Captain’s Log, U.S.S. Macabann

Tuesday February 11, 2017

Woke up this morning with a jolt: went flying off my bunk as the ship lurched sharply to starboard.   It takes a lot to pitch an old sea dog like me out on his ear, so I went topside to take a decko.

Found Walker dead at the helm, lying across the wheel, his body forcing the wheel hard starboard into the wind.   Two jagged incisor marks on the left side of his neck explained how he’d died.

Thought at first I’d have to amputate his right arm to free the wheel, since I could never lift Walker’s one-thirty kilo bulk.   But, reluctant to desecrate his poor body any further, I tried to heft him, and found the corpse only weighed eighty kilos or so, which I managed to lift with some difficulty.

Looks like I’m the captain now, so I’ve taken it upon myself to keep this log.   I notice Walker, Matthews, Anderson, and the rest in their turn haven’t put anything down about the Other.   All they’ve done is report the murders in the log as “Smith and Donaldson died last night.   Will be buried at sea today”, or “Peterson dead now, so I’ve taken over the captaincy and control of this log.”   No one has wanted to hint at the real terror that has stalked this ship, for fear of being thought mad, in the unlikely event of ever reaching port alive.

Well, I’m captain now, so it’s up to me to put into writing what has really happened aboard the U.S.S. Macabann.   Now Walker’s dead, I’m the last living man aboard this ship, and I know I won’t get back to port alive.   So I intend to faithfully report what has happened aboard this vessel over the last seven weeks or so, and you can think me mad or nor for all I care.

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I’m no helmsman, so I can’t say what our exact longitude and latitude were at the time, but we were a day or so out of Vanuatu, heading south for New Zealand, when there came a cry of, “Man overboard!”