It was early morning and Allison was busy trying to get Emily up.

“Emily! You have to get up now or we will miss the boat!” Allison screamed.

“Five more minutes.” Emily grumbled as she rolled over.

“Alright I’ll just have to go without you.” Allison said knowing that Emily would never be able to resist. She’d been telling her friends about their trip all winter. Who was she kidding Allison had been doing it, too. On Christmas their parents had given them two tickets to Aruba. Living on Cape Cod was great but Aruba was a whole different story. Allison went back to her own room to finish the last of her packing hoping that Emily would take the hint and get ready. A few seconds later she heard the bathroom door slam shut and knew she had won.

By three the girls were waving goodbye to their parents and getting ready to board the boat.

“Oh excuse me.” a little, hunched man stuttered as he went running past. Emily stepped closer to Allison and grabbed her hand. Both were excited to be going on such an exciting trip alone but with Emily only twelve and Allison just turning sixteen neither was really ready to be leaving home yet.

“Come on. Let’s board and go find our cabin.” Allison said, hoping the excitement in her voice hid the fear. As the girls began walking along the many corridors they soon became lost. “There’s a maid. Let’s ask her to help us. Excuse me miss. Can you please help us find our room?” Allison was trying to keep her voice from shaking because she could tell Emily was about to cry. Emily was very worried that they would never find their room and would be stuck wandering around the ship the whole trip.

“Of course dears” the maid said. She looks about fifty Allison kept thinking but when she talked she almost think she was as young as them. “There you go darlings.” She turned around to her cart and lifted something from beneath it. “This is for you little girl. It was my daughter’s. She always used it when she was away from home and scared.” Emily looked at the tattered teddy bear, then to Allison, then grabbed the bear and hugged it close.

“Thank you.” Allison said as she closed the door to the cabin. “See Emily. Everything is going to be great. Look at this amazing cabin.” Emily just smiled, slipped under the covers on one of the beds, and fell asleep holding the teddy bear. Allison looked at the clock above the fireplace. It was almost midnight. They had been lost for a lot longer then she had thought. She went to the other bed and curled up for some sleep.

Suddenly Allison was jerked awake. Something had shaken the boat and brought it to a grinding halt. “Emily are you alright? Emily? Emily!?” There was no answer from the other side of the room. Allison got up to turn on the light but found that it would not work. She slowly made her way across the room to Emily’s bed. “Emily are you awake?” She felt along the bed but could feel nothing. Her hands began frantically searching the mattress. Nothing. Her bed. Nothing. The closet. Nothing. “Emily this is not funny anymore! Where are you?”

“I’m right here,” a little voice squeaked from the bathroom. Allison walked in to find Emily hiding in the bathtub squeezing the teddy bear as if it might get up and try to run away. “Something was moving under my sheets and it wasn’t me. I didn’t want to bother you so I came in here to escape it,” she whispered.

“Let’s go see what is happening so that we can go back to bed,” said Allison. She lifted Emily out of the tub and carried her out into the hallway.

“Oh excuse me! I didn’t mean it.” the hunched man squirmed as he went running by. Again Allison and Emily both thought of what a strange, little man he was. The girls decided following him may be their best bet to find out why the boat had stopped and so they did. Finally, they came to the lounge and found they weren’t the only ones awakened by the crash.

“What is going on here?” demanded the old maid.

“Oh excuse me,” murmured the hunched man as he kept getting in everyone’s way and it was really quite obnoxious.

“Ally I don’t like this. Can we go back to the cabin now?” Emily yawned.

“In a minute Em. I want to know what’s happening. Auntie will be mad if we are late meeting her in Aruba.” So the girls sat watching everyone and trying to hear what had happened. After awhile the captain was called to come and talk to them. They sat quietly listening as he explained that the ship had hit a sand bar and was temporarily delayed but they would soon be back on track. Just then the lights in the lounge went out and everything was plunged into darkness. “Em hold my hand,” Allison almost screamed. She felt small fingers wrap around hers and knew Emily was all right. As the lights came back on there was an earth-shattering scream. It was emanating from the old maid’s throat because in front of her was the captain…dead as a doornail. When the first mate arrived he tried to figure out what had happened to the captain but there seemed to be nothing wrong with him.

“Stroke,” said the old maid.

“Heart attack,” said the hunched man.

“Murder,” whispered a cold, dark voice from the back of the room. Allison knew neither herself nor Emily should be there yet she couldn’t seem to make herself leave. She was strangely drawn to the captain’s dead body.

“Ally! Now can we go back to the cabin?” Emily whispered, afraid her voice might startle her sister since she seemed in an almost dream-like state. Allison did not respond. She simply looked once more at the body and then dragged her sister down the hallway until they returned to their cabin.

“Did you see it?” Allison demanded as soon as they were in the room.

“Well of course I did. Everyone could see it. He was just laying right there in the middle of the room.” Emily replied.

