by Tim Curran
Everything seemed unreal, dreamlike, the world as they knew it veering out of control, heading for some dark abyss that would suck them down and fill their lungs with black silt. And through it all, that siren kept shrilling through the fog like the warning cry of some prehistoric bird circling its nest.
The sailor’s face had gone all rubbery. “You know I got kids and I don’t know what any of this is about… I don’t like it, I don’t like any of this… people going crazy and us almost getting poisoned down there. What kind of way is that to run a fucking ship? I
… I gotta get out of here… this is all wrong and I don’t know why, but my wife and my fucking kids and aren’t any of you going to do a goddamn thing here but just stare… Jesus, what the hell is this?” He looked around from face to face and knew they were all thinking he was going nuts, but they were all wrong because he was just fine, it was they who were out of touch here. “Are you all going to just stand there or what?” he shouted at them. “C’mon, get us out of here, will ya?”
Saks laughed at him. “You wanna go home?”
“Damn straight I do,” the guy said.
“Well, it’s your lucky day because I just happen to have a helicopter shoved up my ass,” Saks said. “You get me a greasy spoon and I’ll pop that prick out for you, you goddamn pussy.”
That got a few chuckles, defused the situation a bit and that had been Saks’s plan all along. But it wouldn’t last and he knew it.
Sure, the electricity was rising again, Saks saw. Surging and crackling. The group of men before him were on the verge of mob violence only they were all so goddamn confused they didn’t know who or what to take it out on.
The sailor wrapped his arms around himself and was shuddering uncontrollably. His teeth were chattering and there was drool running from his lips. “You,” he said in an airless voice. “Look at all of you. Standing there. Doing nothing. Just waiting to go crazy! Just waiting for that thing to get you, too!”
“C’mon, buddy,” Saks said, putting his arms out to the sailor and indicating to the others with his eyes to do the same. “You need some rest.”
The sailor didn’t fight. The fact that so many people were suddenly concerned about him did wonders. Four or five of his mates helped him below and this very action seemed to calm everyone.
The siren had ended now and the ship was slowing.
Menhaus said, “What was he talking about? What thing?”
“Crazy talk, dipshit. Don’t worry about it,” Saks said. “Now, listen, everyone. Let’s quit acting like a bunch of old ladies and get something going here. You sailors got jobs to do and you better get to ‘em before the captain reams your asses clean. Let’s go.”
Everyone slowly went below decks again. Saks was proud of the way he handled things. But if there was nothing else in this world he was good at, it was handling men and handling trouble. He’d done it in the war and he’d been doing it ever since. Holding hands and kicking asses. He was good at it.
He looked at his own crew. Menhaus and Fabrini stood motionless, wind-up soldiers waiting to be put into action. Ropes of fog clung to them like scarves. “Let’s go find that goddamn captain and see what kind of shit we’re into here,” he said.
There were no arguments.
14
When Gosling heard the alarm and found out one of his boys jumped overboard, he pretty much went apeshit. He ordered the navigator to bring the ship around. Workboats were lowered and a search was carried out for Stokes, the kid who’d jumped over the side. The search went on for nearly an hour in that moist, rank pea soup, led by Gosling himself, but it was hopeless and everyone knew it. First thing he did when he was back on the ship was to jump up and down on his sailors, reaming them out about protocol concerning men overboard. When he was done jamming maritime law and regulations down their throats, he went up one side of Saks and down the other. By the time he was done, Saks had a sore asshole. Saks wasn’t the sort to take crap like that, but Gosling was his kind of man – tough as saddlehide and with a set of balls on him he should’ve been pushing around in a wheelbarrow.
“You want to run my ass up the flagpole, Gosling,” Saks said after he ordered his boys away, “you take me aside and do it. You don’t treat me like that in front of my men.”
