Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (66 page)

The seas were calm today. No trawl (obviously). I’m thinking of the time when you and I went to Churchill for your sister’s wedding, and we ended up spending the weekend in the jet tub at the hotel. I miss you Maggie. God love you.

November 1. Days at sea: 15

I moved the boat. I know we weren’t supposed to, but those fuckin
zombie
fish (
There! I finally said it! and I feel like an idiot now, thanks!
) were lolling around still, swimming on their sides, or upside down. It’s like they have nowhere to go, so they just swim around the boat. Some got into the rudders, so when I started the engine I was chopping the hell out of them. Worse, they seem to not even notice the damage. I saw fish chopped in half with both sides trying to swim. I get the head, maybe, but the tail end? how is that possible?

That pod of whales is still in the area, and that has me worried. There are a couple of bulls in that pack, must be thirty feet long. There’s nothing you can do to scare
’
em off either. Looks like they’re taking me up on that easy meal.

I hope they’re fine; Maggie I remember how much you loved whale watching from the bow of the ship. Denis was actually laughing and pretending to shoot them with a harpoon gun. I told him to get his shit together. It’s going to be no end of problems with that man, I know it now. I don’t care anymore if he drops an insurance claim on me or not. I don’t have any. Let him sue me.

The hold is clean. We trawl tomorrow!

I’m expecting word from the Russians soon. I hope they brought a translator.

The seas were calm today. No trawl. Thinking of whale watching with you Maggie. I wish you could see this pod!

November 2. Days at sea 16

Two men are dead. Ray Stevens and John Kruthers. I’m not really sure what to write, but I need to write something. Lately the act of writing in this book you gave me is the only thing that’s been stable in the world. I’m a little drunk, so I apologize for the melodrama. How selfish am I? Two men with families are dead today and all I can think about is how shitty my own life is. Well, John Kruther’s wife was always a bitch, but I am still hurting for her. Nobody deserves this. Hell, I don’t deserve this either.

We were halfway through our second trawl when something got snagged in the trawling net. It was huge. It rocked the boat. Almost threw a rudder. I ordered a full stop, and we tried to raise the net. It’s not unheard of to get snagged on an underwater rock or even a wreck down there that the GPS missed. Hell, I figured that’s what it was. I was dead wrong.

We cranked the hoists and started pulling this damn net out of the water, but it was really slow going. It was coming though, so I had hope that there wasn’t too much damage to the net. That’s all I would have needed, you know? Those things are expensive to replace.

Denis saw it first. He shouted at me to come look. By the time I’d gotten to the back of the boat everyone was standing around, and I pushed through to the front. I couldn’t believe what I saw when I looked down into the blue-black Atlantic.

I swear if I hadn’t seen it myself I wouldn’t believe it.

One of those goddamn whales had pushed into the net. We couldn’t haul the thing up because it had wedged itself in there. Chasing cod maybe. Thing is, we were scraping the bottom of the ocean floor, and I’ve never heard of whales just sitting down there getting in the way. I’ve been out here over thirty years.

So the net comes up and this whale is halfway down the cod net. Just kind of sitting there. I figure the only thing we can do is turn the net and try to push him out. Otherwise we cut the lines and we are out a net. I’m still carrying the spare, but like I said, those things are expensive. Money was on my mind. So I guess that’s why I decided to be stupid instead of just cutting those lines. Now they’re dead and I’m getting drunk in my cabin.

We got the net up to surface and even managed to turn it a bit. Then the whale decided he’d had enough. His tail came up and thrashed the side of the boat. Just once. Once was enough to angle the net down and he pushed what must be twelve tons of weight toward the bottom of the ocean. Those trawl lines can’t stand up to that. They handle a ton, ton and a half at most. This was twelve tons of whale.

The cables snapped. They came back at the ship. Same time, almost identical strikes. Of course, they were both standing there as lead lines, so it’s not a surprise. Kruthers caught the damn line across the throat. Actually took his head right off. Ray Stevens, well, I’m not sure where he took his hit. It was somewhere on the chest, cuz he just grabbed at his heart like he’d been shot and toppled into the water. The whale swam away with the net. We managed to gaff Kruthers body.
His fuckin head is long gone though.
We couldn’t find anything else. There’s a mile of water under us right now.

I’m very sorry to both families.

The seas were red. The trawl is gone. I wish I was with you right now, Maggie. You’ve never felt farther away than you do right now.

November 3. Days at sea:

who gives a fuck

We’re heading home.

I’m a total failure. I’m sorry everyone. I’m sorry for the dead men. I’m sorry Maggie. I’m not sorry to you, Robert Denis. You’re still an arrogant prick. And I know it was you smoking pot in the lower deck, I just can’t prove it. Lucky for you we’re leaving. I’ll drop your ass in a hundred feet of Canadian water and you can swim to shore.

As an added punishment for this damned trip, the sperm whales are sick. It was those goddamned fish. You know there are still a couple swimming around the boat? Denis gaffed one and tossed it on board for shits and giggles. The damn thing was still flopping on the deck some four hours later. FOUR HOURS. It was missing scales, and its eyes was all milky white. It is a dead fish. I swear my life on this. And after we tossed it in the water it just swam in a lazy little circle. Its air bladder must have been totally full of air, because it couldn’t straighten itself out no matter how hard it tried.

But the whales ate those dead fish, and now they are all sick. I could see them rolling on the surface all day. That’s a sure sign of a sick whale. God, this area is like a damn charnel pit. Everything is either dead or dying.

