Cursed Cruise

Check out our episode here! (and a bonus with author Faith McClaren (Rebekah Faubion))

Cursed Cruise by Faith McClaren and Victoria Fulton

The Ghost Gang, Chrissy, Chase, Emma and Kiki, have just been to Salem, Massachusetts, on the hunt for the ghosts of witches. Chrissy, the resident psychic medium, came face-to-face with the ghost of witch Sarah Good, and it wasn’t comfortable. Only Kiki, the host, grabbing her hand broke whatever hold Sarah had on Chrissy as she passed through her body and seemed to displace Chrissy’s soul. Chase and Emma caught it all on camera and it will make fantastic viewing on their YouTube channel, but it’s left Chrissy worrying she’ll one day drift too close to the void between realms. 

Chase is worried because he loves Chrissy. They’ve been together since they went to the Hearst Hotel last year, the same as Emma and Kiki, though they keep their relationships purely speculation on Reddit. Once the Salem video is finished being edited and rendered, it starts uploading to YouTube, and now they need rest. They have a big investigation coming up! They have been invited to investigate a ship, the HMS Queen Anne and her reported resident ghost, the Lady in White. Unlike their investigation at Hearst Hotel which put the Ghost Gang on the paranormal map, Kiki’s mom Billie will be their chaperone.

It’s Chase's dream to get the Ghost Gang a network deal, however their manager Jerry is a prick who never calls. Well, he’s on the phone now and he’s not happy with the latest reel for Creep TV because it needs more sex. Chase tells Jerry to fuck off because they’re all just barely eighteen, they’re not there to give some perverted middle-aged Hollywood execs their jollies. Chase has integrity and it's the safety of his team above everything else. It's the Ghost Gang or it’s nothing. 

Even though they seem to have lost their TV deal, Kiki isn’t worried, she’ll work her magic again like she’s done in the past. What does concern Kiki is a DM from a longtime fan with a link to a TikTok. Another paranormal group, Paranormal Patrol, a group of hot twenty-somethings who are affiliated with the Paranormal Institute of North Texas (PINT) are also going on the Queen Anne’s inaugural voyage. Well, shit.

The Ghost Gang plus Kiki’s mom Billie reach the HMS Queen Anne. Chase tries to get a few boarding shots, but it’s not exciting, and Billie is live streaming it all to her Facebook. Their VIP concierge, Gerald, helps them aboard but refuses to talk about or acknowledge any hauntings especially with the cameras on. Chrissy is most excited to find out about the Lady in White, supposedly a bride who went overboard in the 1980s with a suicide note later found in her diary. Her ghost has been reported many, many times and caused a few voyages to turn around looking for someone gone overboard, but just like her body, nothing is found.

Paranormal Patrol enters the embarkment area. It’s a face off between the teens with genuine psychic ability and passion, and hot Barbie rip-offs with no actual paranormal talent. Turns out they too are in the running for a Creep TV contract, except they ooze sex appeal and lack integrity. As Paranormal Patrol push past, Chrissy seems to get lost in the aura of the Queen Anne. As she steps onto the boat, her friends seem far away, the clock above the elevator goes crazy, a disembodied voice whispers “You’re trapped,” and Chrissy feels herself torn out of reality. 

She is alive, 1924. The Queen Anne has been imbued with life with every bolt, with personality with every brushstroke and with purpose. No longer an it but a she. She feels the passengers inside of her, the ocean battering her sides. She feels him disturbed from sleep and wanting to return home, trapped deep, deep below. She feels herself wondering what the blood of her passengers would taste like. 

As Chase is getting footage, he notices Chrissy’s knees buckle and hears her gasp for help. Kiki takes the camera from him to keep recording, not that she isn’t concerned, but after the Hearst Hotel and the massive holes in the footage, they all agreed to keep recording no matter what. Emma reaches Chrissy and she lets her friend rest against her, and Chase touches Chrissy’s skin and notices how cold she is. While Gerald dithers, Billie pulls out a herbal tincture and waves it under Chrissy’s nose which starts to help her. Emma points out this is par for the course when a psychic medium comes aboard an old and haunted ship. As Gerald escorts them to their room, Chrissy mouths to chase something is wrong. 

