by J. E. Gurley
They had brought a case of canned goods with them—soups, stews, vegetables and canned meats—along with bread, fresh fruit and deli meats in an ice cooler. The supply ship would bring steaks, potatoes and fresh vegetables for more substantial meals. For now, they were basically camping out.
“Smells great,” Tolson said, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s eat.”
“Two more minutes,” she said. “You can get the bowls and spoons.”
“Right,” he said and got up to get them from their box.
Jeff noticed that Easton sat and stared at his cards, oblivious to everything. He had spoken very little since awakening that afternoon. He had worked woodenly, as if his mind were a million miles away. Jeff wondered if he should speak to him, but decided he might want to be alone, undoubtedly embarrassed by his actions, that didn’t account for his brooding. He was still frightened but afraid to show it to the others.
They wolfed down Lisa’s stew, much to her delight. Jeff was pleasantly surprised at her cooking prowess. Everything was canned, but it tasted homemade. Only Easton seemed unmoved by the stew, eating only a few bites and shoving his bowl aside. After the meal, Ed surprised them with cold beers.
“I salvaged a couple of six packs from the pantry. I put them in the cooler when we got it working.”
Lisa refused hers. Jeff wasn’t certain if it was because she didn’t wish to drink or because it had been so close to Bale’s dead body. He had no such qualms. The beer was cold and refreshing and drinking it brought back pleasant memories. Tolson, it seemed, shared Jeff’s enthusiasm, grabbing Lisa’s untouched beer after finishing his own. Easton sipped his slowly, refusing to speak or even look at them. Ed, Jeff, Tolson and McAndrews played a few hands of poker while Lisa read. Easton retired to his bunk and lay there with his hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Sims continued to sit and watch, saying nothing.
After a few hours, Ed stood, yawned and announced, “One of you young guys take first watch. The supply ship should be here sometime tonight or early in the morning. I’ll take second shift.”
Jeff volunteered. “I’ll go first. I can’t sleep anyway.”
“We start early in the morning,” Ed warned as he walked out of the room toward his room. “Get some sleep.”
“I’ll check on Gleason again,” McAndrews said and left behind Ed. Sims stood and followed.
Tolson leaned back in his chair back and watched Lisa as she gathered the paper bowls and plastic utensils and bagged them for disposal. She scrubbed the pot in the bathroom sink.
“Are you going to stare at me all night?” Lisa asked Tolson.
“I could,” he said with a wink. “I like the way you move.”
She laughed. “You like my tits. Don’t lie.”
Tolson chuckled and threw up his hands. “You caught me.” He stood up. “I’m going to bed. Any takers?” He looked at Lisa.
“Not in your best fantasy,” she answered, “or my worst nightmare.”
“Oh, well,” he said. He looked at his right hand. “I guess it’s just you and me darling.”
“You disgust me,” Lisa shot at him as he left, but Jeff could see she was snickering quietly. “That guy never gives up,” she said after Tolson had left.
“He considers himself a ladies man.”
“What about you?”
He felt his cheeks go red. “I’m a little shy around women, I guess.”
She chuckled. “You’re not shy. You’re just picky.”
That surprised him. “Picky? Me?”
Lisa mocked his denial with a wide-eyed expression. “Yeah, you. You act like you love making the club rounds chasing young girls, but you really want a woman you can appreciate.”
“Like you?”
This time, her face turned red and she glanced away before answering. “Well, we hit it off okay I suppose. What I meant is you don’t put on a front like Tolson. He talks loud but I bet he’s not the hound dog he pretends to be.”
“I think he has a steady woman. He doesn’t talk about her much but he spends less and less time ashore with the rest of us.”
“See, I was right.”
“About him maybe,” Jeff agreed.
Lisa smiled and shook her head slowly as she walked over and sat down next to him, pressing her body disconcertingly close to his, pinning him against the side of the narrow couch. Her presence aroused him. Her hair smelled of charcoal smoke and disinfectant but it still turned him on. He wanted her badly but knew instinctively that it wasn’t the right time to make a move in spite of her seeming willingness. Things were too confused, too unsettled. She tempted him even further when she rested her hand on his leg.
