by Russ Watts
“It’s up to you now. I’ve still got a few years in me yet, but your mother…well, she worries you know. I can’t carry on forever. We’ll talk about it when we get back home, but it’s up to you now.”
“Thanks, Dad, I…I’m…Wow. Thanks.” Hamish had hoped this would happen one day, but he never imagined it would be this soon. His father would be sixty next year, and he wondered if that had something to do with it. It was true, his mother did worry a lot, but then, she had never been one for the ocean.
“While we’re at it, there’s something else, son.” Curtis leant back, and felt the surge of the ocean lift the trawler over a swell and then put her back down again. “Make an honest woman of her. Amanda is the best thing that could’ve happened to you. Don’t let her get away. This time next year, you’ll have your hands full. Trust me. Do the right thing.”
Hamish blushed. “I know. I love her. I’ve been thinking about, you know, asking her.” He hadn’t talked this openly and honestly with his father in years. They were not the hugging types, and he was annoyed that he still hadn’t been able to rid himself of blushing.
“Want my advice?” asked Curtis.
Hamish knew it was coming anyway, so he nodded affirmatively.
“Stop thinking, and start doing. Ask her. She’ll say yes.”
Hamish thought of Amanda, of her beautiful laugh and eyes. He couldn’t say he had fallen in love at first sight, but it hadn’t taken long. He had been invited out for a drink by an old friend from University. His friend had known someone else there at Flannigan’s, and before long, they had randomly joined the birthday table. Amanda had been there as part of the group. Hamish had chatted to her, flirted, and managed to get her number. The rest was history. They had clicked instantly, and even though it was less than a year, Hamish knew she was the one. He wasn’t quite so sure if Amanda felt the same way though, and didn’t want to rush her. Christmas was a couple of months away, and he had started planning a romantic getaway. Now, he was desperate to get back and tell her the latest news.
“Right, enough daydreaming. You go relieve Roy. Send him down to the main deck. I want to look at the crane with him. I’ll be there waiting.” Curtis snapped Hamish out of his thoughts.
“Aye, Skipper.” Hamish walked past the pantry and climbed the small steps up onto the deck, and then up into the wheelhouse. The storm was dying out, and the swells had definitely weakened. Hamish’s mood was in contrast to Roy’s, and as he approached him, he decided to play it safe and not bring up the topic of his father’s business. He found Roy hunched over the wheel.
“Hey, Roy, Skipper said to meet him on deck. He wants to check the winching gear out. I’ll take the wheel.”
Roy said nothing and brushed past Hamish on his way out. He didn’t even make eye contact, but zipped up his jacket and tugged a knitted, woollen hat down to cover his ears. Hamish watched Roy leave and join his father’s side down below. The wind whistled across the deck of the Mary-Jane, as a salty spray splattered against its hull. It had been at sea for two days and Curtis had decided they should venture out into the richer, deeper fishing grounds. They had caught a respectable amount, but had a way to go before they would reach their allowed quota. Mary-Jane was not full yet.
Hamish checked the instruments, and they were on course, headed Northeast. He scanned the horizon and noticed something out of place. To the starboard, a flash of red appeared on the crest of a wave, and then disappeared. As the trawler came out of a trough, he saw it again. It was smooth and circular, like a red rubber ring, only larger. It dipped in and out of view again, and Hamish turned the boat around to head towards it. It could be a piece of debris, something that had fallen off a cargo ship, but the most common debris they came across, was driftwood or old shipping containers. This looked more like a raft, and Hamish had a bad feeling.
“Skipper, hey, Skipper!” Hamish leant out of the wheelhouse and hoped his voice would carry far enough over the wind to be heard. He could see his father standing beside Roy on the deck. There was no movement or acknowledgement from either of the men that they had heard him, so he tried again.
“Hey, Dad. Dad!” He turned back and saw the red raft bobbing up and down. He kept the trawler on a direct heading with it, knowing this was more than just random debris. It was a cocoon, a life raft; someone needed help.
There were other items in the water. As they drew nearer, he saw the evening sun light them up, its rays skipping off fragmented pieces of metal. Did a ship go down nearby? They had not received any distress calls or seen any flares.
