Shawna dreamed of his boat afire, of herself afloat in a blood-warm sea of Death.
Someone pounded on the cockpit hatch.
Shawna awoke in motion, grabbed her weapon in the dark, and stole naked across her stateroom’s deck to the passageway.
Angel peeked out from the opposite door, “Who is it?”
“Stay in your cabin,” Shawna displayed her Glock 19. “I’ll find out.”
Angel closed her door. The lock clicked.
The knocking persisted.
Shawna moved aft from the bow cabins, up the companionway to the Peaceful Crossing’s bridge. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. Her senses peaked. Shawna concealed herself behind the stowage locker – a whiff of fuel vapor. Through the salon she peered astern to the cockpit hatch. The dock light outside was broken. A full moon cast a frosty luminance through the half-glazed panel.
Shadows loomed outside the glass.
Shawna crept forward to the old cabin cruiser’s windshield, quietly lifted the egress panel, and climbed outside. She duckwalked aft across the top of the cabin and concealed herself behind the stowed dinghy.
Her thumb rested on the Glock’s safety.
Two figures, one tall and one short, stood in the Peaceful Crossing’s cockpit.
Shawna barked at them, “Show me your hands!”
The figures obeyed.
The short one spoke. “Excuse me, but we heard that this boat is for hire?”
“You want a charter? What time is it?”
The short figure replied, “Half past midnight, and it’s an emergency.”
Shawna relaxed her thumb, “I’ll be down in two minutes.”
Inside, she knocked on Angel’s door, “It’s clients, start the coffee.”
Shawna returned to her stateroom and put on her uniform: a sailor suit with cut-off sleeves and trousers. She fastened on her magazine belt and holstered her Glock, then strode aft to meet the clients, turning lights on as she went.
Two women waited in the cockpit. One was about forty years old, medium build, five-foot-four, Caucasian with red hair, wearing a black tube top, black shorts, and black sandals. Chunky white crystals hung from her ears. The other was mid-twenties, slender build, six-three, African American, wearing a white tube top, white shorts and sandals, and black crystal earrings.
“Good morning, ladies, I’m Captain Shawna.”
The short woman offered her hand. “I’m Mab. This is my wife Genny, with a ‘G’. We are searching for our daughter.”
Shawna glanced between them, “Whose daughter?”
“My biological child,” Mab said, “from my previous life. When Genny and I married, my daughter and I began having disagreements.”
“I see,” said Shawna, “how old is your daughter?”
“She’s twenty. Against my advice, she bought a sailboat and headed to the Bahamas. We lost contact with her two weeks ago. The police and Coast Guard have been no help, so Genny and I have come to find her ourselves. She is nearby and in dire trouble.”
“How do you know?” Shawna asked.
Mab touched her crystal earrings, “These speak to me.”
Shawna said nothing.
“They’re telling me now that you disbelieve in my gift.”
Shawna said, “If your gift exists, then my belief doesn’t matter.”
“You were once a police officer,” said Mab.
“You see my service weapon.”
“You did not leave your job willingly?”
“I’m too young to be retired.”
“You are haunted by guilt, Captain.”
Shawna sighed, “Who isn’t? I charge a thousand a day, plus fuel and food.”
Mab said, “Excellent. We’ll fetch our luggage, Genny.”
The couple stepped off the boat toward the marina’s parking lot.
From the bridge, Angel said, “I’m still not used to women marrying each other, and all that craziness about her earrings talking?”
Shawna replied, “Everyone needs to believe in something, especially when they’re desperate.”
Mab and Genny returned, each with a small bag.
Shawna said, “Angel will show you your cabin.”
Mab replied, “I want to begin immediately.”
Shawna saluted. “Yes, Ma’am!”
Shawna followed the blinking channel markers out of the harbor.
The Peaceful Crossing dragged a phosphorescent wake across the dark of the sea.
Shawna asked, “Where are we heading, Ma’am?”
Mab touched her earrings and closed her eyes, “Left.”
Shawna complied.
“More…There, now straight.”
Mab continued her stance.
After ten minutes, Shawna looked to Genny, “Is your wife all right?”
“She’s fine, just listening to the vibes.”
