Down With The Ship

I awoke to the smell of stale sea air and the sickly orange light of a new sunrise seeping through my cabin’s porthole.

"Doctor Castillos, sir!" a voice called at the edge of my hearing. I rolled over in my hammock, making out the shape of one of the ship’s crew in my cabin’s doorway. "There’s been an injury up on deck."

I sleepily groaned out an affirmative noise, which was evidently enough to shoo the crewman up back onto deck. I let out a small laugh. He knew better than to linger and bother me for too long—the crew had made it clear they thought it bad luck to have a cripple on board, and I had made it equally clear that I was going to stay, regardless of what they thought.

I put on my glasses and tried to shake the sleep out of my head. I felt like I’d never get used to waking up covered in salt and the stuffy sea air. We’d been at sea for Saints know how long, and I rarely went above deck, except to occasionally get some fresh air. The sailors called me a landlubber, but I was content with that. I wasn’t going to be here long. I’d taken this job because, in my case, temporarily offering medical services on a shipping vessel was the easiest way to pay for long-distance travel. I’m no real doctor, but my experience and station was enough to convince them that I was good enough.

I made a pained face as my bad leg crunched onto something under foot. I looked down and sighed. Sometime during the night, my bag of medical supplies had spilled all over the bottom of my modest cabin. I tried my hardest to keep everything organized and tidy, cleaning the floor and keeping my little part of the cabin well-maintained, but the ship’s rocking occasionally made this kind of thing happen.

Between that and my sleepy stupor, it took longer than I had wanted to get up to the main deck. The sudden cold breeze and the searing sunlight in my eyes made me wince, blinded for a moment. I blinked and adjusted my glasses, focusing my eyes on the small crowd gathered around the main mast.

The crowd split to make way, my cane’s clicking against the polished wooden floor signaling my arrival. Someone had a rag and was amateurishly mopping up the poor sailor’s bloodied leg.

"Get off of him, let me work," I growled. He murmured some sort of insult, but obediently moved away. I kneeled down at the sailor’s side, immediately starting to examine his mangled leg.

"What happened here?" I probably sounded more annoyed than I needed to, but it’s not like it wasn’t premeditated.

The sailor flinched as I started to clean his wounds. His eyes were wide, and his voice shook with fear. "The rigging twisted around my leg and wouldn’t let go, sir."

I grunted. It bothered me how the sailors always personified the ship—she did this, she did that, so on. I also, coincidentally, didn’t like the way the crew’s eyes were crawling up my back as I patched up their colleague.

"Quit your gawking and get back to work!" barked the captain from above and behind us on the mizzen deck. I sighed, relieved as they quickly skittered off to their respective stations. I looked up to nod a silent thanks to him, but he was already gone. He’d seemed like a pleasant man when he gave me this job, although a bit crude and disorganized. But I think upon actually seeing me, he’d been having second thoughts.

My patient was quiet while I wrapped the bandage around his arm. As he dumbly watched me patch him up, I realized I recognized him. I didn’t know most of the crew by name, really, because I spent most of my time by myself in my cabin.

"Aren’t you Mr. Comgan Byrne?" I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.

He looked away sheepishly. "Y-yessir."

One of the nearby men called out to his fellow crew member teasingly. "The same one who got thrown overboard when he called the ship a ninny!"

Ah. That would be it. There was a chorus of quiet laughs in response to that, to which Comgan's face turned a profuse red.

I shook my head and tied off the bandage, hauling myself to my feet by leaning on the mast. "There. It was only surface wounds, so you’ll be fine. Visit me for the next few mornings, however, so I can clean it to prevent infection."

He mumbled a thanks and clambered upright in too much of a rush, considering his state. Was he really that eager to return to his work? No matter, it wasn’t my business. I steadied myself with my cane and leisurely walked back to my cabin.

The next several days were only broken up by the occasional interruption of food and my morning visits from Comgan. He was mostly poor conversation, a crude young man with little sailing and traveling experience.

"Doctor Castillos, I can tell you’re a man like me," he told me once, while I was bandaging his arm.

I tried not to laugh. "How so?"

"You’re not a sailor. You don’t believe their superstitions," he said, surprisingly callous.

"...I can not say I do, no."

"S’good," he snorted. "We need some voice of reason around here."

"And I think you ought to take better care of your duties, Mr. Byrne."

That shut him up.

On the fifth day, we were struck by a storm. I kept to my cabin as I usually do, rocking back and forth in my hammock peacefully as I read. I knew the sailors above were probably stressed, running across the deck and securing everything down, bracing the ship for the storm, but it was hard for me to care. It all seemed very far away, down below in the ship’s safe embrace.

The pitter-patter of rain was interrupted by a sudden screaming on the upper deck, immediately followed by urgent calls of " Doctor, doctor! "

I jolted out of my hammock, throwing on my boots, coat, and gloves and charging to the upper deck with my medical supplies. I was met with an icy gale that cut through my heavy clothes like a knife through flesh. My eyes went wide as I saw my patient Comgan, again, writhing on the deck clutching his eye, blood seeping through his fingers. Another crewman was trying to calm him, guide him away from the brunt of the storm, while the rest scrambled to keep the ship tied down.