“What’s up, Hamster?” Roy looked at Hamish suspiciously, as he entered the wheelhouse.
Hamish bristled. Hamster had been his nickname throughout high school and it had annoyingly dragged on into college too. Roy took great fondness in reminding him of it at any opportunity. Hamish had left college and childish nicknames behind him when he left his twenties. Yet, Roy had made no secret of his scorn for Curtis’ son. Hamster wasn’t the worst thing he had been called.
“If you can’t handle it, I can take over from here,” said Roy reaching for the wheel. A mischievous smirk spread across his face as he removed his hat.
Hamish took a step back. “I can handle it just fine, Roy.” He kept one hand on the wheel and pointed out the window ahead. “At least you’re talking to me again. Look, Roy, there’s something odd going on.”
“You need me to fetch Daddy?”
Hamish knew the implications, but chose not to answer. He had plenty of experience of dealing with Roy, and found the best way of responding to his comments, was to ignore them. Any attempt at engaging him in a meaningful, adult conversation usually ended badly. It hadn’t always been this way. Roy had been in and out of Hamish’s life for as long as he could remember: the occasional Sunday BBQ, birthday parties, and random get-togethers when they were celebrating a big haul. The animosity had only surfaced once Hamish had joined the trawler. Two’s company and all that.
“Look, Roy, there’s a life raft over there. I’m telling you, we have to go check it out. There are other things in the water too. See?”
Roy wandered in front of Hamish and peered out of the window. “You see a flare go up?” he asked in a low voice.
“No, nothing.”
“Anything on the ELT?”
“Nothing.”
“You check the GPS? We’ve not strayed into a shipping lane, have we?”
“Jesus, Roy, no. I don’t know what it is. We’ll be on it in two minutes though, so I’m slowing her down. Go tell Dad, please?”
Roy looked at Hamish sternly. “You’d better not have fucked up, Hamster.” He pulled his hat back on and stormed out of the wheelhouse.
As Roy left, Hamish knew the first thing he’d do when the Mary-Jane was his, would be to fire Roy’s ass. Before then though, he would have to put up with him. He suspected that Roy knew his days were numbered. There was no way he would continue working alongside Hamish with Curtis gone.
Hamish scanned the ocean, looking at the various pieces of scrap floating in the water. The red life raft was close now, and he slowed the trawler down, pulling up as close as he could to it. The seas were calm and the wind had dropped to under twenty knots, so he killed the engines and dropped the sea anchor. He rigged the GPS unit to the engine controls so they would not go drifting off, and headed outside to join Roy and his father, grabbing a jacket on the way.
“What is it?” he asked as he joined his father at the rails on the main deck. The three men stood side by side, holding onto the clammy railing, watching the life raft edge closer on the current.
“Well, it’s definitely a raft of some sort. Could be from one of the trawlers in Old Jack Morrow’s gang, but we’d have heard about it. You sure there was no distress call, Hamish?”
“I’m sure.”
Roy grunted and Hamish glared at him.
The red life raft was drifting closer to the boat now, and they could see it clearer. It was a six-man raft,
orangey-red on top with two thick black bands of rubber around the base. The zipper was half-open, and the rubbery curtain that protected the raft’s opening flapped in the wind.
“Looks like a Revere or a Challenger SOLAS,” said Roy. “Jack Morrow wouldn’t have one of those. Maybe it’s a private yacht. Some rich banker got blown off course in the storm, tipped over, used the raft to escape. Maybe it was too quick for them to signal for help. Wouldn’t be the first time some idiot with more money than sense got lost out here.”
“Could be, could be.” Curtis did not sound convinced, but had no other plausible explanation to suggest. The reflective tape on the canopy exterior was covered in a dark substance. Something dark had dried over it, something that looked worryingly like blood. “Look, let’s bring it in. There might be someone in there that needs our help. Rich or not,” he said looking at Roy.
Hamish saw the boarding ladder drift by, separated from the raft. “Hey, anyone need help over there?”