But Gosling wasn’t having it. Saks was a tough old bastard himself – just ask him – but Gosling towered over him by nearly a foot and looked like he’d kicked more balls in his time than the Dallas Cowboys. “Well, see, you’re wrong there, Mr. Saks, dead-ass fucking wrong,” he explained. “On this ship I’m the First. First Mate. That means I’m God and Ghandi and Hitler all rolled into one. I run this goddamn ship and if you’re on it, then I run you, too. You’re mine. When the shit comes down, I’m there with the biggest fucking shovel you ever saw and if you don’t believe that, I’ll crack that shovel right across the back of your fucking skull, scoop up what runs out and throw it right over the side. You can believe that.”
“You better watch that mouth,” Saks told him.
“And you better shut your pisshole before I throw your ass into the deep six,” Gosling told him. “We lost a man out there. And if you or your boys had gotten off your dead asses and alerted us to the situation a little sooner, that man might be alive now. So don’t give me any shit, Mr. Saks, because you do and you’re going to look real funny with my size twelve boot hanging sideways out of your ass.”
Saks saw that intimidation wasn’t going to work with this guy, so he just started laughing. “I like you, Gosling, you’re a grade-A prick.”
With that, Saks left.
And Gosling stood there, taking hard breaths and thinking hard thoughts. He didn’t need Saks and his shit because right then, the First had a full plate. Sure, the alarm had been sounded, but not soon enough for Gosling’s liking. In situations like that, it was never soon enough. And why those goddamn mother-rapers – his own crew included – had stood there while Stokes danced over the railing, was beyond him. It should have been obvious what the kid was attempting, particularly given his state of mind.
Gosling just shook his head, watching the fog get thicker and their chances get thinner.
15
George Ryan had been sleeping when the madness hit. As had Cushing and Soltz. They came awake at roughly the same time, gagging and coughing and finding it impossible to draw so much as a breath. They heard the men stampeding in the corridors outside, but decided not to join them.
In fact, it really wasn’t even a choice.
Soltz passed out before he made it to the porthole. George made it there and Cushing just barely did. Within the span of a few minutes it had all passed and they were left lying on the floor, leaning up against bulkheads, their throats raw and dry as desert sand.
They never heard the screaming.
Never even knew what hell had been let loose on the decks above. Everything they would learn, they would learn later and in varying detail from the others. For now, it was just enough for them to be able to breathe.
“What happened?” Soltz asked them.
“A very interesting question,” Cushing said, coughing.
George ignored the sarcasm of that. “We better get topside and see what this is.” Soltz said, “Are we sinking?”
He was staring up into the rafters of the cabin, at the lifejackets and survival suits hanging up there.
“No, we’re not sinking.”
Cushing was staring out the porthole by this time. “Look at that fog,” he said. “You ever see anything like it?”
16
Gosling had one last pipe before he went to the captain.
He stood out on the hurricane deck, staring out over the bow, feeling the wind in his face and watching tendrils of mist snake over the forward decks. There wasn’t much of a stink to the fog anymore. Any that he noticed, that was. Just sort of a vague dank, dark smell about it. And he had to concentrate to really notice it. They’d been in the fog for upwards of three hours now. Noth
ing had changed. The radio was still picking up only dead air and the compass, though not spinning frantically now, was moving in a lazy, jittery circle, counterclockwise, as if it could not detect magnetic north. The gyrocompass was caught in a perpetual lazy roll. The RDF was dead and the SatNav was equally lifeless. It was like being in a vacuum.
Nothing was working right.
Nothing was as it should have been.
Gosling kept telling himself it was the fog, freak weather patterns, atmospheric disturbances, sunspots. Nothing seemed to fit, though. He’d been in plenty of heavy fogs, but none of them like this.
“Shit,” he said to himself. “Sonofabitch.”
He went to the captain’s cabin and knocked gently on the door before entering. Things weren’t terribly rigid or strict aboard the Mara Corday, but the captain was still the ship’s master and deserved respect.
