Today's Page About This Book Chapter 1
Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 MailChapter 4: Within
“And not a member of the crew?” another voice asked. “A stowaway, could be?”
“Stowaways don’t just go about skylarking in the worst of weather, to the best of my knowledge,” the first voice put it. “No, this man was laid with his father long ago. You see,” a breathless pause, “you see, Petey knew him. Name of Paul. Knew him from back in Saint Ives, where the man left a pretty wife. Was going to swallow the anchor and return to her just after that jaunt.” The voice lowered. “And can you guess who the captain of that little voyage was?”
“The old man himself?”
“Smarter than you look, you are. The old man himself. Petey took a different hire, and never saw the man again,” he paused. “Until that night.”
“So it’s true the old man’s cursed.”
“Did you doubt it?” There followed a long pause. “We’ll have a death aboard or some such calamity not long now. A shadow aboard always tells ill. You watch yourself.”
“We should have jumped ship the second the married two came on.”
“Her with the hair was enough to tell me,” he said, “but we were in the harbor.” A short, bitter laugh. “How to get off then?”
“Did Pete tell the captain?” the other voice asked.
“And what do you think he said?” the first voice replied. “Told him to get about, without a word of it more. Told him if there’s an extra hand aboard that it’d be less work for him.” He paused. “The man does not want to hear it.”
“Outrunning demons of his own, that one is.”
“You’d best keep all this below deck as well, the old man will skin any of us he hears more of this from. Talk of shadows on board is not his business.”
At this point the wind rose once more, a low moaning drowning out the voices of the passing men, and by the time it subsided the men had walked on, continuing their rounds. John strained his ears against the rush of the wind, but heard nothing more.
A shadow aboard, he thought. A shadow. His mind filled with images of dark spaces. Then, abruptly becoming aware of the blackness, the emptiness of the companionway, and its dark descending into the blackness below, he caught his breath, clutching his chest. His eyes looked madly about.
He rushed back to his cabin and climbed into his hammock.
The Ghost Ship All content © 2008 Scott Telek.
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