At Sea (Harbingers Book 16) Read online

  At Sea

  Alton Gansky

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Published by Amaris Media International.

  Copyright © Alton Gansky

  Cover Design: Angela Hunt

  Photo credits: ©alexzaitsev-fotolia.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any other means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission from the publisher.

  For more information, visit us on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harbingers/705107309586877

  or www.harbingersseries.com.

  Introduction

  HARBINGERS

  A novella series by

  Bill Myers, Jeff Gerke, Angela Hunt,

  and Alton Gansky

  IN THIS FAST-PACED world with all its demands, the four of us wanted to try something new. Instead of the longer novel format, we wanted to write something equally as engaging but that could be read in one or two sittings—on the plane, waiting to pick up the kids from soccer, or as an evening’s read.

  We also wanted to play. As friends and seasoned novelists, we thought it would be fun to create a game we could participate in together. The rules were simple:

  Rule #1

  Each of us will write as if we were one of the characters in the series:

  Bill Myers will write as Brenda, the street-hustling tattoo artist who sees images of the future.

  Jeff Gerke will write as Chad, the mind reader with devastating good looks and an arrogance to match.

  Angela Hunt will write as Andi, the brilliant-but-geeky young woman who sees inexplicable patterns.

  Alton Gansky will write as Tank, the naïve, big-hearted jock with a surprising connection to a healing power.

  Rule #2

  Instead of the four of us writing one novella together (we’re friends but not crazy), we would write it like a TV series. There would be an overarching storyline into which we’d plug our individual novellas, with each story written from our character’s point of view.

  If you’re keeping track, this is the order:

  Harbingers #1—The Call—Bill Myers

  Harbingers #2—The Haunted—Frank Peretti

  Harbingers #3—The Sentinels—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers #4—The Girl—Alton Gansky

  Volumes #1-4 omnibus: Cycle One: Invitation

  Harbingers #5—The Revealing—Bill Myers

  Harbingers #6—Infestation—Frank Peretti

  Harbingers #7—Infiltration—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers #8—The Fog—Alton Gansky

  Volumes #5-8 omnibus: Cycle Two: Mosaic

  Harbingers #9—Leviathan—Bill Myers

  Harbingers #10—The Mind Pirates—Frank Peretti

  Harbingers #11—Hybrids—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers #12—The Village—Alton Gansky

  Volumes 9-12 omnibus: Cycle Three: The Probing

  Harbingers #13—Piercing the Veil—Bill Myers

  Harbingers #14—Home Base—Jeff Gerke

  Harbingers #15—Fairy—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers #16—At Sea—Alton Gansky

  There you have it, at least for now. We hope you’ll find these as entertaining in the reading as we did in the writing.

  Bill, Jeff, Angie, and Al

  Chapter 1

  ALONE AGAIN, UNNATURALLY

  ROCKING.

  Like an infant in a cradle.

  Gentle. Smooth. Even.

  Then came a new sensation: Someone had been using my mouth as an ashtray. A vile film covered my tongue and teeth. Still, I wasn’t ready to open my eyes. Mostly I just wanted to slip back into the blanket of sleep I had been living in a short time before.

  Blanket? I could tell I lay upon a narrow bed but I felt no blanket over me. I was warm. Too warm. Only then did I risk opening an eye. The room was lit but only dimly. Missing was the harshness of an incandescent light. What I saw was natural illumination, enough to see but not read in comfortably.

  I forced myself to take several deep breaths. The air was a tad stale and carried a hint of salt. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, buried my face in my hands and tried to focus my thoughts. It wasn’t easy. My brain was filled with a thick London fog and my thoughts were as slippery as a sink full of eels.

  Lowering my hands, I stared at the thin carpet on the floor. It was a perfectly acceptable beige, which somehow managed to look new and old at the same time. My brain fog lifted a little and I was capable of noticing something that shouldn’t be: black, highly polished dress shoes—on my feet. The kind of shoes a man wore with a—

  Tux.

  Sure enough, I wore a pair of well-tailored tuxedo pants. I stood and touched my waist. Cummerbund. There was also a white shirt with posts instead of buttons, and a bowtie. I had been sleeping in a bowtie. The thing is, I hate tuxes. At least I think I do. Try as I might, I couldn’t remember the last time I wore a tux, or why I was wearing one now.

  Across the room was a full-length mirror that confirmed everything I had just discovered. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me what I was wearing. I puzzled that out pretty quickly. What I did need was a mirror or something else to tell me who the guy in the reflection was. He looked familiar. Young and big. Extra big—six-foot-three maybe and tipping the scales at over 250 pounds. That was a guess, of course, but I didn’t think I was far wrong. A little wide in the shoulders too. I stepped closer to the mirror and touched its cool, smooth surface. The reflection touched its side of the glass.

  A man should recognize his own image, shouldn’t he? Why couldn’t I recognize mine?

