Esther K Bowen

            From a table across the room, a tall man crooks his finger, gesturing for you to join him. He appears early thirties and is wearing a heavy jacket with reflective stripes. You sit across from him. He looks you over from under dark brows. His eyes are bright in the glowing heat lamps. When he speaks, his voice is strong, yet seems to hold a plea.

            “You,” he says. “You look like someone with a keen mind. Please, take a seat beside me and hear what happened. Listen to my testimony with your head, not your heart, for I went in with my heart and found myself entangled. For eleven months, this has plagued me. Some would say I witnessed the aftermath of something supernatural, an inhuman attack. Yet, the details keep nagging me. A mystery on the sea.

            My name is Jones. I work the rescue boats that go out into the worst God and nature can imagine. I have seen my share of tragedy. Yet never have I come across an incident which pushed me to question my own eyes and filled my mind with unanswered questions.

            Two days before, we received a distress signal from a small cargo ship, the Antiphonus. The ship broadcast its distress for a brief thirteen seconds before the signal returned to the all-clear. The readouts showed no storms in the area, no land or reefs that might cause danger. Perhaps there was some malfunction with the communication equipment. Much to our later regret, we did not think the ship in need of rescue at that time. She would reach harbor within the week, and any repairs could be made more easily in harbor.

            Yet, hours later, as I sat in the empty office fighting sleep in the cold and pitiless darkness before dawn, the distress signal once again came from the Antiphonus. This time it stayed on. In the few short hours since we had first seen her signal, she had sailed or been driven wildly off course. I tried again to hail her. No answer. I checked the weather. The washed-out glow of the screen in the darkness flickered, showing a squall near her current location. Perhaps the storm was why she was off course, though my gut told me in those waters, she should have been much farther north.

            I called my two mates, Hahn and Walden, and we set out at once to help her if we could. The ocean was choppy, with the sky pale and cold high above. It took us three days to reach the Antiphonus’ location. All the time, her distress signal just kept on broadcasting, calling for help.

            Midday on the third day, a thick fog descended. Unusual weather for the time of year. We slowed, and our rescue ship crept through the mist, seeking the Antiphonus. We relied on instruments. The world was silent and gray. I heard the waves lapping, lapping against the side of the ship. The Antiphonus was far from her course, far from any usual shipping lanes. Our charts showed no hidden reefs or other hazards in the area, but without visibility, we feared we too, might be caught in whatever had caused her distress.

            We tried hailing her again and again, but never received an answer. The fog swirled around us, gray as death. I stood on deck, straining my senses against the oppressive mist.

            Then, I heard something, or thought I heard something. Right on the edge of hearing. One splash, out of place. I leaned over the railing, straining. The sound came again. And soon I knew it was the rhythm of waves against the metal hull of a ship.

            “We’re close,” I called back.

            Our rescue ship slowed its pace even more. We crawled forward. Walden was piloting and Hahn, like me, leaned over the rail, searching for a sign of our missing ship. The watery gray world of the afternoon would soon fade. Night comes fast, and we did not want to wait to find her.

            Suddenly, the Antiphonus loomed out of the fog. She was small for a cargo ship, but she still dwarfed our rescue boat. Water beaded on her stained green hull. Her lights were off and she listed in the water.

            I shouted to her crew, but received no answer. We saw nothing that told the cause of her distress. Her list was not bad, nothing that could not have been pumped. I shouted again and it seemed as if the fog closed in tighter around me. A lump of unease settled in my gut.

            I climbed up to her deck, followed by Hahn and Walden. Once we had boarded her, I looked about. The deck was empty. Not a single trace of the Antiphonus’ eighteen-man crew. We walked across the deck, heading for the bridge. In that fog, the world was muted. The noise of our boots clattered loudly in the still silence of the ship. Yet, the sounds were quickly swallowed into the oppressive silence of the fog. An uneasy thought crossed my mind. Someone could be on deck at this very moment, standing silent in the fog, and I would never see him. At this unhappy thought, my ears began to strain against the silence. Waves slapped against the hull. The ship itself creaked and groaned as it moved.

            We found the bridge empty, the distress signal still transmitting.

            “The course is set for Bradig,” Walden said. “They were heading home.”

            I frowned, looking out the front windows into nothing but fog. “They are far off course.”

            A sharp squawk beside me made me jump.

            “Radio works,” Hahn said. I saw in his eyes he did not like this. Hahn, Walden, and I were veterans of many rescues. Usually, Hahn was unflappable. Yet, the question that bothered him wormed its way into my mind as well. If the radio worked, why had no one answered our calls?

            “Search the rest of the ship,” I commanded.

            We began the search loudly, shouting for anyone who might still be on board. Hoping, straining to hear an answer. Stations were unmanned and silent. Bunks lay empty. The gally had food aplenty, but no one to eat it. With every new discovery, the silence pressed down harder, until our shouts faded and died in our throats.

            “What happened here,” I wondered aloud, standing in an empty hall.

            “Nothing good,” Hahn muttered.

