Chapter 4

The hallways felt unending to Jason as the group made their way to their rooms. Each time he thought it was done, it simply shifted slightly to the left before opening up to another stretch of numbered doors. Of course, their rooms had to be as stern as possible. Or was it bow? Starboard-stern is what Jason finally decided was what he was told after considering all the options. Why couldn’t it just be front, back, left, and right? As annoying as the airport was, at least he just had to know right and left to navigate those hallways.

“Ahh, here we are!” said David as he let his bag slide off his shoulder. He pulled a keycard out of his pocket and started lifting it towards the door of 13236.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Greg. “We didn’t spend extra for these things to let them go to waste.” He thrust his wrist out towards the door and placed his blue plastic wristband up against the locking device. Greg hit David with an I-told-you-so face as the lock clicked and David’s eyes rolled. The door opened up, and Jason got to finally see what a Disney Cruise room looked like in real life.

Immediately, Jason’s eyes were drawn to the ocean. The balcony door was open, and it felt like he could see out for an infinite distance where wavy dark blue met wispy light blue. Salty breeze made the curtains dance before reaching Jason’s nose. Seagulls were off in the distance, soaring calmly before diving for a fish while their friends gave out uplifting squawks of joy. What an amazing view, refreshing aroma, and beautiful sound before they even left the dock.

Then Jason took a moment to examine the actual room. Two beds, a TV, a tiny desk area, and a surprisingly thin door that led to the bathroom. Overall, it was nice and clean, but at the end of the day, that part was just like a slightly nicer hotel room that had been shrunk down a little bit. Super clean, super neat, super ordinary. But who cares? If this meant that he could just sit on the balcony and feel nature, then it was perfect.

“Wow, this is amazing! Which bed is mine?” asked Jason as he held out his bags, ready for placement.

“This isn’t your room, Jason,” said Greg. “You’re across the hall. This one is just for me and David.”

“Oh, like the other side of the boat? Starboard or whatever?”

“No, literally the one right behind you. It’s fully inside, just one number higher than ours.”

“Oh,” Jason said, trying his best to contain his disappointment but somewhat failing.

“Don’t worry,” replied David, “we’ll spend almost no time in the rooms other than sleeping anyway.”

Jason nodded while turning around to go to his room like a kid not getting picked for the kickball team. He pulled out his phone and used the keycard app to unlock his door. The room wasn’t bad. That’s what he told himself. It wasn’t boring and claustrophobia-inducing at all. It was fine. It was fine, and he’ll be fine. No matter what lies he told himself, it was at least nice to finally get to put down his bags and rotate his now un-bourdoned shoulders. The vacation part has to start sometime, right?

Before Jason could even sit down on the bed, he heard a knock on his door. He started talking before he even got the door open.

“Seriously, this is great, I’ll be fine over here-”

Jason stopped when he saw that it wasn’t David or Greg, like he had assumed. It was Kelly out of uniform and Ella out of Elsa.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t expect to see you again so fast,” said Jason.

“Well, it turns out it wasn’t actually that broken other than needing a new lens that we luckily had in storage,” said Kelly. She held out the camera to Jason.

“Captain Mickey doesn’t waste time!” said Ella gleefully.

“Well, thank you, uh, Kelly, was it? And… Elsa, I guess?” said Jason as he took the camera out of Kelly’s hands and started looking it over as if he actually knew what to check for.

“No, I’m Ella. I don’t think we’ve met yet,” said Ella as she gave Jason a wink.

“Yeah, uhh, of course,” replied Jason.

“So I guess that does it then. Hope you have a great time on the cruise,” said Kelly in a monotone, professional way. She started to walk away, but Ella grabbed her by the sleeve.

“We just got off of our onboarding shift and haven’t eaten yet. Are you hungry? Care to join?” asked Ella with a grin.

Jason was indeed very hungry. He hadn’t wanted to get anything for breakfast, knowing that once on the boat, the food was all-you-can-eat. But he had no idea that the onboarding process would take so damn long.

“Actually, I need to go over wedding stuff with my friends before we do anything else.”

“Wedding stuff? Oh, are you the one in the Star Wars Bar or the one in the Up House Cafe?” asked Kelly.

Jason chuckled. “Oh god, David would never agree to get married in a Star Wars themed anything. That shit is like the Satanism to his Star Trek religion.”

A grin grew on Ella’s face as she looked at Kelly.

“Oh, wow,” said Kelly, “I guess that means I’ll be there tomorrow then. I play the piano for events in that venue.”

“How do you not cry every time you play that song from Up!?” asked Jason. “It’s soooo good, but I think Greg’s just looking for an excuse for why he won’t be able to hold it together during the ceremony.”

Kelly chuckled lightly, “Oh yeah, it’s usually around half the room crying. I’ve just learned how to bury my emotions deep down inside.”

“That’s exactly my goal with all of my emotions every day,” replied Jason half-sarcastically.

Ella’s grin grew bigger.

Jason said, “Well… sorry I can’t grab food with you right now, but maybe-”

Greg and David’s door swung open as David started talking, “Jason, did you want…” he paused and noticed the two women in the hallway before continuing more slowly while assessing the situation, “…to go grab some food and discuss the wedding plans?”