“Not the body. The…never mind. Don’t want to give you nightmares. Go back to bed. Everything will be fine.” But everything was not fine. Allison knew what she had seen. It was not just the dead body, there had also been…dare she even say it…a ghost. For the rest of the night Allison sat watching Emily. She knew she wasn’t imagining things and she would never let anything happen to her sister so she would have to keep an eye on her and protect her.
A sudden, blinking, red light startled her awake a few hours later. She began looking for the source when she realized it was coming from Emily’s teddy bear. She was puzzled as to why the old maid had given Emily a blinking teddy bear, but her weariness overcame her and she again sank back onto her bed for some more sleep.
A few hours later Emily yelling at her to get up and look out the window awakened Allison. Slowly, Allison crossed the room to where Emily was standing. The night before forgotten the two sisters stood there watching the sun’s light gleam off the deep blue water. There was a loud knock at the door and both girls jumped; the previous night’s memories came flooding back. But when Allison opened the door it was just the old maid with their breakfast. Allison wanted to ask about the teddy bear but did not want to scare Emily, who at the sight of food had crept closer to get a better look.
After eating their breakfast, the girls decided to explore the ship, just not the lounge. As they were walking along the sky deck the hunched man went creeping by again. His usual remark followed him wherever he went.
“Isn’t he strange?” Emily remarked.
“That isn’t nice to say Em. Even if it is so.” Allison replied. The girls continued their adventure until they got back to their cabin. By then Emily was almost starving so they ordered dinner. Just as it arrived the lights went out again but came back on a few minutes later. When they did Allison found Emily outside the door begging to be let back in. She must have been confused and gone through the wrong door thought Allison. So the girls sat down and ate a lovely dinner together. After, they lay down for bed; only to be awakened again by the old maid’s blood-curdling screams. They ran to see what was wrong and found her three rooms from their own.
“Ally, that’s the hunched man’s room” Emily whispered. As they drew closer Allison realized why the old maid had screamed.
“Em, don’t come any closer! Go back to bed.” Inside the room was the body of the hunched man…hanging from a rope. “What happened?” Allison asked the old maid.
“I…I don’t know” she managed between sobs. They both stood staring; neither completely sure what to do next. When the first mate arrived her told them both to leave. So Allison went back to her room to check on Emily.
The next morning, a meeting was called for the whole ship in the dining room. As soon as everyone arrived the first mate began handing out wallets. They had been found in the hunched man’s room. He had not been randomly bumping into people. He had been stealing their wallets! None of the guests could believe that he had killed himself over his guilt. Most believed it was another murder, just like the captain’s death had been.
The girls were becoming very scared of the haunted ship and decided to spend the last two nights of the cruise in their room with the door locked tightly. The ship however seemed to have other plans for when they got back to their room the door was locked and neither girl had her key.
“I swear I didn’t lock it.” Allison kept repeating to herself. With nowhere else to go the girls went looking for someone to let them back in. They soon found the old maid and asked her to let them back in. She did not have a key but would let them stay in her room if they wanted.
“Thank you very much.” Emily stated excitedly for she was very tired and was looking forward to taking a nap. The maid led them to the room and showed Emily a cot she could sleep on.
After the old maid went back to work, Allison decided to take a look around. She soon found a door that was slightly opened. She looked in and found twenty television screens and a computer. On each screen was a paper with a room number on it and the screen showed each room. Allison was about to leave when she noticed that her room number was stuck to the computer screen. She walked a little closer and saw a picture of her room was also on the screen. The old maid had been watching them! But how? That’s when she remembered the blinking teddy bear. It wasn’t just blinking; it was a camera. Just as she was about to turn around and leave; she felt a presence behind her. She turned. It was the old maid. Just then the lights went out again. A few minutes later they turned back on…the old maid was lying in front of her dead and Emily was standing next to her.
“Let’s get out of here.” Allison barely whispered. The girls ran to the lounge to find the first mate and tell him what happened, but all they found was the captain floating behind the ship’s wheel. Both girls screamed and ran as fast as they could in the other direction, only to run straight through the hunched man. The girls sprinted to the sky deck but the only thing there was the old maid. Then all the ghosts began floating towards them.
“Just let us have her. We won’t hurt you. Just let us have her.” they chanted and began reaching for the girls. Emily screamed and went into the fetal position.
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to do it. Don’t let them hurt me Ally,” she cried as she began rocking back and forth. Allison was still in shock until it began to sink in.
“You killed them Em?” she almost whispered.
“I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean it,” Emily cried. Allison looked at her sister sitting there about to be taken away by the ghosts. She could just leave her and never have to worry again, but instead she leaned down, put her arms around Emily, and told her everything would be okay. The ghosts, with disappointed looks on their faces, slowly were pulled down into the water. The next morning the girls awoke on the sky deck. They were docking. They had made it.
“Ally, why didn’t they take me?” Emily asked.
“What are you talking about?” Allison answered her with a wink. “We can’t tell anyone what happened. Do you understand Em? No one. I love you and they couldn’t take you away from the world when you have someone who loves you so much. Now let’s go get our bags and find Auntie.”
Emily just smiled, grabbed her sister’s hand, and said, “We had a great cruise. We made some new friends and slept under the stars on our last night.”
“Exactly” Allison smiled.