Chilli sweats3

Chilli Sweats 3

The whisky began to take effect, so I gulped a few more.  That black hole

within was beginning to warm.  I jumped to my feet and thought quickly, “I’ll

turn right, go straight to the engine room, attack the engines and cut off the

power to the primary coil.  This should save me some time.”  I couldn’t afford

to risk running into that big rock again.  Everything was depending on speed

and efficiency to stop the engines.

I ran down the corridor.  I grabbed the fire axe, that was nestled in the wall,

on my way by.  I thought that this would suffice to cut the cables.  Then I

realised: “I hope I can remember exactly how it was wired.” because there were

a multitude of capacitors and cabling left, right and centre and it was months

before that I had initially wired it.

I stopped in my tracks and thought I would run back, open the box and get out

the wiring diagram I had used.  So I ran back to the cabin and felt in my

pockets for the key but I couldn’t find it.  It was ridiculous!  I had had it

there a minute ago, what the hell had I done with it?  I lifted the axe to

swing it at the box and then suddenly remembered how futile that would be:  the

box had been built to withstand an axe for four hours!  “How ironic!”, I

thought.  So I went straight back into the corridor, turned right and carried

on running to the engine room.

I arrived at the engine room; it was a bit late, the noise was deafening.

Everything was shaking.  It was frightening to approach closer, but I had to.

I could see the diesel engines were burning oil.  Possibly it was being sucked

in from the rough turbo I had made myself.  That meant the oil was being used

as a fuel and the engines had little time left once they had drained all the

oil from the sump.  The diesel engines were doomed.

My instinct was to cover my ears and run the other way, to get off the boat

before it blew up, but I knew I had to do more than that.  I approached the

over-unity device and started looking at the wiring through the smoke.  I could

just about make out what was going on.  I was pretty sure I could spot the

battery connection to the primary coil.  I believed that, if I managed to sever

this, the over-unity device would slowly come to a halt but I couldn’t be sure.

I picked up the axe and swung it, hard, dividing the cable in one sharp,

snapping cut.  I was expecting sparks to fly and God knows what but, in fact,

nothing much happened because there were only 12 volts running the bloody

thing!  All the power was coming on the other side of the coils.

There was no immediate effect but this wasn’t surprising because just the

momentum of those heavy magnets would keep the thing running for ages.  Next, I

went to the diesel engines’ fuel tank and I cut the fuel to the diesel engines.

 I managed to do this with the tap, rather than swinging the axe, because I

knew I would need some form of power to steer the boat.

I thought at that point that I had done all I could down there.  If it wasn’t

going to stop, it wasn’t going to stop, and it was hell down there.  I thought

I would get back up on deck and see what the situation was.  I ran along the

corridors, turned right, turned left and up the small staircase onto the deck.

When I got there, things were not quite as I had expected.  It wasn’t dark and

the waves were not the same: they were much smaller.  But what there was, was

heavy fog.  It was quite unusual.  I thought that perhaps the nature of the

loop had been broken here.

The engines were still going crazy.  I could feel the vibration on the rail of

the boat.  I thought I would run up to the wheelhouse.  Again nobody could be

seen - what was going on, I don’t know – I ran up the rickety stairs to the

wheelhouse and this time, when I grabbed the wheel it did, in fact, move.

Things had changed, maybe I had changed them by cutting the cable.  I pulled

the throttles back to cut the engines.  Nothing happened intially but I did

think that they were reluctantly beginning to slow down.  Yes, I was sure that

they were slowing down.

I looked out of the window and I could see, ahead, thick, gloomy fog.  It

almost had a green tinge.  Yes, now the engines were definitely slowing.  I

could feel them, I thought they might even stall.  I swung the wheel to the

left, believing that if that rock were still there, I would miss it by doing

so.  I could just about make out a big, dark, black object. We seemed to be

approaching at a fair rate of knots, although the boat was slowing, it was

still going to hit it.  So, again, I swung the wheel, this time to the right,

with a view to pulling up alongside the huge, black object.

