No list of creepy site links would be complete without the SCP Foundation. This wiki site is based on the premise of an organization that attains and contains inexplicable objects and beings.

http://scp-wiki.net

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I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, here... so if you believe in haunted "Lost Episode" legends and enjoy living in that world, maybe this isn't the post for you.

Don't get me wrong - I hate when people complain about "lack of realism" in entertainment, and I think all kids need to believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy for as long as possible, but... this is different.

Back in the 80s I met this dude, Sid, who used to cut old VHS tapes and shit. It was more than a hobby for him - it was pretty much his entire life. His parents were a bit more wealthy than I'd been blessed with, so when we were teenagers and I was slaving away at  a"Skats" (Yes, Skats) fast food restaurant, he just hung out around the house, cutting tapes. All day. All night.

Of course, as you get older things in your past become a bit clearer and I think he might've been borderline Autistic... or maybe he was a very high-functioning person with Asperger's... but of course I'm no expert and I'm not saying that was the case. It's just the best and quickest way I can think of to explain his personality and this obession with cutting tapes, cutting tapes, cutting tapes.

It started when he saw "Old Yeller" as a little kid. For whatever reason, his parents let him watch that shit. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's the tale of a boy and his dog. I hope I don't have to announce the spoiler on such an old-ass movie, but in the end the boy has to shoot his own dog because it's rabid.

Sid didn't appreciate this. His dad photographed and video-taped weddings, so he showed Sid how to operate some of the machines... and Sid cut out the ending, replacing it with an earlier, happier scene as if Old Yeller just suddenly "got better" offscreen.

He watched the tape obsessively after that, even into his early teens when I'd first met him. He made me watch it once to show how he "fixed" it, and I could actually picture him as a little boy once he started applauding and cheering his own faux-ending.

I don't want to say I was a bad influence, but after I saw it I asked if he could to that with other movies.

My major interest was perhaps taking a film or two and cutting in some nude frames the actresses hadn't really done... Don't worry, though. I never had the guts to actually ask if he would. I just imagined how cool it would be. Often.

Sid told me that, yes, he could "fix" any movie he wanted. In fact, he had done it with a few others. He had a copy of a Ghost Busters cartoon and - I shit you not - every single ghost was completely removed. The story made no sense, there was no continuity, but he had accomplished it and I was very impressed.

I guess in the time of VHS, these things seemed more magical than they do nowadays.

As time went by, I encouraged Sid to edit more movies, but with different purposes. Instead of whitewashing all the scary stuff like he'd wanted to do, I got him to "see the light" on how awesome he could make things.

Somewhere out there, this chubby Star Wars nerd from our highschool has all three original films flawlessly cut together, with edited-in effects that would've made George Lucas himself cry out: "Enough meddling!!"

We charged him like twenty dollars for the only copy, because we were idiots.

Anyway, this went on for a while before I lost most of my interest in it. It was more of a goof for me than it was for him. This is the point where I started working, started driving, started taking bases with local girls... while he just got more and more involved in cutting those tapes.

I think his favorites were cartoons. When The Simpsons came around, he went ape shit with those. Now his edits weren't so much fixing things as just breaking them in interesting ways. Another thing that sticks out in my mind is when he recorded an episode of M*A*S*H and cut it with a gory old war flick. Halfway through his version, the camp gets bombed... soldiers invade... everyone dies. At the end, he specifically worked in freeze-frames of each cast member's face. Eyes closed.

He had completely reversed his interests and embraced what had once terrified him... scary endings. He seemed to love things like long, drawn-out sequences in terrifying silence. He'd make me be quiet while they played, too.

You may have heard about this mysterious fellow named Banksy who goes around creating interesting graffiti and whatnot. At one point, he went into a music store and replaced some Paris Hilton CDs with his own fakes.

Banksy had nothing on Sid. Every other week, he'd tell me about some store or a video rental place he'd snuck some of his tapes into. He swapped out the real ones for his versions, and then he'd start all over by cutting the ones he had stolen.

At one point, when I hadn't heard from him in a long while, I stopped by his parents' house and found him in the garage. He'd set up his own little movie studio there, complete with a drawing board.

He was actually animating entirely new content.

All at once, I was both blown away by his artistic skill I'd never seen before... and very concerned about when this guy was going to come out of the dark and start acting "normal" like me.

He barely looked up from his drawings as we spoke. I asked him what any kid, now in his late teens, would ask...

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Hm?"

"Seriously, dude. This is some crazy shit."

"It's work. I'm working. My work is just as important as anyone else's."

"Are you even selling these anymore, or are you just sneaking them into places? How much is all of this costing your Dad?"

"I don't care."

I looked at what he was so fervently illustrating.

"Is that a headless body? Dancing?"

"Yeah."

"That's pretty dark, man."

"I know. That's the point."

"I don't get it."

"Those tapes. I thought they were wrong, but over time I figured out the truth."

"Which is..."

"The scary stuff is right. The happy endings are the lie."

He just kept drawing as I stood there. The silence was disturbing, and in that moment I could smell the B.O. coming off of him. It wasn't just sweat, either. It was a mingling of that and a foul ass and piss-soaked cloth.

I hate to say it, but I gave up on him right then. It's that moment when you look at someone... someone you thought you knew... and all that you can think is... "Holy shit, I never realized they were this far gone."

It wasn't until I was in my 30s that Sid crossed my mind again. I was purusing the internet, just aimlessly wandering the web, when I came across a series of "urban legends" about strange VHS tapes, re-cut movies, and lost episodes.

Some of these I recognized. I'd watched them with Sid, or I'd actually seen him in the middle of working on them. Every disturbing scene, every unbelievable anecdote... I believed it, because I had been there.

Others... Spongebob cartoons, episodes of iCarly or whatever, those shows came long after I'd made my break with Sid, but the style was all too familiar. Even the ones that didn't sound like his work seemed like they could've been broken copies or attempts at mimicing his work.

He was still doing it. My God, it boggled my mind.

I called up Sid's old number, not entirely sure I'd still find him there. It rang for minutes on end, and I knew that the search was hopeless. Even if he still lived with his parents, it wasn't likely they'd all still be at the same house by now.

Still...

I made it a point to drive out to his old place... to see if he was still in that garage, cutting tapes, or manipulating them via computer, or whatever he would be up to. When I passed by the house, the unkempt lawn was overgrown with huge, waist-high weeds. The dilapidated facade of the building, with its peeling paint on the shutters, missing roof tiles, and muck-filled gutters told me no one had lived here for a long time.

I saw a note on the door, but couldn't read it from the road. Maybe it was something I could use to locate Sid and see if he'd ever gotten the help I now realized I should have given him.

Pulling into the driveway, my headlights illuminated the garage door. It was windowless and vandalized with the gangster tags of some traveling band of assholes.

The note on the door, as one might expect, spoke of a certain bank now owning the property. It noted that trespassing was heavily discouraged, and that at a certain point someone would be out to make sure the house was "winterized". Whatever the Hell that is.

As I walked back to the car, defeated, something was nagging at me. I knew that Sid's parents kept a spare key under a false rock by the back stairs, basically by virture of Sid locking us both out on several occasions.

When I found that key, a sense of cold, gnawing dread swirled in my stomach.

Who would move out and leave everything in place like this? The key was the most obvious thing, but flower pots and lawn decorations were still there. Sid's old, rusted-out Huffy bike was leaning against the house, and had created thick rusty streaks along the aluminum siding.

I don't even know what I expected to find, but using the key, I entered the house.

The smell was overwhelming.

Not a putrid smell, nothing rotten or decaying... just the smell of... I don't know if this would make any sense to you, but... the smell of electricity. Like burning dust on a lightbulb or a heater giving off a peculiar warmed metal odor.

That was the least of my concerns, however, as I saw everything just as I had left it. Everything Sid's family owned was frozen in time. The dining room table we'd all sat at on many occasions was dust-covered and supported an emiaciated dead rat which had all but turned to dust.

The television... that bulky, oversized television set we'd all sat around to watch Sid's tapes and laud his creativity... it sat where it always had been, silently displaying a violent bombardment of black and white static.

As I moved through the rooms, the sense of panic and discomfort within me only grew. Every fiber of my being was shouting RUN... RUN, you fucking idiot!

Still, I pressed on into Sid's bedroom. It was now empty and in disrepair, his prized action figures and blank video tapes... hundreds of video tapes... stale and water damaged.

I almost wanted to call out... to shout "Sid!" and wait for him to appear as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

I went into his parents' bedroom.

There, lying in bed, were two motionless bodies. Gaunt. Gray. Half turned to dust, just like the rat in the dining room.

I could scarcely believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. Not only were two dead bodies slowly dissipating within the confines of this once idillic suburban household... but nobody had even checked on them. Nobody had discovered this until now.

My mind raced. My heart raced. The only things that wouldn't move were my feet, which remained glued to the spot.

Sid, I thought, must have done this. There was no way the two of them would just lie down one night and simultaniously DIE of natural causes! Sid had said he didn't care about his parents, and...

When was the last time I had seen them? God, I hadn't seen them for days, maybe weeks BEFORE the last time I talked to Sid...

When I finally left the room, I took out my cell phone and began dialing 911. However, as soon as I lifted it to my head, an ear-splitting shriek of interference nearly caused me to fling the object across the room.

I rushed to the kitchen phone. Squealing static.

I tried the living room phone just to be thorough. Static.

It wasn't until I put the reciever back down that I heard it. Music. Faint, barely audible music that I hadn't noticed before. It seemed to be some repeating melody... happy and light... some flutes, maybe a whole horn section.

I followed the peppy tune to the in-house door to the garage. Pressing my ear to the door's dirty surface, I determined that the music was indeed coming from just beyond.

"Sid?" I called out, barely managing to form the name with cold, bloodless lips, "Sid, are you in there? Are you alright?"

I tried the door only to find it somehow locked from the other side. It was no matter, since one wild kick nearly knocked the rotting wood off its hinges.

"SID?" I shouted as the dust slowly cleared.

Through the haze, I could only see the light of a television screen. Vibrant colors. Blue, green, yellow...

Soon, I could make out a cartoon playing on the screen. Then, the silver wires running from the set itself to some dark mass. Then, the dark mass took shape as my eyes adjusted to the odd lighting.

It was Sid... or rather, his body... not dead nearly as long as his parents, seated in an old office chair. The wires from the television set lead directly to his body, eventually disappearing into several old, crusted-over holes in his leathery flesh. Through a small worm-eaten opening in his ribs, I thought I could see more metal inside of him.

I walked to Sid's side, holding my hand over my mouth for fear of vomiting. His face was twisted into a hideous, wide grin... his empty eye sockets almost seemed happy, hooded by a pleased brow line.

"Hi there!" I heard a jarring voice.

The voice was upbeat. High-pitched. It sounded almost like Sid, but... different. Bubbly, cartoony.

I turned to the screen. The green grass, the blue sky, the yellow flowers... and Sid. A perfect caricature of him. It strolled along the infinite loop of that utopian cartoon background.

It waved to me.

"Sid..." I whispered, "Oh God, Sid..."

He... the cartoon version of him... turned his attention away from me and continued to merrily stroll across that unending cycle of the same backdrop. He passed a shrub... then passed it again... and again... The same bluebird, chirping happily, flew through the sky in a figure eight.

"Sid..." I shook my head, unable to comprehend the scenerio, "I never should have let you leave reality."

I thought about what Sid had done to his Mom and Dad. I thought about how the bank would come by soon and this would all come to light. I watched Sid walk along for nearly a half hour.

Then I unplugged the set.

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Two stories, one post! These are companion pieces I wrote a month or two apart. Enjoy! (Or else.)

---

When I moved in, there was an odd panel on the wall.

Measuring about four inches by four inches, the panel didn't match the rest of the grungy, yellowing wall surface surrounding it. It had a circle at the center, then various angles and curves radiating outward from there. The design was created in a pale blue and foam green, and I got the impression it had been darker before... that over the course of time it had faded.

I'd only moved to that tiny apartment in the city because I'd gotten a few jobs in the local film industry and living close by was a major leg-up on other candidates for work.

I wish now that I had looked the place over a bit more before moving in, but really I figured I'd only be there for a month at most. Then I'd have enough work to pay for a "real" apartment.

It's not that I expected to live in luxury, just that I never intended to live in filth like this.

It wasn't just the panel, either. The place stank like ancient sweat and unspeakable body odor. The appliances were shit, and so were the utilities. Lights would randomly go out, even if they were brand new, and one even exploded in a hail of sparks the second I flicked the switch on.

Both the kitchen and bathroom drains would clog consistantly. Early on I fished out a wad of old, half-degraded toilet paper.

From the kitchen sink, I mean.

The first few nights, I stayed out as late as I could. Danced, partied, spent all the money I'd intended to live on until I got that "big break". Anything to avoid going back to that awful, depressing hovel.

When I did return, I'd be too drunk to care where I was. That I made sure of.

I'd fall into bed, or on the floor, or into the ficus I brought in to lighten the oppressive mood of the place. The ficus was the recipient of much dishonor during these druken nights, so I can only assume the poor, bedraggled thing had grown accustomed to it.

So, I was drunk. That's pretty much why I didn't think anything of it the first time I heard the noise.

SQUEEEEEEAK...

SQUEAK-CLANK!

I think I popped an eye open, mutted a profanity, and pulled the banket (the rug?) over myself.