I loathe to write the gruesome details, but the other crewman assisted me in dragging Comgal down into the hull, where I could perform the necessary operation. Eye injuries aren’t that uncommon of an occurrence on a sailboat, but I still felt obliged to ask what happened, and I recall his fellow sailor’s shaking reply.

"Comgan, the idiot, we told him not to talk to the ship like that, it’s bad luck, it’s bad luck, but, he… he called the ship a prude for not loosening up its lines, and she didn’t like that. Not moments later, I swear to you, he slipped and fell on one of the dock cleats."

That had even me not crossing my knives on the galley table.

Comgan’s visits, of course, continued. Just as his arm had nearly healed, he needed my almost constant attention to keep his eye from becoming infected or even more damaged. He was quieter now, more soft-spoken. His remaining eye was always downcast, ashamed. We had even less of a reason to talk now.

I suppose I should have predicted what happened next. The day was hot and muggy, the water an immaculate, mirror surface. We were stuck in the doldrums. I was spending my day above deck for once, since my cabin was simply too stuffy and hot in this kind of weather.

I sat quite happily on the mizzen deck, reading one of my favorite books I’d brought from land. The sailors milled about having quiet conversation, not having much to do given the current weather.

Someone broke the silence with an annoyed tone. The captain was holding the door to the hull open with an irritated scowl. "Has anyone seen Mr. Byrne? It was his turn to scrub out the galley."

All of the sailors shook their heads, to which he made a noise of disgust. "What about you, doctor?"

I froze. It occurred to me I hadn’t seen him this morning, either. He was generally on time before then, and he knew he wasn’t going to be free of me until we reached shore.

"N-no, I haven’t," I called out, after a moment.

"Fine. Mr. Fierro, you get on it!" The captain slammed the door before the hapless sailor he’d named could even get out a salute and aye-aye, sir .

Nobody could figure out where he’d gone and what had happened, but he seemed to have disappeared. Most assumed he quietly fell off the ship and drowned in the night. I know I did.

Without any sort of routine aside from meals, the days melded together into a blur of unease. I found myself flinching at every quiet creak in the boat, every noise that had simply faded into the background before now. I spent more of my time moving about the ship, recharting my routes to get around, given my disability. It struck me as brainless, but it was comforting, and I’m grateful for it now.

One night, I couldn’t sleep with the feeling of dread that had been burbling in my gut, so I wandered the ship as I usually did, stepping silently next to the sleeping sailors.

I was disturbed from my own tumultuous thoughts by something on the floor making a skittering noise as I accidentally kicked it away with my cane. I leaned over with some effort and looked to see what it was, the burbling in my gut rising to a boil at what I saw—a human skull, inexplicably glaring at me from under the damp, dark galley table, a crack run through its eye socket. I started to shake. I knew what conclusion a sailor would draw from this, but I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t comprehend how this had happened.

I didn’t appear to have time, either. The floorboards started to shiver under my feet, the walls bending inwards with an unnatural creaking. I spun around and yelled at the sailors sleeping next to me, "G-get up, get up! There’s something wrong with the boat!"

That woke them up fast. The crew sprang out of their beds and barged past me. I pressed up against the galley table to hurry out of the way as they ignored me and charged past, snapping confused orders at each other and rushing up to the main deck.

The cabin was emptied as quickly as it filled, and I steadied myself, trying to get my bearings. I heard a horrific crunch of iron and wood behind me, and turned around to glance back at my room.

The doorway was completely gone, the wall a smooth surface of nailed down planks.

My mind refused to think about it, instinct kicking in as I clambered up the steep stairs to the main deck, nearly losing my cane and footing several times on the slick, shivering steps despite all of my practice. Horrible sounds of crunching timbers and metal followed me as I ran up. I glanced behind me once, and noticed the stairs crumbling out behind me, a bottomless pit of black trailing behind. I didn’t look back after that.

After what felt like a millennia of frantic climbing, I made it to the main deck and prayed a silent thanks for my good luck. It was a moonless night, with only the twinkling stars and occasional sailor’s lamp for light. It was hard to hear the sailors over the cacophony of iron below deck, but I spotted they’d hauled up several lifeboats. I let out a relieved sigh and went to scurry over, but my footing finally gave out on a piece of line strewn across the deck.

I pushed myself back up from the deck, but the rope pulled me down, already twisting itself around my ankles. I watched in a mix of terror and disbelief as I kicked at it, only managing to make it worse by struggling to unleash myself from its stubborn grip. A figure walked past me and I looked up, and I felt a wave of relief. It was the captain. I called out to him for help, but he kept walking.

For the briefest moment, he turned around and sneered at me. "With all due respect, be quiet, doctor ."

Words faltered me as I stared at him waiting to board the lifeboat. Other sailors passed by me, and I came to the realization that nobody intended on helping me make it out alive.

I watched helplessly as the captain stepped up to enter the lifeboat. Just in the moment where his footing was most unsteady, the deck gave out under him.

A chorus of resounding thunks and disturbing squelches droned out his screams. As his outstretched hand passed into that bottomless threshold, it sealed itself back up, gone just as quickly as it’d appeared. I panicked again, scrambled to get to my feet, and I noticed the line had uncurled itself from my ankle.

The dumbfounded, frightened sailors parted to make way for me as if I were some sort of king. One silently offered his arm to help me into the lifeboat, but I paused a moment to glance down at the deck.

"Th-thank you," I whispered.