by JE Gurley
When Bodden took the wheel, Germaine busied himself by straightening the mess the sea lice had caused in the cabins. A few of the creatures remained, dead and decaying. Germaine scooped them into a bucket with a wooden boat hook and tossed them over the side. Every item of food on board, even canned goods, had suffered damage. Clothing, bedding, extra sails – anything chewable – had been targeted by the creatures. As he threw everything overboard, he realized that he was leaving a trail of jetsam behind the Miss Lucy. He hoped nothing followed it.
Finally, exhaustion won out over his fear of sleeping. He had postponed sleep as long as his body would allow. He threw a blanket over the bare wooden boards of his bunk and slept.
* * * *
Oct. 26, Neptune Lifeboat #3, Cayman Trench, Caribbean –
The lifeboat contained seven survivors – five men and three women. Most, including Josh, were in various stages of shock. Only Doctor Chase seemed impervious to recent events. He busied himself administering to his patients from the small stock of supplies in the boat’s first-aid kit – aspirin for pain, bandages for wounds, and antibiotics for two people infected by parasites from the Bristle worm mucous. One of the passengers held a flashlight for him as he worked.
Josh examined the lifeboats supplies – a GPS unit, a radio, a signal-flare gun with five flares, ten gallons of water, and food that, stretched, would last the seven survivors two days. They had only the gasoline in the small, five gallon tank. After they exhausted that meager supply, they would have to row. He had retained his Remington, but had only three shells remaining. He had lost the box of ammo during the evacuation.
Almost from the beginning, one passenger, a former marine named Krajack, gave him a hard time. When Doctor Chase had insisted that they remain in the area until morning to search for survivors, both Josh and Krajack had argued against it, but Josh had finally relented. Krajack was not so easily dismissed.
“Who placed you in charge,” he demanded.
“I’m just driving,” Josh replied. “Doctor Chase is in charge.”
“How so?”
“He’s a ship’s officer.”
“I demand we make for the Caymans now.”
Josh was exasperated by Krajack’s attitude. “Look, you can take charge if you want. I don’t care, but we’re not going to the Caymans. I came from there. Little Cayman is gone, and we were on our way to Grand Cayman to help them after the storm. They’ve got enough troubles.”
“I say we put it to a vote.”
“No votes. Show them the photos,” Doctor Chase said.
Josh passed around his cell phone, explaining, “These things came ashore on Little Cayman. You saw what attacked the ship. There’s something else out there, too, something bigger.”
“Bigger?” one woman asked. “How big?”
“Big enough to sink a ship,” Chase replied.
“I still say we go to Grand Cayman,” the marine continued, but with less conviction than earlier.
“Well, we’re not,” Chase said. He glanced at Josh. “We’re going to Jamaica. Hurricane Clive didn’t do much damage there,” he turned to Krajack, “as you well know. When we get close enough, we can use the radio to call for help.”
This seemed to satisfy Krajack, or at least he said nothing more. Chase moved closer to Josh and whispered, “I’m worried about the two infected people.”
“Is it contagious?”
“I don’t know. It’s not the infection I’m worried about. That’s secondary. The parasites are voracious. I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s nothing in the kit for parasites.”
Josh checked the fuel. “We should have enough fuel to get us most of the way to Jamaica. Maybe we can contact a ship before then, and get them some help.”
Chase nodded. “I hope so. Otherwise …”
Josh didn’t want to waste their small stock of precious flares, but he fired two at fifteen minute intervals while they were still in the vicinity of the wreckage, hoping to get a response from one of the other lifeboats. No one answered. He tried the radio with the same results.
Of the five passengers, only two were a couple. Each of the others had lost someone aboard the Neptune. One woman had watched her husband being eaten by a Bristle worm. The others held out meager hope that their loved ones made it into one of the other lifeboats. From the radio silence, Josh didn’t think any of the earlier lifeboats had made it away safely.
Josh had lost no one, either on Little Cayman or aboard the Neptune, but he understood their grief. His high school sweetheart, the girl he had planned to marry, had died in a car crash during his first year in college. His grades had suffered so badly that he had considered dropping out, but school was all he had left. Sometimes clinging to hope was the only rope a drowning person is thrown.