The next morning that bastard called "The Sun" woke me by staring through broken window blinds. As I groaned, complained, and begged the daylight to extinguish itself... I barely even noticed what had changed.

It wasn't until I was stumbling toward the kitchen, head throbbing, that I saw the small intruder.

A note.

It was a slip of paper, rolled up into a tube shape and fixed across the middle with a single red rubber band.

Figuring this to be my own doing... some half-remembered "note to self" hastily scribbled out before my brief coma... I ignored it and went about my usual routine.

Home-made hangover "cure" that did nothing, span of time spent sitting quietly with eyes closed, vows to God himself that I would never so much as touch a bottle of cough syrup again... and so on.

As I unfurled the note, I could immediately see it was not my handwriting.

It was legible.

"CUT PALM OF LEFT HAND FROM BASE OF PINKIE FINGER TO BASE OF THUMB IN SINGLE SMOOTH MOTION."

I'd seen a lot of movies. Read a lot of scripts. Hell, I'd been IN movies.

This wasn't one of them, so I didn't laugh. I didn't ball it up and throw it away. I didn't roll my eyes and deliver some self-referential dipshit monologue about how this was obviously a joke.

Why?

Right beneath the clearly written, plain-looking text...

"OR ELSE."

No, my mind didn't jump to the idea it was a joke. I was just afraid. Someone had obviously gotten into the room while I was sleeping and, instead of taking anything or just killing me, they decided to something much more disturbing.

They left a demented command.

I placed the note on the floor where it had been and backed away, carefully surveying everything around me. Luckily, there was nowhere to hide in my sparse living space.

"Hello?" I called out, just in case. Because psycho killers always gladly answer you, right?

I poked my head out the front door, slowly, and peered into the dank, moldering hallway. Nobody there. Nothing out of sorts.

I sat at the dining room table, a plastic patio table really, and studied the paper again. The words "OR ELSE" were scratched out in red ink, while the rest appeared to be jotted out with a standard pen.

I was halfway through reading the words over again when the lights went out. As I looked up, and before I could let out a curse, the lights rose once more.

It wasn't unusual.

Yet.

When I started reading again, again the lights went out. Then on. Then off. On. Off. On. Off. The bulb over my head exploded, sending a shower of sparks and glass down on my head and onto the page.

For a moment, I thought the glass had cut me. There was crimson spreading on the note... but it was seeping out from the cryptic threat written thereupon. "OR ELSE" was quickly smearing itself across the page, releasing the copper odor of human blood.

I dropped the paper and bolted for the door.

I rattled the doorknob, twisted and turned it, threw myself against the door's hard surface, but it wouldn't budge.

"It's nothing," I reasoned with myself in that deathly quiet moment, the lights above me quickly dimming and brigthening of their own accord once more, "It's nothing, just a cut..."

I took a kitchen knife and drew it across the flesh of my palm, pinkie to thumb, now releasing my own very real blood to roll in rivlets along my wrist and forearm.

It was a superficial wound, to be sure. I wasn't THAT committed to the act.

The flickering stopped immediately, as soon as the knife's cold tip reached the base of my thumb. At the moment, the injury simply itched... but within seconds I knew that would change.

I grabbed a bag of frozen peas in the hand and gripped it tightly as I once again walked to the front door.

I flung it open with ease. No problem.

The phone rang.

For a moment, I stood in the doorway and looked back to the telephone. I knew in that moment that one of these choices was the proper one... leaving and being free of whatever had just occurred... or answering the phone and averting some other disaster that was awaiting me.

Thinking quickly, and with a touch of genius if I might claim so, I moved the ficus into position so as to prop open the front door.

I answered the phone.

"Hello?"

It rang. I mean, I could hear it ringing as if I'd placed a call myself.

"McMillard & Associates." The woman at the other end chirped.

It was my talent agency.

"H-Hey..." I stammered, "Sorry, I dialed the wrong number."

"Excuse me?"

"I dialed wrong, sorry about that."

"Well why not?"

Her response didn't match what I was saying.

She continued.

"Well this isn't very much notice... We don't have enough time now to... Excuse me, but I don't like your tone... Okay, that's fine. I'll let Mr. McMillard know how you feel. Goodbye!"

She slammed the phone down. She was pissed, and I hadn't even said anything. It sounded like she was having a conversation with herself.

I hung up the phone and lifted it again, dialing the agency back.

"We're sorry, you call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up the phone and try again."

The automated voice was no different than the one I'd heard a hundred times before... until it added something...

"Or else."

The line went dead.

Upon hearing this, no less cheery and professional than the rest of the message, I immediately slammed the reciever down and let go as if it was about to catch fire.

I felt my hands, my face, going numb. I felt cold, and I knew it wasn't the room... it was me. I had been adequately terrorized and now stood erect only by the grace of muscle memory.

I stared at the phone until I heard a familiar noise.

SQUEEEEEEAK...

SQUEAK-CLANK!

I whirled around, expecting to catch sight of some home-invading madman ready to finally end my confusion with a hatchet to the brain. Instead, there upon the floor, right where its brother had been, was a plain-looking note. Rolled up and fixed with a red rubber band.

"I understand," I said... only half-understanding, "If I don't play your stupid game, you'll screw me over."

I stormed over to the note and stopped just short of it.

"Well, maybe I don't care what you do."

Nothing out of the ordinary happened in response to my defiance.

"That's right. Don't say anything, don't show your face. Whatever."

Nothing.

I was free to go. I could walk right out the front door and out into the streets. I could go to the Talent Agency and make up some bullshit excuse, like my friend had called them pretending to be me and...

I was free to go if I chose to, and that's what scared me most of all.

"PROCEED TO WINDOW. APPLY PRESSURE TO WINDOW MOUNTED AIR CONDITIONING UNIT UNTIL WINDOW MOUNTED AIR CONDITIONING UNIT FALLS FREE FROM WINDOW."

"OR ELSE."

This one, I crumbled into a ball and threw away... but only because the open door was a few steps away. I quickly moved to the door and, without incident, stepped into the hallway.

My phone rang again.

I laughed at first, because this seemed like a pathetic repeat of a failed tactic.

Then I thought it over. Three rings. Four rings. Who was going to pick up? The agency? Five rings. Six rings. What if the next call was to my girlfriend? Seven rings. What if whoever... whatever this was... called the Police and, somehow, turned me in for something?

I rushed back to the phone, just to hear what I'd have to undo later on.

"Hello?"

"HELLO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

"What do you mean?"

No, she couldn't hear me. My mother.

"Honey, what are you saying... are you crying?... What do you MEAN?!... No, please... there's so much to live for, please just wait... NO!!..."

I listened in like a silent voyeur as my mom tried to talk me out of killing myself.

The air conditioner was loose. It was easy enough to force it out, especially with the momentum I'd gained by running straight for it as soon as I'd dropped the phone.

It landed on the sidewalk with a tremendous clatter, breaking into pieces and sending bits of stone flying. Pedestrians below were spared a gruesome fate merely by the fact they'd not been standing directly beneath it.

I only looked out long enough to see that I hadn't killed anyone, then I was back at the phone almost immediately.

"Hello? Mom?"

"Where did you go? Please, don't do anything crazy..."

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes! Yes, I heard you! PLEASE!!"

She was in tears, but at least I... the REAL me... was talking with her this time.

"Mom, it's okay..." I couldn't think of anything else to say, "I... I have a part... where I play a guy who kills himself... I just wanted to see if I could convince you."


Silence.


A final, sickening groan... a sound of disgust and anguish you never want to hear from anyone you love... and she hung up on me.

I probably could have thought of a better lie, but not under these circumstances. There was going to be some serious collateral damage, but I don't know if I could have patched things up if she'd heard me go through with it. If she'd heard a gunshot or slicing flesh or however I was about to do myself in.

That would've been completely inexplicable... and unforgivable.


This time, I caught it when it happened.

SQUEEEEEEAK...

SQUEAK-CLANK!

The panel. The one that didn't belong. The circle at its center slid to the side, revealed a small, dark opening, and quickly snapped shut... but only after another tube-shaped note had been passed through.

I tried to catch it before it closed, but I missed by a mile. I couldn't work the thing open with my fingernails or any sort of utensils. It was like the panel was one smooth, uninterrupted surface with nothing hidden behind.

"How long is this going to go on?" I shouted directly at the offending square, "What's the point?"

I sat by the panel, holding the very same knife that I'd drawn my blood with, and I unrolled the latest communication.

"RETRIEVE HUMAN BEING."

"OR ELSE."

I laughed. It was the sort of laugh you don't expect, like a sudden cough. Retrieve a "human being". Unbelievable. The first two actions, while disconcerting, had been simple enough. This, however, sounded quite a lot like kidnapping.

I turned to the panel again, and again I spoke directly into it.

"No way."

I got up, placed the knife on the table by the front door, and left. The phone rang, and I ignored it. Call the agency, call my mother, call the President himself - it was nothing I couldn't explain away SOMEhow. Even if they didn't believe me, I'd still be better off taking my chances.

It was only when I got into the hallway that I realized my mistake.

The panel. The wall. Someone feeding in notes... but who?

I backtracked, passed my own proped open door, continued to ignore the pleading rings of the phone, and proceeded to the appartment next to mine. The one that shared my wall, and was home to whomever have been messing with me.

KNOCK KNOCK

"Who is it?" a woman's voice from within.

I wondered, in that moment, how she'd been able to imitate my voice... enough to convince my own mother. No... there had to be someone else in there. A man, probably the one who rigged my lights and patched into the phone.

KNOCK KNOCK

"Who IS it?" she insisted.

"Your new neighbor," I called back, figuring there was no use in hiding it, "I know what you've been doing."

The door opened just a tad... the chain lock caught it. A young woman, blonde, petite, peeked out at me. No doubt she was doing her best to keep me from seeing whoever else shared the apartment and what he was doing.

"What?" she pretended to be confused.

"The panel," I smiled, "I know what you're doing with the panel, and the phones, and the lights... and I'm pretty sure the Police are going to want to know, too."

A pause. Was she trying to figure out what I meant, or trying to think of a lie?

"You're insane."

She slammed the door in my face.

I stared at the peep hole. I knew she was watching me... watching me, watching her. The phone continued to ring... and ring... and ring... and ring...


I threw my shoulder against the door, sending the chain's links flying like beads from a snatched necklace. The girl had been behind the door as I'd presumed, and so she too toppled to the ground.

She sprawled out on the floor, on her back, before quickly rolling over and crawling toward her own telephone like a cockroach fearing the light.

"Uh-uh," I scolded as I grabbed her by the waist, "Nice try."

She fought at first, but soon saw there was no use.

"What do you want? Please, take anything... just don't..."

"Relax. I just want to know who's passing the notes through. If it's not you, then tell me who it is. Which room is he in? I'm only going to talk to him."

"There's nobody here!"

I checked. Dragging her with me, turning her arm so any wrong move would cause her pain, I looked in every room.

"So it's you, then," I smirked, "Okay, now tell me how you did eveything."

"I don't know what you're talking about!!"

"Right. Why is the phone still ringing?"

"What?"

"My phone. Stop ringing it, that's enough."

"I'm not calling you, my phone's right over there!"

"You have something... a cell phone or..."

"Don't touch me!!! NO."

I talked to her about the panel... went over it again and again... but all she did was claim to have nothing to do with it.

I escorted her through the hall, to the panel in question. I kicked the ficus over, spilling it across the floor, and slammed the door behind us. She wouldn't be getting away that easily.

"THERE," I pointed, "See? Now you can't deny it."

She stared at the thing for a few moments, then turned to me, fear in her eyes. Fear at being punished now that she was caught, no doubt.

SQUEEEEEEAK...

SQUEAK-CLANK!

Both of us turned back to the panel in disbelief. There, at my feet, was another note... exactly the same as before...

"How are you doing this?!" I shouted in her tear-streaked face as I shook her violently, "HOW??"

I threw her to the floor and picked up the note. I pulled the rubber band so roughly that it snapped, lashing my hand. Unrolling the note with fury, I had to turn it a few times before finding which end was up.

While I was distracted, the girl made for the door. Sobbing, screaming, she tried to open it but could not. As I understood it, nobody could open it, now.

The room started to heat up. Quickly, the temperature rose until sweat drenched us both and the walls began to blister. The phone was still ringing, and silently I wondered how many people had been called. What I had threatened, what I had confessed to...

Hotter, hotter, hotter the room grew. I had no doubt that soon we would both be dead. Unless...

"What's going on?" she demanded, positive that I was completely mad, "What the fuck are you looking at?!"


There, on the page, were two diagrams.

The first diagram showed the outline of an average woman.

"THIS IS HOW THE HUMAN BEING IS ARRANGED."

The second diagram showed a similar outline, but with the limbs rearranged... misplaced... cut off at different lengths and reattached facing in odd directions. Helpful arrows guided each numbered limb to its new location.

"THIS IS HOW THE HUMAN BEING WILL BE ARRANGED."

"OR ELSE."

---

When I first moved in, there was an odd panel in the bathroom.

It was there along with all the other tiles, but... it didn't match. The tiny tub/shower mix was covered in off-white squares, each no wider than two fingers. However, toward the back, just left of center, there was this larger panel that took up a larger amount of wall space.

The panel itself had this freaky little design on it. I don't know how to describe it, but it reminded me of the "Spiro-Graph" artwork I used to make as a kid.