Inside their suite, Billie and Emma hear the lure of the buffet and head out to eat, leaving Chase and Kiki to look after Chrissy. Chrissy, however, reassures Kiki who has been feeling a strain in her relationship with Emma. She can feel her pulling away. Emma is not willing to share what is wrong with her and is sleeping less and less. Drawing attention to their immediate what-the-actual-fuck matter, Chase asks what happened to Chrissy. Chrissy explains she didn’t faint despite what they think they saw, rather she was pulled to a different time, one when the Queen Anne was younger and didn’t have the modern overlay. She also had a glimpse of the Lady in White. 

What was a master class in buffet plate building with Kiki’s mom turns to crap for Emma. A hallucination of oil seeping from beneath a staff door growing tendrils, grabbing at her, and causing pain and blood made her drop her plate. Back in the room later, Emma knows Kiki knows something is wrong with her, but Emma refuses to share or show Kiki she is anything other than fine. This pisses Kiki off and so she heads to the required muster drill by herself. 

Despite it breaking the Ghost Gang code, Kiki needs a few moments alone to stew about Emma. In recompense she pulls out her phone to get some video of the spooky long corridor she’s walking down… and notices a little ghost girl with wet hair and retro polka-dot dress. Looking up from her phone, she sees nothing is there. Once inside an elevator, Kiki stops recording and pulls up the video, but the ghost girl isn’t there. The faint distinct sound of a little girl's laughter is though. 

During a nap, Chrissy experiences extreme sleep paralysis and hears a constant tick tick. She also meets Elizabeth Walker, the Lady in White, but she is alive because Chrissy seems to be in Elizabeth’s time. Chase wakes her from this not-dream for the muster drill. On deck, the Ghost Gang plus Billie encounter the Paranormal Patrol, Tim, Tom, Toby and Tina, who are professionally quaffed and out to show the Ghost Gang they are the better choice for Creep TV.  Tina puts on a show which makes a small child cry, telling ghost stories of the Queen Anne to the camera. She ends her dramatic dialogue by saying that all these many, many deaths are the result of a curse! An Egyptian sarcophagus was snuck onboard and hidden with the intention of taking it to a secret buyer in America, but it never made it and is still hidden deep in the ship. As Tina finishes the story, she is pulled back by a “mysterious” force and cracks her head against the wall causing it to bleed. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the camera, but it's effective. 

Chrissy’s experience, however, is not smoke and mirrors. Chrissy seems to get lost in the ship again, stepping through time. One second she is standing with her friend, the next she's at the railing looking down at the broken body in white below, describing in gruesome detail the woman’s fear of going overboard, how her bones shattered on impact with the water, and her lungs filled with water. The curse of this cruise ship is real. They shouldn't leave. Too late though, the horn blasts signaling their departure. The tick tock continues.

She is hungry, 1940. The Queen Anne is painted black, which suits her, and she is filled with armed men and their glorious purpose. She is forever watchful and whispers where she can. She whispers to the kitchen staff sick of their head chef. She whispers that they can break him, burn him, bake him and so they do and take turns to see him cook in the large walk-in oven. The chef's spirit is forever trapped with her.

Emma and Kiki are holding Chrissy while Chase turns the camera off. Paranormal Patrol sashay away, you can feel the eye rolls coming off them. Meanwhile the cruise director comes over, makes sure everything is okay and reminds them they’ve signed waivers. Billie sticks up for her charges, and then invites them to attend the sailaway party with her, Kiki and Emma agree, and surprisingly so does Chrissy. Before Chrissy goes, Chase holds her, noting how cold she is despite the warm evening and the thick coat she is wearing. Chrissy doesn’t want to worry him, but confesses about meeting Elizabeth Walker and how she couldn’t break out of wherever she was. They’re both worried, of course. Chrissy heads to the party and Chase stays to look through the footage they just took. In one single frame Chase notices a man all in white with a beard leaning against the railing. He looks like a Captain, but in only one frame of footage? Yeah, that's not possible. Suitably freaked out, Chase books it. 