The night seemed unending, but dawn revealed a clear sky and a calm sea. The oppressiveness of darkness dissolved with the sun’s first rays. They were still adrift, but they had survived into a new day. Wreckage littered the sea, already spreading by the tides. Soon, nothing would remain to mark the Neptune’s grave. Satisfied there were no more survivors, Josh pointed the boat away from the Neptune toward Jamaica.
The two infected people were getting worse. Their color was ashen and their breathing labored. Josh could see the fear in the other passenger’s eyes. Doctor Chase’s frustration at his inability to ease their suffering was written in his haggard face. Jason suspected Chase’s fondness for alcohol had driven him to seek a job as ship’s physician, but neither his bedside manner nor his compassion for the sick had diminished. He ministered to their needs continuously, forgoing sleep.
By mid-morning, the woman, whose name he never learned, succumbed to her illness and gasped her last breath.
“We have to remove her body from the boat,” Chase said, shocking everyone, even Josh.
“Over the side,” the Krajack protested. “Ridiculous.” He eyed Josh. “There will need to be an inquiry.”
“Shut the hell up!” Chase snapped. Reining in his anger, he said more calmly, “We need to get rid of her body because I don’t know what will happen to the parasites infecting her after she dies. They might seek a live host.”
Josh nodded. Burial at sea was a custom as old as sea travel. Unfortunately, they had nothing with which to wrap or to weight the body. In the end, they simply lowered her gently into the water and restarted the engine, leaving her behind. He was glad the other patient was comatose and didn’t witness the lackluster burial.
Less than three hours later, the second patient died. They repeated the procedure. However, this time, Jason noticed the dead man’s skin writhing as the parasites sought their freedom.
“Hurry,” he urged.
Krajack became frightened, dropped the dead man’s head, and scurried to the opposite end of the boat. In his haste, he dislodged the fuel line. Gasoline spilled into the boat and the engine sputtered and died, as the fuel line fell over the side. As Jeff struggled to roll the corpse over the side alone, several half-inch long creatures emerged from the man’s flesh and fell into the boat. He let the man drop into the water and began stomping the creatures with his foot. None escaped his wrath. He cast Krajack a deprecating glance and removed his shirt to wipe up the spilled gasoline. When he reconnected the fuel line, he noticed that almost half their fuel was gone, spilled into the water. It took several attempts to restart the engine. He resumed his place by the tiller and pulled away from the floating corpse. They had been in the water less than eight hours and had already lost two of their number and half their remaining fuel.
The motor sputtered and died two hours later. The sudden silence after so many hours was eerie. Several of the passengers who had been dozing woke with a start. According to the GPS, they were still over a hundred miles from Jamaica.
“Looks like we row from here,” Josh said.
“Can’t we rig a sail?” one of the women asked.
“With what? We don’t have anything to use for a sail
unless we strip naked, and there’s no wind.”
The woman sat back defeated. Josh chided himself for being so aggressive in his argument. They were frightened. So was he. The lifeboat had only one set of oars. They would have to take turns at rowing. Besides himself, the youngest person in the boat was in their fifties, so Josh volunteered for the first shift. After the slow but steady progress with the motor, the boat appeared to be glued to the water. If not for the faint wake behind them proving that they were moving, Josh would have ceased his effort.
The sun beat down on his naked back, rekindling his sunburn. His other aches and pains quickly awakened. His shoulder throbbed incessantly. He bit his lip and rowed. He silently sang a tune by the Goo Goo Dolls to keep his rhythm, Long Way Down. He supposed his mind had unconsciously lifted the song from his memory as a reminder of what lay below them, urging him to row faster. After two hours, exhausted, he relinquished his position to Krajack, who proved to be fitter than he appeared. To Josh’s surprise, Krajack handled the oars expertly, the blades biting the water with each stroke for maximum thrust. Josh was beginning to believe they would reach their destination.
