The long boat was no on the port side. Hands rotted and fetid with decay reached out and grasped the side of Grissom’s vessel. The smell of their decay threatened to overwhelm him. He saw odious flesh fall from a hand with a sickening plop.

             Grissom screamed with stark white terror and crawled back as far toward the bow as possible.

            Two sailors, damned, climbed into Grissom’s craft.

            Grissom snarled at them with the sound of a feral animal.

            “Weee’rrrreee hhheeerrreee tooo heeelp yooouuu,” one said through a mouth of scum and filth.

            “Get back! I am a Christian man!” Grissom bellowed.

            “Yeeesss,” the other said.

            The second dead sailor backed away as Grissom drew a wicked dagger from his belt.

            It perplexed Grissom for a moment. Then, he realized with mounting joy that his knife must have been blessed somehow! “God be with me!” He shouted.

            Like a lion, he leapt forward grabbing the nearest dead man and driving his dagger through its rotted chest. He screamed in rage and hurled the dead man at the long boat that now backed away. The other dead man pushed the carcass of his mate away and swam for the long boat.

            Grissom screamed in triumph as the Styx hauled the long boat up and the ship sailed passed.

            He howled and thrust his fist up in the air feeling his glory. Grissom began to paddle away…

            …The sailors climbed back aboard the whaling vessel in shock.

            “Wot the hell happened?” Bellowed Captain Manhue.

            “Don’t know sir. He’s touched in the head. Killed Jones and we backed away. Should we go back for him?”  One shaken sailor said licking his lips nervously.

            “Naw, hangin’ to good for that sot. Helmsman hard ta port.”

THE END