Matt Hlinak - DoG

“We went in to shut off the engine,” Frank blurted out. “After we heard the ‘man overheard’ call.”

The Captain turned his impassive face toward Frank. Culann shifted his weight ever so slightly to try to hide the bulge at his groin. Frank squared up his shoulders, as if fortifying himself against the Captain’s overpowering gaze. All three men stood silently for a few moments.

“Never go on the bridge. Ever.”

With that, the Captain strode forward, forcing Frank and Culann to scurry out of the way. They turned and raced to their quarters, never once looking back. Down below, Culann crammed the orb into his duffel bag and then exhaled for the first time since hearing the Captain’s voice.

They headed topside to join the throng surrounding McGillicuddy, who sat shivering on the deck, wrapped in a blanket. He glanced up at them and smiled as Frank gave him a thumbs-up. Worner slid behind the two cousins and gave them each a fatherly squeeze on the shoulder. They’d just about pulled it off.

Culann took a moment to soak in the exhilaration of his victory. With the engines idle, the Orthrus bobbed calmly on the waves, and Culann felt relaxed for the first time since they’d embarked. He observed the total absence of color in the world around him.

The ship was the color of old gym socks, while the sea beneath them was black. The jagged coastline on the horizon was a pile of gray rocks, and the sky above was a swirling mass of dark clouds. He’d soon be on dry land, where he could start planning the next phase of his life, whatever that might entail.

As if it had been patiently waiting for Culann to first complete his mission, the rain chose that very moment to come pouring down. There had been no preamble of droplets. When the rain came, it came in earnest. Within seconds, Culann was soaked through to the skin, and the men scampered below deck and crowded into the mess, which quickly assumed the musty odor of wet dog. Culann yearned for a shower.

He and his co-conspirators sat together at one of the tables, but it was too crowded for them to discuss what they had done. The four men just grinned at one another.

McGillicuddy and Worner hadn’t yet been told of the close call with the Captain, a story Culann was already working through in his head to maximize its narrative impact on these strange men who were now his friends.

“Why haven’t they started the engines yet?” Frank wondered.

“Beats me,” said McGillicuddy. “That son of a bitch was in such a hurry to get home, you’d think we’d be high-tailin’ right now.”

“Hell, I’m ready to go home,” Worner said. “I don’t want to spend any more time cooped up in this sardine can with you creeps.”

“Something’s wrong,” Culann said. His throat tightened up.

The entire crew of the Orthrus looked up at once as Gus stood in the doorway to the mess. His eyes were narrow, and his scowl dug deeper than usual.

“Greenhorn, Frank,” he called out. All eyes turned towards the cousins.

“The Captain wants to see the both of you.”

“What were you two doing in here earlier?”

Frank and Culann leaned against the back wall of the bridge. The Captain stood before them, his face just inches away from theirs. He was even taller than Frank, so he towered over Culann, who felt like a child in the principal’s office. Except that he didn’t know any principals who carried guns under their jackets. Gus glared at Culann from over the Captain’s shoulder.

“We told you, Cap,” Frank said. “We went in to kill engines.”

The Captain let out a short, disdainful sigh. The pistol materialized in his right hand. He jammed it into Frank’s stomach.

“Gus killed the engines, not you. If you don’t tell me what you did, I’m going to kill you.”

“We didn’t do anything, uh, sir,” Culann stammered. “I just was curious. I wanted to see what it looked like in here. Frank didn’t have anything to do with it. He just came in to tell me that I wasn’t supposed to be in here. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

The gun now pressed against Culann’s ribs.

“You expect me to believe that?”

The Captain’s imperious voice boomed in concert with the thunder crashing outside. Culann pressed his body back as far as he could against the wall, as if he could press hard enough to pass through it. The gun dug into his side, and he resisted the urge to try to push it away with his hand.

“It’s the truth, sir.”

“Then why won’t the engines start?” the Captain shouted.

“Engines, sir?” Culann replied, genuinely puzzled.

“The goddamned engines won’t start. The radio is out, too. I find it hard to believe that you two just happened to be messing around in here before everything stopped working, and that the two events are not somehow related.”

“Honestly, Cap,” Frank said, “we didn’t touch anything in here.”

The gun wedged again into Frank’s broad belly.

“So it’s just a coincidence, is that it?”

“It must be, Cap. Maybe it was the storm. We could’ve gotten struck by lightning.”

“It makes sense, Captain,” Gus said. “I got an easier time believing we got zapped than that these two dipshits were smart enough to sabotage the ship.”

The Captain stood silently for a moment, the gun still all that separated him from Frank. Then he stepped back and slid his weapon back under his jacket. He jerked his thumb toward the door. Frank and Culann ducked their heads and hurried out into the deluge on the deck.

With the engines out and no working radio, the Orthrus bobbed on the stormy sea within sight of land for half a day before another ship came along. The whole time, Culann feared the Captain would peek under his bed and find the orb missing. But the Captain was fortunately preoccupied with the ship’s mechanical difficulties and efforts to arrange a tug back to shore. While the Captain, Gus, and a few of the handier sailors struggled with the engines, the rest of the crew lounged in absolute boredom down in the mess. Crammed together with thoughts of frustration on their minds and home tantalizingly out of reach, a few scuffles broke out. Worner busied himself by duct-taping the combatants’ wounds.

The storm broke around dusk, about which time a ship came close enough to see a few dozen sailors waving frantically from the deck. About an hour later, a tugboat pulled the Orthrus back into Three Fingers. When they disembarked, Culann stumbled as his feet felt the firmness of earth for the first time in over two weeks and he toppled to his knees. The other members of the crew, more accustomed to the transitions between land and sea, snickered at him as they shoved by. He was still a greenhorn, after all.

Twenty minutes later, they all boarded the ferry bound for Pyrite. As the boat pulled away, Culann watched the Captain smoke a cigar on the deck of the Orthrus while waiting for mechanics to arrive. The Captain shrank as the ferry neared Pyrite and then disappeared. For good, Culann hoped.

“You know what day it is?” Frank asked.

Culann had lost track of time almost immediately after going out to sea. He knew they’d been gone for seventeen days because others had said so, but he’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted to count the days himself. He couldn’t recall when they’d gone to sea.

“It’s the Fourth of July,” Frank said with a grin. “Party time.”

I guess I haven’t talked about the fog yet. Christ. As if living in the land of constant sunlight wasn’t bad enough, the whole island is surrounded by fog. Sometimes it stays back. Other times it rolls in and soaks everything. When it gets like that, I feel suffocated. It’s as bad as the dogs.