After the sailaway party, the Gang gets ready for a late dinner, and they’re dressed all fancy. In the restaurant, they meet Ruby and Tripp, their table mates, and Kiki keeps the small talk going while Billie avoids them in case she catches cranky octogenarian. Chrissy keeps losing focus and worrying Chase because she’s not being herself, and Emma eats the left side of the menu. Ruby believes in the curse because there have been so many deaths associated with the ship and sagely tells them that at least a curse can be broken. They just need to send the sarcophagus back to where it came from. Kiki clinks glasses with Ruby, toasting them breaking the curse.

She is starving, present. Being in dry dock and land locked starved the Queen Anne. Now she is disguised and must eat. She has her sights set on the girl who hears the tick tick tick and the trapped souls. No toasts to break the curse will work, he is the Queen Anne’s and fuels her rage. The brats will drop one by one.  

As Kiki finishes saying the words “breaking the curse,” Chrissy is pulled through time. Except this time she isn’t alone, Chase, Emma and Kiki have been pulled through with her. The room is filled with used-to-be-people dressed in their eras, dead eyes and expressionless faces, their heads all turning to the Ghost Gang. Tears of black ooze fall from their eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The ghosts start shuffling for them, surrounding them. Kiki threatened to break the curse and the Queen Anne didn’t like that. Only Kiki screaming “I take it back! … I take it all back … We won't break the curse. We'll leave it alone. We'll leave you all alone," stops the horde and they’re returned to their time. 

Chrissy fakes seasickness and she and Chase are able to leave the dining room. Billie insists Kiki and Emma stay. The experience has left Chrissy feeling like she has water in her ears and the tick tick tick is still there. Meanwhile, Kiki and Emma have been dragged to the Royal Theatre. Emma couldn’t care less about the Great Splendini and whispers to Kiki to meet her outside. Outside the theater, and slightly hidden by prying eyes, they start having a fast and heavy makeout session. Finally! Emma has been haunted by the events of the Hearst Hotel, how the serial killer Bram tortured her and left her for dead and seeing his shade in the shadows. Like right now. Emma can see him just as Kiki’s fingers are working on her shirt. Stopping their intimacy, Emma pulls Kiki away from their secret spot and admits Bram was just there. Kiki tells Emma she can talk to her, but something in Emma won’t let her. 

Kiki starts to return to the theater and her mom who is flirting with the cruise director. Feeling tired of her mother and Emma and needing alone time, Kiki heads to the observation deck where she spots the creepiest ghost of them all, a little girl. Kiki might think she is the biggest chicken of the Ghost Gang, but she’s going to investigate. Meanwhile, back in their suite, Chrissy is turning blue with being so cold. Chase sits Chrissy on the sofa and piles blankets on top before crawling in next to her to share his body heat. The Ghost Gang would be nothing without Chrissy, he would be empty without her. Kiki, meanwhile, has followed the ghost girl to a closed pool. Looking in the water, Kiki sees a teddy bear floating on the surface, and under the protective netting, the girl is at the bottom of the pool. Kiki knows it’s a ghost but instinct kicks in and she tears at the netting and dives in to save the girl. Something in the pool starts pulling at Kiki’s leg, it won’t let her go and she can feel herself drowning. At last her feet touch the bottom of the pool, enough for her to kick up, and enough for a crew member walking by to pull her out. 

Emma stomps inside the suite as Chase is snacking on some of her Cheez-Its and flips him off on the way to her room when he asks what’s wrong. It’s only when Chase just manages to save Chrissy from climbing over the balcony and jumping overboard she comes running down and sees how cold and not with it Chrissy is. Kiki comes into the suite then, shoeless and dripping wet. Yeah, there is something wrong with this ship. Chase barricades the balcony, taking no chances with Chrissy while Kiki dries off and tells them what happened. No one is acting normal and the strange occurrences have escalated since dinner. Chase mentions that Chrissy refers to the haunted locations like they’re alive, and they’re the Queen Anne’s next targets. They also need to keep a watch on Chrissy who keeps coming in and out of consciousness. Chase is convinced Chrissy is possessed. 

