Read Online Infested by Mark R Faulkner - Free Book Online Page B

hollow,
lonely sound in the fog.
    Well, I laughed, as
I bobbed into the unknown of the North Sea, That’s
justice for you.

 
    Thirteen
     
    I wasn’t sure what happened next. The fog was thick around me,
wrapping me up in a cold, damp, death shroud and that should have been the end
of my story, but then I became jolted back to some kind of consciousness as I
ran into something solid. The impact caused me to slide forward off the seat,
so I landed in a twisted heap in the bottom of the canoe. All I could make out,
was that the fog ahead had somehow solidified. My fevered brain could make no
sense of it at the time.
    The next thing I remember was being borne upward; I glanced around to
see the canoe far below me, bobbing on a rising swell and I wondered if it had
finally happened, that I was dead and being carried up to heaven.
     
    I woke lying on my back in a kind of hospital room. The bed was hard
and uncomfortable and the thin sheet was tucked in too tight. Someone else was
in the room with me, sitting at a desk, facing the wall. He appeared to be in some
kind of uniform. I tried to speak, to get his attention but my mouth and throat
were gummed up and I couldn’t form the words.
    Raising my head proved an impossibility, it felt heavy, like a bowling
ball, and most of the movement came from my eyes. I saw there were needles in
both my arms, connected to drips hanging near my head. I ached, especially in
my spider bitten leg, but for now it appeared I was safe and being looked after
and so, without really caring who it was tending to me, I let relief wash away
my worries and closed my eyes again. For a brief moment, just before I fell
back to sleep, I wondered whether I was in prison but after all I’d suffered,
even that would have been welcome.
     
    When I next woke, the man was still at the desk, but this time he
turned at the right moment and caught the movement in my eyes. He rose and
walked over, smiling as he checked the charts hanging at the end of the metal
framed bed.
    At first it took a while to realise the movement I was feeling was the
room swaying and not me.
    “Bit of a storm blowing in,” said the man. “I’m Toby Walker by the
way, ship’s doctor. Now, you just wait there a minute.” With that he left the
room via a small, roughly oval door which was set into the wall about a foot
off the ground so there was a large step. If I’d studied the door sooner, I’m
sure I’d have figured out I was aboard a ship, it even had a wheel set into the
middle of it.
    When he was out of the room I had a few moments to think about recent
events. I wondered how long I’d been asleep, whether there were many survivors
and then I shuddered, for I knew, whatever happened, life would never be the
same again. My first priority though was the itching in the leg the spider had
bitten, it was driving me mad and the tubes in my arms were too short for me to
reach down and scratch it without pulling them out.
     
    A tall moustachioed man walked into the room, immaculate in his pressed
uniform, complete with epaulettes and a cap, and I immediately stopped my
wriggling. “Welcome aboard.” He said. “I’m Captain John Warren. I understand
you’re somewhat of a survivor.”
    All I could do was nod.
    “What’s your name?” he asked and when I croaked an unintelligible
answer he looked at the ship’s doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. “Get him a
drink will you, the poor chap’s dying of thirst here.”
    At that point I was glad of my muteness, as my mind raced to get my
story straight.
    The doctor nodded again and stepped out through the hatch - for that’s
what I decided it was, rather than a door - returning a few moments later with
a glass, which he raised to my lips.
    “I’ll come back in a bit, when you’re feeling a little better,” said
the Captain before turning to Doctor Walker. “Let me know when he can talk
will you.”
    “Yes Captain.” He said when the Captain was already half way out of