Night Terrors Vol. 7: Short Horror Stories Anthology

A Sinking Feeling

By Warren Benedetto

“How long before help comes?” Andrei asked.

The two of us were sitting on a sodden mattress that was semi-submerged under the water. It wasn’t exactly a life raft, but it was buoyant enough to keep us somewhat dry. Without the mattress, we’d be in the water up to our necks. With it, the water was only up to our ribs.

I glanced at Andrei. Wet hair stuck to his face in thick, matted strips that looked like rotting seaweed. Beads of water clung to his spiny, rust-colored beard. The chattering of his teeth reminded me of the clicking of Scrabble tiles in a velvet bag.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “A few hours? They’ll probably need to wait until the sun is up.”

“But they’ll come, right?”

I nodded. “They’ll come.” I tried to sound more certain than I was.

The ship had an emergency beacon, that much I knew. When triggered, it was supposed to send a distress signal, along with GPS coordinates and a bunch of other data that could be used to help locate the damaged vessel. If it worked, help should be on the way. If it worked. In the meantime, we were on our own.

I have no idea what hit us. We were asleep when it happened. Both of us were thrown from our bunks, sliding across the suddenly slanted floor and crashing painfully into the opposite wall. I managed to stand and stumble over piles of fallen debris toward the cabin door. Before opening it, I paused to peer through the peephole into the hallway. It was a good thing I did. Otherwise, we’d be dead.

An irregular gash, maybe 15 feet long, was gouged through the hull right outside our cabin. A torrent of water the color of graphite foamed in through the breach, transforming the narrow hallway into rapids that roared angrily toward the front of the ship. My stomach cartwheeled when I saw it. The ship was nose-down. It was taking on water at an incredible rate. That could mean only one thing: we were sinking.

The descent was quick. At first, I could hear the screams of others in my crew echoing through the ship, overlapping with the sounds of rushing water and rending metal. Some were begging for help. Others seemed to be praying. Others wailed inconsolably. Then, one by one, each of them fell silent. Even after the screams ended, there was still some banging, metal on metal, as if someone was hitting a wrench against a pipe. The pattern was unmistakable: S-O-S. Soon, that, too, subsided, growing weaker and weaker until it tapered off to nothing.

Andrei and I called for help until our voices were raw. After a while, we lapsed into silence as well. There was no use wasting our breath. We were too far gone. We both sat quietly on the crooked floor, each of us lost in our thoughts, waiting for the end to come.

I mostly thought about my mother. She was an addict who used to go missing for days on end, taking off with whoever was supplying drugs to her at the time. She’d stumble home for a few days, burn a quesadilla or two in a halfhearted attempt at mothering, then disappear again.

Nighttime was the worst. I’d sit in the dark for hours, huddled on the filthy mattress in our tiny one-room apartment, waiting for her to return. I always left the door unlocked in case she forgot to bring her keys. As I grew older, her absences grew longer. Hours turned to days, and days turned into weeks. Eventually, I started locking the door again.

A few months after I last saw her, I found out she had OD’d in a hotel room in Arizona, 350 miles from home. The police found her with a needle in her arm and a baby in her belly.

I was twelve.

I guess my mind went there because it was the last time that I remember feeling so scared and alone. I had the same sense of being completely powerless. There were no good options. No good outcomes. No matter what I might do, I was doomed.

The funny thing is, I was wrong about that. I turned out all right. I moved in with my grandmother, finished high school, took some community college classes, and ultimately ended up finding a life as a ship’s cook.

I knew being at sea was risky. Intellectually, that made sense. But I never felt like I was really in danger. There were some close calls, sure, some wicked storms that made me puke on my shoes, but I always felt like, ultimately, everything was under control. Until we sank, that is.

When the ship hit bottom, I was sure I was dead. The hull let out a mournful groan that sounded like a whale song. Then, there was a series of bangs, one after the other, like a ten-car pileup on the freeway. A second later, the whole room turned upside down, sending Andrei and me tumbling ass over elbows. It was like being in a snow globe thrown from an airplane.