Stowaway

            I was on the lower decks doing peoples laundry for them when we were preparing to pull into port in Thailand. Nearly all five thousand people aboard the carrier were looking forward to their time ashore on what the navy considers to be one of the best party ports in the world. I, however, was considering staying safe on the ship. I didn’t have to stay aboard you understand, it was a choice. Hell, I wasn’t supposed to be on the aircraft carrier in the first place.

            When I was in the navy, I contracted some kind of nasty virus while I was deployed in Africa. The doctors never did figure out just what the virus was, but it damn near drove me mad. My symptoms were first coma for two weeks, then hallucinations with multiple psychosomatic injuries appearing on my body. This happened when I believed I was being attacked by the monsters that I was hallucinating.  The problem was, that they were not hallucinations. They were dead people. Everywhere I turned, I was running into ghosts who wanted nothing more than to not be seen by me. The feelings were mutual, but see them I did. When I began to see them, I would stare slack jawed in awe and disgust, and they gave me the same in return. I quickly decided to try talking to one of them. The one I tried to contact was a woman who looked like she had escaped from a world war two movie about nurses. As soon as she realized that it was her that I was addressing, her face grew dark and monstrous as she leapt at me. I received a black eye, broken rib, and several lacerations around my face, arms and neck. I’m sure she could have killed me as the punches I threw back her way passed right threw her. I was saved when she simply vanished. I have been attacked several times like that and each time they dissipate before they can land any truly deadly blows on me. I only wish that I knew why that was, so that I might be able to be rid of them before they so much as touch me. The only thing I found that worked on the nasty little buggers is salt. It beats the hell out of me why it works, but it does as good a job as the cheese ball television show I got the idea from said it would.

            It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that if I continued to let them know that I could see them, I would continue getting beatings. If I continued getting beatings, I would wind up in the loony bin. If I ended up there my life would loose all meaning. I learned to ignore them when I was out and salt my self into my room when I was home. I of course got kicked out of the navy for medical reasons, and my disability check was nice; but I couldn’t go on like this. I was seeing the ghosts of every man, woman, and child who had ever walked the earth, and that made this little planet of ours a very crowded place. I tried on several occasions to fallow one of them to see where they went and what they did, but I could never pull off my detective bit without being seen and getting battered like an onion ring. After five months, I had had enough and had to do something about it. I had heard that they couldn’t cross water, and that turned out to be a crock, but it occurred to me that they wouldn’t be able to pass through salt water. I applied for every job on every cruise ship, but was turned down for them all due to my ‘mental illness’. I was getting desperate so I finally decided to pull out my old uniforms and stow away on an aircraft carrier.

            Getting on wasn’t a problem at all. I still had my valid ID and uniforms, so all I needed to do was pack my gear and waltz right on. Once aboard I only had to pick a berthing to sleep in and think of ways to remain anonymous. On a ship holding upwards of five thousand people it wasn’t difficult. I chose to live in a berthing occupied by an aircraft squadron and told all of them that I was a member of ships company and needed to stay with them due to over flow. They bought it completely. I also came to realize that it was a blessing that I had been a second class petty officer. That pay grade is high enough that I didn’t risk being put to work by random assholes, and low enough that no one expected me to be responsible for anything. The draw back of my little plan was that I had no way of gaining access to mail, email, internet, or a telephone, leaving me completely disconnected from my old life. On the upside, I had all day and night to do what I pleased, and three meals a day. Four if I stayed up light enough. Most importantly, no ghosts. My days and nights were spent wandering the decks, reading, working out, and doing peoples laundry for five bucks a bag for some extra money when I needed it. It was boring and lonely, but it sure beat the alternative.

           

            When we hit Hawaii after a three week stint, I decided to get off and enjoy the island. I made it as far as the docks when I saw crowds of the dead milling about so I tucked tail and made my way back to the safety of the ship. I spent a lot of time those three days watching the ghosts from the safety of the ship. They were all moving from place to place passing right through the living, but looking out to not bump into one another. I would pick one in particular to track their progress in the hopes that I could learn what they were up to but came up with nothing. They seemed to have purpose, being as they would acknowledge one another long enough to avoid contact, and they moved with determination from one spot to another. It was almost as though they were searching for something, or standing a watch as the sailors on my ship do. It was beyond me at any rate, so I gave it no more thought when we pulled out of port.