I moved into the place only after I'd been kicked out of my last apartment. My roommate, an old friend from school, had invited me to stay as long as I paid my fair share. However, as soon as his girlfriend moved in - there was real trouble. I couldn't stand the bitch, she couldn't stand me, and you already know the result.

The place I switched to was a major step down, but at least I could afford it on my own. Waiting on tables is the cliché occupation for people like me who are barely scraping by. If I wanted better, I'd have to actually get the work I'd come to the city for. Dancing... Singing... If they gave me a chance, I knew things would turn around.

The first time I heard the strange "CLONG" from the bathroom, I thought a homeless person had broken in when I wasn't looking. That, or there was a rat loose in there. I couldn't decide which would be worse.

Slowly, carefully, I stepped into the bathroom. I was careful not to make a squeak, hockey stick in hand.

There, in the bath tub, was a piece of paper. The thing was rolled into a tube and a rubber band held it that way.

I raced to the bathroom window and went to lock it. Imagine my surprise when I found it had been locked all along!

Retrieving the paper from the tub, I sat myself on the toilet cover and tried to come down off the adrenaline high of facing an imaginary intruder... two legs or four. I unrolled the thing and studied the strange text.

"IGNORE THE SCREAMING"

That was creepy enough, believe me, but just to make it even creepier, a red phrase appeared just below that.

"OR ELSE"

No sooner had I read that line, than a horrific, gut-wrenching scream echoed from the apartment next door! I shot up from the improvised chair and ran out of the room. Stopping in the living room, I picked up my cell phone and started to dial 911.

Before I could input the numbers, both the cell and my land line rang in unison. The sound of the old phone on table ringing alongside the pop music chorus in my hand immediately told me something was wrong.

"Hello?" I answered the cell first.

"Hello?" My own voice came bouncing back at me.

"I have to call-"

"I have to call-"

"I'm sorry, I think the line is messed up!"

"I'm sorry, I think the line is messed up!"

I quickly hung up and moved to the other phone. As I did, they both rang again. Lifting the receiver to my ear, I was greeted with familiar nonsense.

"Hello?"

"Hello?"

"Oh, for God's sake!"

"Oh, for God's sake!"

I had no idea why, but both phones were useless. I raced to the front door, intent on finding out if anyone else was able to call for help. When I reached it, however, the knob refused to turn. All I could do was frantically and fruitlessly bang on my own door as if I was the unwelcome guest.

Another scream... weaker this time.

It was an unmistakable sound of death.

Exhausted, I thrust myself into a bean bag chair with a huff. All I could do, it seemed, was wait for the sound of sirens. I felt really bad and embarrassed when I thought about begging the EMTs or Police to let me out of my own place while they were busy with whatever just happened.

Moments later, the front door gave a quiet click and creaked open as if a mild breeze had blown through.

Out in the hallway, I was met only with fleeting glances and furrowed brows before the other tenants ducked back into their own doorways. Finding the neighbor's door open just like mine had been, I cautiously poked my head in to see what horrible carnage had been left behind.

The apartment was much like mine... skuzzy, outdated... but I saw now obvious signs of anything wrong.

Then, my eyes fixed on the panel. It was identical to the one on my bathroom, though it was located here on the living room wall. Whoever lived here had propped a wooden board against that panel, specifically the tiny circle at its center. I hadn't yet met this person, and seeing this odd behavior made me glad I hadn't... though I was still concerned about his condition...

Returning to my place, I once again lifted the phone receiver and found the expected dial tone. I wasn't sure now if I should call 911, but someone on the "Emergency Numbers" list written on the phone would be getting a call.

The second "CLONG" jarred me from my would-be call.

Racing to the bathroom this time, I once again found the window locked and a fresh note lying in the tub.

"REMOVE THE BOARD."

My blood went cold, and I couldn't feel my heart beating... Forget how this person was getting insane notes into my apartment - how did they know I'd seen the board?

"OR ELSE"

I crumpled the note up and threw it into the wicker wastebasket next to the toilet.

The next "CLONG" nearly made me jump out of my skin. I watched with utter shock as the tiny circle at the center of that strange panel slid to the side, spat out yet another tube-note, and slammed shut within a half second.

Someone, I realized, had been watching me shower.

Someone who somehow had another peephole in the apartment next door.

I retrieved the note and once again proceeded to the telephone. After I called the Police, I would leave the place and stay at the café downstairs until they arrived. I'm no moron.

The next note was even more disturbing than the last.

"DO NOT DESTROY FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS BEFORE COMPLETING REQUESTS"

"OR ELSE"

Three things struck me as odd at this point. First, how had this person SEEN me crumple the note when their peep hole was closed? Second, how had they written all of that out in the seconds between the offending action and the note's arrival?

Lastly, it's not much of a "request" if you're going to end with a vague threat.

I picked up the phone once again and finally dialed the authorities.

"Police Department, who may I ask is calling?"

I gave my name.

"What is your purpose for this call?"

"Well, this is going to sound really weird, but, like..."

"I should inform you that prank calls are a serious offence."

"What? I'm not-"

"Klingons? Wow, that's a new one."

"I didn't say-"

"I don't care WHAT they're doing. The Planet Klingon is outside our jurisdiction."

Before he hung up the phone, I heard the Officer talking to someone else in the background.

"Jeff, you'll never believe this crank!"

Somehow, he'd heard things I wasn't saying. It was as if an entirely different conversation had taken place, exactly when I had called him.

Suddenly, there was a crash. I turned to see one of my cow figurines broken into shards on the floor. The table it had been sitting on was now standing at a ninety degree angle, supported by floorboards that had risen up as if specifically to dump it over.

Frozen in fear, I turned my glance to the entertainment center as it slowly rose... well, the back of it rose, at least... dumping the flat screen and my entire DVD collection onto the ground. The television broke with a resounding crack as the DVD cases rained down around it.

Both pieces of furniture, or the floor boards under them, slowly settled back to their normal positions. Then, the boards beneath my feet moved ever-so-slightly, rising at my heels. I took a few forced, awkward steps forward and nearly fell to the floor.

Then, the quivering started. I couldn't be sure if it was just my apartment, or if the entire building was about to be shaken to the ground!

Taking a deep breath of piercing cold air, I uneasily sprinted to the apartment next door and kicked the board to the floor. The panel was freed once more.

When I looked back into my apartment, at the broken and displaced items therein, the phone rang once again.

I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to answer it... I took one hesitant step into the place, and the front door took that opportunity to slam behind me. The phone fell silent. It was no longer needed. I was trapped once again.

Over the next couple days, I tried to leave. I don't just mean trying to open the door. I tried to leave the apartment behind and couldn't do it. Every attempt ended in some sort of disaster.

The phone would call people... people I knew... and somehow it would imitate my voice. Friends, family, they couldn't tell the difference, and I could only listen on the line as the phone - or whatever was - said terrible, horrible things to them.

It became clear to me that as long as I abided by the "requests" made of me, I would be allowed to come and go as I pleased. If I ignored the messages or made any sort of attempt at permanently leaving... somehow... it could tell.

I don't think I can refer to "it" as anything other than "it", now.

Someone new moved into the empty apartment, and I never found out what happened to the previous resident. I didn't even try to meet the new guy. I wanted nothing to do with anyone else in the building, since I was sure one of them was behind this whole crazy ordeal.

The notes stopped for a while, and I was as happy about that as you could be under the circumstances. Except for an inability to move out of the place, you could almost say I lived a regular life.

A knock at the door took away that small shred of normalcy.

"Who is it?" I asked meekly.

The knock persisted.

"Who IS it??" I was getting scared.

"Your new neighbor, I know what you've been doing." He sounded gruff. Maybe even drunk. Then again, maybe he was suffering the same problems I had seen.

I opened the door a crack, letting the chain catch it so he'd know it was there. He was bedraggled... dirty... unshaven like the surly alcoholic I half-expected. He was easily a few feet taller than I was, and could easily overtake me even without the advantage of being male.

"What?" I wasn't sure if he actually knew what I knew.

"The panel," he smiled, "I know what you're doing with the panel, and the phones, and the lights... and I'm pretty sure the Police are going to want to know, too."

The words hit me like a wrecking ball. He thought I was the one behind it all... just as I had suspected everyone else!

I turned the problem over in my head. Should I tell him it's not me? Then he'd know I knew something, and that might be enough to implicate me anyway.

"You're insane." the words left my lips like an unexpected cough, after which I abruptly slammed the door shut.

Through the peephole, I saw him standing there like a statue. A grinning, smart-assed statue who thought he'd figured it all out.

With a sudden movement, the man threw his weight on the door and sent me reeling. In the surprise and horror of that moment, a realization of every bad "home invasion" exploitation movie in history, I was barely able to keep my wits.

Less than a second later, he was on top of me.

"Uh-uh, nice try."

I tried to get him off of me, tried to reach him with my knees and claw at his face, but he'd found the perfect position to keep me helpless.

"What do you want? Please, take anything... just don't..." I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

"Relax. I just want to know who's passing the notes through. If it's not you, then tell me who it is. Which room is he in? I'm only going to talk to him."

"There's nobody here!"

He checked. He went into every room, knocked over my things, all the while twisting my arm so hard I knew he was doing permanent damage. I could hear something crack. When he searched the bathroom, he managed to whip back the shower curtain just enough to conceal that horrible panel.

"So it's you, then," he got in my face with a cold, hard stare and a smarmy smirk, "Okay, now tell me how you did everything."

"I don't know what you're talking about!!"

"Right. Why is the phone still ringing?"

"What?"

"My phone. Stop ringing it, that's enough."

"I'm not calling you, my phone's right over there!"

"You have something... a cell phone or..."

He groped me. His hands moved to my pockets, into them, around personal spaces that brought me to near vomit-inducing levels of personal terror.

"Don't touch me!!! NO."

He wouldn't stop talking about the panel, and it was all nonsense. He talked about hurting his hand while moving an air conditioner... or moving it and trying to cut off his hand, or... none of it made sense, and all I could do was to continue insisting I was innocent. I must've said I knew nothing about it at least a hundred times.

Dragging me through the hall, he continued to gibber on, talking in circles. He pulled me kicking and screaming into the apartment next door, pried my fingers from the door frame after I'd gone completely horizontal, and slammed the door behind us.

His phone was ringing, just as he'd mentioned. A bloodied kitchen knife had been left aside, probably used to cut his own hand.

"THERE," he pointed the panel I had noticed days before, "See? Now you can't deny it."

I looked at the panel, then to this strange, violent man. Above all else, I feared that he was going to do something cruel to me until I admitted I had one on my own place... then he'd get even crueler until I told him more, though there would BE nothing more to say.

This silent dread was interrupted by the CLONG I had become accustomed to. The panel... HIS panel... had opened, and now a familiar-looking not laid at his feet.

"How are you doing this?!" he shook me by the shoulder, spittle stinging my already tear-soaked eyes, "HOW??"

Before I could answer, he had thrown me to the floor. Feeling several more injuries taking root in my flesh, I seized the moment of freedom and made off for the door.

No matter how I turned the knob, no matter how much I cried and raged at it, the door would not open.

"What's going on?" I demanded, fearing what might be written on the page he now held in his trembling hands, "What the fuck are you looking at?!"

The room was hot. Too hot. It seemed as if the both of us were standing inside of a large oven. Sweat poured under my arms, from my chest, everywhere. My sheer pajamas were clinging to me in a manner that was anything but comfortable, now.

A crazed look appeared on the man's face as he moved toward me at great speed. Fearing I had little time left to live, I turned my attention to something... ANYTHING... that I could use to defend myself.

Inexplicably, there on the table next to me, was the knife.

In seconds, that knife was between his ribs.

I could only hold my hands over my mouth as a shriek unlike any I'd ever heard before burst forth from my gut. The man, my neighbor, stumbled backward in surprise. With a wince, he dislodged the metal blade from his heart and collapsed to the floor with a wheeze.

The temperature began to decrease, and despite the pooling blood before me, despite the corpse, the cooling of that room brought back my sense of calm.

I tried the door again. No luck.

The note he had been reading now lay before me, and even from standing distance, I could see the diagram upon it. It was a drawing of a woman, cut up and reassembled with limbs mismatched.

Was that me?

The panel opened to spit out another request, and I wasted no time in retrieving it. If I knew anything at all in that moment, it was that this was no time to ignore whatever caused this chain of events. Without so much as a thought, my hand caught the small circle before it closed. I immediately picture the thing slicing my digits clean off, but to my surprise the peephole simply remained open as I held it.

"PLACE CADAVER IN BATH TUB"

"OR ELSE"

I looked at the body, then to the note again. There was no way I could move him. It wasn't just a matter of physical strength, but emotional strength as well. I knew that if I saw his face again... if I lifted it from the floor... I'd completely lose it.

With one hand holding the panel open, I placed the note on the floor in front of me and turned it over. The opposite side was blank.

My free hand shook with fear and revulsion as I dipped my pinky into the warm, metallic-smelling blood I had spilled.

I wrote a series of off-kilter, messy letters on the paper.

"OR ELSE WHAT"

Seeing this mad act of defiance before me should have given me the jolt I needed to realize this was a bad decision. However, in looking at the crimson reply, I felt only a strange sense of justification. I had every right to ask this.