Ella’s grin maxed out.

The buffet room was enormous and crammed full of hungry passengers while Jason tried to find the table that the group had decided on. He had done a full walk-through of all the options and ended up with a little bit of everything. If it was going to be almost a full week on this boat, he needed to figure out what the best options were now. He was a bit disappointed with the soda options, though; all Pepsi products. How had they not gotten enough angry letters from Karens about missing out on Diet Coke?

Finally, Jason saw Greg holding his hand up and waving at him. They were all four in a booth next to a side window looking out on the port. Not as nice as the side looking out on the ocean, but still better than looking at a wall. He made his way over to the table. Greg and David sat on one side while Ella and Kelly were on the other. A chair was waiting for him at the end of the table, slightly in the way of people passing by. Jason didn’t love being the one causing an annoyance to others. It didn’t help that he had the camera over his shoulder as well.

“I pulled you over a seat!” said Ella. “Your friends have been telling us all about you. So you’re a backup photographer, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Jason, “I’m a bit of a last-minute fill-in, and the photos will probably be very boring. But hey, free cruise, so I can’t complain.”

“Didn’t you go to film school?” asked Kelly.

“Well, yeah, but I was never good with the equipment. You know, the hard part where they actually have to create something. Instead, I just stuck with boring theory and criticism.”

“But his criticism is the best!” said David, putting his arms up and expanding his hands like Martin Scorsese.

“Is it though?” said both Greg and Jason at the same time.

David elbowed Greg before saying sternly, “The BEST! He convinced me that a four-hour black-and-white Japanese film from the 50s wasn’t a waste of my time.”

Kelly looked at Jason. “Oh yeah? What’s the best movie ever made?”

“Weeelllll,” started Jason, “That’s such a subjective thing that’s basically like a Sophie’s Choice or Pull the Train Lever kind of question, so…”

“Fine, fine, fine. What’s your favorite film?”

“Ahh, that’s easy: Inglourious Basterds.”

Kelly nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good one. Why is it your favorite?”

“Obviously, it has a lot of things going for it, but I think the biggest element is that I just like movies where it’s easy to know the good guys and the bad guys. I hate the idea of fighting anyone… anyone but Nazis. I’m getting tired of villain redemption arcs.”

“Oh my god, did you see Wicked!?” asked Ella.

Kelly gave Jason a mild grin while examining his reaction. She shook her head while laughing internally.

“What? They made that Dr. Oz wizard guy basically a Nazi, right?” replied Ella.

Greg interjected, “And with that, why don’t we move on to tomorrow’s wedding plans?” He pulled out of his backpack multiple stacks of paper and started handing them to everyone. “Here you go, Kelly, since you’ll be a part of it all, I suppose you can see what all we’re doing. You can just turn to the fourth page since we’re already past the travel stuff.”

Jason opened his up and examined it all. This thing was printed on textured paper with watermarks on each page. Greg really spared no expense. The fourth page had a list of times in bold on the left, followed by titles on the right and descriptions below each title.

“First, 9AM wake-up time is what David and I plan on. Obviously, this portion is up to you as long as you’re dressed casually for photos starting in our room at 11AM. We’ll take some photos on our deck, then go to the bow-”

“That’s the front,” said David to Jason.

“Yes, the bow of the ship for more pictures. We’ll need to be done with those and be at the Up House Cafe by 11:30AM to set up extra decorations. Attendees can enter starting at noon, ceremony officially starts at 12:30PM, and will be done by 1:30PM sharp. Jason, you need to make sure to get photos of all of our family members, group family photos, and, of course, photos of the ceremony as it commences. Actually, you might want to check that you have enough space in there right now.”

Jason put his stack of paper down and started reaching for the camera. He started to turn it on while Greg continued.

“After the ceremony, we don’t have anything that we must attend until the special dinner we reserved at 6PM. So I figured we could go to different areas on the boat for more pickup shots in different places and-”

“What the fuck!?” stated Jason quietly, suddenly interrupting Greg. Jason was staring at the screen on the camera; eyes wide and brows furrowed. Kelly, Ella, and David were all taken aback by his sudden change in tone.

Greg didn’t fully notice Jason’s reaction and responded, annoyed, “Is that too much to ask? I mean, I don’t think it’s that much work to take some extra photos.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” said Jason, “look at this.” He turned the camera around for the other four of them to see the image on the screen. They all look at it for a moment without understanding what Jason was seeing. It was a bad photo of the ceiling of the ballroom, slightly blurry.

“Was this the photo it took when the camera fell?” asked Kelly.

Jason nodded. “Don’t you see it?”

All four of them squinted a bit and leaned in more.

“All I see is an accident that needed to be fixed,” replied Greg.

“No, look over here.” Jason spun the camera around and used the zoom feature to show them something from the bottom right corner. He turned it back to them. “What the fuck is this?” he asked, now in a very dark, serious tone.

Now the other four could see it. Yes, it was blurry, but they all knew the shape and color of that hat; Ella and Kelly especially. That was Goofy standing on the top balcony. But it wasn’t just Goofy. It was Goofy holding a knife in someone else’s throat.

Prev: Chapter 3

Next: Chapter 5