ChapterTen
Brea
Something woke me. I wasn't sure what it was at first because when I opened my eyes it was inky black around me. Which was odd because when I went to bed I made sure to leave the door to the bathroom cracked with the light on, because dark in this ship wasnota good mix.
“Ben?” I hissed quietly since after the last investigation I’d gone to bed with him after calling it an earlier night than usual. There was something here with me, I could feel it, but I couldn’t tell who… or what, it was.
That was also the moment I realized I was no longer in my bed. My hand reached over to touch his side and wake him only to find cold metal underneath me.
“What the hell? Where am I?” I asked out loud. My words echoed in the room but there was still no reply, and definitely no Ben. Even he wasn’t that deep of a sleeper.
With a bit more panic rising in my chest I pushed myself off of the floor. I groaned, body stiff from the uncomfortable position. How the fuck did I not realize it right away? The cold, hardness should have been a dead giveaway that I wasn’t in bed.
I needed to walk, to figure this out, but I couldn’t quite make myself take a step forward. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything, even the emergency lights that generally lined the halls were gone. If not for the sway of the boat and the groaning metal I’d become used to, I wouldn’t even know I was still on board.
It was impossible to tell how long I internally debated with myself, but a light flickered on and the room came to life, stopping me. Engines roared to life around me and the overhead light was suddenly so blinding I had to blink rapidly to adjust to it. As my eyes got used to the harsh lighting I realized I was in the mechanical room… which meant I was on the lower level of the ship. I couldn’t make sense of half of the equipment here or what their uses were, but between the scaffolding above and the large engines around me, I felt tiny in comparison.
But how the hell did I end up here?
“Guys?!” I yelled out louder this time. My voice echoed even with the cacophony around me but there was yet again, no response.
Now that I could see the path and an open door, I started to move. I paused as I realized every step I took was followed by footsteps that were not my own. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I felt dizzy. I’ve done a whole lot of ghost hunting alone, but there’s a huge difference between waking up in a strange place and choosing to go in with equipment and my followers with me in spirit.
The footsteps continued, speeding up so they were right in front of me. Finally I stopped, glancing at the empty room with wild eyes.
“What do you want?” I asked quietly.
Just as I attempted another step, something pitched me to the side. It was almost like a gust of wind had picked me up and slammed me down so I sprawled out on the floor. But the only issues were that not a single hair on my head was ruffled, there was no breeze in this place, nor was the ship shifting around. Everything in the room around me was still.
“Fuck,” I gasped, pulling myself back up and sprinting for the door. The moment I reached the hall the door slammed behind me, cutting off the intense light with it. “Guess I was not wanted. Not like I asked to be there.”
When in doubt, go for snark, right?
But apparently whatever was stalking me wasn’t done with me yet. I was pitched to the side again, though the hall was so narrow I simply slammed into the wall. The moment my skin touched the cold weathered metal, my hands tingled and a chilling sensation washed over me. At some point I’d closed my eyes stubbornly, but when I opened them, I was no longer in the present. Now was not a good time for a vision of the past since I was completely alone, but I had no way to stop it, or get myself out.
Sailors rushed around me, heading for the door I’d just passed through. Beyond it they were frantically trying to fix the smoking engines and shouting out orders. Or I assumed they were orders. This flashback was off, something distorting it so it sounded more like they were yelling under the water, incoherent and garbled.
Even if I couldn’t understand them, the emotion in the lower deck was intense enough I could pick out every single one. Panic clawed its way up my throat so it was hard to breathe. My chest tightened with true fear, icy and defeating as it overwhelmed me.
Another group of sailors rushed past, slamming into me. Even though I couldn’t feel it, the contact threw me out of the vision. Readjusting to reality was disorienting but I was too shaken to stand still for long.
“I have to get out of here,” I reminded myself as I willed my feet to start moving. “Guys!” Again I was met with silence. It was an unnerving silence too; there should have been the creaking of the ship and the crashing of waves beyond the walls, but there was nothing.
Lights flickered above me, and at first I froze, expecting something else to happen. Yet nothing did. The next flash of light I was on the move, using those fleeting moments of clarity to find my way. This time my steps were not quiet and measured, they were fast as I ran down the hall, frantically pulling on doors to find the ladder to the upper decks.
The moment I found it, I hurriedly managed to scale it without hurting myself, relief flooding me when I stepped onto the floor. It was just as quiet as the eerie silence I’d just left, but the emergency lights were working, lighting up the dim hall enough I could make out the doors beyond. The downside was that my surroundings were completely unfamiliar. I was always with the guys onboard, relying on their guidance to navigate, so I hadn’t taken the time to study the blueprints of the ship and had only been to the upper lodging areas and above deck at this point. I was literally flying blind directionally and visually.
But standing here was not an option so I forged ahead. The entire time I tried to find another ladder I couldn’t help but mull over how fucked up it was that I didn’t remember how I got down there in the first place. In general I was a light sleeper, and even my guys couldn’t have carried me somewhere without me having some vague memory of it. Yet I remembered nothing. We did a quick question and answer session, then…
Nothing.
I knew I had gone to sleep with Ben, but nothing else after that to give me any clues as to how I’d gotten to the underbelly of the ship. My memory was blank.What the actual fuck is going on here?!
Every night we'd been here there had been some sort of whispering or yelling to the point we'd almost been desensitized to it. I guess the specters decided to step up their game.
“This way.” The words were barely more than a whisper but I heard them clearly since it was still unnaturally quiet in this hall. My steps halted and I froze at the sound, turning slowly, trying to find the source of the voice.
Down the hall a door creaked open on its own, light spilling out into the hallway and flickering to get my attention.