Captain Morse was seated at his desk, his fingers drumming nervously. Morse was a heavy man, a curious combination of fat and muscle. He was clean-shaven and slicked his hair straight back from his brow. Gosling had never seen him smile.
And he was not smiling now. “Well?” he said.
“No dice, Sir,” Gosling told him. “Stokes is gone. If those idiots would have told me we had a man overboard… well, piss on it. Stokes is gone. In this fog, well, we couldn’t see a damn thing. It’s worse when you get water-level, Captain… thicker, smellier… I couldn’t even see the boys in my own damn boat, let alone anything floating out there.”
Morse’s deadpan face did not change. “Tell me about it.”
“Nothing to tell.” Gosling sat down and pulled his watch cap off, smoothing down his hair. “Well, nothing worth mentioning. Some of the boys were getting a little spooked down there.”
Morse raised an eyebrow. It arched like the back of an inchworm. “Let’s have it.”
So Gosling told him… what there was to tell. How the fog was thick and membranous below on the sea which was flatter than a sheet of glass. How they couldn’t see a damn thing, how they lost sight of the Mara Corday almost instantly.
“What was spooking them?”
Gosling said he didn’t know exactly what it was. Everyone was wound up tighter than trampoline springs, so it probably made things worse than they might have been. The only way the two boats kept in contact was with the bullhorn and searchlights. “We kept hearing sounds out there, Skipper. I don’t know… splashing sounds, things moving in the water. Big things. Maybe a pod of whales moving by, I don’t know exactly. In that fog, well it got under the mens’ skins and I didn’t blame ‘em either. I didn’t care much for it myself.”
He was leaving out things and Morse knew it, but he didn’t press. Gosling wasn’t about to tell the ship’s master that a deckhand named Crycek in the other boat started screaming, saying he saw something with a long neck and eyes watching him from the fog. That one of his men claimed he heard Stokes calling out there… except that it sounded like maybe his mouth was full of mud and kelp. Gosling had heard it, too, but he couldn’t say how it was a human voice. It was something, something bad, he just wasn’t sure what.
“Anything else?”
Gosling shrugged. “Like I said, sea is flat as glass. Not so much as a ripple. Patches of seaweed floating around, rotten-smelling stuff. Given the calm and the weed, could be we’re farther into the Sargasso than we should be.”
Morse just nodded. “Could be a lot of things, I guess. What have you got for me, Mister?” he asked. “What happened to Stokes?”
Gosling didn’t have any real answers there, either. Marx, the chief engineer, had a couple deckhands go into the aft starboard ballast tank with the first assistant engineer, Hupp. There was only four feet of water in there, but the intake was clogged. It turned out it was clogged with weeds. Hupp cleaned it out and about that time, Stokes started screaming, fighting his way to the hatch.
“I don’t know, Skipper, there was blood all over the damn place. Around the hatch, on the deck, bulkheads, going up the companionway. Christ if I know what happened. Maybe he got claustrophobic and… well, nothing really explains it, but…”
“But what?”
Gosling just shook his head. “Lot of people heard what he was screaming about. That there was something in him or biting him, something like that. I suppose we could have sucked just about anything into the tank.”
Morse didn’t doubt that. The size of those ballast tanks, a shark could’ve been at home in there. Or a whale. Not that those things could get in through the intake. But smaller fish did quite frequently. Mollusks, shrimp, mussels, you name it.
“Something that bit him,” Morse said. “Chewed into him. Hmm. Is that tank sealed?”
“Yes, sir, it’s secured, all right.”
They talked about the fog, their predicament. The chances things might clear out there.
“I wish there was something I could tell you, but this is all beyond me.” Gosling sighed. “I’ve been sailing a long time, Captain. We both have. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s not in the books or out of it.”
Morse’s face did not change. “Tell me something, Paul. Anything.”