  My first question had been: Why am I sleeping in a tuxedo? That seemed like a small question now. What I really wanted to know was who I am. I also wouldn’t mind knowing where I was. I didn’t recognize anything in the cramped room.

  “Well, this ain’t right.” At least my voice sounded familiar.

  I rubbed my eyes until they hurt. Maybe I was still asleep and having one of those hyperreal dreams. I know a couple of people who dream in high-def and technicolor. It sounded cool to me, but they didn’t think so. I guess dreams should be dreamy and not too realistic.

  I bent forward and rested my hands on my knees. I wasn’t feeling any too good. My stomach was in rebellion about something. The rocking of the floor? Somethin’ I ate? I had no idea. I took a few minutes to will my stomach into submission then straightened again.

  I took in my room: a single bed, made-up but rumpled where I had been dozing. A small dresser was opposite the bed and stood near the full-length mirror. A wood desk was tucked in one corner; the kinda desk you see in a hotel room.

  Is that what this is? A hotel? A hotel with a rocking floor? That made no sense, but then nothing I saw or experienced since I crawled out of—maybe I should say off the sack—made any kinda sense.

  The light in the room was pretty dim. A quick survey told me that no light bulbs were burning anywhere. The only source of illumination came from a wide but narrow window in the wall. I walked to it. It was set kinda high but I could still see through it without much effort.

  Gray. Outside was gray. Gray sky. Gray fog.
Gray sea. That last observation explained a lot. I was on a boat, maybe I should say a ship. I tried to think about that some. My thoughts, what few I could lay a mental hand on, were jumbled like a dropped deck of playing cards. Some cards were face up; others face down. Except I had no way of putting them in order. My thinking was as unsettled as my gut.

  At least the sea, what I could see of the sea, was pretty calm. My belly was glad for that.

  The scum in my mouth still tasted bad. My tongue and cheeks seemed lined with felt. I took a couple of deep breaths and moved to a narrow and short hallway, more of an entry area really, and saw two doors. One was slightly wider than the other. I assumed the wider door led to a hallway; the smaller door had to lead to a bathroom. I guess I should call it a “head.” I opened the second door and enjoyed a moment of satisfaction that my assumption had been correct.

  The head had the basics of any home bathroom but in a smaller form. There was a glass-enclosed shower to one side. Clearly, it hadn’t been designed for a man of my dimensions. If I wanted to get clean inside that thing I would have to soap the walls and spin around in it. That didn’t matter now; I was more interested in evicting the taste in my mouth. I paid little attention to the toilet although I was sure I might be more interested in it should my stomach turn traitor.

  The sink was smaller than what I would expect and it looked a little out of date. As I thought about it, I could say the same thing for the whole room I had just been in and the rest of the bathroom.

  I turned the faucet handle looking for a nice stream of cold water. I got nuthin’. I mean nuthin’.

  “Great. Jus’ great.”

  I tried the hot water handle. Again, a great big nuthin’. Maybe the valves below the sink had been cranked shut. No idea why that might be, but I wanted to check. To do so, I needed more light. A man didn’t need much light to drink a little water and splash his face a bit, but more than that would require a bit more illumination.

  I flipped the light switch and was once again denied. I tried flipping the switch a few times as if I could annoy it into working. No dice.

  “All right then, let’s try this.” I turned on the shower. Well, I tried to turn it on. No water there.

  Of course, there was the toilet, but there was no water in the basin, not that I would gargle with it if there were. Now I was getting irritated.

  With a mouth that sported a film that tasted like the inside of an old rain gutter, I left the head and exited the room. It was time to find someone to listen to my rants.

  The corridor was empty. No passengers strolling to or from rooms. No cleaning crew changing out towels and running vacuum cleaners. No children barreling down the hallway like they were in a human demolition derby. Just a twilight dark and lots and lots of quiet.

  That last observation made me wonder. If this was a ship at sea—and the ocean outside my window pretty much convinced me of that—then shouldn’t I be hearing the rumble of mighty engines? Perhaps we were still tied up to the dock. After all, I could only look out one side of the boat.

  Still, the boat rocked a little and I didn’t think cruise ships did that when tied to a pier. But what did I know? Not much. I had a fuzzy brain, and a scummy mouth, and no memory of the past beyond the moment I woke up on the bed.

  I walked through the gloom. What little light there was came from a window at the end of the hall. Sconces were spaced evenly along the walls but not one offered any light. They were pretty and useless.

  The light at the end of the corridor drew me closer. Light was better than growing twilight. I walked slowly, feeling a little wobbly as if I had been on an all-night bender. That couldn’t be. I had only been drunk once in my life and have avoided alcohol ever since…

  That was a memory. Why would I remember that and not my own name? Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe not. My confusion grew. The more I reached for a memory, the more difficult it became to think. Maybe I was having a stroke.

  Could that be? A stroke? Probably not. My reflection said I was young. Maybe young guys could have strokes, but I didn’t think that was common. Besides, I seemed to be able to think in complete sentences.