Angel came up from the galley, “Coffee’s ready. What’s our heading, Captain?”
“North-northeast,” said Shawna.
Angel replied, “There’s nothing out there but reefs and rocks and the bones of Pirate Peter’s girls.”
Genny asked, “Who’s Pirate Peter?”
Angel said, “He’s a serial rapist, and murderer, big guy, seven feet tall. He used to lure girls out on his boat, did his thing then threw them to the sharks. The police got him a couple of years back – you were still on the force then weren’t you, Captain? The judge only sentenced him to chemical castration because the prison was too full.”
Genny glared into the darkness, “Maybe this Pirate Peter is back in business?”
Shawna said, “Don’t give a monster a cute nickname, he’s Peter Shank, and he’s dead.”
Angel said, “I never heard that.”
Shawna did not respond.
Mab opened her eyes.
The lights of Miami faded below the aft horizon.
Mab said, “Slow down, we’re close!”
Shawna reduced the throttle. The Peaceful Crossing wallowed on the glassy sea.
Angel sniffed. “What’s that stink?”
The stench grew, then passed.
Shawna idled the engine, “Get the spotlight.”
Angel said, “It needs batteries, remember?”
“Then loft a flare.”
Angel got the flare gun from the antiquated signal kit.
Light spat from the pistol and arced high into the night. The hissing crimson flare illuminated a small sloop adrift. The sloop’s sails hung in tatters, her booby hatch had been stove in.
Mab cried out and wept. Genny embraced her.
Shawna said, “Is that your daughter’s boat?”
Mab nodded.
Shawna said to Angel, “Take the wheel, I’ll board the derelict.”
Angel set the flare gun down on the cabin top.
The flare fell into the sea and continued to burn, spitting and boiling.
Shawna opened the stowage locker for a coil of line, rummaging around her dinghy’s outboard motor, a jerry can of gasoline, and a box of assorted tools. Shawna took the rope astern and tied it to a transom cleat. Angel brought the Peaceful Crossing alongside the sloop. Shawna jumped the gap and made the line’s standing end fast to the sailboat. She drew her weapon.
Slimy footprints, twice the size of Shawna’s track, fouled the sailboat’s cockpit. More rank prints stained the cabin’s violently disordered interior. The boat smelled like old death.
Angel called, “How’s it look?”
Shawna holstered her weapon, “There’s no one aboard.”
She returned to the Peaceful Crossing.
Thirty feet down, an adipocerous corpse lay on the seafloor. His eyes degenerated into wads of clotted jelly. His mouth was a lipless maw of yellow teeth. Necrotic gas bubbled from his throat. The corpse wore an aloha shirt – patterned with skulls and exploding volcanoes – and no shorts. His limp penis swayed in the gentle current, bubbles leaked from its tip.
The Peaceful Crossing’s shadow drifted over him.
His mouth closed.
Confined gas swelled his torso. He rocked free from his bed of silt and floated toward the surface.
His penis grew.
Mab sobbed, “My poor child, I shouldn’t have let her go!”
“We don’t know that she’s… not okay,” said Shawna.
Mab clutched her earrings, “I hear her pain, her terror, her death haunts this place!”
“I’m sorry, we’ll tow the sloop back. Forensics might be able to tell us what happened.”
Mab laughed bitterly, “Now the police will help.”
“I’m truly sorry.”
Beneath the Peaceful Crossing’s keel, the bloated cadaver floated upward. He crawled astern like a spider on a ceiling. He unscrewed the propeller shaft’s nut. The propeller sank.
He slithered up the transom and grabbed the boarding ladder.
Shawna left her clients in the salon and climbed to the bridge. She advanced the Peaceful Crossing’s throttle. The RPM gauge hit the top peg. The boat remained in irons. She pulled the throttle back.
“What in the hell?” Shawna said.
“It sounds like cavitation,” Angel said.
“It sounds like a bare shaft.”
Shawna drew her weapon, firing into the thing’s chest. Waxy chunks sprayed from the exit hole. The dead man ignored the wound and boarded the Peaceful Crossing. Shawna backed away, pushing Angel behind her, She emptied the Glock’s magazine. The corpse advanced and backhanded Shawna. The blow flung her against the cockpit rail. She fell to the deck with stars exploding in her eyes. Shawna fumbled for her weapon, ejected the spent magazine, and groped on her belt for another.
