A ship loads a secret cargo container on a ship. Nobody knows what it is but they will find out.
Roland is standing on the bridge on the dry Cargo coaster he is captain of. He looks out through the window as the unmarked, ten foot chipping container is lowered into the ship.
No one knows what’s inside the container, not even Roland. But someone is paying well to get it transported. Pay so well that it’s the only cargo they load for this trip.
The destination doesn’t make it any less strange. An old fortress out on an island in the Mediterranean.
Roland scratches his chin and looks back at the chief engineer, Gunnar, who sits on the old sofa in the back corner of the bridge.
"Good damn, Gunnar. You look more dead than alive today. How much did you drink last night?" Roland asks.
"Donno. Too much to feel good today, but not too much to get it up last night. That redhead I brought back to the ship last night was wild." Said Gunnar.
Gunnar laughed loudly. A laughter that transformed into violent coughing followed by a loud burp that almost made Gunnar puke. The smell that followed made Roland frown.
"God dammit Gunnar. What the fuck did you eat last night." Roland says in disgust.
Gunnar puts his finger in his mouth and pulls something out that's stuck between his teeth. It's short, curly hair. Gunnar holds it towards Roland.
"Her. I ate her. Look at that. She was a natural redhead." Roland said laughing.
Gunnar stops laughing and gives Roland a serious look.
"Do you know what’s in that container?" Gunnar asks.
"No."
"Is it flammable? Poisonous?"
"Don’t know."
"Explosive?"
"Don’t know."
"Is it an alien?"
"Don’t know, but I seriously doubt that."
"What do you know? I know that I, as chief engineer, are responsible for the ship's fire protection. You know cap’n, I can stop the ship from sailing if I don’t know what hazard we are talking about."
"I know."
"So?"
"Do that if you must. I still don’t know what's in the cargo. What I do know is that someone with lots of money and power is very eager to get that, whatever it is." Roland turns his eyes towards the container as it is lowered in the cargo hold.
"I go down and prepare the engine to start." Gunnar says as he stands up and walks, not so straight to the stairs.
Gunnar goes down the stairs and looks in at the chef as she prepares dinner. Looks like something Italian with pasta and chicken. Gunnar can hear his stomach rumbling from all the tasty fragrances from the kitchen. Madeleine is a very good chef, probably one of the best he ever worked with. He likes her too, not just her food. Probably a little more than he should to be honest.
Gunnar continues down to the engine room. The second and third engineers and the two motormen should be done with preparations to start by now. Gunnar is right. All four sit in the engine control room, talking and waiting to start up.
"Hey, Gunnar. I heard you got Lucky last night." Second engineer, Thomas gives Gunnar a big smile. "It wasn’t easy to sleep with her moaning and you grunting all night."
"Yeah, it was a great night. Too bad we have to leave today. I’d like a rerun with her."
Gunnar sits down on his chair and picks up a newspaper. With very bad internet onboard they still have to rely on newspapers sent onboard by an agent when they are in harbour. Gunnar doesn't mind. It feels good to be able to talk to each other like in the old times.
Roland is up on the bridge, watching the cargo hold closing. They are ready to sail. He walked over to the engine order telegraph, pulled the handle to full ahead, then to full astern and then back to engine stand by. A few seconds later he sees Gunnar respond with the same action. About a minute later Roland senses the vibration in the floor and hears the muffled sound as the main engine is running.
The departure is smooth, even though the wind is strong. But it isn’t anything Roland hasn’t done before. Roland knows this ship. Roland, Gunnar and Madeleine started working on this Nordic trader, six years ago when the company bought it. All other crew members have been replaced, sometimes several times since then.
Soon after the ship has left the harbour it is time for dinner. The whole crew eat and talk in the two mess rooms, officers mess and crew mess. The conversation into the crew mess is more on the conspiracy theme while it is more focused on safety and thoughts on what it can contain and who the receiver is. After a while the conversations in both mess rooms slipped over to the usual subjects.
It has been a rough few days in Port with lots of heavy maintenance work in the engine room followed by equally heavy drinking during the evenings at various bars. So needless to say, most of the crew members in the engine department are rather happy to get out to sea again.
About half an hour later, the ship is going full ahead out at sea. Everyone is hungry and Madeleine is well known for her cooking skills in the company, not only on this ship.
As they walk up to the mess rooms Gunnar can not recall that he has never heard anyone complain about the food on this ship. That is unusual. There is always at least one that just has to complain. It’s a good crew on this ship. Gunnar nods to his himself.
