by Patrick Riot
# # #
The judge had accepted the news over another drink. Without a word, he stood up and made his way out of the bar, leaving behind the envelope with fifty $100 dollar bills stuffed within. Lenny scooped the money up and secured it behind the cigarette tin in his inside jacket pocket, and made his way out to the aft of the ship.
Lenny preferred the solitude of the deck at this time of night. He leaned against the aft rail and looked into the darkness, listening to the slosh-slosh of the water churning below, feeling the comforting hum of the engines vibrating through the deck.
“What do you see?”
It was the ghost's voice, the hollow, sad, preternatural voice of the dead.
“There's not much of a view this time of night,” Lenny replied, without turning around.
“I wanted to thank you,” the ghost said.
“For what?”
“For delivering my message accurately, and for listening to my tale,” said the ghost. “I also have some good news.”
“Good news?”
“Yes, I told you I had several promising leads on a job. Well, the powers that be decided that my haunting here was good enough for me to work as a headhunter, to help other ghosts find work in the haunting industry.”
“Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
“Yes, they are. To all of us.” The ghost stepped away from the rail and gestured behind them.
Lenny turned in time to see the spirits as they coalesced on deck. A stiff breeze caused the spectral prisoner's tattered rags to flutter as the damned men assembled a final, unholy roll call. Sixty-three grim visages turned their necrotic eyes toward the one named Martin as they sought orders. Martin signaled the group with a nod of his head, and sixty-three spirits, in foul unison, descended into the belly of the ship, finally finding their revenge in Cabin 664.
Lenny's reality had begun to foam like the head on frosty cold beer poured straight from the keg, and to make things worse, he thought he could hear the old man's mad screams, even from this distance, even over the sound of the engines turning and the white-noise wake churning down below. He looked out again, over the railing and toward the sea, determined to see nothing one more time.
# # #
His nerves steeled, Lenny found himself staring at the doorknob for a second time. Nothing could be heard from beyond the door's faux paneling with its designation of punched steel numbers: six, six, and four. His hand shook as he reached out and turned the knob. The door swung open slowly.
Lenny was sure he had the wrong cabin, for this one was in pristine shape with no sign of the destruction that he had witnessed a short time before. The detritus on the floor was gone. The furniture without mar and in place. The sliding glass door was unbroken.
Lenny double-checked the room number and came up with a match. As he began to question this new reality, he saw it: that thin, dark shape hanging from the rafter of the vaulted ceiling, swinging gently back and forth, back and forth. Judge 'Rope-Neck' Tigh—the hangingest judge in Texas—was now himself hung, anchored to the rafter with the necktie he wore, his haunted face staring at the empty wing-backed chair, stark terror etched deep into his wrinkled features.
Lenny left the cabin and shut the door. Using his shirt, he wiped away any prints that he may have left on the doorknob, and then with as much nonchalance as he could muster, he walked away without a backward glance. It had seemed the most natural course of action to him at the time. Reality was now behaving like both a particle and a wave, and he wanted off the ship, his feet on the ground. As the cruise still had seven days left to go, he’d have to settle for getting drunk, instead.
# # #
Ship's gossip told Lenny that some old judge had hung himself in his cabin up on Deck 6, and ha-ha, don't go near Deck 6 now because it's probably haunted. Lenny's fellow passengers volunteered their alibis as they casually conversed of the hanging, as if they were giving statements to Hercule Poroit. However the passengers' moods turned dour when their personal murder mysteries came to an abrupt end: the ship's doctor ruled Judge Tigh’s death a suicide.
Suicide.
Lenny knew better, but all he could do was giggle.
~ The End ~
07/12/2012
About the Author
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Patrick Riot was born on the Woodstock stage during Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. Rumors that he is the love child of Rick Santorum and Octomom are completely without merit. His previous works include Foo Foo, a wholly unsuccessful (yet highly-entertaining) book.
Connect with Patrick Riot
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You can circle-plus Pat or examine his blog-type thing.