            In a way, it was somewhat nice living this life. I was beginning to make acquaintances that were in risk of becoming friendships, and I had all day and night to do as I pleased. Most people on the cruise complained about being cooped up on the ship, but I rather enjoyed it. I didn’t have any where else I needed to be and no one to answer to, so I’d almost say it was the perfect life for me.  I still tried to avoid watching non animated television shows and movies because the ghosts who filled the screen were far to distracting to let me get into it. There was one exception to this rule however. Crossing Over with John Edwards. I was watching that show because that’s what everyone was watching in the berthing that day, and I finally got to see a ghost who wasn’t acting completely pre occupied. This ghost appeared to be a man of about seventy, but it’s hard to tell when their dead. The old man’s ghost was screaming at John as he gave his cold readings to the suckers in the audience.

“Damn it you bastard! That’s my daughter Megan sitting right in front of you! Tell her that her dad Michael is here!”

John simply continued, “I’m getting an ‘A’, did someone loose someone named Adam? Arnold? Alex? Aurora?”

To my and Michaels surprise respectively, a woman sitting behind Megan shouted out, “My uncle Jim and I used to watch the northern lights! He loved the Aurora borealis!”

“That’s him!” John stated with a look of relief.

I watched Michael walk away from john with his head down even as I walked away from the television set. I remember thinking to myself that I should take over johns show so I could get it right. Then I thought about the beatings that the ghosts had given me.

            About a month after that was when we were pulling into Thailand. I waited for most of the real sailors to get off the ship before I got in line to disembark myself. I felt like I needed some time on dry land and I figure I would be able to ignore the ghosts well enough for them to not notice me noticing them. I felt that the worst case scenario would be for me to get a beating and run back to the boat. I set off feeling optimistic and cheerful as I looked around the tropical winter wonderland. It seemed like as good a place as any to spend Christmas. There were ghosts, but not nearly so many as I would have expected based on my experience. In fact, the only ghosts I saw were those of children and they seemed to be playing games with one another. I caught a cab and had the driver take me to a hotel not to far from the beaches. On the ride I looked over some tourest brochures until I arrived, checked in, and made it to my room with no trouble at all. It was when I looked outside my twelfth story window that my heart sank, and my blood ran cold. Looking inland, I could see literally tens of thousands of the dead souls embraced arm in arm. It looked almost like a hellish version of Hands Across America. As I watched them standing statue like, I couldn’t even guess at what their purpose was. I my self was like a statue in my hotel room as I watched them standing arm in arm. It didn’t take me very long to decide that I should head immediately back to the ship where I would be safer eating slimy turkey as my Christmas dinner alone in the galley.

            When the taxi I was riding back to the ship in began nearing the wall of ghosts, I put my head down and stared into my lap so that I might pass through them undetected. Once past however I had to turn around and look back. As I did so, I saw a dozen of the ghouls had turned around to stare at me as we sped away. Just before turning a corner in the taxi I watched the dozen that had turned plus ten more break free from their chain and give chase. I begged the driver to step on it or I was liable to use his cab as a toilet. In the interest of his cars cleanliness we made good time back to the docks where I threw a more than ample wad of cash up front with the driver and made a beeline for the ship. Once aboard I headed topside to see if the ghosts had managed to catch up with me but spotted only one. I had no way of knowing weather or not it was one that had chased me, but it did seem to be staring up at the carrier like it was looking for something or someone in particular. I watched for a few minutes as it walked up and down the pier looking until finally it’s eyes locked with mine and it stopped walking. As it stared at me, it signaled for me to head back down pier side with the international ‘come here’ gesture. I stood, stared, and shook my head ‘no’. It then pointed in the direction of the hotel I had left, then it stuck its would-be thumb to its would-be throat and did the international ‘your dead’ slicing gesture. I didn’t move. Finally it did one that surprised me. It shrugged, shook it’s head, and turned to walk off stopping once to look over it’s shoulder at me and give me the finger before moving on. I hadn’t a clue as to what to make of that. I waited to see more, but when it  was out of sight I headed below decks for my Christmas eve dinner.

           

            Christmas morning was full of the hung over sailors returning to the ship and preparing to head back out. After five hours of boarding and preparations we heaved off and set back out to sea on rout to Hong Kong. It was a lonely and uneventful Christmas day, but at least I didn’t have to worry about ghosts of Christmas past, resent, or future ruining my mundane festivities. As I said, Christmas that year was boring as can be. The day after on the other hand was something else altogether.