I rolled the note up again and jammed it into the dark opening, through which I could see nothing. After, I allowed the panel to close once more.

"oooooooooooooo"

The sound was like that of a classroom full of children, anticipating the punishment of a disobedient student.

"oooooOOOOOOO"

As it grew lounder, these "children" sounded very angry and very large.

"OOOOOOOOOOO"

The entire wall moved. Not just the panel. The WALL. It shifted slightly upward, sending a wall clock to the floor with a crash.

"OOOOOOOOOOO"

I could hear other sounds mingling with the strange, inhuman drone. It was a series of growls... not like an animal, but rather someone or something almost human, very aggravated at being slighted.

"GRR!" - "GRRRRR!" - "GRR!!"

The wall began to slowly raise itself in place. It was like some great sliding window, rising vertically into an unseen slot in the ceiling.

I got to my feet and backed away from the wall as it raised further and further. The steady nature of this impossible scene was driving me insane with dread.

In the darkness behind the wall... where my apartment SHOULD have been... I could see a dark metal floor. It was covered in spans of thick, black grime, and was illuminated only by the light of the apartment I stood in.

When the wall was about a foot off the ground, it stopped. All was silent for a moment, and I tried for the life of me to figure out what had just happened. The voices had stopped, and I considered the fact that might be a good thing.

That is, until I saw the hand.

A great, hairy, two-fingered hand shot out from under the wall like that of someone searching for change beneath furniture. It wasn't unlike a human hand, save for the reduced number of digits and its massive size. The wrist was easily the size of my waist.

A thin layer of translucent yellow slime clung to the furry limb as it darted back and forth, feeling its way across the floor at a high speed. When it reached a wall, it felt the molding, then rebounded back to attempt its search again.

Or else. Or else what?

Or else this.

The wall began to rise again.

---

No thoughts yet on a third or more. I think it's a pretty good closer.

 orelsewhatstory.png

Some of you may have heard that the Disney corporation is responsible for at least one real, "live" Ghost Town.

Disney built the "Treasure Island" resort in Baker's Bay in the Bahamas. It didn't START as a ghost town! Disney's cruise ships would actually stop at the resort and leave tourists there to relax in luxury.

This is a FACT. Look it up.

Disney blew $30,000,000 on the place... yes, Thirty Million Dollars.

Then they abandoned it.

Disney blamed the shallow waters (too shallow for their ships to safely operate) and there was even blame cast on the workers, saying that since they were from the Bahamas, they were too lazy to work a regular schedule.

That's where the factual nature of their story ends. It wasn't because of sand, and it obviously wasn't because "foreigners are lazy". Both are convenient excuses.

No, I sincerely doubt those reasons were legitimate. Why don't I buy the official story?

Because of Mowgli's Palace.

Near the beachside city of Emerald Isle in North Carolina, Disney began construction of "Mowgli's Palace" in the late 1990s. The concept was a Jungle-themed resort with a large, you guessed it, PALACE in the center of the whole thing.

If you're unfamiliar with the character of Mowgli, then you might better rememeber the story "The Jungle Book". If you haven't seen it anywhere else, you'd know it as the Disney cartoon from decades past.

Mowgli is an abandoned child, in the jungle, essentially raised by animals and simultaniously threatened/pursued by other animals.

Mowgli's Palace was a controversial undertaking from the start. Disney bought up a ton of high-priced land for the project, and there was actually a scandal surrounding some of the purchases. The local Government claimed "eminent domain" on people's homes, then turned around and sold the properties to Disney. At one point a home that had just been constructed was immediately condemned with little to no explanation.

The land grabbed by the Government was supposedly for some fictional highway project. Knowing full well what was going on, people started calling it "Mickey Mouse Highway".

Then there was the concept art. A group of stuffed shirts from Disney Co. actually held a city meeting. They intended to sell everyone on how lucrative this project was going to be for everyone. When the showed the concept art, this gigantic Indian Palance... surrounded by JUNGLE... staffed with men and women in loincloths and tribal gear... well, suffice to say everyone flipped their snit.

We're talking about a large Indian Palace, Jungle, and Loincloths not only in the center of a relatively wealthy area, but also a somewhat "xenophobic" area of the southern USA. It was a questionable mix at that point in history.

One member of the crowd tried to storm the stage, but he was quickly subdued by security after he managed to break one of the presentation boards over his knee.

Disney took that community and essentially broke it over its knee, as well. The houses were razed, the land was cleared, and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do or say about it. Local TV and Newspapers were against the resort at the beginning, but some insane connection between Disney's media holdings and the local venues came into play and their opinions turned on a dime.

So anyway, Treasure Island, the Bahamas. Disney sunk those millions in and then split. The same thing happened with Mowgli's Palace.

Construction was complete. Visitors actually stayed at the resort. The surrounding communities were flooded with traffic and the ususal annoyances associated with an influx of lost and irate tourists.

Then it all just stopped.

Disney shut it down and nobody knew what the Hell to think. But they were pretty happy about it. Disney's loss was pretty hilarious and wonderful to a large group of folks who didn't want this in the first place.

I honestly didn't give the place another thought since hearing it closed over a decade ago. I live maybe four hours from Emarald Isle, so really I only heard the rumblings and didn't experience any of it first-hand.

Then I read this article from someone who had explored the Treasure Island resort and posted a whole blog about all the crazy snit he found there. Stuff just... left behind. Things smashed, defaced, probably ruined by the disgruntled former employees who had lost their jobs.

Hell, the locals from all around probably had a hand in wrecking that place. People there felt just as angry about Treasure Island as folks here did about Mowgli's Palace.

Plus there were rumors that Disney had released their aquarium "stock" into the local waters when they closed... including sharks.

Who wouldn't want to take a few swings at some merchandise after that?

Well, what I'm getting at is that this blog about Treasure Island got me thinking. Even though many years had passed since its closing, I figured it might be cool to do some "Urban Exploration" at Mowgli's Palace. Take some photos, write about my experience, and probably see if there was anything I could take home as a memento.

I'm not going to say I wasted no time in getting there, because honestly it took me another year after I first found that Treasure Island article to get around to going up to Emerald Isle.

Over the course of that year, I did a lot of research on the Palace resort... or rather, I tried to.

Naturally, no official Disney site or resource made any mention of the place. That had been scrubbed clean.

Even odder, however, was that nobody before myself had apparently thought to blog about the place or even post a photo. None of the local TV or Newspaper sites had one word about the place, though that was to be expected since they had all swung Disney's way. They wouldn't be out there lauding their embarassment, you know?

Recently, I learned that corporations can actually ask Google, for example, to remove links from search results... basically for no good reason. Looking back, it's probably not that nobody spoke of the resort, but rather their words were made ineaccessible.

So in the end I could barely find the place. All I had to go on was an old-as-hell map I'd recieved in the mail back in the 90s. It was a promotional item sent out to people who had recently been to Disney world, and I guess since I had been there in the late 80s, that was "recent".

I didn't really intend to hang onto it. It just got shoved in with my books and comics from my childhood. I'd only remembered it months into my research, and even then it took me another few weeks to locate the storage bin my parents had shoved it all into.

But I DID find it. Locals were no help, as most were transplants who had moved to the beach in recent years... or old residents who just sneered at me and made rude gestures the second I managed to say "Where would I find Mowgli's---"

The drive took me through an inordinately long corridor of overgrowth. Tropical plants that had run rampant and overpopulated the area mixed with the native species of flora that actually BELONGED there and had tried to reclaim the land.

I was in awe when I reached the front gates of the resort. Tremendous, monolithic wooden gates whose supports to either side looked like they must've been cut from giant sequoias. The gate itself had been gouged in several places by woodpeckers and eaten away at the base by burrowing insects.

Hanging on the gate was a sheet of metal, some random scrap, with hand-painted letters scrawled in black. "ABANDONED BY DISNEY". Clearly the handiwork of some past local or an employee who wanted to make some small protest.

The gates were open enough to walk through, but not drive, so grabbing my digital camera and the map, whose flip-side showed a layout of the resort, I set off on foot.

The inner grounds of the place were just as overgrown as the entryway. Palm tree stood untended and ragged among piles of their own coconuts. Banana plants similarly stood in their own stinking, bug-riddled refuse. There was this sort of clash between order and chaos, as carefully planted rows of perrenial flowers mixed with obnoxious tall weeds and stinking, blackened mushrooms.

All that remained of any outdoor structures were broken, rotting wood and various charred bits of unidentifiable material. What was most likely an information booth or an outdoor bar was now simply a pile of assorted debrid chopped up by past vandalism and ravaged by weather.

The most interesting thing on the grounds was a statue of Baloo, the friendly bear from the Jungle Book, which stood in a sort of courtyard in front of the main building. He was frozen in a jovial wave toward no one, staring into empty space with a silly, toothy grin as bird snit covered whole swaths of his "fur" and vines ensnared his platform.

I approached the main building - the PALACE - only to find the outside of the building covered in grafitti where the orginal paint hadn't peeled and chipped away. The front doors weren't just open, they had been taken off their hinges and were stolen.

Above the front doors, or the gaping maw where they had been, someone had once again painted "ABANDONED BY DISNEY".

I wish I could tell you about all the awesome stuff I saw inside the Palance. Forgotten statues, abandoned cash registers, a full-fledged secret society of homeless bums... but no.

The inside of the building was so stark, so bare, that I actually think people had stolen the moulding off the walls. Anything that was too big to steal... counters, desks, giant fake trees... they were all resting amid this empty echo chamber that amplified my every step like a slow rat-a-tat of a machine gun.

I checked the floorplan and headed to all the locations that might seem in any way interesting.

The kitchen was as you'd imagine... an industrial food prep area with all the appliances and space, no expenses spared. Every glass surface was broken, every door knocked off its hinges, every metal surface kicked and dented. The entire place smelled like very old piss.

The huge freezer, not even remotely cool now, had row upon row of empty shelf space. Hooks hung from the ceiling, probably for hanging cuts of meat, and as I stood inside for a momeny, I notced they were swinging.

Each hook swung in a random direction, but their movements were so slow and small that it was almost impossible to see. I figured it had been caused by my footsteps, so I stopped one from swinging by clutching it in my fist, then carefully letting go, but within seconds it started to swing once more.

The public bathrooms were in much the same state as the rest of the place. Just like the treasure island resort, someone had methodically smashed each porcelain commode with coconuts and other impliments. There was about a half inch of rancid, stinking stagnant water on the floor, so I didn't stay there very long.

What's odd is that the toilets and the sinks (and the bidets in the ladies' room, yes I went there) all dripped, leaked, or just ran freely. It seemed to me that they should've shut the water off long, LONG ago.

There were plenty of rooms in the resort, but naturally I didn't have time to look through them all. The few I did peer into were similarly wrecked, and I didn't expect to find anything there. I thought there was actually a television or radio in one room, as I really think I heard a quiet conversation coming out.

Though it was like a whisper, probably my own breathing echoing in the silence, or just another case of the sound of flowing water playing tricks on the mind, this is what it sounded like...

1: "I didn't believe it."

2: (short, unknown reply)

1: "I didn't know that. I didn't know that."

2: "Your father told you."

1: (unknown reply, or possibly just weeping.)

I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous. I'm just telling you what I experienced, why I thought there might've been something running in that room - or worse, some vagrants who had holed up there and probably would've knifed me.

At the front doors of the Palace again, I figured I hadn't found anything of note and had wasted the trip up.

As I looked out the door, I noticed something interesting in the courtyard that I had apparently missed. Something that would give me at least ONE thing to show for all my trouble, even if it was just a photograph.

There as a lifelike statue of a python, maybe fifty feet long, coiled up and "sunning" itself on a pedestal right in the center of the area. It was almost time for the sun to start setting, so the light fell onto the object in the PERFECT way for a photograph.

I approached the python and snapped a photo. Then I stood on my toes and snapped another. I moved closer again to get the detail of its face.

Slowly, casually, the python lifted its head, looked directly into my eyes, turned, and slithered off the pedistal, across the grass, and into the trees.

All fifty feet of it. Its head long disappeared into the woods before its tail even left the sunning spot.


Disney had released all their exotic animals onto the grounds. Right there on my floorplan map was the "Reptile House". I should have known. I'd read about the sharks at Treasure Isle, and I should have KNOWN they'd done this.


I was dumbfounded, just utterly stupefied. My mouth must've been hanging open for the longest time before I came back down to Earth and snapped it shut. I blinked a few times and backed away from where the snake had been, back toward the Palace.

Even though it was totally gone, I still wasn't taking any chances and backed my way into the building.

It took a few deep breaths and slaps to my own face to get myself right in the head again after that.

I looked for a place to sit down, as my legs were feeling a bit like jelly at this point. Of course, there WAS no place to sit down unless I wanted to recline in the broken glass and dead leaf carpet or haul myself up onto a desk of questionable reliability.

I had seen some stairs near the Palace's lobby and decided to go have a seat there until I felt better.

The staircase was far enough away from the front of the building to be relatively clean, save for a startling accumulation of dust. I pulled a wedge of metal off the wall, once again painted with the "ABANDONED BY DISNEY" motto I'd become accustomed to. I placed the wedge on the stairs and sat on it to keep at least somewhat clean.

The stairway led downward, below ground level. Using my camera flash as a sort of improvised flashlight, I could see that the stair case ended in a metal mesh door with a padlock. A sign on the door... a REAL sign... read "MASCOTS ONLY! THANK YOU!".