Angel ran for the hatch.
The corpse strode across Shawna, flung out an arm, and caught Angel by the hair. He yanked her off the deck. Angel kicked her feet and struck at him, clawing furrows into his sea-rotted skin. He ripped Angel’s blouse open and pawed her breasts, marring her skin with decaying filth. She tore at his face. Chunks of waxy meat flew.
The corpse stripped down Angel’s shorts, turned her around, and bent her over the transom. He pressed himself tight into her buttocks.
The crew-girl shrieked.
Shawna rammed a fresh magazine into her Glock and fired up from the deck. The shots stitched a line of holes up the corpse’s spine.
He glanced back at Shawna, then lifted Angel in his arms and stepped over the side.
The sea drowned the crew-girl’s last scream.
Waves of nausea rolled up from Shawna’s bowels. She dropped her weapon and puked.
“Get up Captain!” Mab screamed, “Get up!”
Shawna unsteadily gained her feet. She wiped her mouth then faced her clients, who were huddled together in the refuge of the salon.
“That thing is evil incarnate,” said Mab, “It took my child, just as it took your crew-girl, and you recognized it, I know that you did!”
“It’s Peter Shank,” Shawna replied, “but that’s not possible, I killed him. I used to be a captain in the Miami Marine Police. Peter Shank operated in my jurisdiction. After we caught him, his psychologists argued for leniency because of his mental illness. The psychiatric wards were overcrowded, so the court decided to try something new.”
“Chemical castration,” said Genny.
“No, this was something experimental. The psychiatrists called it a ‘Compliance Regimen,’ but the media called it ‘Voodoo Science.’ The regimen combined drugs and therapy derived from old Haitian rituals to convert Shank into a totally passive state, made him an obedient vegetable so he could continue to lead a productive life without endangering others. Shank’s sentence was an outrage to his victims, and his victims’ families. Part of the regimen’s testing phase required Shank have a twenty-four/seven escort. I got myself assigned to the duty, then one night I made him drive his boat out here. I made him pick up his anchor and step over the side. I took his skiff and torched his boat. I told my boss it was an accident, a bilge blower malfunction. They didn’t believe me. They couldn’t prove I’d killed him, but I still lost my job.”
Genny said, “They made him into a zombie.”
Shawna replied, “That’s superstition,” she glanced at the benighted sea.
“You fool, you drowned him in the salt sea! Don’t you know about salt and zombies?”
“What?”
“Salt breaks the spell, wakes him up, and he turns against his master. We must get away from here!”
“I think the propeller is gone,” said Shawna. “Mab, get on the radio for the Coast Guard. Genny, I’ll need your help.”
Shawna led Genny to the stowage locker. Shawna switched her gun belt for a dive belt. She clipped on a wrench and knife and fitted her swimming mask with a headlamp. The stowage locker provided a chipped bronze propeller, a big hex nut, and a length of old line. Shawna threaded the line through the nut and propeller, tied a bowline knot, then handed the assembly to Genny.
“Lower this over the transom after I’m in the water.”
They returned to the cockpit. Shawna mounted the boarding ladder, stepped into the sea, and took a deep breath.
She submerged.
Genny’s line slipped down after her. Shawna caught it. She dragged it under the Peaceful Crossing. She slipped the spare propeller onto the naked shaft She held it in place and turned the nut with her other hand. Shawna needed fresh air before she could apply the wrench.
“Done?” Genny asked when she surfaced.
“Almost.”
Shawna sucked air then dove back to the propeller shaft.
The spare propeller and nut were gone.
Angel’s body drifted under the bare shaft, her legs splayed, muddy handprints all over her.
Shawna breached up the boarding ladder and into the cockpit with her knife in hand.
Genny retreated, startled.
“Is he here?” Shawna demanded.
Genny shook her head.
“The spare prop is gone. We’ll escape on the sloop, get the outboard motor and gas from the locker.”
Genny ran into the deck house.