The fog seemed to be glowing green.  It was a strange fog, something I hadn’t

seen before, but I wasn’t overly concerned because I knew that things weren’t

quite as they were meant to be yet.  I thought that normality would return but

that it would take a little while yet.  These quantum anomalies can take a

little time to settle down.  I tweaked the throttles to give me a little extra

power into the turn.  I was fully turned to starboard and was hoping just to

brush up against this large object.

Fortunately this is what did happen.  I brushed up alongside of it and it made

a hollow, metal clank as I did so.  Just from the noise, I realised what it

was.  It was clear to me that it was a large ship and I just couldn’t see

enough of it through the fog to make it out, to judge exactly how big it really

was.  I eased my boat along the side of this big, black metal cliff until I

came to a stairway that I imagined was leading up onto the deck of this

machine.  The fog seemed to make it more spooky, more eerie, than perhaps it

really was but, to be honest, I felt like going back and getting the bottle of

whisky to give me some Dutch courage.

I cut the engines and let the boat come to a halt just by the stairway.  I

threw a line over the stairway and jumped to it.  I tied the boat off, I

thought that that would do for the moment. The boat was going nowhere.  The sea

was now quite calm, strangely, although the fog hadn’t lifted.  I made my way

up the stairway.  It was a little bit rickety; It seemed to my mind that it

should have been replaced some ten years ago ideally.  I had no idea what I

would find on board but I just couldn’t resist finding out.

I went up the stairway being fairly cautious.  I didn’t want to fall off.

There could be nothing worse than falling into that cold, wet sea in the dim

fog.  Of  what I was going to find, I had no idea, but hopefully it would be

just a bunch of crew and a little bit of normality.My present mood,being a bit

negative I thought that was a little bit unlikely.Anyway, at last, I attained

the height of the deck.

I climbed up onto it.  There was nobody to be seen.  The ship looked like it

had been left for years on end.  There was rust.  There was dirt.  It actually

looked a bit of a wreck.  I thought my best chance of finding anybody was to go

to the wheelhouse.  Surely, on a ship of this size, there must be someone

around.  There was no sunlight.It was still foggy and cold and the damp was

cutting into my bones.  My God, this was a big boat!

I broke into a trot to try and reach the wheelhouse.  I passed nobody on the

way.  I climbed the exterior stairway.  There were several flights to it, three

or four flights.  I got to the door that would enter the wheelhouse.  It was

rusted and very difficult to open.  I tugged at it.  It wasn’t really going

anywhere.  I thought perhaps I would try the other side, so I ran back down,

opened one of the interior corridor doors and went inside.

It was pretty dark in there.  I thought I wouldn’t do any investigation, I

would go straight to the wheelhouse.  It was quite spooky in there.  I crossed

the whole width of the ship and went out of the door on the other side and

began to climb the stairway to the  wheelhouse, the bridge.

Fortunately, this time the door opened fairly easily, despite the signs of

quite a lot of rust, and I went in.  There  was no noise; there was nobody to

be seen.  It was cold; it was damp.  I walked over to the  wheel.  I could see

the compass from here; it was gently spinning round.  Oh, what a surprise.  I

decided to look in the multiple cupboards that were spread around the

wheelhouse, on the bridge.  Opening them, I began throwing out lifejackets, all

sorts of bits and pieces, flare guns, and then I found out what I was looking

for: powerful torches.

I picked up two of these torches and checked them.  Both were working; I was

surprised. I thought I would go below and have a quick recce, to see if there

was anything of interest there.  I used the interior staircase to go into the

bowels of the ship.  It was dark and eerie and every noise I made seemed to

echo.  I shouted out, “Hello!” several times.  Nothing came back.  I wandered

along a dark corridor.  It was very long and there seemed to be cabins on

either side.  Every now and again I would kick a cabin door open and shine the

torch in to see if there was anything there.  But there was nothing special,

just the usual things you see in a cabin: a bunk, a sink and a shower cubical,

a chest of drawers.  All very normal really, which seemed out of place in such

a dead, abnormal ship.  Perhaps I was expecting some horrific scene of bodies

scattered everywhere and blood, but nothing like that was there.