So we’re going home. Maybe if they don’t take my boat we’ll have a chance to go out one more time before it gets too cold. If they do take my boat, well, I’ll spend the winter getting drunk. Maybe take a walk in the snow and look for you, Maggie. You never know, I might be able to find you yet.

The sea was dead today. Trawling is out of the question. I love you Maggie. I’m coming home.

November 5. Days at sea: -

The Russians sent some kind of military ship to deal with us. We’ve been stopped for about two hours now. They were already aboard and looked over the rig. Thankfully the soldiers speak English, so we can understand what they want when they point their fuckin’ rifles at us. The Captain had me aboard to discuss exactly what I had seen. He wouldn’t tell me what was in the barrels. He claims he doesn’t know anything, but I know he’s lying about that.

I told him about the fish and the sick whales. He responded by turning their 12.7mm DShk guns on the damn things. Double machine guns. The noise was terrific. There was whale meat everywhere. If it hadn’t been for all the shit that’s been going on here the last week or so, I might have actually been upset about seeing that. I know you would have, Maggie. There was some-thing awful about those whales though. I swear. They were turning, just like the fish.

The soldiers are leaving now, so we might be able to get underway in a bit. I’ll come back later and finish this

November 6ish.

I can’t believe I found this. It’s some kind of fate.

The Russians didn’t want to help. They turned those fuckin’ guns on us the minute the last soldier left the ship. There were holes everywhere. We took on water so fast...

The Aurora Brite is gone to the bottom of the ocean.

Everyone is dead, as far as I can tell. I’m stuck in this stupid orange emergency boat out on the high sea. I WILL die out here. I had to smash my emergency beacon in case the Russians picked it up and swung back for another go.

I had the book in my hands when they opened fire. I guess in my panic I managed to hold onto it. I should count myself grateful: I now have something to do to take my mind off the fact that I am four hundred miles away from shore. The emergency boat has a built in water filter underneath me somewhere, so I’m good there, and I have a stack of protein crackers to eat. I also have a little orange hood to keep the sun off my head.

It’s the vacation I always wanted, I tell you!

Now when the Russians come back they’ll have a nice orange target to shoot at, and they can blow my fucking head off and end this sad joke of a life once and for all.

For the record, I’m sad the Aurora Brite is lost but it wasn’t my boat to lose. the bank was going to take it when we docked, full hold or not. Fish money would have helped stave them off for one more trip, maybe two, but so what? What would have happened when the season was over?

Now, when the bank asks, I can tell them to come find it. Maybe they’ll run into the Russians too. Ahh, I’m such an idiot for calling those barrels in!

Am I sad about losing my crew? I suppose I am. They didn’t deserve their fates. Even the Frenchman, who I couldn’t stand. I’m sure he has a family somewhere who misses him even now. truth is, so little of my heart wasn’t broken by you Maggie. I miss you so much that I can’t begin to add to the pain with the loss of mere men. Employees. My heart is a cup filled over with tears for you, my love.

That’s poetic. I think you would have liked that, but I think you would have slapped my arm and told me how silly I was. I bet you would have smiled though.

In my mind you are frozen as you were that Sunday we went to church, with your little blue and white dress. That’s how I choose to remember you. But there is another you, lurking in my nightmares, the you that is bald and frail and sickly; the you that vomits on yourself because you are too weak to turn your head.

If God made all things, then He made your cancer, and he took you from me, and I will curse him when I see him. I fantasize about burning churches, so when they ask me why I can tell them, “I am mad at God. I rage because he crushed my life.”

The Sea is my grave. I’m going to be with you soon, my love.

November.

Those whales surfaced today.

I’d resigned myself to a long agonizing death. I wasn’t going to write again, but the whales surfaced.

One of them is about twenty feet from my raft. God, he stinks to high Hell! I can see the oozing bullet holes along the length of his body. he becomes visible everytime the sun ducks behind a cloud. His huge white eyes blindly staring back and forth, as though he’s hunting something nearby. It’s probably me. Maybe he can smell me, but he can’t see me.

He’s just like those fish. I knew it. I fucking KNEW IT HOLY CHRIST YOUWULD NOT BELEVE IT MAGGIE.

I need to calm down. just looking at that huge, rotted thing, rolling over in the water like some giant piece of shit floating in a toilet bowl ... it makes my chest flutter. I’m going to go insane watching this dead thing try to swim around. It’s just so big.

It just blew its blowhole. I puked on my raft. The smell inside is so much worse. A spout of black slime and blood and meat chunks blew from the top of the whale, out into the water. like he’d just blown his brains all over himself. It reminded me of Cancer Maggie, a little. the sick girl I hate to think about.

Thought: if these are zombie whales, and that big bastard just blew his brains out, shouldn’t he stop moving now?

Well he isn’t.

He rolls over, shows me his belly, then flops back to right side up. sometimes he swims on his side. a little while ago, he nearly sank. Only the tip of his head was visible in the water. Like he was coming straight up from the bottom of the ocean. Shit. I’d drown myself but I’m terrified to get into the water with that thing nearby. I can see him grabbing ahold of my leg and dragging me to the bottom of the ocean.

I’ll be long dead by then. the speed he swims, it could take hours to get down there. Plus the weight of the water down there, and the cold ... and the black. Glowing fish monsters and giant squid are all you find down there. And me, with my leg stuck in some damn whale.

I need to stop for a while. I’m losing it. The sea is fuck you God today. Kill me please.

November.