Curtis and Roy grabbed hooked boat poles and leant over the side trying to snag the raft. It was a few inches out of reach, and they had to strain to reach it. After a few minutes, Curtis got a hook through a safety line and began to reel it in. Roy quickly got his boathook attached too, and the life raft was drawn up close to the trawler.
“Anyone in there?” shouted Hamish. There was no response. “Come on, we’re going to have to get in there.”
Curtis and Roy dragged the raft around to the rear of the trawler where they frequently landed the fish. Today’s haul was a first for the Mary-Jane. The raft was at the stern of the boat now, and all together, they pulled it up onto the deck. They looked at it in awe, as if they had just pulled up an unexploded nuclear bomb.
Hamish approached it, and ignored his father’s warnings to be careful. He put one foot on the wet raft and slowly pulled down the zipper that opened up the protective inflatable canopy. He prepared himself, expecting to find at least one person inside, perhaps injured, unconscious, or dead. He parted the curtains and peered inside, holding his breath.
“What is it, son?” Curtis saw Hamish looking around the raft, and then his son let out a gasp of shock. He stepped up into the raft and crawled inside. “Roy, you’d better get onto the Coast Guard and get us headed back. I think we’ll call it a day.”
Roy ran up top to take the wheel and Curtis joined his son. He rubbed his beard and tried to peer into the interior of the raft. “Hamish, who’s in there?”
Hamish’s head appeared at the entrance and then he stepped out carrying two handguns. “There’s another one in there too.” He handed one to his father who looked it over.
“So, there’s nobody alive in there? What the hell is this?”
“I’m not too familiar with handguns, Dad, but I can tell you that this is no flare gun. If there was anyone in there, they’re long gone.”
Curtis examined the chamber and noticed it was empty. He frowned. “This doesn’t make sense. If their ship went down, and they had time to get the life raft out, where are they? And if they made it onto the raft, why only take a couple of guns?”
“And what were they used on?” Hamish stood beside the raft examining the gun. “Maybe Roy’s theory is right, maybe it was a private yacht? If they had money, they would have Security. That might explain the guns.”
Curtis bent down and examined the reflective tape. He ran a finger over it, coming away with salty grime and a reddish-brown stain on his hand. “I don’t like this.”
The trawler suddenly jolted, as if it had run aground, and lurched to the starboard, sending the raft skidding back into the ocean. Hamish grabbed his father, and together, they managed to stay on their feet. They dropped the guns, which followed the raft into the water.
“What the hell was that?” asked Curtis.
Goose bumps ran up Hamish’s arms. He ran over to the side of the ship and saw a body in the water. It was floating face down and naked. The bloated corpse’s pale skin was mottled with bruise marks and as it drifted past Hamish, he noticed it was missing a leg. It had been torn off just below the waist. Bare bone was exposed and sinewy muscles followed it in the water like tangled red seaweed. Hamish felt queasy. He had gutted fish before, watched plenty of horror movies, but he’d never seen a dead body. He put his hand over his mouth and stifled the sickness that was building in his stomach. The body was not what had bumped into the trawler. He ran over to the other side of the boat.
“Oh, my God.” Hamish no longer felt nauseous. He felt breathless. He felt like he was nineteen again and losing his virginity in the basement of Daniella Harris’ parent’s house. His lungs felt too small for his chest, his heart too large as it sped up in excitement. He could practically see Daniella now, her nervousness matching his, and he had to bring himself back to the here and now. Just as he had done when he was nineteen, and kissed Daniella in places no other boy had kissed her, he blushed. His pale face reddened as his cheeks filled out. He exhaled loudly. What he saw in the ocean was not possible, was not real; it could not be real. He turned to his father and beckoned him over.