He relieved Krajack as the setting sun kissed the razor-edge horizon, turning it a soft gold. Doctor Chase passed the passengers a cup of water and a protein bar, their second meal of the day. Josh quickly downed his, knowing his body needed to replace the energy he had expended rowing. They would spend another night on the water, and at their present rate of speed would be lucky to reach Jamaica by noon. Josh settled into the steady rhythm of rowing, the oars slicing the water with hardly a ripple. His mind wandered. He fought the images of the Bristle worms attacking the ship and concentrated instead on the beach at Little Cayman before the night of the isopods.
A thud on the bottom of the lifeboat drew his mind back to the lifeboat. It was quickly followed by several more. He stopped rowing. The water beside the boat began to swirl as something just beneath the surface circled it. Finally, their visitor surfaced, a twenty-feet-long Viperfish. Its long, sinuous, eel-like body brushed the boat, almost upsetting it. The creature’s bulbous head filled with dagger-like teeth yawned menacingly. To Josh’s horror, a dozen more of the creatures surfaced around the lifeboat.
“What do we do?” Krajack asked.
Josh almost laughed that the ex-marine was asking his advice. “Sit still. No one talk,” he warned the others. “Maybe they’re simply curious.” To satisfy his own curiosity, he took several photos of the Viperfish with his cell phone. They flashed their colors in response to his cell phone’s flash. Chase warned him silently to stop. He heeded the doctor’s advice.
For several heart-stopping minutes, nothing happened. The Viperfish continued to circle the boat like rampaging Indians circling a wagon train. Then, one of the creatures tired of investigating and attacked. It rammed the side of the boat with enough force to lift it hit several feet into the air.
“Hang on!” Josh yelled.
The boat rocked precariously but resettled right side up, but the creatures became more agitated. They repeatedly jostled the lifeboat, opening up several small leaks. When Josh saw Krajack stand and lift an oar into the air with an expression of fear and rage on his face, he knew the ex-marine was making a big mistake.
“Don’t,” he yelled, but it was too late.
Krajack smashed the oar into the head of one of the creatures. A second Viperfish grabbed the oar in its mouth. Krajack and the Viperfish wrestled for possession of the oar for several seconds. The Viperfish won, almost yanking Krajack into the water. Off balance, he fell to the gunwale, striking it hard with his chest. Before he could recover, the Viperfish released the oar and seized Krajack’s head, snapping it off cleanly above the shoulders. Krajack’s lifeless body fell back into the boat, flailing madly in its death throes, spraying everyone with blood. Thinking quickly, Josh grabbed Krajack by the feet and shoved the dead man’s body over the side. Before anyone could stop him, he picked up the shotgun and shot Krajack in the chest. Doctor Chase stared at him in horror as he dropped the shotgun, picked up the remaining oar, and used it to propel the lifeboat from the midst of the feeding frenzy.
The water behind them churned with the feeding Viperfish, but none of the creatures were following as he had hoped. It was slow rowing with only one oar, but he gradually increased the distance between the Viperfish and the lifeboat. Chase continued to stare at him.
“I had to do it,” Josh explained. “Those things had tasted human blood. Krajack was dead. He didn’t feel anything.”
“Why shoot him?”
“We needed more blood.”
The woman who had suggested a sail was incredulous. “You used him to chum the water.”
Josh nodded.
“It was disgusting,” she said.
Josh stared at her. “You’re welcome to go back and bury him.”
She averted her gaze and said nothing more. Trying to reach Jamaica with one oar was hopeless. The current moved them away from Jamaica faster than they could row. They were adrift in a vast sea with little chance of rescue. The limited range of the radio meant that a rescue vessel or plane would have to be within a few miles to hear them, and the signal flares were difficult to see even at night. His cell phone was still charged, but had no reception. Josh convinced the doctor to open a package of crackers and a can of stew, hoping a real meal would lighten the mood, but most, including him, possessed little appetite in spite of their gnawing hunger. They settled back, each wrapped in his or her private thoughts. Josh passed the time bailing out the lifeboat with the empty stew can, but the water poured in almost as quickly as he could bail. They were in dire danger of losing their boat.
