Adrift

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The sound of footsteps just outside of my door stopped the dream I'd been having dead in its tracks. Another night of dreaming about being rescued. Another moment of disappointment when I remembered where I was once I awoke. And now? Footsteps outside of my door? And more than one man from the sound of it? For it surely sounded as if there was more than one pair. What did they want? Revenge? Still?

It was a mistake. An honest mistake. Was there ever any other kind? I wondered. I sat up in my hammock, blinking as I tried to adjust to the blinding darkness of the ship's hold. That's where I've been staying since the incident. It was better that way. Safer.

In the hammock below me, I could hear the sounds of the fat chef snoring, easily audible over the sloshing against the ship's wooden hull. In his slumber, the man mumbled nonsense, and I knew he would be no help against whoever the footsteps belonged to – Glenn was quite deaf – and even if he could be stirred, he likely still would not prove much help. Bastard damn near went through three bottles of run himself before the night was out. Double damn.

Rum. It was the last thing left aboard the Leviathan, if you weren't counting hunger, har har, or perhaps despair, both of which I guess we still had in great abundance. A sad and sorry state for the spectacular ship we'd once been. I remember a time when we'd been laden with cargo fit for a king: silks and spices worth terrific prices, but now we just had rum. And rats. But even those were an increasingly rare sight these days. There'd been fights over the last one seen scurrying around. It hadn't ended well. One man ended up going overboard, after exchanging blows with another person who'd tried to lay claim to the rat. He was not brought back. I shivered to think what would happen once we ran out of rats. Perhaps that's why they're here now, my brain suggesting the unthinkable from some dark part of my psyche.

Back and forth, back and forth, and empty jug rattled across the wooden deck beneath us, providing a sort of rhythmic percussion against the backdrop of the sibilant waves. It rattled like a spinning coin that never quite came to a complete stop. Back and forth, back and forth, it rolled across the wooden ribs of the ship. Likely it was one of the jugs Glenn had downed just before passing out. I prayed to Neptune, to Poseidon, to Davey Jones, to God and all his angels (save the one), to save me from the men who came to kill me. I prayed for a miracle.

"Please, God. Please, save me from these men. Deliver me from evil."

I made the sign of the cross, though I was never much of a believer. I believed in the wind. And the waves. The storm showed us the right of that the night we lost the Captain.

We were deep, deep, deep at sea, on the ocean's deepest waters, waters which were fraught with ice floes and glaciers that would take a ship down as quickly as it takes a summer storm to pass. Not a lot of life out here, but once in a while we would see a giant shadow the size of a continent move below or beside us. Whales. I tried to tell the men they were a good sign, but they didn't want to listen, they simply made sour faces at me. One of them even had the gall to suggest that I should have gone over with the Captain. "You should have gone with him, Dodo," he says to me. As if the whole bleeding storm was my fault.

We have no sails. Our masts are broken. Our main mast was taken out by a big gust which must have come from mighty Typhon himself, (if he truly sends the wind from on high), and that's been now over a fortnight ago. Maybe longer. It's hard keeping track of time anymore.

At first I'd taken to notching the days by my post with my knife, but after ten or so tally marks, I lost interest and quit counting. Now I was wishing fiercely that I still had my knife, but stupid me left it in the crow's nest the last time I went to serve as lookout. Dumb as a dodo. Hence the name. I assumed that was why there were men here to harm me now, because I had cried 'land ho!' when in fact there was none. I'd thought I'd been forgotten; I had no such luck. And now I could hear their boots, shuffling and stalking around outside my door in the hours just after midnight, the time when ghosts were said to roam the land of the living, and the time when the rest of the remaining crew would most likely be sleeping. I swallowed, feeling as if the apple in my throat was covered in leaden ice and whispered, "Glenn...Glenn can you hear me?"