This perked up my spirits a little bit, for two reasons. One, a Mascots-Only area would have definately had some interesting stuff back in the day... Two, the padlock was still in place. Nobody had gone down there. Not the vandals, not the looters, nobody.

This was the one place I could actually "explore" and perhaps find something interesting to photograph or wantonly steal. I had come to the Palace essentially agreeing with myself that it was okay to take anything I wanted because - hey - "abandoned".

It didn't take much to bust the lock. Well, actually that's wrong. It didn't take much to bust the metal plate on the wall that the padlock was hooked to. Time and decay had done most of the work for me, and I was able to bend the metal plate enough to pull the screws out of the wall - something nobody else had apparently thought of, or hadn't been able to do at the time.

The Mascots-Only area was a startling and very welcomed change from the rest of the building I'd seen. For one, every second or third fluorescent light overhead was illuminated, even though they flickered and faded randomly. Also, nothing had been stolen or broken, even if age and exposure were definately taking their toll.

Tables had note pads and pens, there were clocks... even a punch-in clock on the wall complete with filled-out time cards. Chairs were scattered around and there was even a small break room with an old, static-filled television and long rotted-out food and drink on the counters.

It was like one of those post-apocalypse movies where everything is left in the state of evacuation.

As I walked the maze-like sub-basement hallways of the Mascots-Only area, the sights just became more and more interesting. As I went further, desks and tables were knocked over, papers scattered and almost melded with the damp floor, and a large carpet of mold was slowly overtaking the real rotting crimson floor-covering.

Everything was just sort of "squishy". Anything wood disintegrated into mush when I applied even the least amount of force, and clothing items hanging on hooks in one of the rooms simply fell to moist threads if I tried to unhook them.

One thing that annoyed me was that the light was becoming more sparse and unreliable as I went further into the dank, suffocating depths of the place.

Eventually, I reached a black and yellow striped door with the words "CHARACTER PREP 1" stenciled on it.

The door wouldn't open at first. I figured this was probably where the costumes were kept, and I definately wanted a photograph of that twisted, stinking mess. Try as I might, whatever angle or trick I tried, the door wouldn't budge.

That is, until I gave up and started to walk away. That was when there was a slight popping sound and the door creaked open slowly.

Inside, the room was completely dark. Pitch black. I used the camera flash to look for a light switch on the wall by the door, but there was nothing.

As I made my search, I was jarred out of my sense of excitement by a loud electrical buzz. Rows of lights overhead suddenly flashed to life, flickering and fading in and out like the rest I had passed.

It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and it seemed like the light was going to just keep getting brighter until all the bulbs exploded... but just when I thought it would reach that critical stage, the lights dimmed a bit and steadied.

The room was exactly as I had pictured it. Various Disney costumes hung on the walls, fully put together like strange cartoon cadavers hung from invisible nooses.

There was an entire rack of loincloths and "native" clothes on hangers toward the back.

What I found odd, and what I wanted to photograph right away, was a Mickey Mouse costume at the center of the room. Unlike the other costumes, it was lying on its back in the center of the floor like a murder victim. The fur on the costume was rotten and shedding, creating bare patches.

What was even more odd, however, was the coloring of the costume. It was like a photo negative of the actual Mickey Mouse. Black where he should be white, and white where he should be black. His normally red pants were light blue.

The sight was off-putting enough that I actually postponed photographing the thing until last.

I took a picture of the costumes hanging on the walls. Upward angles, downward angles, side shots to show an entire row of frozen, putrid cartoon faces, some with plastic eyes missing.

Then I decided to stage a shot. Just one of the bedraggled character heads on the slick, grimy floor.

I reached for the headpiece of a Donald Duck costume and carefully removed it so the thing wouldn't fall apart in my hands.

As I looked into the face of the wide-eyed, mouldering head, a loud clattering sound made me jump with fright.

I looked down at my feet, and there between my shoes was a human skull. It had fallen out of the mascot head and shattered into pieces at my feet, only the empty face and lower jaw remained, staring up at me.

I dropped the Duck head immediately, as you'd expect, and moved for the door. As I stood in the doorway, I looked back to the skull on the floor.

I had to take a picture of it, you know? I HAD to, for any number of reasons that may seem silly, but only if you don't think it through.

I'd need proof of what happened, especially if Disney was going to somehow make this go away. I had no doubt in my mind, right from the start, that even if it was just gross negligence, Disney was RESPONSIBLE for this. THIS was why the resort had closed, and I was the only one outside Disney Co. who knew. ME.

That's when Mickey, that photo negative, opposite-Mickey in the middle of the floor, started to get up.

First sitting up, then climbing to its feet, the Mickey Mouse costume... or whoever was inside of it, stood there at the center of the room, its fake face just starting directly at me as I mumbled "No..." over and over and over...

With shaking hands, a violently thrashing heart, and legs that had once again turned to jelly, I managed to lift the camera and aim it at the opposite creature now quietly sizing me up, head tilted.

The digital camera's screen displayed only dead pixels in the shape of the thing. It was a perfect silhouette of the Mickey costume. As the camera moved in my unsteady hands, the dead pixels spread, marring the screen wherever Mickey's outline moved to.

Then the camera died. Went blank and quiet and... broken.

I raised my eyes once again to the Mickey Mouse costume.

"Hey," it said in a hushed, perverted, but perfectly executed Mickey Mouse voice, "Wanna see my head come off?"

It started to pull at its own head, working its clumsy, glove-clad fingers around its neck with clawing, impatient movements similar to a wounded man trying to pull himself free of a predator's jaws...

As it worked its digits into its neck... so much blood...

So much thick, curdled, yellow blood...

I turned away as I heard a sickening tearing of cloth and flesh... only cared about getting away. Above the doorway out of this room, I saw the final message clawed into the metal with bone or fingernails...

"ABANDONED BY GOD"


I never got the pictures out of the camera. I never wrote the blog entry about it. After I ran from that place, fled for my sanity if not my very life, I knew why Disney didn't want anyone to know about this place.

They didn't want anyone like me getting in.

They didn't want anything like that getting out.

This was supposed to be his Honeymoon.

Graham sat on the bare metal seat... a slab, really... and tried to pass the time. The distant sound of ocean water on metal did little to sooth his nerves, though it had done so quite well above-deck.

Resting there in the sterile, stifling cell within the bowels of that ship gave Graham plenty of time to reflect on the events that had somehow lead him here. It was supposed to be a vacation. Happiness. Carefree screwing around and actual screwing and little else.

"Graham 'n Sam" was the official title the two of them had been given by friends. Nobody could figure out how to successfully combine the two into one ubername like "Bennifer", which he was thankful for.

Sam. Beautiful Samantha. Despite what Graham's mother had said about her nose being too big for her face, her ass being too big in general, and her haircut being "kind of dykey, don't you think" he knew the criticism came out of fear of losing her only son to some strange woman. Under any other circumstances, the two generous, kind, and low-maintenance girls could've been best friends.

Sam had bought an entire wardrobe for the cruise. When they were boarding the massive ship Graham considered the fact he might be arm-in-arm with the wrong woman. It was as if he'd somehow engaged in some cosmic square dance that had switched his frugal, casually dressed Sam with some flowered tropical goddess.

Her ass was a bit big, though. That's the reason she and Graham had fought the night before. She had it in her head to wear some floss-like number to the ship's pool, and he had vehemently disapproved. When she said no one would even give her a second look, Graham absent-mindedly stated that it was hard to miss. Then it was as if some unseen bell signaled the first round of a cage fight.

He had done quite well to avoid such pitfalls leading up to this disaster.

Now, he was sitting in the cell. He lost track of the time after a few hours piled up, but he had the distinct feeling that morning had come.

Morning. Sam would have been missing all night, then. If she had turned up at any point since Security dragged him down there, they surely would've come back to give him the good news.

"Guess what! It turns out you didn't kill your wife after all! Our bad!"

He couldn't really blame them. If he had heard a newlywed couple engaged in a shouting match as loud as theirs... if that new bride had then disappeared completely from the ship... he would be pointing the finger just as fervently as anyone had pointed to him.

"Hey!" an unfamiliar voice called down the corridor leading the security station.

"Hey?" Graham called back.

A pudgy little man in a pair of palm tree shorts and flip-flops hustled into the room as if he were outrunning a fire. His face wore a look of concern mixed with the half-smile of someone about to deliver good news.

"C'mon, let's get you out of here!"

"What? Listen, I don't want to get into any more trouble than I'm already in."

The pudgy man seemed to ignore Graham's words and busily began searching a nearby desk. Important-looking papers spilled from the desk's surface, and the pudgy man began emptying out drawers.

"Stop that!" Graham was now standing, clutching the cell bars. The metal was so frigid that they stung his worried, over-heated flesh.

Finally, the man rooted out a ring of keys and started toward the cell.

"It's okay, trust me. One of the guards sent me."

"I... I don't understand..."

"Good, then that's two of us!"

Within moments, the proper key was located and the cell door was open. The first thing Graham wanted to do was hug this strange little man, but his lack of shirt and sunburn made for a powerful deterrent.

"I'm Glenn." the man thrust out his hand, holding it there stubbornly until Graham seized it.

"Graham. Seriously, though. What's going on?"

Glenn turned back down the corridor and hustled away, causing Graham to shuffle along and keep pace. The imaginary fire was apparently behind them, now.

"So you're the guy they thought killed his wife?"

"Yeah, did you find her? Is she okay?"

"Ah. God, sorry, kid. I should've said right away..."

Graham stopped, thrusting a hand out against the corridor wall for support.

"She's not... is she... I mean, IS SHE OKAY?"

Graham watched as the strange little man's festive shorts bobbed away, down the passage and around a corner.

"No, kid. No."

The voice echoed through the small space and rattled sharply in Graham's ears. For a moment the young man felt as if his heart was going to burst. It was a cold, sick sort of feeling that made his blood feel thick and sluggish.

Graham's estimate had been close, but not entirely correct. When he emerged from below deck, the sky was still dark, a seemingly infinite canvas of sparkling pin-pricks. It probably was morning, but well before dawn.

Glenn was nowhere to be seen, and Graham caught himself slipping on the rain-slicked wooden deck. At least it appeared to be rain. He hadn't heard any storms passing during his incarceration.

"Kid!" called a voice from above. Glenn was already a floor above him, calling down from over the rails. "Move it, kid! We have to get higher!"

Graham instead looked out over the water. There was nothing around for as far as the eye could see, despite the fact they were supposedly going ashore in light of the "suspected murder".

He walked to the rail and cast his gaze into the water. It was astoundingly still for open ocean, save for the occasional rise and fall of its green glass surface... like the swelling chest of a contented dreamer. He felt the strange desire to try walking across its near perfect surface.

"Get away from the fucking rail!!" Glenn screamed from on high. It was like the voice of God if God were a tiny, doughy accountant-type in his late forties.

Graham didn't break from staring at the water. He couldn't, really. It was a bit like looking into an Escher drawing... a fascinating image that fixed your attention and dared your mind to make sense of it.

Sam.

Samantha. Beautiful, short black hair, her wonderful nose.

There she was.

Below the surface. Staring up at Graham with a blank, pale expression. She stayed less than an inch below the water and would not breach that boundary. Her eyes were wide, her parted lips burned by salt.

Wasting little time, Graham pulled his shoes off and began climbing the metal barrier between them. At the precise moment he kicked off from the ship, he felt the sensation of falling come to a sudden and unwelcome halt. A hand had worked its way around his belt, and now that hand... whoever it belonged to... was the only thing keeping him from rescuing his one true love.

"Shit!" came a deep, jarring voice behind him. It clearly wasn't Glenn, "Help! Help me pull this dipshit in!"

Graham slid across the wet deck, face down, after a series of unknown persons with grasping, groping digits reeled him up like a prize-winning catch.

"Sam!" Graham screamed as he struggled to get to his feet, only managing to slide and thrash on the slick surface, "I have to get to her!"

Graham's eyes moved up, up, up, taking in the sight of the person who had caught him in mid-air. He was tall. Very tall. Black, muscular, wearing a security uniform minus the over shirt. His white t-shirt was stained with sweat around the neck and armpits, along with red smears across the chest.

"Fuck you!" Graham lashed out in a voice that was quickly becoming hoarse, "Fuck you, I had her!"

The tall man offered his hand to Graham, who refused to accept it and instead slowly managed to stand of his own volition.

"She's dead." the tall man said flatly. It was clear he was neither surprised nor particularly concerned about this information.

Graham made a valiant try at weaving around the tall man, only to be placed in a strong, sweat-drenched headlock.

"Look, you asshole!" the tall man dragged Graham back to the railing and angled his face toward the water once again, "Take a good look and see what's out there!"

Graham's eyes once again met Sam's. He could see her porcelain face, her shoulders, and her breasts held back by that damned bikini top. He chest was motionless, and while her eyes followed Graham, they did not blink.

Next to her, about two feet away, another face. Nearby, another. Then another. As Graham's eyes flicked across the shimmering surface, he caught the blank visage of what must've been hundreds of people. All pale, motionless, staring from less than inch beneath the surface.

"See?" the tall man dragged Graham back again, still holding his head in an implausibly solid vice grip.

"What..." Graham fell to the deck once again as he was released, "What's happening...?"