  I stopped. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” That came out just fine, so the stroke idea seemed unlikely. I shook my head. What did I know? Would a man with a stroke know if he his speech sounded right?

  My head was beginning to hurt.

  “A concussion. That might be it.” My voice rolled down the corridor. Those words brought an odd sensation. I had known people with concussions. I couldn’t name one person, but the realization felt right.

  “I gotta get some help.” I didn’t need to say that out loud, but hearing my own voice brought a little comfort.

  Twenty-five or thirty steps later I reached the window at the end of the corridor. It was about three feet wide and five feet or so tall. The glass was clear but spotted with watermarks. The view outside showed a thick, wet fog. The ocean was flat and two shades grayer. I looked both left and right and saw no sign of a port. “Definitely at sea.”

  Below—I guessed I was three stories or so above the deck below—was the front end of the ship. The deck looked smooth and appeared to be something like concrete, not wood slats. What I didn’t see were people. Where were the people? Even on a gray day like today, people should be strolling the deck. My attitude was turning as gray as the fog.

  The fog bothered me. For some reason, the sight of it gave me the willies, like something might be hiding in the mist. A shiver ran through me as if someone had dumped a barrel of ice water over my head.

  I turned my back to the window. To my right was a wide ornamental metal stairway. One side of it went up, the other went down. I chose the steps going down. Why? Can’t tell ya. I just did. My hope was that I’d find someone who could direct me to the ship’s doctor, and if not a someone, then a sign.

  Halfway down the staircase an awful thought occurred to me. Maybe there was no doctor onboard. I hadn’t seen anyone else, why should I believe there was a doctor?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Chapter 2

  A BRIDGE TOO NEAR

  I WAS FEELING a tad lonely. Was I the kinda guy who was prone to loneliness? I guessed no, but what did I know? At that moment, not much. For all I knew, I might be an emotional cripple. If I was, then this amnesia might be a good thing.

  The cause of my loneliness was pretty easy to figure out. I had come to in a room alone. I had searched the ship from the main deck up and saw no one. I called out for help but no one answered. The gray fog was a downer, too. I couldn’t see a horizon in the distance, or lights from a city. There was no sun or moon in the sky, just a dull, eerie canopy of mist. When I looked over the rail I couldn’t help but notice that the sea was gray, too. For some reason, that didn’t surprise me. Not a bit.

  I had emerged from the stairway—I think they call it a companionway on a ship (but again, what do I know?)—onto a wide deck. A wide, empty deck. I could see almost to the front of the boat and all the way to the back. Nobody. I walked to the back, peeking into every window I came across. I saw nobody. I saw no light. I saw no proof that anyone was onboard. Of course, I hadn’t searched the whole ship, but why would this deck be empty of people? The ship was clearly a cruise ship, although it seemed like it was a generation or two older than modern craft. The doorknobs looked old. And the stateroom doors used real, honest-to-goodness keys to lock and unlock them, not those magnetic or chip keycards.

  That thought made me realize something. I could remember some things like being in a hotel, several different hotels, but I couldn’t remember why. My Swiss cheese brain seemed willing to let some information through, but nothing about me. Seemed a bit unfair.

  As I walked to the rear of the boat I read every sign I came across. I was looking for one the said, SHIPS DOCTOR, or MEDICAL, or YOU HAVE ENTERED THE TWILIGHT ZONE. No luck. What signs I did find directed me to decks with odd names like “Promenade,” or “Lido
,” and several that pointed the way to the life boats.

  When I reached the stern I found an open area with lounge chairs neatly arranged in rows, a few patio-like tables, and two spas. There was also a bar, but no bartender. The bar was fully stocked. “It’s a shame that I’m not a drinker—”

  And there it was: another bit of random information about myself. I had nothing to tie the thought to. It just popped into my head. “At this rate, I’ll know everything about myself in a couple of years.”

  My voice sounded slightly off. Kinda muted, like the air was muffling the sound. Didn’t matter. I was going to talk to myself until I found someone else to talk to.

  I had another reason for moving aft. When I first looked out the window of my room, or whoever’s room I had been in, I got the sense that we weren’t under power. The lack of lights made that seem like a real possibility. I now had proof. There was no wake. A ship this size should leave a sizeable wake no matter how slow it was moving.

  We—I—was adrift.

  Alone.

  In the middle of nowhere.

  Going nowhere.

  Now I really wanted a little company.

  I looked over the railing and into the gray water thirty or so feet below. From this height, a jumper would get a pretty nasty sting. I waited for the urge to end it all to come over me. It didn’t. That would just be stupid. “Can’t get into heaven if you die stupid.” I doubted there was any solid theology in that thought, but it gave me a tiny reason to smile.

  I figured it was time to get back to my search. I was no longer focused on finding a doctor. Aside from the nasty taste in my mouth, I felt fine. Befuddled, sure, and more than a little confused, but physically I felt tiptop.