Short Story - Abandoned Boat

Frank pulled off onto the side of the road. Luckily, he'd seen it in the distance with enough time to swerve around. Can you believe that someone left a trailered boat in the freaking middle of the highway? He got out of his car to take a look at the monstrosity.

At this time of morning the road was distinctly empty. Frank hadn't seen a single car either coming or going on his way to work. Traffic wouldn't begin for at least another hour, maybe longer. He hated working at such an ungodly time, but it was only on Thursdays and Fridays and the money was simply too good to pass up.

The small speedboat appeared to have motored through the seas of hell enroute to its spot on the freeway. It was so beaten up and ragged Frank figured it was a good thing it was on land for it would certainly sink to the depths the moment it was placed in the water. Still, it was an intriguing fixer-upper prospect. Frank loved boats. He'd never been fortunate enough to own one himself, but it was always a dream. Of course when he had saved up enough cash for a purchase he had his eye on a thirty foot Mastercraft CSX or a thirty-five foot Sea Ray. Now those were beauties. But this one here, he couldn't even tell what make or model it was for all the scratching along the rear. It would make an admirable dingy if he sunk a grand or two into it.

He ran a hand along the hull on the right side. It was smoother then he'd have imagined. If the shell held its integrity, then maybe a single thousand might get this puppy up and running again. Frank gazed about shiftily, an evil thought playing through his mind. The highway was still deserted. What would it take to back his truck up to the trailer hitch and attach the wreck? The tires on the trailer looked fine. He was fairly close to his home. It would take but a minute to drive the boat home, disconnect it, and leave it in his driveway until he returned home in the afternoon. Hell, if he lined up the post and got it hooked up on the first try he'd probably barely be half an hour late to work. And who would know anyway? Frank worked alone until the maintenance crew showed up at seven. It was the honor system and Frank had been completely honorable twice a week for the past three years despite the fact that he hated working that shift.

He rushed back to his truck, pulled it off the shoulder, and backed up to the trailer. It was a much easier procedure with another set of eyes for guidance. Frank slid out from the cab and checked to see how close or far he was from being aligned. Bingo! He was right there. Good thing the boat was so small. With a tug or two on the hitch he’d have it right over the knob on his bumper. Aha. Now to lower it down and connect it. Hmmm, the crank was jammed. He pounded it twice with his balled up fist and only came away with pain in his hand. Ow! He was certain that a whack or two was all it needed, but there was neither hammer, wrench, nor any other tool that he could come up with after a thorough search of his vehicle to turn the trick. Frank glanced about dejectedly. He was wasting time.

Perhaps there was something on the boat that he could use. He sidled around to the back of the vessel. There may have once been a step attached to the rear for easy access, but it was long gone by the time Frank got there. Instead, he climbed up onto the wheel well of the trailer and hoisted himself over the side. It was rather dingy inside. He tried not to touch anything for fear it might stick to him. A cursory glance about was useless. Whoever left this piece of junk here obviously stripped it of anything of value before going on his way. There was a small cutty, however. It couldn’t hurt to poke his head inside for a look see. It was closed off by two teak cupboard-like doors which folded outward. He pulled them apart like a cowboy entering a saloon and slid down inside.

That’s when he felt it; a weird sense of vertigo combined with an electric shock that passed through the core of his body, causing his muscles to go slack for an infinitesimal amount of time. It lasted just long enough for him to fall face first to the floor of the cabin.

There was some kind of viscous slimy gunk there which now lined the right side of his face and covered his clothes. What the hell just happened?

“You’d better get up and wipe that stuff off quickly”, said a disembodied voice behind him.

Frank rolled onto his back and sat up. The cutty was much larger then it appeared from outside. There were at least six other people he could make out in the gloom of the room which went further then he could see in the dim phosphorescent light. He gazed at the apparitions before him. They looked like ship wreck survivors with their tattered clothing and emaciated bodies. In fact the illusion was somewhat more complete due to the rocking he realized was going on. It set a squirmy discomfort in the pit of his stomach.

“What the hell is going on”, Frank asked strangely, not sure if he should be angry or frightened.

“Death”, replied a raspy female voice.

A few of the others helped Frank to his feet and cajoled him into removing his shirt and using it to clean the gunk from his face and hair. It was a slow working acidic enzyme said a man who introduced himself as Joel Pongrosse. If given enough time it would eat its way through his clothes, skin, muscle, bones. For further evidence Joel pointed toward the person Frank thought was the sixth member of their group. He or she was seated on the floor, back against the wall watching. Upon further inspection, the reason one couldn’t determine the person’s gender was because most of its face and hair was burned off as well as the legs up to the knee and arms to mid-forearm. The body sat in a small pool of its own blood that never got any larger since the slime on the ground ate it up as quickly as it oozed from the corpse.