There is some skepticism about Chrissy being possessed, but there definitely is something wrong. Better to be safe, Chase suggests they take turns through the night watching Chrissy and Emma volunteers to go first. Unfortunately, Emma falls asleep and when her nightmares of Bram wake her up, Emma notices Chrissy is gone. Straight away, Emma wakes Chase and Kiki. Chase writes a note for Chrissy in case she comes back telling her to stay put before directing Emma and Kiki to check different parts of the ship. He’s got a terrible feeling about deck thirteen so is going to head there. 

Chrissy wakes up in Elizabeth Walker's room, in Elizabeth Walker’s body, on the night of Elizabeth Walker’s death. Not having any control really, Chrissy watches through Elizabeth’s eyes. First she reads her diary, seeing how much she hates her fiancé who is a horrible, brutal man, but her mother insists they need the money. Leaving the suite, Chrissy/Elizabeth walk into a lounge where the bartender is clearing up. He knows Elizabeth and clearly their relationship is more than platonic. Suddenly a squat, ugly, drunk man stumbles into the lounge. It’s Elizabeth’s fiancé. He hits the bartender who is trying to protect Elizabeth so she can escape. Chrissy/Elizabeth run back to their suite to throw her diary over the balcony, only her fiancé follows, and angrily he rips the book from Chrissy/Elizabeth’s hands, telling her she doesn’t have to marry him before pushing her overboard. The water cracks Chrissy/Elizabeth’s head as she makes contact with the ocean. 

She is furious, 1984. The Queen Anne keeps devouring, her hunger never satisfied, if anything she grows hungrier. She picks out one, he’s ugly and angry and drunk, but the problem is he is a monster like her and has no soul. One night he unravels and is filled with rage, he sees red but his victim sees black. 

Chrissy comes to herself standing precariously on a balcony. Chase, on the deck above and calling her name, sees her dangerous situation and parkours over the balcony and pushes her back. Chrissy tells him she was Elizabeth Walker and knows she was murdered because she saw and felt her death. They’re in Elizabeth’s room now, 13340, which has been locked by security, and is apparently the most haunted room on the ship. The consummate paranormal film maker, a small part of Chase wishes he had his camera, but a greater part is worried about Chrissy. A security guard finds them in room 13340 and escorts Chase and Chrissy back to their suite where Kiki and Emma pile Chrissy into blankets and Billie spoon feeds her hot tea to warm her up. Billie doesn’t want anything to do with the paranormal and will watch Chrissy while Chase, Kiki and Emma solve a forty year old murder mystery which will hopefully release Chrissy from the Lady in White’s hold. 

Paranoid the ship can hear them, Chase, Kiki and Emma talk via texts though Chase wonders if the ship can read. They decide that Emma will hit the internet cafe and start researching there while Chase and Kiki will head to the deck with all the pictures of previous crew members. It’s an awkward parting between Kiki and Emma, because Emma can feel Bram behind her, following her as she dashes to deck three. Unfortunately, in her haste, Emma falls and twists her ankle, it's tender and she can still walk, but when she reaches deck three, she falls again and is caught by the boys from Paranormal Patrol. They don’t look right. They shouldn’t have black ooze leaking from their eyes or know her name is Emmeline. They grip Emma’s wrist and, with a heavy Texan drawl, say they’ll look after her, they won’t bite. 

Meanwhile, Kiki and Chase have become separated. Chase with his longer stride soon out marches Kiki who is in fabulous but impractical shoes. They need to get to deck six, to outside the bridge where the old photos are except Kiki is on deck seven. She goes back to the stairwell and down one, again reaching deck seven. Looking above and below her, Kiki sees deck seven. Out loud Kiki tells the ship she is mostly not scared. Suddenly the little girl, first from the corridor and then the pool, steps out of the elevator. She looks at Kiki and Kiki, being brave and feeling like this is the right thing to do, asks the little girl if she can help with anything. The little girl wants to play, so Kiki takes her hand. 

She is drowning, 1956. The Queen Anne is furious with her fresh paint, new linens and the influx of poodle skirts, three-piece suits and champagne. She wants to create a spectacle and finds the right victim in a little girl and her teddy. She lures her to the empty pool, unlocking the door. The girl and her teddy twirl about the poolside until the water from a leaking janitorial faucet causes her and her teddy to slip and fall. No one hears her screams and cries for help.