As they sit around the tables, eating, Gunnar notices Madeleine as she enters the officers mess room. She asks if the food was good and everyone nods or tells her how good it is.
As she stands there she gives Gunnar a warm smile and a small, fast blink with her right eye and smile flirtatious towards him. Gunnar smiles back and he feels how he is blushing so he turns his eyes back on the food.
Gunnar cannot stop thinking about Madeleine during the rest of the dinner. Did he imagine or did she actually flirt with him. He stands up and leaves his plate in the dishes and looks into the kitchen for Madeleine, but he can't see her. Before he leaves the mess room Roland shouts to him.
"We will be hit by some old sea from a storm soon. It will hit us at the starboard bow. We will have cover from the island in about an hour after that so it won’t be for long. But if you haven’t prepared for a storm I suggest you do that now."
"Okey cap’n"
Roland was right. It was a very rough sea and during it the ship slammed very hard in the waves a few times. Gunnar went down to the engine room to check if everything was okay, and it was, so he went back to his cabin again and continued reading his book. The motormen and the sailors, together with the second and third engineer, were watching a movie in the day room. Gunnar thought about joining them but he really wasn’t in a mood for a movie tonight.
Roland gets back to his cabin and lays down on his bed. He can’t stop thinking of what Gunnar said. He had a good point that it is a bad idea to go to sea without knowing what type of cargo they carry. He can of course understand that some things are secrets but they should at least know if it could pose any potential danger.
He should have pushed for answers when he talked to the owners. But they were very reluctant to talk about the cargo, other than that they had to transport it and that it was urgent. Roland sighs and turns over on his left side, staring into his office on the other side of the cabin. No urgent work that has to be done tonight. Better go to sleep right away.
First mate Thomas is standing on the bridge. The last waves shook the ship bad and he wonders if they should check the cargo. The cargo is properly secured but with waves like this you never know what could happen. He picks up the microphone to the walkie talkie.
"Thomas to Johan over."
"Johan here, over."
"Can you go down in the cargo hold and check the shipping container? over."
"I’ll do it right away, over and out."
Thomas see Johan walking over the deck to the stairwell leading to the two cargo holds. He takes his mug of coffee and walks over to the sea chart. He checks the coordinates on the gps and marks their position on the sea chart, together with date and time. Only barely two more hours left on his watch, then he can go to bed. Thomas is yearning to go to sleep. It has been a few rough days ashore.
Johan enters the rear cargohold from the stairs. He can see right away that something is wrong. The door to the container is open a few centimeters. He wonders if the cargo is damaged. But he is also curious. What could the mysterious cargo be? He looks around to make sure no one else is there, it isn’t. Ha walks over and looks into the container. It is dark and it takes a few seconds for his eyes to see in the dark. He sees something on the floor. He cannot believe his eyes.
"Oh you poor thing. How did you get here? You are trapped under that crate, I will help you."
Madeleine is in her cabin. She has just exited the shower and is sitting on her bed. She looks at the door. How she wishes that Gunnar would knock on it now. Gunnar must have understood that she was flirting with him. Or did he? She knows that he has always liked her very much and she has always liked him. At first she thought he was way too old, at his fifty years of age. Madeleine is thirty two. But as she learned to know him more during the years she learned he is a very charming, kind and warm man. She figured that she wanted to try to see if it could be something between them.
Thomas hears a strange sound from the stairs up to the bridge. Sounded like a dog whining. Strange. Thomas walks over to the stairs and he stops baffled when he see what’s by the stairs. It is his old dog, a golden retriever named Chewbacca, after the character in Star wars. But how could it be? How can he be on the ship? And by the way, he died almost a year ago after being hit by a car. There hasn’t gone a single day since then that Thomas hasn’t missed his four legged friend, and now he is here.
Thomas sits down on his knees and stretches his arms out to Chewbacca. He notices that even though the front and upper body of the dog looks like it should, the dog has no legs. Instead it looks like a sort of veil, floating above the floor. He frowns, but then he sees the dog's face again and Tomas gives it a big warm smile.
"Come here my old friend. I have missed you so much." Thomas feels a tear run down his left cheek as he reaches for the dog.
Roland wakes up suddenly. Is it someone in his cabin? He looks around but can’t see anyone. Probably a bad dream. Roland goes over to the toilet but as he opens the door, there is someone in there. He recognizes that person, but it can’t be. He is dead. His father is dead. But for a short time he feels happy and wants to invite him into his cabin so they can talk. There is so much he wants to ask his father, so much that he never had time to say to him before he died.
When he takes his eyes from his father and looks back into his cabin he realises this is wrong. It must be a dream. But he feels awake.
