There's a Ship in the Woods [Part 15]

Day 25 at the Cabin

The storm knocked out everything, to start with. Three days of pure downfall. I resorted to writing in that damn journal as an attempt to keep my thoughts straight. The infernal laptop was near unusable. Even just typing. It I left it along too long all my progress would be gone the next time I looked. Things moved around during the storm. At some point I lost track of my medication and the mirror was giving me weird looks. I think that guy took them. I can hear the rain even now, but it's not as strong hopefully it stays that way. I dare not go outside. I only faced the elements twice these past few days. I couldn't tell day from night, the clock became meaningless once I stopped sleeping. Can't trust the rain for it will infiltrate my dreams.

I don't recall the day or time I first went on to the deck, but I know this happened first for I haven't had the binoculars since. The rain berated me, pelting the cabin with some personal vendetta I wanted nothing to do with. I yelled back at the storm clouds. Water soaked my bones in seconds but my yelling wouldn't cease. The clouds rolled with measured malice, waiting for something I could never have guessed, and I yelled louder. I yelled louder than the thunder echoing in my veins. I climbed to the quarterdeck with binoculars gripped tight in my gloved hand for I wanted to see the lightning. I wanted to see that rage of nature since it had come stampeding against my door.

The glove held the binoculars up to my eyes while my free hand worked to anchor me against the wicked winds. Something shifted behind the dark clouds. Some shadow not held by any form. I tried focusing my vision but my right eye refused cooperation. Lightning flashed behind the clouds and I saw distant shadows of creatures soaring there, but they didn't look like birds. As if to move upwards, I leaned forward and my anchor loosened. A crazed zephyr shoved me and I had to grab upon the wheel to keep from flying over it. Refocusing the binoculars showed me that roiling shadow again. Balled lightning worked as eyes to glare down upon me. The very heavens contemptualized me, but these were not the eyes of my God. A face shifted tumultuously directly above me, sneering down despite no proper mouth as if everything it saw had personally slighted it. Including me. Especially me.

The binoculars were ripped from my hand as hurricane-level winds threatened to pull me eye level with the thing. It roared thunder on me, glared lightning bolts that seared near the ship, but the ship never shuddered. I did. Coward I am, I returned under deck. I ripped the soaked clothes away from my body like shedding a mushy second skin and huddled by the wood stove for some warmth. The glove was still on. I tore it away along with the bandages. Lord knows how long I sat there, staring at the gash. Enough time for an eye to roll forward and peer at me past the dripping muscles and swollen green skin. Looked like my eye, blood clots and all.

I shot the mirror, but the bastard didn't have my medication. I need to find it soon or bad stuff is gonna happen. I can't be losing my head now. The wind howls above me, something keens at the door, the ocean cries in the west, I think I'm crying but my eye just hurts. The second time I breached the deck was not of my choice.

The clock had ticked past three, whether it was day or night I couldn't be certain, when Otis knocked loudly at my door. It wanted to sound like him but it forgot his Boatswain Call. But I was feeling feverish and alone and the eye had fallen out of my hand to roll freely over the floor. I felt no choice but to open the door when his voice began to yell.

"Vinny lad! Let me out of this torment!" And I moved to the door, hand outstretched to grab hold of the knob, when I heard this muttering under Otis' yells. It was still his voice. "Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under the water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began."

I recognized the quote, my head throbbed from where the book had marked me, and I was ready to pull away. But my hand was already around the knob and it slammed against the door with unrest. I jerked back causing my hand to twist. It was just enough for the thing to push inside, the creep who stood behind trees now filled the doorway, still simultaneously yelling and muttering in Otis' voice. An arm unraveled from its form, hand outstretched, so I instantly ran. My gun was upstairs, I had to go outside if I had any chance of survival. The hatch groaned against my incessant pushing but gave way before the rest of that guy could spill past the threshold.

The rain immediately soaked through me, eager to drown my bones, but I stumbled through the torrent to get to my bedroom. I slammed the door on my hunter's warped face and began looking for my gun. Hampton was curled under my bed, I searched through the bag to no avail then tossed him on to my dresser, I didn't mean to scare him. The gun was found bookmarked in the journal I had been using to organize my thoughts. I snatched it, throwing the journal aside in the process, and flung open the door. Rain invaded the room instantly and I caught sight of the bastard, standing behind the mast. It had ceased yelling but its muttering carried on the wind. I had grit my teeth and leveled my gun with what I could see. That damn eye.

"From hell's heart I stab at thee," I muttered back, lost in the wind and waves of it all, the pale eye looking in to me with churning familiarity, "for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee." If he was going to quote at me, why not do it back? Then I shot him. His head reeled back, I had gotten him right where I wanted, and the rest of his stupidly tall body followed. I fired again and stepped out more, thunder drowning out the gunshot, getting his shoulder. His body slammed against the opposite wall. "One more." I could feel it again, the ease. "One more." My gun pointed where the heart should have been.

"Devil Jones," he spoke in chain saws. Another shot but he didn't stop. "Can't run from Devil Jones. Whether boat or train, his hand will find its way."

"Shut up!" I screamed louder than the laughing thunder and went to shoot again. But he was up like lightning and threw himself overboard. I retreated back down, relocking the bolts on the door then the hatch. Nothing more came of the man. I reloaded my gun.

I have done much to protect myself out here, and I will survive. I will. I will never be done, not when the gun feels so heavy in my hand. So nice. But I need to find those pills, they will help me see again. Even as my eye rolls around without thought. No mind connected to it for guidance. Poor thing.

The mirror is shattered, pieces of it all over the floor and a thousand eyes looks up from the reflections. My pill bottle was in the bathtub, sunk below murky waters along with some beer cans. All the pills that were inside are soaked in cheap booze now. Will that affect them? I took one after rinsing it off then took my last tab. Drowned both with a flat soda. I lay on the floor now, readying to share this before Hypnos inevitably comes for me. I can feel him now, waiting at the edges of my consciousness as everything falls in on me. Vincent is a friend of mine, I shouldn't have stolen his name. I'll tell Otis who I am next I see him. Good ol Otis. I hope he won't hate me. I hope I don't scare him. Til