I began to wonder what the hell had happened to everybody.  Oh, well, I carried

on.  I got to the end of the corridor and went down the set of stairs.  There

again, there was another long corridor with cabins on either side.  Again, I

ran down the corridor quite fast, pushing open some of the cabin doors, just to

check there was nobody about.  I shouted occasionally, “Hello!  Hello! Anybody

there?”, but no reply came back..

After a while, I decided this was pointless and felt that perhaps nobody was

here at all.  The ship was deserted.  It was one of those famous ghost ships

you hear about.  I had thought they were just fiction.  Obviously not.  I

decided to make my way back onto the deck.  I thought I would take the corridor

to the right.  I should find a staircase there, leading up.  I did.  Eventually

I got back out on deck.  The fog still hadn’t lifted.  It was damp, it was wet

but now there seemed to be a slight breeze, which made it feel colder.  It was

a this point that I wished I had bought that Asda jacket.  How many times had I

regretted not buying that jacket!  It would have been have been ideal in this

situation.

I thought that this was a pointless venture and that it was about time I got

back to my boat and got the hell away from this weird vessel.  Again, I was not

filled with optimism about my return to the boat because things were not

exactly normal back there.  Anyway, perhaps I could get back on my boat, get

away from this big hulk and eventually get out of this fog and see some

sunshine.  Hopefully things would return to a more normal state of affairs.  So

that is exactly what I did: I went back to the rickety stairway and started to

go down.  Halfway down, I could have sworn I heard somebody shout.  I thought

they said, “Hello!”.  I stopped in my tracks, was that my imagination or did I

really hear that?  Just as I was about to continue down, believing it had been

just my imagination playing games with me, I heard it again: “Hello!”.  It was

quite ghostly.

I turned on my heels, took two steps up and then I thought better of it.  I

paused, I waited.  I thought, “I’d better have a think, here.”.  It couldn’t be

anything that good in such a strange vessel.  For all I knew, it could be an

axe murderer!  I thought I’d pop back down and get the axe before continuing to

investigate.  I got back on board my boat, found the axe, swung it over my

shoulder and jumped back onto the steps.  I cautiously went up the steps as

quietly as possible, so as not to alert any potential adversary.

When I got to the top, I climbed onto the deck and had a good look around.  I

had kept one of the flashlights with me, just in case I needed it.  Now I shone

it into the gloom. Unfortunately, the light just bounced back, reflected by the

fog.  It was no use, it was a bit like having car headlights on full beam.  I

turned it off, so as not to alert anybody.  It could have caused me loss of the

advantage of surprise.  I cautiously walked along the deck.  I listened with

both of my ears, as hard as I could.  I opened my mouth to increase my hearing

ability and gently swung my head from left to right. But I could hear nothing.

Then, again, came an eerie, “Hello!”.  It sounded like it came from maybe fifty

yards on.  A chill went through my heart.  This didn’t feel good.  I had tried

to pay attention to my gut feelings in the past and when I hadn’t I had

regretted it. So I walked along with extreme caution and readied the axe with

both hands.  I kept the torch in my pocket, ready to pull out very quickly, if

necessary.

Again, I heard that, “Hello!”, spooky, “Hello!”.  I decided just to pull of to

the left, behind one of the doors and just wait to see what came past.  Perhaps

it would be safer that way.  I did exactly that.  I carefully opened one of the

doors on the left.  It squeaked a bit, but not too badly.  I stepped inside,

pulled the torch from my pocket and shone it around, just to make sure that

there was nothing that could harm me.  It was all right, it was just some form

of large dining room.  There was nobody about so I wasn’t too worried and I

stood there, silently, waiting to see if I could see the person who was

shouting.

I stood stiff as a board, breathing very shallowly.  I didn’t know what to

expect but I knew I was in the right position because I heard the “Hello!”

again and I could hear footsteps.  Beads of sweat were beginning to trickle

down my forehead.  I was very tense and was gripping the axe now with both

hands, ready to defend myself, or attack if necessary.  I stood there silently

for what seemed like ages, but it was really just a minute or so, I guess.

The footsteps got louder and louder, approaching me.  I tried to stay calm,

keep quiet, waiting to see who it was.  Then it walked by me.  I peered my head

out of the door.  “Oh my God, who is that? ....... It was me!”