The 11th Floor: Awakening (2 page)

“Okay, thanks.”

Luke paid for the medication, got back in the car, and drove home. He parked his car in the apartment lot. At the end of the sidewalk, he stopped at the mailbox and grabbed his mail. He flipped through it on the way to his door.

“More junk. Never anything good in the mail,” he thought.

Once inside, he tossed the junk mail into the garbage can and placed the sleeping medication on the kitchen counter. He made dinner that night as usual and watched some mindless reality shows to take his mind off other things. As he got up to grab a soda from the refrigerator, he saw the pills on the counter.

“Well, here goes nothing,” he said as he swallowed the pill and chased it with a few gulps of soda. “I hope this works. I’m just exhausted.”

Luke turned off the television, picked up his laptop from the table, and headed into the bedroom. Lying on the bed, he
surfed
the web for a while. The Internet was his main
source of news and entertainment. His favorite website was
Reddit
. Whenever he had some free time, he would pop on there and check out the “new” section. There was something about up-voting a new post that gave him satisfaction. Even being surrounded with all the cute cat pictures and ridiculous memes, his mind drifted back to his session with the doctor earlier that day. He couldn’t get the doctor’s words out of his head.
Lucid dreaming.
Dream control.
Curiosity eventually got the better of him and he did a Google search for some of those keywords. The number of results was astounding. Maybe there was something to it after all?

“Wow, that pill works
quick
,” he said with a yawn. “I guess I’ll read those tomorrow.”

He closed the laptop lid and placed it on the nightstand. Before he had a chance to turn off the lamp, he was asleep.

Tom pulled open the curtain on the balcony and stood admiring the view while drinking his morning coffee. His wife, Mary Beth, was still in the bathroom putting on the last of her makeup. Tom was used to waiting for his wife getting ready to go out. Now in their mid-60s, it never seemed to get any faster. Having been married for 40 years now, he had learned to just accept it as part of daily life. In the past, he might have made snarky comments but now he knew that no good would come out of it. An angry wife is an unhappy husband, or so he always told his buddies whenever the subject came up.

Shortly after Tom finished his coffee and placed the cup on the desk, the bathroom door finally opened behind him.

“Are you ready now, babe?” asked Tom.

“What do you think of this outfit?”

Tom spun around and looked at his wife. If anyone had ever asked him when he was younger if he could have been attracted to a 64-year-old woman, he would have said no for certain. Perhaps it was something that happened to older married men where something in their brains went haywire, or perhaps it was just a side effect of 40 years of love.

“I love it,” Tom responded. “You look fabulous.
Happy anniversary, babe.”

She gave him a huge hug and kiss in return for his correct response.

Mary Beth and Tom never had children, which they had decided upon before they were married. Neither of them was much of a fan of children and to fill the void they decided to save their money for retirement and travel the world. That is exactly what they were doing now. Having worked their whole younger lives, they managed to save a considerable sum of money through a combination of good investments and a life of frugality.

Because of their choice to not have children, they grew to be intolerant on all matters of kids. Particularly, they despised children in public and the general lack of discipline on the part of their parents. This was the main reason why they chose a cruise at this time of the year. October, in their opinion, was an ideal time to vacation. School had just begun all over the country, so the chance of children ruining their day was slim.

“You about ready to get some breakfast?” he asked.

“I don’t know, maybe I should try that other dress on again.”

“No, this one is great.”

“You really think so? You’re not just saying that?”

“Come on, babe, you know I don’t—” he said, noticing she was looking past him. “What is it?”

“Look,” she responded bluntly.

Tom turned around and saw a giant black crow sitting on the railing of the balcony.

“That’s odd,” he said. “What’s a crow doing out here in the middle of the ocean?”

“My thoughts exactly,” she replied, “and what’s that it has in its mouth?”

It seemed that once she called attention to the object the bird was holding with his beak, he dropped it on the floor, as if the bird was only holding it long enough for them to notice. They stared at the bird and the object on the floor for a few seconds. Finally Tom took a step forward toward the balcony door. The crow let out a loud caw sound, and
flew off once it noticed Tom moving forward. Tom quickly ran to the door to see where the bird had gone, but he was not fast enough in his older age and the bird was out of sight before he reached the door.

“What is it? What did he drop?” asked Mary Beth.

Tom opened the doors and proceeded to the object the bird had dropped on the floor. As he approached it, he could now see it had a shine and sparkle that seemed to catch the sunlight in just the right way.

“You’re never going to believe this. Come take a look at this,” he called to her as he picked up the object from the ground.

“What is it?”

“It’s a diamond engagement ring and it looks identical to yours, if my memory serves.”

She hurried out to the balcony where Tom stood, holding the ring out for her to see.

“Dear Lord, it does look just like mine,” she said. “Impossible. Even the scuffs and that big dig mark are in the same place.”

“Well, clearly this can’t be yours, since you are still wearing it.
Must be a coincidence.
Some poor woman must have lost it. Let’s do the right thing and bring it to the Lost and Found.”