Shawna reached for the sloop’s line.
The corpse reached out of the sea, grabbed the towline from her hands and yanked, ripping the cleat from the Peaceful Crossing’s transom.
The sloop drifted away.
The corpse grabbed the Peaceful Crossing’s ladder.
Genny returned, lugging the outboard motor. Seeing the corpse, she dropped the motor fleeing back into the cabin.
The corpse climbed into the cockpit.
Shawna lunged at him, ramming her knife between his heart-ribs sawing with the blade. He swatted her aside, then lumbered past, chasing Genny. Shawna came back at him, jumping him from behind. She clenched an arm around his neck and stutter-stabbed with the knife. The corpse half-turned, ramming an elbow into her ribs. Her bones cracked. She fell to the deck gasping. The knife clattered out of her hand. Spasms of pain radiated through her torso.
The corpse entered the cabin.
Mab and Genny huddled together on the bridge. Mab yelled frantically into the marine radio’s microphone. The corpse smashed the radio, then reached for Mab. Genny stepped into his grasp. He slung Genny over his shoulder and turned back toward the sea. Mab screamed, dropped the radio, and grabbed her wife’s arms. The corpse ignored Mab’s efforts, dragging both women out into the cockpit.
Shawna seized his ankle as he passed. Yanking his leg free, he kicked her in the head. Shawna rolled away across the deck.
The corpse stepped over the transom, carrying his double prey down into the sea.
Shawna struggled to her feet, hunching on her injured side. Her skull throbbed. Her vision rippled in and out of focus.
He would come for her next.
She had to escape, if she could not escape, she needed a weapon. Shawna left her Glock and knife where they’d fallen – they were useless. She grabbed the flare gun from the cabin and thrust it into her belt. She crawled up onto the cabin, whimpering with pain. She freed the dinghy from its lashings. She tipped the boat upright and lowered it over the side into the water. She towed the dinghy back to the cockpit, securing it to a cleat.
Shawna turned to retrieve the outboard. Attempting to lift the motor, pain speared through her from side to side. She screamed, letting the weight fall. Shawna gritted her teeth and tried again. Step by step, she carried the outboard to the dinghy and lowered it over the Peaceful Crossing’s gunwale into the small boat. Shawna climbed overboard and clamped the motor onto the dinghy’s jack-plate. She reached for the pull-start, then hesitated. She would need more fuel.
She boarded the Peaceful Crossing
The corpse rose from the sea, grabbed the dinghy, and yanked it down. The dinghy’s bow rose, and the little boat slipped under.
He grabbed the boarding ladder.
Shawna drew the flare gun, aimed, and fired.
A ball of flame shot into the corpse’s left eye. His head rocked back. His reaching arm flailed in the air, then seized the transom. His head slowly righted. The flare boiled inside his skull, spewing hellfire from his left eye.
He climbed aboard.
Shawna retreated into the salon and locked the hatch.
He smashed through the panel.
She climbed to the bridge.
He was right behind her.
Shawna had planned to escape through the windshield egress and outswimming the corpse. Catching a whiff of gasoline, she yanked open the stowage locker. She grabbed the jerry can, twisted off cap, turned, and flung gasoline into the corpse’s face.
The fuel ignited from the flare. Flames engulfed the corpse’s head. He voiced a raw scream and turned, swatting at the fire. It fled aft toward the water.
Shawna hurled the jerry can. It struck him between the shoulders. The corpse toppled. Gasoline flooded the cabin sole.
She punched out the windshield and made her way out of it. She rolled off the foredeck into the sea. The Peaceful Crossing exploded. Orange flames spread across the water above her. Shawna swam, passing under the gasoline fire, she surfaced.
She floated on the blood-warm sea as her boat burned. Her body was a mass of pain, her soul in anguish. She had tried to murder Peter Shank in the name of Justice, but that backfired. He was evil, and evil was immortal.
The Peaceful Crossing sank beneath the water, leaving scattered debris burning on the surface.
A firelight shadow loomed behind her.
She turned to face him. Raising her hands for a last, doomed fight.
It wasn’t Peter.
The sloop of Mab’s daughter had drifted to her.
Shawna climbed aboard.