The Paranormal Patrol boys are taking Emma deeper into the bowels of the ship. She fights back the only way she can think of, by being brightly compliant. If she’s willing to go along with them, it’s not fun anymore. Emma tells them how tired she is and to get it over with. Just as it seems to work, two of them grab her ankles and start dragging her along. Nothing she does breaks their hold until a river of black ooze flows from under a door and tendrils grab the boys. Emma is able to break free and makes a run for it. She ends up in the old Boiler Room that is no longer in operation, a relic from when the ship was built. Emma slams the door and locks it just in time as the boys start hammering on the door, calling for her to come out. 

Kiki has been playing hide-and-seek with the little ghost girl, Mary, age 7, for a while and has seen no other passengers. She doesn’t really know how to deal with kids, but thinks about her own mom and what she would do. For a few moments, Kiki becomes introspective and realizes her mom has become detached but she really wants her back. Mary wants her mom, too, and though it may be hollow, Kiki promises to help find her. The elevator arrives with a ding and Mary declares it’s time to go down. Meanwhile, Chase is berating himself for losing Kiki, for being a terrible friend, being a terrible producer, and putting his girlfriend in the position of being possessed by a damn ship. That’s when he spots the ghost Captain he caught on camera. This time Chase is able to talk to him. He’s Captain Edward J. Smith of the RMS Titanic and he is looking for icebergs. What is the Captain of the Titanic doing on the Queen Anne? Though the Queen Anne is the Titanic’s sister ship, it was built after the Titanic sank. Captain Smith remarks that it’s “every man for himself” but for Chase, that’s simply not true, the Ghost Gang is stronger together. As he makes this decision, the elevator dings revealing Kiki.

Emma is still in the Boiler Room lying spread out on the floor. The Paranormal Patrol guys aren’t banging on the door anymore, but she thinks they are still outside. That’s when she notices Bram inside the room with her and, at first, she’s terrified. The same feeling washes over her as that night in the Hearst Hotel. This time though, there is something different, a tall figure made of the black ooze she’s been seeing is behind Bram, restraining him, scaring him. A tendril wrapped around Bram’s wrist tightens and he drops his knife, which Emma picks up, and with a scream of months of pent up rage, she stabs Bram. Emma wakes up then, startled by droplets of black ooze. She isn’t scared because she’s seen the ooze so much now. Emma tells the ooze to “show her,” and she follows it as it crawls across the floor.

Chase and Kiki are still looking for Emma, but decide to regroup in the suite. Kiki takes the opportunity to speak to her mom and try to start rebuilding their relationship and they make a good start. Billie offers to help find ghost Mary’s mom and says the Cruise Director has worked his way up the ranks on the ship for forty years so he might be able to help. This is genius. The Cruise Director was once a bartender, the bartender, Elizabeth Walker’s bartender! 

Chrissy is stuck inside Elizabeth Walker, she knows she is in the wrong body and the wrong time, but is starting to forget herself. She relives the final moments of Elizabeth’s life, her diary, the bartender and the man she does not want to marry. In one reliving, something changes and Chrissy is able to look at the first page of Elizabeth Walker’s diary and see the name of her horrible fiancé, Edwin William Pritchett III. Chrissy’s own eyes fly open and Billie is sitting next to her. Chrissy tells her Edwin’s full name, begs her to remember and give it to Chase, Kiki and Emma before being pulled back and forgetting. 

Chase and Kiki are headed to the Starlight Lounge for Bingo. Well, to find John Brady the Cruise Director. While Kiki takes over Caller duties and entertains the octogenarians, Chase pulls out his phone and records his “interview.” They’re right, John worked on the boat when Elizabeth Walker died, but then Chase realizes John was the bartender Elizabeth was involved with. John believes Elizabeth's death was suicide because there was a note in her diary, but he doesn’t protest when Chase asks if he wants to help her, or when he and Kiki tell him they’re going to take John to meet Elizabeth again. Meanwhile, in the bowels of the ship, Emma is following the ooze into tighter and tighter crawl spaces. It’s getting darker, and when she pulls out her phone for its flashlight, no one can hear her scream when two red eyes stare back at her from the dark.