“It’s way too valuable to trust to some minimum-wage person working the Lost and Found down below. We need to bring this to the captain or someone else who we can trust not to steal it.”

“Good point, babe,” replied Tom, who then placed the ring in his shirt pocket. “If we come across the captain, we’ll give it to him. Maybe we can even get captain’s table for dinner tonight.”

“
Oooh
, I hope so. I’ve heard that’s wonderful.”

“Okay. Let’s go get some breakfast.”

Mary Beth nodded in agreement.

With a big stretch and a five-second yawn, Luke woke up feeling refreshed. That was a feeling that he hadn’t felt in months. Ever since that day he’d had trouble sleeping. These new pills were a gift from heaven—a wonderful gift that he must ensure he didn’t abuse, he thought. Instead of getting up right away, he relaxed and just enjoyed the feeling of rest.

Suddenly, he realized that this was not his apartment. This ceiling he was staring at was not his bedroom ceiling. The wall to the right was not his bedroom wall. He looked left and let out a loud scream while jumping out of bed.

“God damn it, you have to be kidding me!” Luke yelled out. “This crap can’t be happening again!”

Luke stood there looking at the dead body on the bed next to where he was lying, wondering if he was about to relive his nightmare from months ago, when he noticed this was different. Gone was the brick room with a single window. Gone were the table and chair and the blood-covered knife. He found himself now standing in a small room with only a bed and a desk. The wall nearest the bed had a curtain and the farthest wall had a wooden door with a chain lock.

He listened patiently, but heard nothing. Upon approaching the curtain, he peeked around the edge and saw it was indeed covering a window. The curtain was thick and managed to sufficiently conceal the daylight that was attempting to light the room. He pulled back the curtains. After the initial blast of light, his eyes adjusted.

“Holy crap, I’m on a boat?” he asked himself.

With his face pressed against the pane of glass, he could see nothing other than the ocean. He rushed to the other side of the room and listened quietly by the door. Not a sound could be heard. A quick glance out the peephole only revealed an empty corridor. Certain that no one was around, Luke slowly unlocked the chain and pulled the door open.

The view from the peephole was correct. This was indeed an empty hallway. A nearby sign on the wall indicated the deck was to the left. Surely he could find someone out on the deck, even if it was just an old woman sunning herself.

The journey down the hallways was quieter than he would have liked. Once out in the sunlight, it became clear to him that this was most definitely a cruise ship. Present was a giant pool, a water slide, and music playing loudly. Missing were all signs of life. Not a person was to be seen anywhere. Several lounge chairs were scattered around the pool area and, by his quick count, a good 50 percent of them were overturned.

“Hello!” he yelled out, to no response.

He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. It had no reception.

“Well, this is the middle of the ocean. What’d you think? Idiot,” he said quietly to himself. “Well, at least this time there’s no Wi-Fi signal either. Different is good, I suppose.”

He began walking around the pool to the other side of the ship when he heard a loud caw sound from overhead. When he looked up, there was a giant black crow flying past.

“A crow?
On a cruise ship?
That has to be a first.”

He put his phone back into his pocket and followed the bird around the ship, trying to keep up. Surely the bird was a pet of some sort, perhaps the captain’s, and it would lead him to someone. A few seconds later, the bird circled around the ship and out of sight. The disappearance of the bird was shortly followed by the sound of a door closing a few floors up above.

Luke knew that sound meant someone was up there. He rushed over to the nearest set of stairs and began to make his way up to the location from which he believed the sound had come.

A few flights of stairs later, Luke was now on one of the upper levels of the ship. At this height, he could see most of the entire lower ship by leaning over the railing. As his earlier assessment suggested, the ship appeared to be deserted.

“This is too much like the last time, except I’m not in a city,” he thought.

Trying to orient himself, Luke kept looking down over the railing to pinpoint the location of where he was standing when he heard the door close. Feeling certain that this was the correct level, he began knocking on doors.

Luke worked his way down the corridor knocking on every door, with no response.
Occasionally yelling out “HELP” proved to be useless.
He figured it was the car alarm effect. Someone else’s problem was not their problem, so they ignored it. Luke could think of many instances where a car alarm was going off and no one even bothered to look. Honestly, he didn’t blame them. Who would want to get involved and put their own life at risk for strangers? He thought it was unfortunate the way the world was heading these days. He hoped that if he ever had the opportunity to help someone, he wouldn’t ignore them.

As he walked down the hall, door to door, a thought crossed his mind. He stood now at the end of the hall staring right at a fire alarm. Without hesitation, he pulled down on the handle, which he knew would sound the alarm and flush out anyone who may be around. They might be hesitant to help someone, but they sure as hell would want to run and save their own lives.

Unfortunately, the alarm did not sound with the pull of the handle. He ran back down the hallway to the opposite end and pulled the alarm on that side too.
Again, the same dissatisfying outcome of no alarm sounding.

Luke stood there, trying to think of what to do next, when he felt the ship turn slightly to the right. The realization suddenly occurred to him—someone must be steering the ship.