            “Everyone is gone.” Walden’s words solidified the realization that had been growing in us all. The Antiphonus was abandoned.

            “Let’s check the lifeboats,” I said.

            One of three boats was missing.

            “A lifeboat was launched, but we have received no distress signal to help us locate it,” I said.

            “This makes no sense,” Walden muttered. “The boats hold six to eight people. Ten if you’re really trying. Why is only one launched?”

            “And why leave behind the food and emergency supplies?” Hahn added.

            “Why leave the ship at all?” I said. “She is in working order.”

            The silent world of sea and mist absorbed our questions. It offered no answers. No one spoke the most terrifying question aloud. If only ten made the lifeboat, where were the other eight?

            I put my hands on my hips and breathed in the salt air.

            “No one is here,” I said. “This ship is abandoned.”

            My radio pinged, an automated alert from our ship’s computer. I glanced at the text.

            “We have a storm coming,” I said. “We don’t have much time if we want to avoid the worst of it.”

            “How long?” Walden asked.

            “An hour, tops.”

            The fog pressed in around us, hiding the fury creeping up quickly behind. In the still air, I felt the eyes of the missing crew watch me, like ghosts. Walden and Hahn waited for my decision.

            I am no coward. I’ve sailed into the heart of raging storms to save doomed ships, I’ve been washed overboard, half-frozen, and even fought pirates. But something about this empty ship did not settle right in my gut.

            “This is what we do,” I said. “We go over everything again. Carefully this time. See if we can get some answers. If not, we pull out before the storm hits.”

            “I’ll check the crew quarters again,” Walden said.

            “Cargo hold,” Hahn added.

            “I’m going back to the bridge,” I said.

            We split up. The clock was running down, and we were no closer to answers. Eighteen men! Sailors vanished into mist. Some could be on the open sea, in an unsheltered lifeboat, which, for some reason was not transmitting distress. That still left at least eight unaccounted for.

            I returned to the bridge and checked the instruments. Everything seemed to be in working order. At the terminal, I pulled up the crew list. It matched the one we had on file in Bradig. Bras Ernaut, Captain, along with seventeen men under his command. I left the bridge, heading for the captain’s quarters. Many captains no longer kept logs, with the instruments themselves recording distance, temperature, and other information. Yet, some still kept personal records of their trips.

            The captain’s quarters were locked with a keypad. I used an emergency override code and the door hissed open. The captain’s quarters were equally deserted as the rest of the ship. The bunk was made with military precision. I sat at the desk and powered up Captain Ernaut’s personal terminal.

            This too, was locked by code. I was not surprised, but still grunted in frustration. I was running out of time.

            My radio squawked. “Jones, you better see this.”

            I found Walden in one of the cabins. He stood in a narrow space between two bunks looking at a pipe that ran from the ceiling into the floor. He moved aside when I arrived.

            “What do you think?” he asked.

            I knew him well. He had his own opinions, but wanted to see what conclusions I drew. I looked carefully at the room.

            White flakes of paint littered the floor. They had fallen from the white-painted pipe itself. Now, near the floor, the original gray of the pipe was exposed. I knelt to get a closer look. Something under the left bunk caught my eye. I reached under and took out a plastic cord, sliced in half.

            I cursed.

            “You see what I see?” Walden asked.

            “Someone was tied and got loose,” I said. “Cut himself pretty bad getting free based on the blood here on the floor. Must have had something sharp too; those cords are sliced.”

            “Jones!”

            We both hurried to the sound of Hahn’s voice. I steadied myself as we moved. The waves were picking up, pitching the deck beneath our feet. The dead calm of the sea had been replaced by gusting wind, howling about us, running before the coming storm. In the screaming wind, I could almost hear the shouts of the Antiphonus’ crew, seeking aid.

            Hahn stood at the top of the corrugated metal stairs that led to the cargo hold. The hold was dark, lit by deep orange lights, spaced far enough apart deep shadows filled the space between. Hahn stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up. I put my foot on the first step, grabbing the railing to steady myself against the rocking waves.

            “Wait,” Hahn said. He took out a flashlight. “No one is down here. The cargo is still secure. But I saw this on the way up.”

            He clicked the flashlight on and shone it on the steps.

            My breath stopped. The steps were covered in a wide, red-brown stain.

            “Is that—?”

            “Blood,” Hahn said. “I thought it was rust at first.”

            The blood had run down the steps. It stained the railing and splattered the wall.

            “That’s too much blood loss to survive,” Walden said flatly.

            The ship pitched, reminding us of our deadline.

            “You found nothing?” I asked Hahn.

            “No body,” Hahn said. He shone the flashlight to the floor of the hold. “It lay here for a while, because all the blood pooled here. I did not find any trail.”

            I cursed. “This is a job for a detective, not a rescue crew.”

            “Did you find anything?” Walden asked me.

            “The captain’s personal terminal,” I said. “But it’s locked.”

            “Let me take a look.”

            When we stepped back onto the deck, the wind nearly tore us from the boat. The fog had vanished and now the air crackled with built-up energy. The ship pitched violently.