“I’m frightened, Jeff,” she said.
He looked into her eyes and saw confusion. Jeff mentally cursed himself for interpreting her fear for desire. She wanted comfort and assurance, not sex. “Me, too,” he admitted.
She toyed with her Loa medallion. “I wish my grandmother was here.” She must have noticed the confusion on his face. She continued. “She always made me feel safe. She would know just what to do. I can…” She shook her head. “I can almost feel what she would do. I didn’t pay too much attention to her when I grew older, but as a child I was by her side all the time. I remember her songs, prayers really, to ward against danger. They were my lullabies growing up. She would sing me to sleep with them. I catch myself singing them now, since all this started.”
“My mother was an alcoholic,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from coloring his voice. “Some nights she never even came to tuck me in.” He didn’t know why he admitted his secret. Few people knew, not even Ed.
Lisa patted his knee. “I’m sorry.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. He reached up and touched her hair, stroked it softly. She looked him in the eye, inviting him to kiss her. He did and was pleased when she responded. It was a long kiss, full of suggestion and promises and thoughts of the future, but both understood now was not the time to begin an affair.
She pulled back and smiled at him. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I needed that.”
“No problem at all,” he replied. “Happy to oblige.”
“I’m going to bed now,” she said, standing up and stretching. Jeff tried not to stare at her breasts as they filled out the front of her shirt. He looked down at the floor.
“See you in the morning,” he mumbled. “I’ll keep watch awhile.”
After she was gone, the room felt empty. The gentle pressure of her lips on his remained, reminding. He reached up, touched them, and smiled.
“She’s quite a woman.”
Jeff jerked around to see Sims standing by the door with a big grin on his face.
“I thought you had gone to bed,” Jeff snapped. Of everyone there, he disliked Sims witnessing what had passed between he and Lisa most.
“Not yet.” He walked in cleaning his fingernails with his knife. “She likes you, I think.”
Jeff felt uncomfortable talking about Lisa, especially with Sims. “Yeah, maybe.”
Sims stopped cleaning his nails and looked at Jeff, holding his knife in his hand. “You don’t like me much, do you?” He waved the knife, punctuating each word.
Jeff hesitated. “I don’t know you. I do know you like to drink. That’s not good on the job.”
Sims laughed and pulled out his flask. “Want a sip?”
Jeff shook his head. “No, thanks.”
Sims chuckled. “I don’t think you would like it anyway. It’s not liquor. It’s a, uh, tonic I need for my health.”
This perked Jeff’s interest. “Oh? Are you sick?”
Sims pointed the knife at Jeff, aiming down its length with one eye. “You’re trying to provoke me, aren’t you, Towns? It won’t work. I’m in a good mood.”
Jeff was disappointed Sims had caught on to his ploy so soon but jumped on Sims’ last admission. “Good mood? Here? Bale is dead and Waters is missing. Does this make you happy?”
Sims smil
ed and returned to cleaning his nails. “I’m alive and intend to stay that way. I don’t know any of you and I won’t stick my neck out for you. Besides, this bonus check will come in handy.”
“For a new boat?” Jeff snapped. “Just what happened to your boat, Sims?”
Sims’ face clouded. At first, Jeff thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant, as if he was reliving events in his mind.
“Me and my crew were well out in the Gulf when Katrina turned north on us. We had located a large school of shrimp and didn’t want to leave it. The season had been bad and it was the first bit of luck we had. The sea was rough by the time we iced down our catch and headed in. After that, it was one foul up after another, as if the devil himself had it in for us.”
Sims’ chuckle at his joke gave Jeff goose bumps.
“One engine caught fire. We managed to put it out but with just one engine we couldn’t make much headway. The storm caught us. The winds were furious, ripping the breath right out of your lungs. It shredded our nets and yanked the winches right out of the deck, taking a three-foot section of deck with it. The waves pounded us so hard we spent more time underwater than above it. We took on all the water the Gulf had in it and then some. I went below to check on the bilge pumps. I left Kluge, my first mate, in the wheelhouse. A big wave hit us broadside. The boat heeled over on its port side ‘til I was lying facedown on the corridor bulkhead. I thought we were done for, but slowly she righted herself, groaning like a dying animal. I rushed back to the bridge. The windows were smashed and Kluge was gone, washed overboard.