Sitting there, dumbfounded, Graham studied the people around him. The tall man, Glenn, and a handful of others. Two men nearby stepped in front of a young boy as Graham met the child's gaze. Everyone... all of them... seemed afraid of him.

"Not a fucking clue," the tall man answered, once again offering his hand, "I'm Shawn. I know you got blamed for shit you didn't do, and none of this makes sense, but we have to go higher. Now."

There was a single-file line up the staircase, which was just as wet as the deck below. As Graham clutched the banister, it seemed an awful lot like the entire ship was covered in a spray of salt water.

Shawn lead the group, and moved much like a military man. His boot-steps fell like thunder on the metal stairs, and his cadence resembled that of a hundred soldiers on the silver screen.

The group didn't stop until they reached the highest point of the metal hulk. Halfway up, Graham asked a series of questions that seemed to fall on deaf ears. He had found himself in the exact center of the group, which seemed no accident as it prevented him from going back.

"Alright. Everyone's on watch. Nobody sleeps. Not until we get our heads around this thing."

Shawn spoke a lot like those movie soldiers, too.

"Hang on a sec, who died and left you in charge?" one of the two men who had shielded the boy took a step forward. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, his skinny legs descending to a pair of neon yellow flip-flops.

"Uh, everybody," the man next to him snickered, "Everybody died."

"I'm sorry," Shawn crowded the Hawaiian shirt guy, making it very clear that he was about a head taller, "I think I'm the one with the security badge. That gives me authority over you and your... brother? Lover?"

Shawn backed away and put his hands in the air, "Hey, I'm not one to judge."

"Brother," said Hawaiian shirt, "And thank you for thinking my standards would be that low."

"Well!" the brother clucked his tongue, "Someone's not getting any tonight."

Between them, the young boy turned red and put his head in his hand. Clearly, he had been through this sort of embarrassment many times before.

"Oh, shut... the fuck... up!" Graham's voice was hoarser than ever.

"Watch it-" Shawn started.

"I said shut the fuck up!!" Graham reiterated, taking a threatening step toward the incredible behemoth, who chuckled.

"Who the fuck are you people, what the fuck is going on, and why the fuck is my fucking wife out in the God damned water?"

Silence.

"TELL ME RIGHT NOW."

"I understand you're upset," the Hawaiian shirt cleared his throat nervously, "Confused, too. We're all upset and confused. Truth be told, none of us know what's happening. I wish I could tell you everything. Fuck, I'd love to! The fact is the whole thing is a fucking joke."

"And you are..." Graham set his jaw and shot the man an icy stare.

"Kenny. This is my brother, Jack... and his kid, Miles. Dude, I'm only here because Jack's wife is a pants-suit power-bitch who cancelled her vacation to climb the corporate ladder."

"Kenny, 'Bitch' is a bit strong," the brother, Jack, interjected, "She's just not into the whole 'tropical beach' and 'having fun' thing, and..."

Jack caught a look at Graham's expression, grim and full of suppressed rage.

"Well okay, we'll just go with bitch." he took a step back behind his brother.

"Your wife was the first one to go missing." Shawn was now standing some distance away, arms folded, looking out over the water into the infinite horizon, "The first one we noticed, anyway. Probably not really the first one."

Shawn unfolded his muscular arms and leaned on the lofty railing. He hadn't seemed the type to show any sign of weakness, but now it seemed as if that horizontal cylinder was the only thing holding him upright.

"One here, one there, no... we didn't notice. Then they started showing up again... just faces under the water. Looking up at us. A few guys dove in after them, all men. They hit the water with these big splashes, like kids doing cannonballs, but after that the water was undisturbed. They went under and didn't resurface. Everything just went scary-still. Like Alice going through the mirror."

"Looking-glass." Jack added before Kenny's fist met his shoulder with a solid thud.

"We're a ghost ship," Glenn bopped forward and took some imagined stage, "There was a boat years ago where everyone disappeared and nobody was found ever again. Stuff like that happens. Nobody believes it, but it does, and now we can all see it's true."

"No such thing as ghosts." Shawn didn't leave his station at the railing, "No such thing. No way."

"Well it's just a theory." Glenn conceded.

"So again, you're saying she's dead." Graham felt his blood go thick again.

"A ghost." Glenn nodded.

Graham stormed toward Glenn and thrust a finger into the little man's meek, double-chinned, mustachioed face. "Don't you fucking say that!" he growled.

"Everybody calm down," Jack clearly envisioned himself as some sort of peace-maker. This was probably role he'd been thrust into due to his brother's lack of tact, "We're all in the same boat, here. Hey... the same boat. Wow, I just got what that means."

In his defense, Graham took a few deep breaths and did manage to collect himself.

"Where are we headed?" Graham approached Shawn at the railing.

"Nowhere."

"What do you mean? Where are we going? Back home, or what?"

"We're adrift. The engines are jammed."

"Jammed? With what?!"

"With who. There's a body wound up in there... blood all over the place... it's fucking sick."

"We're moving, though. Obviously, we're moving. Look, I can see the wake!"

"Yeah, we're moving at a good clip. Sideways. I don't know if you've ever been on a cruise before, but speaking as an expert I can tell you that shit isn't common."

"So radio for help."

"Tried it."

"And?"

"You have a lot of old fucking ideas. What do you think we've been doing up here, jerking off?"

"For all I know, yeah."

Shawn chuckled again. It was the sort of laugh that seemed targeted more at Graham's ignorance than his wit. The laugh that comes before someone tries to turn your head around 360 degrees.

"Okay, okay, we tried the radio and someone answered. This gruff motherfucker, like an old sea captain or some shit. Like that guy who gets eaten in 'Jaws', barking back at us to calm down and that help was on the way."

"Ah," Graham sighed, relaxed a bit, "At least there's that."

"You'd think so, but I got the feeling something wasn't right about this clown. He's all grizzled and corny as fuck, it's just too on the nose, you know? So I just got this crazy fucking idea and I ask the guy a question."

"What?"

"I'm talking to him over this crackling shitty radio, and I ask him 'how many fingers are on the human hand'. I mean, I have no idea where this question is coming from, just this weird place in the back of my head that's bitching at me to ask."

"And??"

"The line's quiet for the longest time. Just dead air... static and shit. Then this guy comes back on and barks out the answer."

"Five."

"Eight."

"I don't understand."

"Neither did he. It. Whatever. Bastard didn't know how many fingers people have because it wasn't a person. It took a random guess. I just backed off the radio, all dumbfounded or whatever the fuck, and this guy... thing... is calling out to me. It's just going... 'Come back, Shawn'... 'Shawn, come back'... 'Come back, Shawn'... 'Do you want rescue or not'..."

The two men locked eyes. Graham's face had gone slack, as Shawn's brow knitted in concern and confusion.

"Never told the fucker my name."

Over the course of the following day, sleep came despite the urgings of the tall security official. There was no "getting their heads around" whatever had been occurring, and so one man took watch while the others let their frantic minds achieve some sliver of rest.

"So. Shawn, right? Do you think we're a ghost ship?"

"Nah."

Graham found himself sitting close to Shawn, if for no other reason than to hide from the blistering Sun. The man cast a substantial shadow. Graham was officially on watch, but his partner clearly didn't feel like sleeping.

"The guy, Glenn, you sent him for me, right?"

The two of them sat at the railing, legs dangling down over the drop to the next level. Shawn was absently kicking his feet, as if it was impossible for him to sit completely still.

"Yeah. Almost forgot, my bad."

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad it crossed your mind at some point."

The two of them returned to their silent vigil, eyes fixed on the distance, waiting for any flash of light or sound of rotors which would signal the oncoming fleet of helicopters.

Neither of them would look down at the water. Not for a second.

"You ever read Odysseus?" Shawn eventually broke the chilling silence.

"The Odyssey, you mean."

"Shit," Shawn said through an exasperated sigh, "You're correcting me like that Jack asshole. Jackass. That's what I'll call him from now on. Anyway, I said Odysseus and I meant Odysseus, so fuck you."

Silence.

"I've read it, yeah. Why?"

"That book... that's what got me out on the water. Grew up in the city, never seen a creek, much less an ocean. Then this teacher, Mrs. Broomes, she makes us all read that book. All the other kids were like, fuck it, you know? I cracked it a few times, figured I'd take a look... just see if anyone got killed or whatever."

"So it changed your life."

"Yeah. I read about that guy and I was like, he jabs out this huge Cyclops' eye like it isn't shit. I was a small kid... a little runt bitch... so that worked for me. I've read it a thousand times, since. Any time things get tough."

Silence once again overtook the two as a seagull called in the distance. Graham tilted his head to listen.

"Gulls. We're near land."

Despite the audible clue, there was no land mass in sight.

"Anyway, Odysseus had these things in it. Sirens."

"Ah," Graham was finally catching on to the meaning of this conversation, "Right. Girls out on the rocks, calling Sailors to their death."

"Right. I don't know. I'm just thinking about that, now. Like how dudes jumped in to save people, and they didn't come up. Like... how there's no women left here. Just a bunch of swinging dicks."

"You think whatever's out there... that it's trying to tempt everyone overboard?"

"Maybe. Fuck if I know."

Graham leaned back on his hands and, for the slightest passing moment, nearly searched the waves for Sam's beautiful, expressionless face.

"I always loved the water," Graham started relaying his own tale, "Grew up with my Dad out on a houseboat... Mom was in rehab, but not the drug kid. Physical therapy. He put her there."

"Sorry, man."

"Thanks. Anyway, sure, I liked the ocean. Not sure about that, now. I'll probably develop a phobia. If we live. If anyone back home believes us and we're not locked away."

Both men turned suddenly as one of the other stirred in his sleep. It was an elderly man, dressed all in white with a fancy hat that now served as a crushed pillow. He'd obviously been a bit of a Don Juan among the blue-hairs.

The old man turned, turned again, then finally found comfort before dropping back into slumber.

"I used to make wishes," Graham was a shade quieter this time, "Actually, no, I don't know what you call it, but it wasn't wishing. I'd just stand by the water and pretend I was sailing little boats out into the waves. Any bad feelings, dark thoughts, anything I didn't like. I'd pretend I was putting it in a little ship and I'd send it off."

Graham twisted his neck, popped his back, and cracked his knuckles. The day had been long up to this point, and the night... the darkness... would only seem longer.

"But yeah, I don't think I like it anymore."

Suddenly, the loud clang of a heavy object against metal shook the two from their thoughts. The men who had been sleeping now stirred, in different degrees of alertness.

Another clang... more like a ping... something smaller.

A wet thud. The sound of an unknown object hitting cloth. With a sudden start, Kenny sat up and flung a dark, slick item across the deck. As he did so, he let out a choked, horrified scream.

"Motherfucker!" Kenny got to his feet, swatting at his colorful shirt as if it was on fire, "Motherfucker!!"

Shawn was already up and halfway to Kenny as Graham had begun forming the idea that something was wrong.

"What's going on? Speak up!" demanded the security guard, all semblance of his normal human conversation now gone.

Kenny could only point toward the offending item. A finger. A single, blue-green bloated finger that was lying on the wet floor about twenty feet away. The finger seemed to have been ripped from its source, exposing a knob of sickly, mustard-colored bone. It almost mockingly pointed right back at him.

"Shit." Shawn approached the digit as if it would explode.

"Look! Oh my God, look!" Glenn was pointing toward the sky, head upturned with a wide-eyed, pale mask of terror.

Swirling in the sky above them all was a cluster of seagulls. The churning mass gave the impression of a hundred feathered bodies circling a drain. They moved in unison. In an unending loop.

"They're so quiet..." Graham marveled.

Matter began to rain down upon the men. Fingers. Toes. Eyes, lips, bits of unidentifiable flesh with hair intact. Each gruesome mote fetid and lacerated by the small golden shears of a beak.

"Oh shit," Jack shrieked as he barely held himself upright in the putrid hailstorm, "It went in my mouth. Something went in my mouth."

"Downstairs!" Shawn ordered, though half the group was already ahead of him, "Down! Down!"

The rush back to the lower level was much less orderly than the trip up. In the place of a single-file line, the group now made a mad descent, pushing each other aside and vying for position as if only the man in first place would survive.

At the halfway point, Glenn lost his footing. With a slight bump from an unknown compatriot, his low, rounded forum rolled over the railing and fell free. There was only time for a single, slighted whine before he hit the lower deck with a crack. There, he remained crooked and motionless as crimson mixed with puddles of salt water.

The sound of falling debris had become a constant din, not unlike that of a sudden and violent hail storm. As the group entered the dining hall, the echoing clatter of meat and bone gradually grew sparse, then ceased.

"Oh my God," Jack finally piped up as silence once more engulfed them, "You killed him. You killed Glenn."

"Who, me?" Graham gestured to himself, then, using an entirely different finger, gestured toward Jack, "Fuck you, I wasn't even near him."

"Well I know what I saw."

"And I know where I WAS."

Jack turned to Kenny with a smirk and a raise of the eyebrows, but was met only with a cold look of disappointment.

"Don't even try, Jack. You're my brother, but I'm not covering up for you. If he says he didn't do it, and you say you saw him, I figure that probably means you shoved the poor bastard to his death."

Jack swept his arm around his son and lead the boy to toward the back of the room.

"I would never! C'mon, Miles. We don't have to associate with these people."