On the way to the suite, John opens up about knowing Elizabeth. In the suite, Billie is pacing waiting for the Ghost Gang to arrive. She gives them the name Chrissy told her, Edwin William Pritchett III, and John confirms that was Elizabeth’s fiancé. Suddenly there is a knock on the door and Rose, their dinner table companion comes in. She was earwigging at the bingo game and has something to tell them. Her husband, Tripp, whose full name is Edwin William Pritchett III, has carried something with him from a previous relationship for forty years. Pulling it out of her bag, Rose shows them Elizabeth’s diary. The diary flies out of Rose’s hands and falls open to the suicide note. Chrissy then stands on wobbly legs, walks to the diary on the ground, rips out the suicide note and says “Not. Mine,” but the voice isn’t Chrissy’s. As Chase and Kiki are planning to talk to Tripp, John slips out. Billie has caught the whole thing on her phone’s camera. 

The eyes Emma finds are decorations in the sarcophagus from the curse myth. Not really a myth now. Emma takes photos and videos for Chase before crawling out of the tiny space straight into Tom from the Paranormal Patrol and he’s still under the Queen Anne’s influence. He grabs at her, chases her and generally tries to frighten her but Emma has stared down her serial killer nightmare, this is nothing. Instead, Emma calls the ship out, stunning Tom long enough for her to start making the hard way up the long stairs with a twisted ankle. She ignores all the spooks and specters littering her path and can hear Tom screaming, moreso when he trips and she can hear a bone breaking. At the top of the stairs, Emma finds Tina who found the other two Paranormal Patrol boys sleeping off the drink in the lounge and has gone looking for Tom. Emma asks if she wants in on solving the curse mystery, heck she can take all the credit so long as the sarcophagus is returned home. 

By the time Chase and Kiki reach the casino where Rose said Tripp is likely spending most of his time on the ship, John Brady has his hands wrapped around Tripp’s neck. As security is being called, John punches Tripp, and while on the floor, Tripp reaches for his cane and then there is a loud BANG. It wasn’t just a cane, it had a gun secreted in it and Tripp had shot John in the chest. Chase and Kiki try to help John while security takes Tripp away in zip ties. As life leaves John, he sees the Lady in White. Chrissy/Elizabeth has come to the casino and cradles John as he takes his last breath. She’s been waiting for him. After John dies and Elizabeth leaves Chrissy’s body, Chase can feel her warmth returning. 

She is done, present. The sarcophagus is gone. The curse is lifted. The spirits have left the Queen Anne, she is the last one left and is powerless.

When Chrissy, Chase and Kiki arrive back to their suite, Billie is pretty much vibrating. She’s found ghost Mary’s, Mary Anne Roberts, mother, Eleanor Roberts, but she passed away thirty years ago. Chrissy promises to do a little ceremony to reunite them. Speaking of reuniting, Emma comes busting through the door covered in black oil and happily launches herself at Kiki exclaiming she’s broken a curse.

The rest of the voyage is smooth sailing, and the Ghost Gang is able to record their episode. The sarcophagus will be taken off the ship in Southampton and returned to his proper home and the Queen Anne leaves them alone. Tina makes Tom, Tim and Toby apologize to Emma and gives her box seats to a Dallas Cowboys game she can sell on Ticketmaster for a buttload. Mysteriously as Tina leaves the ship, she turns and wishes them good luck with their new show. Chase looks at his phone which has just pinged, they’ve bagged a TV contract with an up-and-coming competing network of Creep TV, RIP TV and are willing to work with them around their school schedules. 

As the Ghost Gang disembarks the Queen Anne, all the ship's ghosts watch on. Elizabeth Walker and John Brady though are dancing together to “Forever Young” and a mother with her little girl in a blue dress and holding a teddy bear spin in circles. Chrissy isn’t the only one with tears in her eyes, Chase, Kiki and Emma can see the Queen Anne’s ghostly passengers too.