Curtis looked over the side into the ocean and Hamish saw the look of amazement on his father’s face. A creature floated in the water, knocking against the hull. It had to be a good fifty feet long. Its elongated body was the colour of a toad, dark green with patches of brown, yet, with a hint of pinkish white underneath. It was about six feet across in its middle, and the body tapered after its rear legs disappeared under the water, stretching out into a tail covered with spikes. Hamish watched the creature bobbing up and down, just as the raft had done, and looked up the length of it, past its thick neck to its head. That was what disturbed Hamish most. The thing’s head was even wider than its body, probably ten feet across, and apparently all teeth. The two eyes perched atop its head were closed, and its jaws were slightly apart, showcasing an array of teeth that even a werewolf would be jealous of. He wasn’t sure, but Hamish thought he could see small holes around its jawline: small holes that might be bullet-holes.
“Holy Moses,” exclaimed Curtis.
Father and son looked at each other as Roy appeared above them leaning out of the wheelhouse. “I think we hit something. It’s not the boat is it? The one the raft came from? I didn’t see anything.”
“Roy, get down here now, we’re gonna need your help,” said Curtis, as he grabbed one of the boathooks from the deck.
Hamish grabbed his father’s arm. “Dad, it’ll never fit on the boat.”
“Sure it will. It’s dead ain’t it? We’ll just bend its tail around. It’ll fit.”
“And then what? If we do get it on, what the hell are you going to do with a…a…a dead dinosaur?”
Curtis picked up the other boathook and handed it to Hamish. “You’re the one with a girlfriend at Wild Seas Park. You think she’ll be interested in it?”
“Are you kidding me? She would jump me for…I mean, yeah, she would love it.” Hamish blushed again. “Amanda could probably spend years examining something like this. She and her friends would study the hell out of it. She would be in her element. I mean this is a…well, whatever it is, I’ve never seen nothing like it. You?”
“Nope. One of a kind I reckon. Some sort of mutant maybe?” Curtis began to stick the boathook into the monster to keep it close to the boat. “Looks like an alligator on steroids. And I’m willing to bet that Wild Seas place will pay good money for this. More than we’d get for a boatload of Herring and Thresher any day of the week.”
“Awesome,” said Hamish. “And what if it’s carrying some sort of weird disease? Did you think about that?” Hamish stood shoulder to shoulder with his father, easing the monster closer to the rear of the boat where they could drag it up.
Curtis rested on the rails and looked at his son. “Hamish, you worry too much. Just help me get it in. It’s dead, isn’t it? It’ll be fine, you’ll see. This is it, son. This is going to bring us big bucks.” Curtis grunted as he tried to manoeuvre the weird creature clos
er. “Relax. Have a beer. Nothing can go wrong.”
CHAPTER 3
OCTOBER TUESDAY 15TH 20:16
Sitting down at a corner table, Don ordered two beers. He had parked up in the lot and was enjoying Amanda’s company. They had chatted the whole way there, just making small talk about the price of gas and listening to the radio. Don felt good. With Amanda, it felt like he was a part of the human race again.
“Just a light beer for me, please,” said Amanda, as the waitress left them. Amanda looked around at the pictures of cops on the walls, the array of medals, batons, police certificates, hats, and black and white photographs. “Remind me again, why do they call this place, the Old Station?”
Don leaned over the table. “You don’t like it, there’s a Hooters down the road.”
Amanda laughed. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
Don looked around the bar. For a Tuesday, it was fairly busy. There were a few couples around who he recognised from his apartment block, and several old men, probably retired cops, propping up the bar. Sometimes, he joined them, but tonight, he was entertaining Amanda, and eating honest-to-God food that he hadn’t just nuked in a microwave.
“So. You and Hamish. What’s the deal? You and him gonna get hitched, or what?” asked Don.
Amanda smiled as she shook her head. “Don, you are always fishing. Don’t hold back will you? Stop beating around the bush, and just ask me straight.” Amanda slid her handbag off her shoulder and hung it over the back of the chair. “Is it me, or is it hot in here?”
“Amanda, you can avoid answering the question as long as possible, but I’m still gonna get an answer from you,” said Don smiling.
The waitress brought them two beers and Don signed for them. He ordered two more at the same time, and asked the waitress to keep him topped up.
Don chugged back half of his bottle. “Look, I ask because I care. I’ve never met the guy, and it seems like it’s getting serious. It sounds like you’re getting serious. I remember some of the jerks you’ve been out with. Boy, you can really pick ‘em.”