Shawn stood at the doorway, staring out into the oncoming darkness. Either he couldn't hear the spat that was going on within, or he no longer cared about keeping order among the group.

"Were those... was that..." the elderly man in white swallowed hard, "Jesus Christ, tell me those weren't people-parts..." His boney, spotted hands twisted at his already beaten hat.

"It doesn't want us to hide. It doesn't want us to live." Shawn was still facing out the door when he spoke, "It wants us down there, on the lowest deck. It wants us in the water."

"I don't care what 'it' wants," Graham tugged on Shawn's sleeve, guiding him around and into the room, "All that matters now is what we want, and I assume everyone here wants to go home."

"Right." Shawn seemed to be coming back from some far-off place deep within his mind, "I don't want to go wherever this ship is headed... Yeah, okay. Yeah. We're going home."

"How exactly are we going to accomplish that?" Kenny seemed sincere... or as sincere as he could get given the sarcastic tone in every word he uttered, "We don't have an engine, we're drifting sideways, and the radio only patches us through to Eight-Fingers Pete, the scary-ass Pirate. Even the birds hate us. BIRDS. We are on the shit-list of a kind of animal."

"There's one thing we have left." Shawn folded his arms and turned visibly cold. Stone-faced.

"No," Graham backed away, shaking his head, "No, you're not talking about... no."

"Yup."

"What?" Kenny barely whispered.

Shawn turned to the door again as the others stared hard at the back of his head, where a pulsating vein had now become quite pronounced.

"Liferaft."

The sunset cast an eerie streak of crimson through the door and across the room. Shawn's shadow now seemed like that of the towering Cyclops he'd mentioned.

"Red sky at night," Kenny grinned and threw his hands in the air, "Sailor's delight!"

No stone was left unturned. No cabin unopened, no emergency kit spared. When all was said and done, nothing remained that could be of any importance. First-aid items, flares, bottled water, even umbrellas and blankets to keep out of direct Sunlight.

"We're going to be too heavy," Jack dropped a full 24-pack of separate water bottles to the floor, "We can't take everything, we'll sink."

"Water is the most crucial thing." Shawn studied a fishing rod in his hands and wondered if they'd even be able to make use of it.

"We'll spread it out," Graham took a few bottles and set them on the floor in a pattern, "If we keep the weight distributed, we should be fine."

"That's nice," Shawn nodded, "I like that. You're a problem solver. Probably some kind of tech geek or something, right?"

"Bingo. I'm in IT." Graham made a typing motion.

"You're an it?" Miles spoke up for the first time since Graham had laid eyes on him, then laughed, "You looked like a dude to me!"

Graham shot the kid a smirk. This didn't seem like a good time to start an argument with a scared child. If there was ever a good time for that. Miles didn't seem scared... he looked more embarrassed and put out than anything else... but as a fellow wise-ass, Graham could spot the slight signs of fear.

"You're going to make a woman very, very tired and frustrated some day, kid."

"Heh. Yeah," the boy looked at his shoes and sighed, "I was talking to this blonde girl the other day, buuut... I guess that's not going to work out."

"She was the Cruise Director!" Jack seemed shocked and dismayed.

Kenny and Miles high-fived.

The faces were still there when the men began preparing their raft. The vibrant, orange thing seemed inappropriate given the situation. Being easily spotted was usually a good thing... but not now.

The people in the water... those faces... had rearranged themselves while the men hadn't been looking. Entirely different visages peered upward, never daring to pierce that boundary between ocean and air.

"This is a really fucked up idea." Graham noted.

"I don't know," Kenny had warmed to the premise rather quickly, "I think I'll feel better if we're in charge of our own fate. No more aimless drifting, just six tough motherfuckers with oars and elbow grease."

"I'm sorry..." the man in white suddenly made his presence known. Up until that moment, he'd been all but forgotten. "I can't do this."

"The fuck you can't." Shawn was his usual tactful self.

"I'm serious, now. I can't do this. I can't swim, and even if I could, I wouldn't be able to at my age. I'm not going down there with those people... I'd rather... I'd rather kill myself! It's like you said, I'm in charge of my own fate."

Shawn marched up to the old man and put one large, dark hand on his slim, alabaster shoulder.

"I don't leave men behind."

The old man in white hung his head and slumped a bit. It was as if insisting on saving his life was the ultimate insult to his personal dignity. He turned, walked slowly to a nearby bench, and sat down hard.

"Okay."

The others continued their work. The flares were stored in plastic baggies from the kitchen, and each member of the group stored at least one on their person. There was no telling what would happen... how far they would get... but there seemed to be ample time for precautions.

"I don't get why we don't bring food," Miles seemed to have found his voice, now, "I'm not eating a raw fish, even if we can catch any."

"Food'll go bad in the Sun, kid." Kenny took his ID from his wallet and tossed the rest to the deck, "Even if it doesn't, we're taking enough chances with all the fresh water." He replaced the wallet with a pack of gauze, then filled the rest of his pockets. The others followed suit.

A single scream brought them all back out of their thoughts.

The old man slumped off of the bench, onto the deck. There, he thrashed violently, his back arched as if he were wracked by extreme pain.

"Heart attack!" Jack called out, "He's having a heart attack! Someone do CPR!"

Graham was the first to the old man's side, and kneeling there he found a small cluster of discarded syringes. Before he could so much as lay a hand on the old man, Graham could see he was dead.

"What the fuck?" Shawn scooped up a syringe, careful not to prick himself or fracture the glass.

Graham cleared his throat and took a deep, heavy breath. He didn't have to take a closer look at the needles, he had already reasoned out the answer.

"Insulin overdose."

"FUCK." Shawn threw the syringe against a wall, shattering into a blizzard of moonlit shards.

"Well, I mean, it's actually for the best," Jack shrugged, "If you think about it, one less person means each of us has a better chance at surviving."

"Shut that guy up," Shawn growled, his eyes fixed on the old man's body, "Shut that guy up, Graham. You're my boy, you know I'm about to crack on that motherfucker."

"Come on," Graham got up, put his arm around Jack, and lead him away with Miles in tow, "Let's get back to work. Trust me. I'm his boy."

Kenny remained at Shawn's side, hands in pockets.

"If you decide to work my brother over, do me one favor."

"Avoid the face?"

"Actually I was going to say 'focus on the face', but I guess just play it by ear."

The trio of Graham, Jack, and Miles returned to filling the raft and their pockets. For a few moments, not a word was said. It seemed as if there had finally been some unspoken agreement against idle banter.

"You know," Jack immediately violated the agreement, "I'm really a nice a guy. It's just that I don't do well under pressure."

"It's true," Miles nodded, "He dressed up as a super-hero for my birthday one time, and got so worked up about it that he fell off the garage."

"It had JUST rained!" Jack snapped at Miles.

"It had just rained." He repeated to Graham.

Everything seemed to be in place when the remaining group lowered their raft into the water. Each of them half expected the thing to completely disappear once it hit the waves. If the people... things... below could subdue able-bodied victims, they could easily drag down the bobbing orange disgrace.

Yet there it sat, slowly rising and falling on the water, doing nothing it shouldn't.

Shawn was the first one down. Using metal ladder rungs built into the side of the vessel, he descended to the tethered raft with all the unflinching bravado the others had come to expect from him.

When Shawn's feet landed in the raft, again all involved expected it to quickly disappear with him aboard. Especially Shawn himself.

Moments of uncertainty passed.

"I think it's okay." Shawn called up to the others.

Graham was the next one down. Then Kenny. Jack still seemed a bit unsure as he stared over the railing at them. If there was ever a time for the men to disappear, he seemed to hope it would be now rather than after he'd boarded.

Slower than all the rest, Jack carefully descended, checking to make sure the raft was still there at every fifth rung.

Finally, it was time for Miles to join them. It had been unanimously agreed without a single word that the boy would be the last aboard. If indeed anything bad were to happen, it was necessary for him to have the best chance at avoiding it.

"You're doing great!" Jack called up as Miles approached, "Just keep going and don't look down!"

"The more you tell him not to look down, the more he's going to think about looking down, asshole." Kenny mumbled.

"Whoa!" Shawn blurted out as his attention snapped to the floor of the raft.

"What's going on?" Graham turned to Shawn, searching his down turned face for any sign of meaning behind the yelp.

As Miles' foot reached the raft's edge, it suddenly jerked to the side. Graham looked down to see several handprints rising on the floor of the raft. Palms, fingers, all pushing upward from below, moving in unison and sliding the raft from its proper location.

Miles hit the water, sending a salted spray into the faces of Jack and Kenny, who were in the midst of trying to catch him.

"NOOOO!" Jack shrieked, his voice disturbingly high, frantic, like the cry of an animal being flayed alive, "JESUS FUCK, NO!!"

The water went calm. The boy did not surface.

"Let go of me!" Jack struggled against Kenny's grip as the other two men rushed to restrain him as well, "My son! I have to get my son! Oh God! Ohhh GOODDD!"

Jack was dragged to the floor as the raft floated free, its tethers somehow loosened in the commotion. There, the man flailed as if possessed of some incredible super-human strength never before unleashed. He struck Kenny in the face, sending his brother reeling, and bit wildly at Graham's arm as he attempted a crude sleeper hold.

"The mast!" Shawn's eyes were wide, veins throbbing, any glimmer of logic completely washed from his face, "Lash him to the mast!!"

"Dad!"

Graham loosened his grip on Jack's throat, though his hold hadn't been very solid to begin with. Similarly, Kenny rolled off of his brother and sat bolt upright.

"Dad! Dad!"

The cry was frantic. Sharp. It was the boy.

"Miles!" Jack shouted, climbing to his feet with an exhausted gasp, "Miles, where are you?! Oh, thank you Jesus, oh he's alive..."

"I don't see him. Jack, I hate to say it but -" Before Kenny could finish his thought, another series of desperate yelps echoed out over the water.

"Dad! Dad! Dad!"

Jack angled his head, caught the source of the voice, and without a moment's hesitation he was in the water. The lanky, awkward man whose every movement had seemed accidental executed a dive any trainer would be proud of.

"I'll be damned," Shawn looked out of the ocean, still searching for the spot where Miles and come up, "I never would've thought. The little guy's a survivor."

"You don't know the half of it." Kenny added, also peering across the waves.

Within moments, the three men felt a cold chill born not of the frigid night, but stark and heart-wrenching realization. Jack didn't return to the surface.

"Dad!"

Graham could only point. His single extended digit drew a straight line to a gull bobbing on the waves some twenty feet away. It regarded the men with a sideways glance... a wild eye... then threw back its head.

Its beak opened. "Dad!"

A chorus of identical voices, all belonging to Miles, rose up around the raft. In all directions, seagulls could be spotted in the distance.

"Dad!"

"Dad-ad!"

"Dad!"

"Daaad!"

"Dad Dad Dad Dad Daaaad!"

The commingling exclamations melted into the usual laughing cry emitted by the birds. It was a din of riotous laughter that did little to return any sense of normalcy. In unison, the gulls took flight and disappeared into the darkness above.

Graham, Kenny, and Shawn stared up into the night, toward the stars, and waited for the next horror to be unleashed upon them. Instead, they were met only with the sound of their own breathing and the slow, steady shift of the waves.

With a set jaw, Kenny glanced down at the water for one fleeting moment. There, he caught sight of Jack and Miles side by side. Pale, staring, expressionless. He immediately looked away.

The men hardened their hearts and braced themselves for the unknown. They took turns rowing, and despite the occasional thump against unseen debris below, the process seemed to be going well. When Shawn took the first turn at the oars, neither Graham nor Jack could muster any admiration. There was no bravery in the hearts of these men. No heroism. There was only the raw and terrifying need to continue living.

No one spoke. Shawn was possessed of a single-minded drive. Though no sound came out, his mouth moved as if he was deep in a conversation with himself.

Graham couldn't conceive of what to say to someone who had just lost his brother and nephew in the span of moments. Kenny couldn't conceive of how to bemoan his situation to a man who had lost his new bride.

For an hour or so, nothing was said.

"Getting tired," Shawn finally spoke actual words, "Can't keep us moving away from it."

Graham silently took Shawn's position as the large man sprawled out on the floor of the raft as best he could.

"Whoa." Graham took a few strokes with the oars, sat still for a moment in thought, then took another stroke.

"What noooww?" Shawn sounded fatigued. Expelling the breath necessary to ask seemed to drain all the air from him.

The oars thrashed the water a few more times, cutting deep and thrusting hard.

"It's not you," Graham cast the oars downward and leaned on the ends with his elbows, "Fucking Hell, it's like rowing air, we're not moving an inch."

Graham thrashed the water again, repeatedly, expelling hot breath into the cool night with each violent downward slice. He pulled, pushed, pitched and raged, but the raft did not budge.

"Well, that's it." Kenny rubbed his eyes.

"That's it." Graham nodded solemnly.

The raft turned a bit, ever so slightly, and began to slowly draw itself back toward the abandoned ship. The motion was barely noticeable at first, and though it only built to a snail's pace, the wake left behind left no room for doubt.

"Fate." Graham pulled in the oars.

"Fuck fate." Kenny retorted as he stood to take a piss over the side of the raft.

"Aahh," Shawn groaned, holding his aching biceps in his hands, "Calypso!"

The other two took seats on either side of Shawn as he stared blankly toward the apathetic moon.

"Calypsoooo!!"