That was all the impetus Frank needed to neither sit down nor touch the walls.

“So, how did it get you?” asked the owner of the raspy voice; an older woman who carried an oversized flowered print purse on her shoulder as if she were a prisoner at Sing Sing guarding her meal in a mess hall full of bullies.

“What do you mean?”

Salazar, the young Puerto Rican cut in, “It was a Trans-Am for me. Ron’s was a tool shed”, he jerked a finger at the decaying body and added with a chuckle, “Sheila was trapped in a port-o-potty.”

What was he talking about? It was not clicking at all for Frank. What were these people trying to say? He didn’t know anything about a Trans-Am, a tool shed, or a port-o-potty or anything else. All he trying to do was drive to work when he came across that damned boat in the middle of the road.

“A speed boat”, he whispered flatly.

The older woman’s name, fittingly enough, turned out to be Mallory which Frank happened to know derived from a French word meaning unlucky. She’d been down here the longest of those still amongst the living. Seems that purse she clutched so fiercely was filled with all sorts of goodies that have helped keep her alive. Even so, she was by far the most disheveled and scarred member of the group. Mallory was visiting her oldest daughter in Tampa when she’d decided to go for a late night walk in the beautiful October weather. She stopped by a neighbor’s garden trellis to sniff at the lovely begonias when she noticed what appeared to be a shiny gold bracelet glinting in the moonlight deep within the foliage. Mallory reached in, just so she could return it to whoever lived in the house of course, when she experienced the electric vertigo that had caused all of them to fall senseless into this pit of despair. The best that she could tell, she’d been down there nearly six weeks and had outlived everyone who was there when she’d arrived and another three who came after. One of those who’d come after was poor Sheila who had cracked from hopelessness in only a few days when Salazar had discovered her in the position she was in now, scooping the gunk off the ground and shoveling it into her mouth with glazed eyes. They imagined that she probably figured it would be a quick and painless death. Let’s just say that she was FAR from accurate on that account.

It didn’t take long for Frank to hear everyone’s story as well as their theories on where exactly they were. They basically were divided into two factions. The first was what Frank considered the religious right who believed that they were all here due to some punishment from god for their past transgressions. The second, Frank had dubbed the horror show freaks who had decided that they were in the slowly digesting belly of some huge monster. Frank didn’t think he’d done anything so bad in his life that this should be his fate and he’d also been influenced by enough B grade horror flicks growing up the monster idea almost sounded plausible. But, it was difficult to accept that one too. Either way, their prospects looked pretty grim.

After the new meat had gotten acclimated, the others pretty much left Frank to his own devices so be began poking around. Despite the decomposing body nearby as well as others far more gone the place had an antiseptic scent to it reminiscent of a hospital. He paced the entire circumference of the room which turned out to be somewhat circular and large enough that it took him a few minutes to make the trek. In random places stalagtites of acidic muck hung from the ceiling, some so large and thick they reached the ground. There were corpses in various stages of decomposition all over.

Next, Frank used a credit card to scrape the acidic slime from a small spot on the floor to see what would happen. Not much. The gooey substance returned almost immediately as if the ground itself produced it. How the hell does a person sleep in here without subjecting himself to imminent death? There has to be a way, thought Frank, as these others must have had some rest in the time they’d been here.

It wasn’t long after his efforts with the credit card, which he discarded rather then replace in his wallet (hell it was just a gas card, he could get another if he got out of this mess), that Mallory sidled up to him. He noticed she wore men’s shoes that were several sizes too large. It didn’t take too long before she explained to him how she’d been able to survive so long.

One of the wonderful objects that she kept in her purse was a semiautomatic weapon that she’d already used on several unsuspecting people. Once dead she used the bodies for various things such as protection from the acid as well as for food. The last body of her previous murder spree was no longer useful and it was time to start afresh. Her only problem was that she was out of bullets. The solution was simple, Mallory explained. The others didn’t know she had a gun at all and thus didn't know she was out of bullets. She also had a wicked bowie knife. The plan was that she would hold them at bay with the gun as he quickly slit their throats. It shouldn’t be difficult, she admitted, as she’d waited days at her own personal peril so they would be weaker and easier to bump off. Frank, who had eaten a hearty breakfast barely an hour and a half ago, should have no problem and then the two of them would have enough supplies to last until more people were collected by the nefarious monster or they found their way out.

It didn’t take Frank long to decide what he was going do. My god, he thought hefting the bowie knife in his hand and enjoying the weight of it, I am in hell.


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