Day Four: Midday

Forgive my shaky hand, but this has been a morning I have never seen the likes of. I went down to the boat just before dawn. There was barely enough light to see and I figured that would give me enough coverage. It was dead calm and clouds were thick. That combined with the heat and humidity made it feel like a June walk through the cotton fields near Dad’s house.

When I got to within ten feet the overpowering stench hit me in the face. It was rotting garbage plus some mixture of pus and the shits that you get after eating bad Mexican food. Most of the desire I had to get onboard left, but I had to know what the situation was and to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

I had no flashlight (they hadn’t been that nice) but I was sure that the windows to the salon would let in enough dirty gray light to be of some help. The knife tucked in my belt for safety, I climbed over the railing on the port side as that was closest to the sand.

The smell probably got worse as I got closer to the door leading down but my sense of smell had been overpowered to the point where it was tolerable. I approached the small door leading down. There was nothing to see on the deck. All traces of what I would see below had been washed away in the storm.

I gripped the handle with my left hand and resisting the urge to jerk I opened it as quietly as possible, the knife ready in my other hand. I was right about the light. It painted the carnage in shades of gray. Oh, the blood was black enough, the nature of that made evident by the body parts lying around like children’s toys.

I had managed to keep the bile down to that point and I continued to hang on until I could get to the starboard and puke. I had killed and I had stolen, but this was something beyond any hardening I had achieved.

Once I was done I saw the crater. Alright so maybe crater is too big a word, but something heavy had dropped off of this side of the boat and judging by the footprints it was a person. And one healthy enough to survive a good drop and a fifty yard run to the woods.

I gathered myself quickly and ran up to the open pilothouse. All of the electronics had been smashed by a table leg I found on the floor. The length of wood was heavily scarred by the use and caked with blood. Everything pointed to me having some new company and judging by what I saw here, it was probably the bad kind.

Not knowing if this individual could see me and hoping that he or she had continued to run deep into the island I went back to my little roost and stayed there until I had wits enough about me to write this whole thing out. I hope I’ll be able to write more later when I return to my camp.