“The pumps couldn’t keep up. We were going down. Our skiff was smashed. I passed out life vests and ordered everyone over the side. I was the last one in. We were out of vests, so I grabbed a float marker and jumped in. I watched from the crest of a fifty-foot wave as my ship groaned out her death throes and slipped below the waves.”
Sims stared at Jeff at moment before continuing. “The others never made it, but I did. I was determined to live. I would have made a deal with the devil if I thought it would save me. Somehow, I stayed afloat and alive and the Coast Guard picked me up after the storm had passed. I lost my ship and my crew. You don’t know how that feels, Towns. I was responsible for their lives and my greed killed them. I should have come back in. If there’s something alive on this platform, it’s me it wants but I ain’t ready to go.”
He turned and walked back down the hallway to his room, leaving Jeff somewhat ashamed at his earlier estimation of Sims, but not quite forgiving. His story explained a lot. A man who had lost everything and held himself responsible could easily become a cynic, but Jeff suspected there was more to Sims’ story than he had revealed. His story sounded too rehearsed, relayed too coldly. Jeff still didn’t trust him.
Restless, Jeff alternately prowled the hallway from the front office to the kitchen, or sat immobile in the dark staring out the front office window. The fog was growing thicker by the hour. By morning, he knew it would blanket the entire rig. Fog in September was common enough in the Gulf but this fog felt different. He recalled his high school science teacher, a skinny man named Mr. Gwaltney who droned monotonously.
“Fog forms in many different ways. First, advection fog occurs when cold moist air crosses a cool surface, like water. This type of fog is common in the Grand Banks but should not happen in the warm Gulf unless an upwelling of colder water occurs. Second, radiation fog, and no, I don’t mean a glowing cloud like the one in the Amazing Shrinking Man, Mr. Towns, forms when land heated by the sun during the day cools off after sunset. Next, sea fog forms along coastlines when water droplets condense around sea salt churned into the air by crashing waves.”
Except the sea was at a dead calm and this fog did not move like other fogs. It seemed to pulse forward rather than flow smoothly, as if propelled by some internal force rather than the wind. It was also eerily luminescent, like St. Elmo’s fire.
He was so intrigued by the movement of the fog that at first he did not hear the footsteps in the hallway. Rather than switch on the lights, he grabbed a flashlight. Perhaps it was someone going to the john. He shined the light down the hallway but saw no one. He peeked in the rooms. Everyone was asleep. He looked again—Gleason was gone.
He shook McAndrews awake.
“Big Clyde’s gone,” he said quietly.
“What?” McAndrews replied, peering up at Jeff still groggy with sleep.
“Clyde’s gone,” he repeated.
McAndrews threw off the covers, raced to Gleason’s room and saw the empty bunk. Easton was still snoring softly in the bunk above. “Damn.” McAndrews grabbed a second flashlight from his room.
“I heard footsteps back there,” Jeff told him, pointing toward the rear of the building.
“We’ve got to find him,” McAndrews said. “He may be delirious with a concussion.”
They checked the bathroom first and every room off the kitchen but did not see him. Jeff noticed that the back door was unlocked.
“He went outside.”
When they opened the door, a wall of fog, warm and clammy, fell over them, burning their flesh like fire.
“What the hell?” Jeff exclaimed, staggering back into the kitchen. His face and arms burned where the fog had touched his exposed skin. Small red blisters were already forming.
“Shut the door!” McAndrews yelled as he examined his own arms in wonder.
“What about Big Clyde?” Jeff asked.
“We can’t go out there. Look at that stuff.” He pointed out the window.
McAndrews’ voice had a note of hysteria about it. Jeff wondered what the man had seen that he had not. He shined his light out the window. The fog was gray and menacing. It lifted in large masses before falling and flowing against the door. It glowed with a wan, sepulcher light. Where normal fog looked benign, this fog looked puissant and menacing. Where it cleared, Jeff could see patches of decomposed metal, like rust forming on the deck and railings.
