glistening under the bar lights. Neil turned back to his drink and lifted the glass to his lips, the liquor slipping hot like fire down his throat. A fire that he wanted to breathe back onto the ship and set it ablaze.

"Why did you come?" Neil asked, his face twisting with disgust at the thought of giving her a chance to explain herself.

"Have you seen what is happening on the ship?" Kerrie responded, looking back to the pair of feet peeking out at her.

Sandy watched Neil from Kerrie's side, her eyes unblinking.

"That's not the answer to my question," Neil said. "Why are you here?" His jaw clenched, muscles sliding beneath his skin, making his face look like it had a life of its own.

"I came to make sure you were okay," Kerrie said, realizing the irony of that statement.

"What is it to you if I'm okay?" He raised his voice and turned back to Kerrie, his eyes burned into her with resentment. "You can't marry me remember?"

"That doesn't mean I don't care about you," her voice faltered, unsure of the reason why she came, why she even bothered. She could have stayed somewhere safe, she could have been off this ship already.

"You said you're carrying this relationship on your back, so why are you coming back to me?" Neil said. " You're tired of my bullshit. You're tired of me. Those were your words, did you forget Kerrie? You don't love me anymore. Those were your words, not mine."

"I'm sorry, I—"

"I take advantage of you. All I do is take until you have nothing left to give." Neil said. "Then why are you here Kerrie! What do you want from someone who is so terrible? Why are you crawling back to me? If I'm so awful why did you keep me around in the first place?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay and thought we could—"

"Well, now you're the one who thought wrong, Kerrie." Neil stood from the barstool and knocked his glass to the floor, shattering and sending pieces of glass tumbling toward Kerrie's feet like diamonds. Diamonds are forever, but Neil and Kerrie were not.

The alcohol fuzzed his senses and his body swayed like a palm tree during heavy winds. Kerrie thought he would tip over.

"You know what—" Neil paused and held his hand over his mouth. "You know what your problem is? You are full of yourself. You think you're the greatest thing. Even if I had a job right now and wasn't in the position I'm in, you'd still find something to be unhappy about. The truth is I would never be good enough for you. You know what, I think you keep me around so you can feel better about yourself."

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"That's not true Neil and I'm sorry for how everything came out. I didn't mean to say it like that. It's just when you asked me to marry you, I—"

"I don't want to hear it, Kerrie." He took a step forward and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "And look at you now, you're coming to me for support during all of this. How dare you." He looked to Sandy as if noticing her for the first time. "Who's that?"

"Listen, I'm sorry for coming." Kerrie grabbed Sandy and turned from Neil.

"Don't turn your back on me!" Neil shouted. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to tell me you won't marry me and then come groveling back for help. It's not fair Kerrie." He took another step toward them, knees unsteady.

Neil opened his mouth to say more but nothing came out. He stood frozen. And then he doubled over and puked onto the deck. His puke was red, blood spilling from his mouth like water from a faucet. It splattered off the floor and onto his legs.

"Neil." Kerrie brought her hand to her mouth, Sandy stepped behind her.

He stopped puking, thick blood oozing around his feet. He looked back up to Kerrie but he was gone. There was nothing behind those eyes.

His stomach seemed to move under his shirt, growing in size as if speeding through three trimesters to give birth to something vile and terrible. His belly button poked out for his shirt, the hem riding up his stomach as it continued to expand. Red scars lined the stomach, like the stripes on a watermelon, as it stretched like a balloon.

No. Please, no, Kerrie thought.

His skin stretched so thin you could see his veins riddling beneath the surface. Neil lurched forward, trying his best to support his expanding stomach as it drooped to the floor.

Then he started screaming, the scream of a man experiencing the world's most terrible pain. His stomach split like a pair of jeans that were too tight, a wave of blood and the collection of his insides spilled out onto the deck like a pinata, the type of candy that the kids would leave behind.

Kerrie turned to cover Sandy from the sight. Her eyes clenched trying to stop the tears from flooding her vision. She looked back to see him on his hands and knees, hovering over a pile of intestines and organs. Some of his intestines hung from his abdomen and onto the floor, some of them...moving. No, they were tentacles. One of them reached toward Kerrie like a whip, whistling through the air as it snapped around her ankle and began dragging her across the deck.

"Kerrie!" Sandy screamed.

Kerrie didn't have the knife anymore. She didn't have the putter. But she did have some fight left in her. Her hands clawed against the floor trying to stop the creature from pulling her in, but it was too strong. She flipped over and reached for the tentacle wrapped around her ankle. It was slimy and cold, exactly how she imagined the arm of a squid to feel. But she couldn't get her fingers under it, she couldn't peel it off. A second tentacle reached out and pinned one of her arms. She twisted and threw her body in every direction but she couldn't move.

Neil's body stood, not with his legs, but with the tentacles propping his corpse up, hovering over Kerrie as she was held in place. His body had split open like a ripe fruit, spilling its sweet juice all over her, soaking into her clothes, turning her skin red.

A third tentacle wrapped around her neck. She couldn't breathe, her vision slowly closing. There was nothing she could do. No way to escape it this time. It finally caught her, like it did everyone else. The end.

A fourth tentacle reached toward her stomach and pulled back, like a snake readying to strike its prey.

Right before Kerrie blacked out, she saw a stream of water rocket into the creature. The force of the water was so strong it sent the creature hurling off Kerrie's body and across the deck. The impact of the water had soaked Kerrie beneath, the icy liquid waking her senses. She coughed, the pressure of the tentacle now released from her neck, and staggered to her feet. She turned around and saw a tall woman holding a fire hose, an unrelenting force of water exploding from the nozzle. She wore a captain hat and her uniform was tucked into her pants. She stood with her knees bent and legs wide, her hands holding the hose like a cannon, pointing it toward Neil's monstrous body.

"Are you okay?" Captain Higgins asked.

Kerrie nodded and grabbed Sandy, too shocked to utter a word.

"I'll take you somewhere safe." Captain Higgins dropped the fire hose and beckoned Kerrie and Sandy to follow.