sailor!”
I woke with a start!
“What the hell are you doing back there?” It was Taylor, and he was wide-eyed, alive, breathing the cold ocean air without a moment’s pause—as if the notion of being dead the night before would have seemed a preposterous one, had I brought it up.
“Found some raingear, eh?” He turned and walked back toward the galley. “Good! You can be our baiter then.”
I felt the sudden urge to release my bowels. Had I become a madman? Was I insane? The ability to process this astounding, unending nightmare seemed an impossible task. My mind flailed. “Their baiter?” I whispered into the wind.
Minutes later, the others came out, and before long, the crewmembers were working the deck, getting ready to pick up pots.
“Hey, bait-boy!” Taylor shouted. “Get to work already! We’re coming up on the gear!”
Unsure as to what the consequence for disobedience would entail, I stumbled out from my hide.
“That a boy,” Taylor said, pointing to the bait table on the port side of the boat.
Walking past the man, I did a double take after spotting that yellow goo smeared across his right cheek. My hands trembled violently in response. I must be going insane, I thought.
At the bait table, I took a deep breath. I had done this job a thousand times before, and insane or not, I’d work on autopilot as I considered how to escape this hell. And I would stay out of their way in the process.
But now, and to my complete wonder, the bait table was empty. I turned and walked toward the engine room door. On a normal vessel, with a normal crew, there would be twenty-five-pound boxes of frozen herring stored in freezers down below. I found the freezers, but they too were empty. Baffled, I went back up on deck. How could I be the baitboy if there wasn’t any bait? I saw the bait jars—a few dozen or so hung on a wire across the bait table—but there appeared to be nothing to fill them with.
“Hey, where’s the bait?” I asked one of the deckhands. And again, I got that dead response: the shrug of the shoulders, the broken eye contact.
A crab pot ascended onto the launching table with a clamor of noise, and two men grabbed it with dull weariness—as if they had been doing this task for all of eternity.
It was absent of crab, of course, but I did my job nonetheless. When the captain commanded us to ‘put her back in,’ I climbed into the pot and replaced the empty bait jar with a different empty bait jar. I climbed out, helped tie the door shut, and then watched as the pot went over the side once again. Then I looked at their faces—they were distant, remote. I looked at the immeasurable, gray sea. I looked up at the wheelhouse…
The purest form of madness was here for my taking.
* * * *
Twice, we dined on stale bread and strips of beef jerky in the course of the grim day. The crew consumed this food in silence, like dumb cattle, and then moved back outside with a mindless shuffle. And in the cold Alaskan air, we hauled our gear. I hung empty bait jars into pots. I coiled wayward rope and cleaned the boat to make myself look busy, as my mind wrestled for a means of salvation. I observed the crew as they bustled about on deck. And always, I looked out toward the sea. Without pause, I would have leapt into the icy waters and swam for any vessel or shoreline on the horizon. I would have killed for such an opportunity.
But to my anxious dread, the day slowly came to an end. It was the evening that lurked on the horizon now, and I wondered what this would mean. I thought about the night before. And as the first stars appeared in the amethyst sky above, I was quick to make myself a shadow amongst the outer edges of the boat. I hid.
And sure enough—they died.
* * * *
With soft footsteps, I skulked my way to the wheelhouse via the side railing. I avoided the main compartments—the galley, ready-room, and staterooms—where I knew the others lied in death, yet in wait. And when I reached the wheelhouse, I looked through the side door window and spotted the captain, once again in his chair. Like before, his eyes were staring at the paneling above.
My heart sank, as I had hoped to find him at best, dead on the floor. But he was in his chair, and because of this, it would be difficult, if not impossible for me to take control of the ship.
I went back down on deck and decided to brave the interior. I was hopelessly tired, hungry, and cold. My clothes were damp. My thoughts were floundering through depression, searching for a way to escape this hell. Bait-boy for life? Perhaps even for all of eternity, once I finally died myself.
I realized I needed a cohesive plan. I went down into the engine room, found a dark corner to hide in, and waited. I stirred over my situation and its incredible absurdity. I was a prisoner on an aberrant ship with a supply of aberrant men who slaved mindlessly throughout the day…only to die at night. Yet in their death, they could also wake.
At last, it would be a few more days of relentless hell before I put together a plan. And on the fifth night aboard the Aleutian Whisper, I was prepared to set this plan in motion. I thought hard about what I needed to do, and I prayed for the courage and strength to carry out my will the following day. I would begin during the lull of picking up and dropping gear. My timing would need to be perfect, of course.
* * * *
Gray, for as far as the eye could see. The boundless ocean that surrounded us was cast in this dull shade of maniacal terror. And the heavens above, sheets of muted silver as they were, only mocked my torment—a torment consisting of nothing but gray.
This was how it looked aboard the Aleutian Whisper the following afternoon when that lull I’d been waiting for finally presented itself. I had to be quick, while the men dawdled on deck, preparing for our next set of gear a few miles away.
“Gotta use the restroom,” I said, passing Taylor on my way to the cabin. He nodded, and then I opened the door and crept into the ready-room. My knees were limp with fear, and my mouth dry with the taste of a rising conflict looming on the horizon. This was the hour—but could I go through with my plan?
From the wheelhouse, the radio was playing Elvis Presley’s, All Shook Up. I found the irony unnerving, but took advantage of the radio volume to dampen my climb up the steps. Absently, my hand went to the pocket of my coat. It was still there.
Captain Bailey sat in his chair, as usual, staring at the open sea. From his peripheral vision, he could have spotted me. I was prepared for this, but to my enormous luck, he turned away starboard side.
I tiptoed up the final steps and took a position behind the man. I stood less than a foot away, holding my breath. Could I really do this?
I doubted myself, actually. I was on the verge of giving up, but then, amazingly, to the far horizon, I spotted land! It was all I needed, the final push up that hill of terror. Quietly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ice pick I’d found earlier. I stared at the back of Bailey’s head. I took notice of his defectively thin hair, but more importantly, of his shiny, bald scalp. I took notice of the skin and skull, as it stared back at me, leering, laughing, whispering that forever more, I’ll be a prisoner on this ship. Bait-boy for life…
“AAAHHHHH!” From the crux of my scream came a mighty blow to the back of that head! And with the sound of a crashing melon,
