The Mariner

He pulled her legs apart and gently entered her, moving together in time, united by their desire to escape their surroundings and go to the place only pleasure could take.

She was whispering encouragement into his ear as they gained momentum, he felt the pleasure rising and suddenly he was lost, giddy from the alcohol, the sex and the bond. Reeling. Falling. He was speaking, words tumbling out, unstoppable. Something about love, but that wasn’t all.

He said it again.

“I love you, Grace.”

They froze. The world froze.

And a few seconds later, it all exploded.

36. THE FELLOWSHIP’S FUCKED

A RAT SCURRIED ACROSS THE room. It stopped a couple of feet from the body, its nose twitching, excitement drawing it forward, yet an instinctual scepticism kept it at bay. A corpse was a prize indeed for a scavenger, and the rat was clearly famished, yet its dark eyes looked upon the Mariner and thought twice. It backed away, haunches skidding on the wooden boards as it dashed beneath the bed, somewhere it could out-wait the food’s guardian. Rats had patience, especially when a feast was at stake.

What a sight to wake to. A dead body sprawled out on the floor of the small bedroom, face upturned and bloody. There’d clearly been resistance; she’d fought him, or at the very least tried to escape, but death had rigged the contest from the start. He’d won in the end. Or some part of him had.

He tried to move, but couldn’t. His body was caked in sick and blood, yet despite all the bodily fluids ejected, there was still enough alcohol within to keep him grounded. The demon drink had gotten the best of him again, and from the evidence sprawled on the floor before him, it seems this time the demon had shared its ward with another more deviant monster.

Outside the night sky had turned from black to grey. Dawn was coming, and soon they would find him. He knew he had to get up, get his things and escape, abscond with the supplies and weaponry onto the moors. For a moment he thought about simply heading to the Neptune and sailing away to the endless ocean where no-one could find him, but he knew he had no choice but find the Pope. That his monsters could come to the fore was a sign the truth was near. Truth within. Truth without.

The Mariner looked into her dead eyes and tried to remember just how he’d killed her. He could see the signs: the battered face, the bite marks, the semen smeared about her bloody crotch, and yet he remembered nothing of the process. The act was beyond him, lost in a fog of booze and destruction.

A cockroach, not as wily as the rat, scuttled towards the body and the Mariner lashed out, almost hitting it, sending it fleeing beyond his reach. There it stopped, calculating its next move. Man and insect sized each other, knowing each owns limitations and resigned to them. Eventually, weakened by distress and loathing, he fell onto his back, unable to prop himself any longer. The cockroach had won.

Face against the boards, he looked once more into that of the corpse, eyes level with his.

You were supposed to take away the pain, they accused.

“I’ll take the blame,” he muttered. “Let me take the blame.”

Not enough. You lied to me. You didn’t take enough.

And then he finally understood, properly comprehending the girl that had kissed his cheek on a port an era ago, the child who’d been removed from a beast and placed into the hands of a monster.

Grace.

Raped.

Dead.

He screamed, long and hard until there was no more air in his lungs to expel. His voice broke, the sound not constant, but rising and falling wildly. It was the scream of a madman, the howling of a wounded wolf, enough to wake the dead, but not enough to wake Grace. She was beyond that now and could never return.

He found his knife in his pocket and drew it out, plunging it into his thigh. Blood bloomed around the wound, yet the pain barely registered. It would take more than a stabbing to pay for this. There was no coming back, no redemption, he’d taken a loan he could only default.

The door to Grace’s bedroom flew open, smashing into a corner of the bed, sending small splinters showering through the air.

And now a second scream joined his, Heidi, her face white and horrified, hands clasped to her mouth. She saw the nightmare. The deed was witnessed. It was true.

Jolted by her presence, a memory surfaced, that of Heidi kicking him out her bedroom, calling him a pervert. She’d been vicious with her tongue, hissing accusations, yet now he wished she’d gone further. If only she’d attacked him, struck him, tied him with ropes and reported his desire to the others, then perhaps he wouldn’t be laying here with a dead child at his feet? Perhaps then he’d still be able to take the pain away.

After his ejection he’d plundered the downstairs bar. Misery and self-loathing guiding him to oblivion. And then…? This.