We are dying.
We are losing our minds.
The fog is eating the flesh from our bones.
And the ships drifted on, enshrouded and doomed and despairing. Falling one by one into the weed and into rot, bathed in that slimy tideless sea, pulled into crawling depths and moist graveyards of weed where there were things with unseeing eyes and bloated tentacles and slavering mouths. And maybe, oh yes, something far worse that would come drifting from that misting effluvium, something vile and diseased and burning, smoking and sparking and vomiting ice.
And the voices screamed at the memory of that which walked alone.
The well vibrated and shuddered with their screaming, howling voices blown from contorted mouths fed by terror-wracked minds that were going to pulp and ash. And those ships, they became coffins. Lids snapping tight and weeds ringing them shut while white fingers scraped at satin and silk and-
“Jesus H. Christ, George,” Gosling was saying. “You all right?”
They were all looking at him.
Gosling was shaking him.
And he realized his mouth was wide and his eyes bulging and he was screaming silently. But then it was gone and he was on the raft and there was nothing, nothing but a lot of derelict ships and a handful of men wanting to know what in the hell he was doing.
But he couldn’t tell them. He could just say, “I’m… fine.”
Nobody bought it, of course, and long after the other eyes had abandoned him, Pollard was watching him, knowing things he shouldn’t know, but that was just the way of this place. It was the amplitude or something. For sensitive minds could hear things they had no business hearing and maybe Pollard had heard that scream of his though no one else had.
And maybe they would have all questioned him over his little episode, but there were other and more important things to be considered.
“Look at that,” Marx said. “Did you see it? Just at the edge of the mist there.”
They saw it. Some huge, nebulous shape had passed beneath the weed or maybe through it, a colossal luminous form that dipped beneath the wreck of an old three-masted brig and vanished from site.
“What the hell was that?” Gosling said.
Maybe they wanted Cushing to give them some rational scientific explanation for it, but all he said was, “I don’t know… but I hope to hell it doesn’t come back.”
“Hungry,” Menhaus was saying. “I can’t seem to remember what it is not to be hungry.”
Saks thought that was funny. “Yeah, but look at yourself. You’ve already dropped pounds. You’re looking good. Just imagine how good you’re going to look after a month, two months, a year-”
“Okay, Saks,” Cook said. “Once again, quit trying to piss people off.”
“I’m kidding, for chrissake. In case you don’t know what that is, Big Chief, it’s also called a joke or a funny, a laugh. Boy, Cook, ever since you decided you were the big cheese, you’re a real fucking pain in the ass.”
Cook could only sigh.
In command? Oh Christ, of all things.
Command of what exactly? A lifeboat with four men who were ready to tear out each other’s throats at the drop of a hat? Even Fabrini wasn’t weathering any of it real good now. After what they’d seen and experienced on the Cyclops, something in him had shut down. What was left was irritable and angry and looking for something or someone to vent on. Cook had tried to draw him out more than once, but each time he did Saks was there, asking if he wanted to breastfeed Fabrini, too. Maybe wipe his ass and tuck him in to boot. And Cook had to wonder how long it was going to be before Saks and Fabrini really went at it, how long before their knives came out and blood was drawn. At least on the Cyclops, they’d settled down, had enough room to get away from each other.
Sure, Fabrini had been very good about it, when you considered things. Like the fact that Saks had cut off part of his ear with a knife. Most guys, they’d be wanting payback for that, but Fabrini let it go. That was big of him. But now? Well, Fabrini kept touching his bandaged ear and staring at Saks. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what he was thinking.
And Saks knew it, too.
Cook had to watch them all the time.
And he pretty much had to do it alone because Menhaus was pretty much whiny and pouty twenty-four/seven now, withdrawn really, talking from time to time, but more to himself than anyone else.
And Crycek? Well, Crycek had his moments.
So, essentially, Cook was wading these dark waters alone. He had to keep them from each other, offer them hope, squelch Saks, reassure them that they were not going to starve to death or get eaten by horrors out of the mist. Then, if that wasn’t enough, Cook had to keep directing them, giving them something to hold out for and this when he was dying inside, had considered more than once how easy it would have been to slit his own wrists.
“How do you like this fog, Crycek?” Saks said.
