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DAMOCLES Chapter 4
As Chris watched the dead stumbling into the waters off Providence, he found himself almost feeling pity for the “living impaired” creatures. He didn’t have too much time to dwell on the plight of the creatures as he felt a rather sharp object, not so gently pricking the skin of his throat. With some difficulty; Chris turned his head slightly and looked down.
The skipper flanked him, holding what appeared to be a harpoon to his neck. He felt a slow lazy trickle of blood begin to meander down into his thick denim jacket. Absently he wondered how much pressure the skipper would have to exert to pierce his jugular vein. Watching the eyes of the skipper change, from bloodshot red to an almost friendly blue colour, due to the influence of sobering fresh sea air was a most unnerving sight.
Chris scrutinised the skippers gnarled, well worn face, not that he had much choice, he couldn’t move his head and he was pretty sure that if he closed his eyes he might wake up somewhere else altogether. So he studied, watched and noted the coarse, white whiskers beginning to sprout on the grizzled chin of a sailor born. He imagined that once the skipper had been just plain ugly, now with a nose pitted and swelled with the infusion of several hundred too many bottles of rum, the skipper was a sight to behold. A mixture of Ernest Borgnine and Karl Malden, the skipper would never collect $10 for finishing second in a beauty contest but he did however put the fear of God into the increasingly scared booksmith.
“If you ever fucking do anything on this ship without my express permission, I’ll fucking kill you, and feed you chunk by chunk to the fishes, capiche?” said the skipper, understandably somewhat angry.
Chris always one to listen to such germane advice; answered with as deep a voice as he could muster “whatever you say skipper”. Instantly Chris felt the pressure ease from his throat, the skipper lowering his weapon spat vociferously on the deck and said “How in the name of Poseidon’s balls did you manage to get us this close without scuttling her?”
The once and future author looked at the skipper and said “skip, I have no fucken idea”……..
The skipper looked at the dock and watched the slow dance of the corpses as more and more gathered awaiting the arrival of S.S Fresh Meat……
From the building he’d been watching at night for days he saw a face appear, anxious, nervous but full of hope and determination. The skipper turned once more to Chris and said “ get me my gun out my bunk, and for God’s sake raise that damn anchor”…..
Chris rushed through the shattered door to the stairs leading below. Taking them two at a time and leaping onto the galley area Chris found the wreckage of both the skippers drunken fumbling last night and the viscious anger he’d displayed when awaking from his drunken stupor.
Heading straight for the skippers berth, Chris entered the inner sanctum of the bucolic skipper. His mind registered photos of both military personnel and a young guy with his arm around a pretty young Asian girl. Further imported data consisted of skidmarked long johns and a dozen empty bottles of rotgut lying haphazardly across the wooden planks. While this may have been collated and stored within the recesses of his mind, all Chris could think of was the rifle lying across the skippers bed and the several full clips of ammunition lying beside it.
Gathering them into his arms and running back up the stairs; (no mean feet in choppy Atlantic waters) took more time than Chris had imagined. Whilst he hadn’t felt the reassuringly gruesome tug of seasickness since yesterday, the constant rolling of the boat made any movement a chore, running across the deck with his lethal load proved impossible.
Sprawled on the deck, a victim of a puddle of seawaters sick sense of humour, Chris felt a fool. This feeling wasn’t helped by the roaring laughter of the skipper and the catcalls of the dead coming from just a couple of dozen feet away.
The skipper looked down at the suitably embarrassed Chris and chortled “ shit boy I thought I was going to have to shoot you but your too damn funny, for a landlubber your alright”. With that backhanded compliment the skipper stooped to collect his weaponry.
Standing unsteadily, knees bruised, pride hurt, Chris watched the horrifying sight of a man with a gun going bang……
Amidst the smell of cordite and devastation Chris saw what one lone gunman was capable of, where before a dozen zombies had stood in anticipation, now stood none….
With ears ringing from the recital of lead, Chris wondered just how in the hell those corpses had won when there were men like the skipper around…….
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