"Who are you? My father is dead, who are you?"
He doesn’t get an answer and then Roland sees that his father doesn't have any legs. Instead of legs it has some sort of semi transparent, misty veil, floating above the floor.
"You are a ghost! Get out of here. I don’t want you here."
As he says that his fathers face transforms into a skull. The black empty eye sockets look back at him and Roland feels a chill go through his body. Roland turns around and runs towards the door. As he grips the door handle he feels a sharp pain in his back and chest. He looks down and sees how the ghost's skeleton hand has pierced his body. Roland coughs up blood and feels he is turned around so he faces the ghost again. The skull comes closer and closer to his face as his sight gets more and more blurred.
Gunnar can’t sleep. He is thinking of Madeleine. She was flirting with him, he is sure of that now. Gunnar has decided. He will go and visit her and see where it leads. He gets up from bed and puts on some clean clothes and leaves his cabin. He realizes it is strangely silent on the ship. He hears the engine's muffled sound and the ventilation. He hears the creaking and squeaking from the ship in the waves, but he cannot hear any people. Where is everyone? It was a few rough days ashore but is everyone so tired that they are all asleep already? That must be a first.
Gunnar continues to Madeleine's cabin and hesitates before knocking on her door. What if he is wrong? Only one way to find out. He knocks on the door.
Madeleine can’t believe it. He came to her. They didn’t have time to say a word as he grabbed her and they started to kiss. They kiss and caress each other passionately for a long time before Gunnar takes her towel off and lets it fall to the floor. He turns her around and bends her over the small desk in the cabin. Madeleine puts one hand between her legs and guides him in as he enters her.
Madeleine gives off a delightful moan as he penetrates her and she can’t stop smiling. She pants and moans as they make love until they are interrupted by a knocking at the door. Madeleine puts one hand back and forces Gunnar to slow down. They continue slowly and silently until the knocking on the door stops. Madeleine giggles and looks down at the floor. Strange. Gunnar has no legs. Instead of legs he has a transparent veil and he is hovering above the floor.
Gunnar stops knocking at the door. He is sure he heard her inside her cabin. Maybe he was wrong after all. Gunnar gets a lump in his throat and starts walking to the bridge. He is going to visit Thomas before he goes back to bed. He has to talk to someone and Thomas knows everything about how Gunnar feels about Madeleine. They have become very close friends during the time they worked together.
As Gunnar enters the bridge he is surprised to see it is empty. Thomas would never leave the bridge when he is on watch. Something must have happened. Gunnar looks around but can’t see anything up on the bridge. But he can see that the door down to the cargo holds is open. Maybe something has happened. Gunnar feels he has to go down and take a look.
He runs over to the staircase and down the stairs. He enters the rear cargo hold and sees the shipping container with the secret cargo. It is open and a dim light glow from inside. Gunnar walks over slowly and peaks in. Inside is a steel capsule of some kind, but it is cracked.
As his eyes adjust to the darkness something appears that makes his blood freeze. A pile of bodies. His ship mates. The entire crew. They look like they have been drained of all their blood and are now grey and wrinkled.
Gunner runs as fast as he can up to Madeleine’s cabin and slams hard on her door, shouting that she must open. After a few seconds the door opens and Madeleine looks back at him. There is something strange with her, but as he looks at her he feels his pulse go down and how he calms down. She closes her eyes and leans forward and up to kiss him. Gunnar leans forward and kisses her. He looks at the floor behind her and sees Madeleine laying dead at the floor, dry and wrinkled. But he cannot stop the kissing. Slowly all life is sucked out of him and he falls dead to the floor.
All is silent. The old crew is dead and the ship has a new captain, a crew of one. One that has been locked up for centuries but is now finally free.
Without indents on the paragraphs or line separations, the text is very dense and hard to read.
I don't like ghost stories, but I like your writing, generally. I understand your translation problems and this one has many. So you need to have it thoroughly edited again.
Without " marks, conversation is not separated from description. Your descriptions tend to be more like a screenplay where you are directing the actor’s movements, followed by the action…what the actor says.
Finally, the premise is rather standard. A deadly ghost gets free from its confinement, and kills everything in sight because there is no way to fight it. Why I don't like ghost stories. As far as I know there has never been a true story of a ghost ever killing anyone except in fiction where it is rampant.
Did you ever wonder what happened after the Archangel Michael through the demons out of heaven? Let one of them guide you through the origin of evil in the world.
Roland is standing on the bridge on the dry Cargo coaster he is captain of. He looks out through the window as the unmarked, ten foot chipping container is lowered into the ship.