            We woke up to the call to General Quarters. The entire ship was instantly alive with activity as each person rushed up and down the ladders and passage ways to their assigned posts. I had chosen my post to be the central galley where there were enough people that I would seem invisible amongst them and escape the head count. Once in place the Skipper made an announcement. It seems that in the night a tsunami had rocketed through the Indian Ocean smashing nations as it made landfall. The beach that many of the crew had spent the weekend on, where my hotel had been, was one of many locations that had simply and tragically been wiped clean of life. Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Thailand all took more losses than anyone could count as of yet. It had been decided that our ship would be returning to the area to offer whatever assistance we could to the people in need. It blew my mind how many people were against the idea. It was beyond me how anyone could not care, or want to help nations that had just been so horribly devastated regardless of political and religious differences. Fortunately for the giants waves survivors, these selfish fools were not the ones making the decisions.

            As we got into the waters most of us were left speechless. There were houses, furniture, trees, bushes, and a horrid number of bodies of men women and children floating about. There was evidence of massive destruction everywhere we looked. I could see that for many people the sights and smells were horrid, but I assure you that for me it was worse. With every floating body, I could see an attached spirit suffering and screaming as they struggled to free themselves of the torturous salt water. I had assumed that anyone who died in the ocean would automatically be set on the closest landmass like a character in a video game being regenerated. I was wrong. I was also now sure that even ghosts could feel very real fear and pain. When I heard that we wouldn’t be picking up any of the bodies I was at first shocked that we would leave them floating. The reason behind it was that we had nowhere to keep them all, and that they would probably be major carriers of disease from floating in the sea and being nipped at by sharks and fish. I was overall relieved however because I had no interest in these ghosts invading my sanctuary at sea.

           

            Unfortunately, my sanctuary was invaded by every spirit attached to every body that our steel vessel collided with. They still weren’t entirely functional as far as ghosts go on this ship that was surrounded by all salt and no land. I kept my distance as they wandered the passageways crying and looking for their loved ones. It was at that moment I decided that when I could get off this ship I would find my self a house somewhere in Salt Lake City. There had to be few of these miserable creatures there with all the salt in the soil. When we pulled into port back in Thailand, I watched as all of the souls we had picked up fled to the shore. Then my heart nearly stopped when I saw the ghost that had been gesturing me on Christmas Eve work its way up the ramp to come aboard. What I had thought to be impossible was now happening. I ran as quickly as I could down to the bowels of the ship where there was nothing more than storage space below the waterline. I knew it was looking for me, and I prayed that it wouldn’t be able to come down here beneath millions of gallons of heavy water. Just incase, I broke into the storage room to steal myself a container of the galleys table salt.

            In accordance with what was appearing to be a new habit, the impossible happened. The ghost made its way down the ladders to where I hid. It, as it turned out, was a she. She was a younger ghost, perhaps in her twenties, and had an almost Nordic look to her. I figured that she must have died here as a tourist, and a beautiful one at that. She stopped short with only a few steps to go when she spied the salt I was holding at the ready.

“No need for that,” she said, gesturing at my ridiculous weapon, “I only want to inform you that you are known here now. We tried to warn you to warn others, but you’re a coward. Your failure to warn them got them all killed.”

As she spoke, more and more ghosts joined her lining the stairs waiting for me to lower my salt. I poured salt onto the ground and made my way back deeper into the storage room.

            Several hours passed before our stalemate came to an end. I recall them rushing me from the stairs, and I remember taking several blows before the blackness set in. When I woke up I was in more pain than I would have thought possible. I felt like every inch of my body was being squeezed and I was burning as though I had been dipped in acid. I crawled to the steps and slowly made my assent up ladder after ladder until I reached the galley. It was apparently lunch or dinner time judging by the massive line for food. I backed away from the crowds and tried to work my way to medical. I was feeling better already, but I knew that I was still in bad shape. I could barley move my feet and each breath had to be forced. No one seemed to care about me enough to offer a hand, which wasn’t that unusual on a ship this size, and I was already exhausted so I sat at a table to catch my breath and rest for a minute. Two guys, a seaman and a third class petty officer were in mid conversation when they sat at my table. The third class sat next to me, and the seaman across from him.

“Yea, I heard that he was all kinds of tore up. They wouldn’t even have know who he was if he hadn’t had his ID in his pocket.”

“He was Ships Company, wasn’t he?” the seaman asked.

“Well that’s the messed up thing. They found out that he got kicked out of the navy a while ago. I guess and was just kind of squatting on the ship.”

Why would anyone want to live on this boat if they didn’t have to?”

“Beats me, but I guess he must have made some enemies to get beat down like that.”

I was getting pretty curious about what they were talking about when a third person joined in with their own question, “Who has enemies?” he asked as he set his tray down and sat across from me. It dawned on me then that I knew exactly who they were talking about. I knew…