            Walden plunged ahead, back to the captain’s quarters.

            “We need to get out of here,” Hahn shouted.

            I could barely hear him.

            Hahn was right. We were out of time.

            “I’ll get Walden,” I shouted.

            I stumbled after him. By the time I caught up, he had reached the captain’s room. He had out his knife and had pried a panel from the terminal.

            “We might be able to get something from this,” he said.

            “Let’s go,” I said.

            We raced back onto the deck. Hahn was already in our rescue ship, fighting the waves. Walden and I tried the ladder, but the ocean was too rough. Despite Hahn’s efforts, our rescue boat slammed against the side of the larger ship. The two ships ground together with a shriek more terrifying than the wind. The Antiphonus screamed her anger at our abandonment.

            “Jump,” I shouted.

            Walden and I jumped from the larger ship to the desk of our rescue ship. We landed hard, and rolled across the deck as a wave caught us and drove our boat away from the Antiphonus. Hahn swerved, trying to keep the ship righted. Water rose over the side and washed across the deck. I grabbed the railing.

            Walden lost his grip on the panel. The captain’s log was lost in the dark water swirling across the deck. I let go of the rail and threw myself across the pitching deck after it.

            “It’s not worth it,” Walden screamed.

            I slammed my shoulder hard against the deck. My mouth and nose filled with water. Salt stung my eyes. I shoved my hand through the swirling blackness. My fingers brushed the only chance of providing closure to eighteen families.

            “Jones,” Walden yelled. The ship pitched, and I rolled with it. My fingers closed around the panel. My wrist cracked as the rest of me folded over. Pain blossomed from my wrist, but I help on to the panel. My other arm reached out, clutching for a railing before I went overboard.

            Walden grabbed my arm and hauled me across the deck. We reached the door and stumbled out of the driving rain. I slammed the door behind us.

            I shook with pain and adrenaline. The panel was soaked with seawater and had a crack running down the middle thanks to the same force that broke my wrist.

            “You think anything will be recoverable?” I asked.

            “It doesn’t matter,” Walden said. “It is not worth dying for.”

            “I does matter,” I snapped back. “We need to know what happened.”

            We were two days tossed by the storm. Hahn was quiet. When I asked him what he thought happened, he shook his head and muttered, “Something dark happened on that ship and we will never get an answer. Something broke that panel to keep us from the truth.”

            Walden shrugged. “We can’t win them all. Maybe we get something from that panel. Maybe not. But we couldn’t save them. You’ve done this long enough to know sometimes the sea claims its own.”

            As for me, I stared at that panel as we pitched through the storm, letting the dulled throb from my bandaged wrist remind me of my unfinished business. The wind shrieked like the screams of a dying crew demanding closure. Sleep deserted me.

            On the third day we limped back to Bradig. The Antiphonus’ signal had vanished in the storm. Either she went down, taking her secrets with her, or her signal broke and she still drifts, a death ship manned by ghosts.

            I turned the panel over to a lab to see if they could salvage any of the captain’s log. I waited for their word. Hahn and Walden quickly moved passed the deserted ship, focusing on the next few missions. I did my job, but my mind stayed on the Antiphonus and her crew. Had my actions been enough? Had I overlooked some hidden answer?

            When I finally heard back, the lab had only been able to salvage fragments. The Antiphonus would remain as she was, a ghost ship. She would sail forever in my mind and heart, empty, waiting. Asking why I could not save her.

The man, Jones, unfolds a worn paper. It is smudged and fragile with repeated folding.

            “I have never been able to shake the feeling I missed something on that ship,” he says. “Had I only more time, I could have given closure to the lives of eighteen men.”

            His eyes trace the dark ink on the paper before him. The words are familiar enough to you, and you barely suppress the shudder that runs through your body like an electric shock. It is easy enough to pick out the words WRECK and TREASURE. Along with: THE PASSENGER and ADDISON. You feel a familiar clench in your gut.

            Suddenly, from another table a voice speaks. “They were punished.”

            The voice is deep. Jones turns to the speaker behind him. The voice belongs to a sailor who sits with three companions in a corner booth. An ashtray with glowing cigar butts faintly illuminates their worn features.

            “If the captain’s log is to be believed, they took on an unlisted passenger. Bad luck followed the ship from then on.”

            “The captain’s writing is unclear,” Jones answers. “He speaks of hearing of a wrecked ship, but the crew was rescued, so he chose not to deviate from his course.”

            “But the blood?” the sailor beside the first presses. “The crew vanished?”

            “I’ve seen things in the dark night on the open sea,” another adds. “Ghosts. Devils. Monsters who appear as a maiden or a man in distress.”

            “The sea is unforgiving,” the final sailor speaks in a whisper. “And ghost ships should not be spoken of lest their bad fortune follow you onto land.”

            “Mark my words,” the first sailor says. “I know enough of the sea to tell you whatever it was that got loose on that ship was nothing human.”

            Jones looks back to the folded paper. “I do not know what to believe. I think perhaps I never will.”