Саймон Бествик - The Devil and the Deep - Horror Stories of the Sea

It would feel like wearing a mask. Like he was somebody else.

But he was just him.

As of last night and this morning, he’d taken to talking out loud to Peggy.

He was telling her how tonight he was going to have to rebuild a city, window by window. Maybe if he did it right, those stacks of windows would resolve into the portholes of a monster of a cruise ship, right?

It didn’t hurt to dream.

Well, it sort of did, but he couldn’t help it.

His beard wasn’t full yet, he knew. He could tell by rubbing his jawline. His beard was wispy, thin, a joke. But give it a few years. Give it a few years, and he’d be living in his own personal comic strip.

It was going to be hilarious.

As his taxi raced toward the dock Lee could see the water between buildings and at the ends of streets, filling the space around and beyond distant spits of unfocused land. The ocean smelled like a liquefied cellar. His last time near the ocean was that summer at Myrtle Beach when he was nine. He’d hated the way the sand got between his toes, in his swimsuit, in every private crevice. He’d gone into the water to get rid of the sand, and been alarmed by the volume and the pull of it. Its murky gray was the color of everything dissolved, everything disintegrated, eaten, and disappeared. He never went into the ocean again.

It wasn’t too late to turn around. But his girls wouldn’t get their money back. And worse, they’d be disappointed in him.

“Dad, it’ll be like riding the bus.” Jane had tried to be reassuring, but how could she know? Neither she nor her sister had ever been on a cruise. All they knew was from the TV commercials and the colorful brochures. Lee and his late wife had raised their daughters to be skeptical, but it never quite took.

His cell phone began playing that discordant ring-tone Cynthia had programmed to identify her. He fumbled with the buttons and answered. “Hi, honey. I’m almost at the dock.”

“Great! I’m sorry we couldn’t be there to see you off.”

Jane shouted in the background, “Bon voyage!”

“Tell her thanks. How’s the internship going?”

“It’s going well , Dad! We’re impressing everybody! You’ll be proud.”

“I’m already proud. You sure you have enough money? You spent so much on this trip.”

“We have savings , remember? All that stuff you used to say about the real world ? We listened.”

Lee felt himself tear up. It happened easily these days. “OK then. I’ll send postcards.” He heard inarticulate yelling, laughter in the background. “Cindy, what’s going on?”

Cynthia laughed. “Jane wants you to promise you’ll warn us first if you’re bringing home a new wife.” Lee didn’t react, and they said their goodbyes. He wished they hadn’t pushed him into this.

Stuck in traffic only blocks from the pier, Lee pulled out the brochure. Senior Singles Cruise . The words embarrassed him. But it had been over five years, and he was very much single and feeling older every day.

If the taxi were late it wasn’t his fault. The welcome packet stressed that the ship always sailed on time—it was your responsibility to get on board, both at the start and at all stops along the way. The very idea of being marooned in some Caribbean port—he might just stay on board the entire trip.

But the taxi made good time over the remaining blocks. Dilapidated warehouses were the rule on one side of the road. On the ocean side small and mid-size boats were anchored or dry-docked for repair, their hulls chewed with corrosion, the upper parts and edges stained a coffee color.

At the terminal he waited for hours with hundreds of others on brightly colored chairs, an experience not mentioned in the brochure. Eventually he found himself heading for the gangway with a large group. A pretty young photographer offered to take his “Bon Voyage” picture. It was only then he realized the looming white metal wall was his destination. He consented only so he’d have one to give the girls. He smiled as if he were already having the best time of his life.

Once inside the ship a small olive-skinned man with a thick accent offered to take him to his cabin. “My bags?”

“They wait for you,” the little man said, “please watch your step,” and rapidly led him through various openings and a maze of corridors. After a few minutes he had no sense of location or being on the water at all.

The cabin was like other small rooms he’d stayed in at cheap hotels. An undersized bed and a cramped bathroom, a tiny table and chair beneath twin portholes. He wasn’t sure what he’d hoped for—something exotic perhaps. But Lee was used to disappointment.

A printed schedule for “Senior Singles” was on the table. He read it with increasing alarm. Dinner was a “Meet Someone New” event. An equal number of women and men at each table was somehow guaranteed. He’d made a terrible mistake in agreeing to this.

After breakfast there were classes on dance and casino games, Bridge, tennis and other “deck sports,” and “Social Skills for Seniors.” After a small-group lunch (whatever that was), “cruisers”—oh, please —were encouraged to change into sun or swim attire and relax in one of the countless deck chairs. A good quality sun screen was highly recommended. His daughters had bought him enough extremely high SPF products to protect him from anything short of immolation. In the evenings, after the awkward-sounding dinners, live entertainment was offered, and the optional “romantic stroll around the deck.” Lee dropped this schedule into the waste bin. He’d brought plenty of books.

He glanced out one of the portholes. The ocean appeared to be in a slow spin around him as the ship headed out to sea. He sat down, struggling not to weep.

For the first two days Lee asked for people’s names and occupations. He listened to their stories and laughed at their jokes, and told a few harmless stories of his own. But “his” stories were stolen from people he knew and had nothing to do with him. He wasn’t sure why he lied, except he thought these tales more generally appealing. With each small deceit he felt worse.

Staff were always interrogating him, asking if he was having a good time, offering snacks, providing dozens of fluffy white towels every day. Others ran around with buckets of white paint, coating the barest suggestions of corrosion. Every day there were new brown spots, red streaks of oxidation, holes needing to be plugged before passengers noticed.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you out on the deck,” a tablemate named Sylvia said at one night’s dinner. “But it’s the quiet ones you really have to watch out for.” She winked at him and laughed. Lee couldn’t remember the last time a woman had winked at him.

“Oh, I’ve heard that saying,” he replied, not knowing what else to say. What in the world was she talking about?

The ever-present waiter interrupted. “Is everything perfect?”

Lee looked up and forced a smile. “It was a very good meal.”

“Was there something that did not suit you?”

He had no idea what to say. His tablemates spoke of textures, presentation, and the blend of flavors. Surely they were making it all up as they went along?

When the waiter hustled off, that woman, Sylvia, grabbed his arm. Lee stared at her thin fingers, a large ring on each one. “Don’t tell me you’ve found someone already , without giving the rest of us girls a chance!” He looked into her red-rimmed eyes and realized how much wine she’d consumed.