Signs...

The cruise ship was the first sign.

Wait, that's not actually true. 

There had been other signs that morning but nothing that stood out as much as the cruise ship. But once they saw the cruise ship the other things became apparent for what they were.

There had been the moment when they had been waiting in line at the ferry terminal and the Canadian tour bus passengers had been taken to a different stairway than the one that seemed to lead to the ferry. When they saw it happening they had assumed that they were just going on to another deck.

There had been how fast they had cleared through customs. Normally the line took an hour or so and this time they had everyone processed and loaded on to the ferry in record speed. But they had thought that maybe the Canadians were just more efficient, or not as concerned since people were leaving Canada not coming in. Maybe there would be another check on the American side. 

There had been the moment on the ferry where they announced that the snack bar would not be open. They had seen the person who had been working on opening it taken off by an official from the ferry line. He had looked very shocked and their first thoughts were that there must have been a family emergency and they were telling him he needed to go. How horrible for him. 

But when they were approaching the Sound and saw the cruise ship; then they knew there had been something wrong all along. 

Wait, that's not actually true either.

When they first saw the cruise ship they still didn't notice anything wrong. They chatted about their own recent cruise and how they had pulled in to this very same port. But had they been going that slowly? It almost looked like that ship wasn't moving. But no, they did come in really slow. There was a narrow channel that was deep enough for the giant cruise ships so they did come in slowly. But that slowly? 

They had peered closely at the bow of the ship. There was no water movement. They looked for a wake. There was none. The ship was not moving. 

Their ferry passed and they looked at the deck of the cruise ship, at the balconies of the rooms. There was no one outside. Not a single person. No movement from the ship at all. It was dead in the water.

That was when they realized there was a problem. But they had no real idea, not yet...