“It’s like an acid, eating the metal,” McAndrews said.
“What is it?”
“Who the hell knows?” McAndrews continued to stare at the fog, mesmerized. Finally, he said, “We should wake the others.”
As soon as Jeff turned on the hall lights, he could hear people stirring in their rooms. One by one, their lights came on.
“Gleason’s gone,” he told them when they poked their heads out of their rooms.
“He must have awakened and wandered off,” Tolson said. “He probably went outside to take a piss. His family didn’t have indoor plumbing until he was fifteen.”
“We have to look for him,” Lisa suggested as she laced up her boots. She had taken off her work shirt, leaving on only a short tube top. Jeff noticed how nicely it hugged her breasts.
“We can’t,” Jeff said as he tried to bring his mind back to the present problem. The others looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Jeff’s right,” McAndrews said. “There’s a strange fog outside.” He held out his arm, covered with tiny red blisters. “It burns to the touch. We can’t go out there.”
“What about Clyde?” Lisa asked. She examined McAndrews’ arm. She was close to tears.
“Maybe he found another place of shelter,” McAndrews said. “If not, I don’t know.”
Tolson shook his head. “This is too damn much. First Bale and now Gleason. We’ve got to get off this damn platform.” He nervously twisted the end of his Fu Manchu moustache.
Easton had not gotten up. Upon hearing about Gleason, he curled up in the fetal position on his bunk and pulled his blanket over his head, whimpering. Jeff saw that Sims’ face was expressionless.
“You don’t look too surprised,” Jeff snapped at Sims.
“Nothing surprises me. That’s how I’m gonna get through all this. Gleason’s a big dude. He can take care of himself.”
Jeff stiffened and stared at Sims.
Ed tried to calm them. “Now, now. We don’t know if anything
has happened to Clyde. In the morning, when the fog recedes, we can go look for him.”
“He may be dead by then,” Lisa offered in a wail of anguish.
“Anyone that goes out there now will die,” McAndrews stated flatly.
He picked up the first aid box and removed a tube of burn ointment. He poured a dab on his arms and face handed the tube to Jeff. Jeff rubbed it onto his burns. The cream soothed the pain and stopped the terrible itching on his forehead but did not stop more tiny blisters from forming. Whatever was in the fog was not natural. Too many unnatural things had happened since they had arrived to put it down to rumor and simple superstition.
“He’s right,” Jeff told them. “That fog is alive and dangerous. Somehow I don’t think it will harm Gleason or Waters.”
“Why not?” Lisa asked.
“They’ve both been touched by whatever is going on here. I think the fog is here to keep the rest of us inside, away from them.”
“Why?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know,” Jeff admitted.
“What about me?” Easton asked, clearly troubled by Jeff’s news. He peeked out from under the blanket with wide, tear-stained eyes. “I’ve been touched, haven’t I?”
“You’ll be all right here with us,” Jeff reassured him, but he had his doubts any of them would be all right for long.
“Maybe we should hold hands and sing Kum Ba Ya,” Sims suggested, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Roast marshmallows or make S’mores.”
Jeff turned on him. “Maybe you don’t think this is serious. Why don’t you stick your head outside and see what happens to it?”
Sims simply smiled and walked away, irritating Jeff even more.
“Enough,” Lisa said, tugging on Jeff’s sleeve while frowning at Sims’ back. “Save the hostility for Waters.”
Jeff looked at her and nodded, but he would have preferred to punch Sims’ grin off his face.
Chapter Thirteen
Clyde Gleason regained consciousness lying in his bunk. His head throbbed and his body ached almost as badly as the aftermath of one of his infamous barroom brawls. He barely remembered the falling pallet but did remember someone yelling at him. A vague sense of suffocation, as if being buried alive. He tried to sit up but a wave of dizziness forced him back down on the bunk. He reached up and explored the wound on his head. He felt stitches and his fingers came away wet, startling him.