No one took watch as the three slipped into a fevered sort of unconsciousness. If something took them in the night, then so be it. Better they be asleep, after all. In this semi-comatose state, they seemed to drift aimlessly on the sparkling, infinite canvas.

Mercifully, they did not witness the thick, rolling fog they were now approaching, nor could they notice the tremendous shadow within. The silhouette of a cruise ship.

Graham was the first to awaken as the raft rebounded off of something substantial. He rose and, as if still stuck within a dream, he rubbed his weary, reddened eyes.

A fog had engulfed them. Nearby, the cruise ship sat stoically against the blurred light of a rising Sun. All around the raft, a series of abandoned boats of every shape, size, and purpose turned and drifted in silence.

A rusted and worn gun boat clashed against a shimmering yacht with a resounding crack. Shawn and Kenny lifted their heads at the sound of this collision.

The three men sat, backs together, as the raft slowly spun amid the aquatic graveyard. Speed boats mingled with catamarans. The burned out, ancient husk of a steamer slowly steamrolled a duck-shaped tour boat and crushed it into moldering yellow driftwood.

Shawn shot to his feet, nearly spilling the others over the side.

"Holy shit, watch it!" Graham caught himself with one hand over the water. He wasn't sure if just touching it would cause him to be dragged under, but there was no point in finding out.

Using the inflated wall of the raft, Shawn spring boarded onto the running board of a speed boat. The kinetic reaction caused the raft to spiral off with the two others aboard. They could only watch as that boat seemed to drift further and further away with the towering security guard pulling himself up into it.

"Shawn!" Graham called out into the haze, "What the FUCK!"

The oars struck water again, operating normally now. Kenny and Graham each took a side as the frantic paddling brought them closer to the boat.

Shawn disappeared into the cabin of the speed boat as the raft drew closer. Soon after, he emerged and called back to the others.

"Engine's fucked."

Shawn kicked off of the speed boat and shimmied up the side of a fishing trawler. It struck Graham as distinctly similar to a live-action platformer game, only this time a real man's life hung precariously in the balance.

Kenny was the first onto the speed boat, but at this point the fishing trawler was too far to make a safe leap. Graham followed closely, and the two hauled the raft aboard as best they could.

"No fuel!" Shawn called over the side of the trawler before taking a running start and plummeting onto the deck of a yacht.

"He's gone." Graham whispered.

"I can still make him out." Kenny squinted into the fog.

"You know what I mean. He's completely gone."

The two could only take a seat on the rear of the boat as Shawn began madly kicking at the locked door of the yacht. At this point, the sound was clearer to the others than Shawn himself.

BANG. BANG. BANG. The desperate, demented assault on the door kept up at a steady, rhythmic pace. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Finally, the door gave way with a final crunch.

"I got it!" Shawn called out triumphantly.

BANG.

Shawn stumbled backward. He raised a hand to his head, to his eye, and studied the crimson liquid on his fingers. He lurched to the side, and with a final, deep-throated groan, he collapsed over the side where the sea claimed his body.

Aboard the yacht, the dark silhouette of a woman emerged from the cabin. She brandished the unmistakable outline of a pistol and stared through the fog. She stared at the two men who were in turn staring back at her.

The shifting waters separated the vessels, and just as quick as she appeared, the woman and her boat were gone.

Compared to the pinball-like ricochets Shawn had displayed, Graham and Kenny moved at a snail's pace. Full of dread and slowed by fatigue, the two created a lasso of various boat tethers and gradually drew vessels close to them.

They moved across the floating metal and fiberglass shanty town, always careful to keep track of the boat that now held their raft full of supplies.

Each ship appeared to be disabled in some manner. From ground gears to burnt out engines, they were met by one disappointment after another. Upon settling in a tiny metal fishing boat, the first favorable discovery was made.

"Admiral, we've located a cooler." Kenny wrested the blue and white cube from beneath a wooden board that served as a seat.

"What've got, Admiral?" Graham replied, taking a seat on the cold floor.

Kenny popped open the cooler like a magician's assistant about to stun the audience. For all they knew, it was stocked with festering, long-dead nightcrawlers. Worse yet, festering long-dead human remains.

With a flourish, Kenny thrust the lid off and hurled it as far as he could into the darkness.

"Ta-da!"

Beer. Three six-packs of it. While the ice had long become liquid and there was no telling how old the stuff was, both men were relieved to see it. Had they known their escape would turn out like this, they would've brought a few bottles of something stronger than purified water.

"Good work, Admiral. I'm putting a good word in for you when we get home." Graham leaned forward, scooped out one of the lukewarm cans, and studied it.

Kenny did the same, seating himself across from what he assumed to be the last man he'd ever see alive.

Cautiously, the pair popped the tops on the contraband. Though they braced for some implausible, violent spray of foam, there was nothing but the sloshing of flat, skunked alcohol.

They each threw back the first can within moments and tossed the empty containers over the side.

"Question." Kenny drew another two cans, tossing one to Graham.

"Yeah?"

"If two men are stranded alone in the Ocean and nobody's around to see them litter, is it illegal?"

Graham laughed as Kenny stood again, emptied the cans out onto the floor of the boat, and hurled the cooler into the fog. The only indicator of its final location was the sound of a splash within the haze.

"You know all that shit ends up in one place, right?" Graham watched Kenny sit again, "All the plastic and Styrofoam shit people toss in the water. It all drifts together in this big swirling dead zone."

"Who gives a fuck?" Kenny smirked, raising his eyebrows. He half-shrugged and gestured to their surroundings with both hands. "Fuck the Ocean."

"We should really keep trying." Graham noted, sensing that an unnoticed acceptance of death had steadily been washing over the both of them.

Without a word, Kenny moved to the outboard motor. He probed it, tapped it, and did a good job of pretending he knew what to do with it. Finally, he found the gas and oil caps.

"We have oil," Kenny studied, then replaced the dipstick, then unscrewed the gas cap and peered within, "Almost a full tank, too."

Graham was already halfway through his second beer as he gestured to Kenny dismissively. "Start the fucker up, then! Let's see what happens."

Kenny pulled the motor's rip cord with all of his strength. As he did, the cord caught at mid pull, forcing the handle through Kenny's fingers. He let out a holler and slammed a fist into the machine's rusty shell.

"FUCK. I knew it was too good to be true." Kenny studied his freshly bruised hand as it slowly faded into a deep purple.

Graham threw his second empty can over the side of the boat and joined Kenny at the motor. Placing his hands on the machine, Graham slowly rocked the thing back, tipping it into the boat and exposing the blades.

"Shit!" Kenny backed away in horror.

As expected, the blades that would normally propel the boat had been disabled. A tangled, thick nest of human hair was wound around the entirety of the blades, weaving over and between in an unmanageable clump. Within the hair, small crustaceans scattered and dove.

Attached to the hair, a woman's bloated, rotting head. The grotesque stowaway abruptly ended at the neck.

Graham dropped the blades back down with a splash.

The men returned to the speed boat, which now served as a sort of home base. The raft had remained untouched, and its contents were stored appropriately alongside the ancient six packs.

Seeing no more use in the raft, it was set out to float free and join its forever circling, empty cousins.

"She was a good raft, she was," Kenny saluted the raft as it disappeared from view, "Small, uncomfortable, and hard on the eyes, but we shall miss her." He was on his fourth beer, now.

Graham chuckled. "Sounds like someone I dated in high school."

"So I guess if Shawn were here, he'd say... let me see if I can get it right..." Kenny began a poor impression of the man, "Okay, motherfuckers, which motherfucker is going to take the first motherfucking watch?"

Graham didn't find that quite as funny.

Kenny let out a sigh, "I'll stay up. You get to some rest."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, no problem. Plus the beer'll be gone by the time it's your turn."

Graham stared at the Sun for a moment. It was already climbing toward Noon, and he wondered if he'd even be able to relax at this time of day. After climbing into the ship's cabin and pushing past the broken latrine door that hung on its hinges, he found a large, square bed. Though it was unmade and smelled of human sweat, Graham was no longer capable of being squeamish.

Above deck, Kenny reclined on a Sun-faded seat and opened his fifth can. A cargo ship passed some distance away, moving too slowly to be a threat even if it was angled toward him.

On the railing of the ship, a row of sea gulls sat in a regimented line. They appeared to be placed at wing's length.

"Ain't nobody here but us seagulls," Kenny sang, "Ain't nobody here at all. So calm yourself, with all that fuss, there ain't nobody here but us..."

Below deck, Graham felt his eyes getting heavy as the oddly soothing drunken lullaby continued.

"Kindly turn that gun, the other way, and hobble hobble hobble off and hit the hay..."

Graham only returned to consciousness for a moment as he heard a dull thud against the side of the ship. From his position and the position of the sound, he could tell it had come from underwater. Something had struck the boat from beneath.

He knocked in response, waited, and heard another, quieter knock.

"Sam?" Graham rolled onto his stomach and put his hand against the wall of the boat. His eyes drooped down once again as he listened to the soft squeal of a human hand sliding down the exterior of the vessel.

"Ain't nobody here but us seagulls... ain't nobody here at all..." Kenny's off-key, Sinatra-esque crooning took Graham into slumber.

Graham knew he was dreaming. The entire time, he was well aware that nothing he was experiencing was real.

He had arrived on land, where he was met by Sam and his Mother. They had both been worried sick about him and covered him in a flurry of desperate, heart-broken kisses. Graham told the two most important women in his life that he'd come back to them in a moment, and even though they vehemently protested, he turned and walked back to the water.

At the edge of the Ocean, Graham grasped a hand that thrust itself from the darkness below. The hand belonged to Glenn, who thanked him profusely and walked off. Graham then pulled out the old man in white, then Miles, then Jack, who followed Glenn up the shore.

When Graham pulled Shawn out of the water, the large man crushed him in a bear hug and mussed his hair with one tremendous hand.

"Don't ever let me die again. You got that, you fucker?" Shawn laughed.

Graham turned toward his girls once more, only to hear a choking, wet cry from behind him.

He returned to the water again and looked for a hand to grasp. Instead, he was met only by Kenny's pale, frozen face beneath the lapping waves. His wide, reddened eyes met Graham's as a single, last bubble of oxygen left his lips.

He awoke with a start.

"Kenny?" Graham sat up, peeled the sticky blanket from his body, and started toward the cabin door, "How long was I asleep?"

As Graham emerged from the cabin, he fell to his knees with a resounding crack. The deck was empty, and save for the scattered debris of several emptied six-packs, Kenny was gone.

"Oh, no..." Graham crawled on hand and knee like an infant, "No, no, no... Not alone. I can't be alone."

Suddenly, Graham realized that the man had probably shifted to another boat. In some drunken show of courage, Kenny must have gone to collect the things they would need to make their escape. Indeed, he was surely on some mad sea-trotting scavenger hunt.

When Graham weakly pulled himself up against the railing, however, he saw no other ships. There was nothing now by the thick, cottony walls of fog.

"Oh God, Nooo!" Graham screamed until his lungs emptied.

The speed boat floated, sideways, for hours. Graham had begun a count in his head, though it had done little to help him in the brig. After enough time passed, the steadily increasing numbers were replaced with a count down.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... Zero."

Graham cast his hooded gaze around him, looking for any sign of... anything.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... Land."

Nothing.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four..."

Graham took a sudden, sharp breath as a dark shadow emerged some distance away. As Graham stood and moved toward it, the black mass began to take shape. It had a wide base, gradually tapering to a peak. The outline of the thing was contoured as if comprised of rock and soil.

"Land!" Graham shrieked madly, "Land! Land! Land!"

For a moment, he considered leaping off the boat and paddling to shore. However, even as he was now within sight of safety, this still seemed too great a risk. Instead, he gathered as many supplies as he could carry and made his way expectantly to the side of the ship. The side that was now facing land.

"Thank you... Oh, thank you... Oh, I don't even care if I spend the rest of my life stranded, it's enough to be on solid ground!!"

As the boat drifted closer to its goal, Graham could feel himself salivating. He could think of nothing but the taste of the dry, salty sand he was about to kiss.

The fog parted as he drew closer... closer... closer... soon, the mass was well within sight and his vision had become clear.

Bodies.

Putrefying. Desiccated. Bloated. Skeletonized. Crushed, broken, severed, bloody, green, picked apart and Sun scorched. Such wide variety.

Hundreds... thousands of corpses. The island mass was comprised of nothing but remains of the dead lost at sea. Each body laid still, well and truly dead, all the way to the peak of the miniature continent.

Jaw slack, shaking, Graham surveyed the enormity of this floating graveyard. He wondered if it was even floating at all... or if this heap of discarded flesh and bone indeed persisted to the very ocean floor.

Crabs scuttled along the frozen faces. They picked at eyes and removed tongues. Gulls clustered in the skies and dove for snatched bits of flesh. Noses. Ears. Genitals.

The tide beat against the grim, fetid beach, bringing with it yet more corpses. Fresh bodies dressed in cruise outfits.

Graham retrieved a flare gun from its baggie, quietly thankful that he'd held onto it.

As he put the barrel into his mouth, he let a soft chuckle escape over that metal cylinder. At that moment, I like to think that he knew. I think that this man figured it all out in the half-second before he blew his brains out in a fiery red blast.

I want to believe he finally understood what I am.

It's sunset again, and the sky is turning a deep, beautiful scarlet.

This is funnymouth, and he hopes u can like it.