“Okay. Radio’s working, but all we’re picking up is static. RDF is also working but, again, it’s not picking up a goddamn thing. SatNav seems operational, but it, too, is locking in on zilch” He shook his head. “It’s all pretty crazy. Satellite could be messed-up. I’ve seen it happen before, but we should get something. It’s almost like it’s not even up there anymore.”
Which was crazy. He didn’t need to tell Morse how GPS worked. That the GPS was a satellite-based navigation system provided by a network of no less than twenty-four satellites in separate orbital paths. Sure, one might go out and maybe even two or three… but all twenty-four?
Morse considered it. “All right. How about radar?”
“Working. Everything checks. We’re not reading a damn thing. No land masses, no ships. Nothing. Now and then we’ll get a few blips, then they disappear. Could be reflections or nothing at all. I really don’t know. Depthfinder’s okay. We’re reading bottom at twelve-hundred feet. Seems pretty consistent. Compass is moving counterclockwise still.”
“Mechanical?”
“No way. Back-up’s doing the same. Even the one I keep in my kit is doing it. Gyro can’t grab a fix, either. LORAN’s belly-up. There’s nothing wrong with our instruments, Captain. It’s gotta be this fog or this sea or something.” He shook his head. “I pulled her off autopilot
… I got Iverson on the wheel now. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I just don’t trust technology today.”
Morse stared at his hands. There were callused and rough from a lifetime spent battling the wind and weather. They shook slightly. “We better keep running quarter-speed until…”
Gosling licked his lips. “Until what?”
“Until we get out of this”
Gosling just nodded. There was really nothing else they could do. He knew Morse was thinking the same crazy things he was. Crazy, comic book shit about the Devil’s Triangle and the Sargasso Sea and all the silly stories they had inspired. But neither would speak of it.
“What about that smell before?” Morse asked.
“All I can tell you is that it’s gone. It didn’t come from us, I know that much. It came with the fog. Whatever sense that makes.” He chewed his lower lip, thinking. “It was more than a stink, Captain. We both know that. It was almost like there suddenly was no air.”
“Keep that to yourself” Morse said.
They sat there in silence for a moment. Then Gosling cleared his throat. “You ever seen anything like this?”
Morse pursed his lips. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, I guess. Nobody’s seen this before. Have you checked your watch?”
“My watch?”
Morse had a digital. It seemed to be operating.
Gosling had a diving watch. The hands were running backward. “And it’s not just mine.”
> Morse exhaled. “I think,” he said slowly, “we’re in deep shit.”
17
About ten minutes later, Morse met with Saks and his crew. It was not something he was particularly looking forward to. He met with them in the observation lounge and answered their questions. The observation lounge was a space generally reserved for the brass of the shipping company and assorted VIPs: politicians, privileged guests etc. It contained a wet-bar, marble fireplace, imported leather furniture, and gleaming walnut paneling. Morse hoped, maybe in some small way, that the lavish accoutrements would give Saks the impression that he was thought highly of by the crew and officers of the Mara Corday… and particularly, the captain himself.
Of course, it was all a ruse. Morse was no more impressed by the man than his First was, but he knew all about men like Saks. If you could control him, you could control his people.
“The sea can get a little freakish this time of year,” Morse told them. “I’ve seen fogs wrap up a ship for two, three days. It’s nothing to worry about.”
Saks nodded. “That’s what I figured. You idiots hear what the captain said?”
Fabrini just shook his head. “Yeah, we heard, we heard.”
“Good. Now you can quit with the ghost stories all ready.”
“There really is no reason for alarm,” Morse told them, maintaining his demeanor, just damn glad they couldn’t see him on the inside – the quivering, white-knuckled thing he had become.
“Shit,” Fabrini said. “Do you guys even know where we are?”
“We’re on course. But we’re moving slow. We don’t have a choice in this soup.”
Saks scowled at that. “How much of a delay are we talking here? I got a contract to fill, you know.”
“A day, maybe two. No more than that.”
Soltz shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His glasses reflected the fluorescents above. “What about the man who threw himself overboard?”