The sea finally swallowed the sun, leaving them in darkness. A northeasterly wind picked up, bringing with it a cold breeze. The waves rose, rocking the lifeboat. With the passing of the sun, their resolve weakened.
“We’ll never reach Jamaica,” Rawlins complained as he replaced Josh at bailing. “We’ll die here.”
“We have food and water,” Josh countered.
Rawlins, a thin, wiry man in his late sixties, waved his hands about frantically. “We have those … things out there. They’ll find us again.”
“Keep bailing,” Josh said. Rawlins stared at him angrily. “We’ll take two hour shifts while the others sleep.” Rawlins resumed bailing.
The moon rose just after ten p.m., relieving some of the darkness but none of the tension. Now they were five – Josh, Doctor Chase, Rawlins, and the two women, Clarice Bivens, a housewife from Des Moines, and Mary Elizabeth Hart, a retired teacher from West Palm Beach. Bivens had not yet accepted that she was likely a widow; clinging to a slim hope that her husband had survived the sinking. Rawlins admitted that he had travelled with a female companion, not his wife, but seemed little disturbed at her death.
Josh noticed a glow beneath the water some distance away, but said nothing, fearing to alarm his fellow passengers. He was relieved when the lights disappeared to the northwest. He allowed the rocking of the boat to lull him to sleep. If not for a low droning sound …
He sat up with a start, cocked his head to one side, and listened. Satisfied that he had heard something, he took the Very pistol and fired a flare into the air. The red flare arced over the sea before disappearing.
“What is it?” Chase asked. The other passengers were looking at him as well. They had heard nothing.
Josh ignored their questions as he loaded a second flare into the pistol, fired and waited. He hesitated using the last flare. The droning grew louder. A few minutes later, a spotlight swept over the lifeboat.
“A boat!” Rawlins called out.
When the spotlight swept away, Josh saw a sailboat a few hundred yards away. Two men stood on the deck, one controlling the spotlight. He began to wave his arms along with the rest of his fellow castaways. They were saved.
10
Oct. 27, Miss Lucy, Cayman Trench, Caribbean –
Just after sunset, Bodden sp
otted an overturned lifeboat off the starboard side. Germaine brought the ship alongside and killed the engine. He switched on the spotlight and played it over the lifeboat. The boat belonged to the Neptune, a hundred-passenger cruise ship he had heard of out of Bermuda. A large piece of the stern was missing, shattered by some great blow.
“No bodies,” Bodden said.
“No, it’s been in the water awhile.”
He restarted the engine and continued south. An hour later, they encountered more debris – deck chairs, life vests, pieces of wood, shuffleboard sticks, bottles, and even a suitcase, but no bodies. It was enough evidence to rule out debris accidently dropped over the side.
“The storm could have sunk her,” Bodden suggested.
They both knew the captain of the Neptune would have sat out the hurricane in a safe harbor, Jamaica or Haiti. Something other than the weather had sunk the passenger liner. He didn’t want to dwell on what.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Germaine replied. He killed the spotlight, cranked the engine, and resumed his original heading. To be safe, he turned on the electronic fish finder he had traded a case of illegal Jamaican rum for. He didn’t want anything sneaking up on him from below.
A week earlier, Germaine would have said that night was his favorite time aboard ship – the moon and the stars reflected in a calm sea, a cool breeze on his face, the darkness erasing the worries of the day. However, tonight he wanted to slink across the Caribbean like a mouse, drawing no attention from whatever lurked beneath the deceptive calm of the water, every real and imagined reflection of light bringing chills to his spine. He gripped the wheel so hard his hands ached.
After midnight, Bodden relieved him at the wheel. He sat in the bow staring into the darkness. He almost missed the first flare, catching it only from the corner of his eye as it fell into the sea. At first, he dismissed it as a falling star, but as the second flare arced skyward, he motioned for Bodden to steer toward it. He spotted the lifeboat a few minutes later and focused the spotlight on it. The lifeboat held five people. He didn’t mind leaving the survivors on Grand Cayman, but he couldn’t leave people adrift at sea.