M. G. Arnold-Law Writes

M. G. Arnold-Law
October 2026

Content Warnings: Violence, language, suicide

Trying to be festive with spooky month, I took a stab at a horror/thriller short story. My focus was on pacing and building a descriptive image in an environment not many people are familiar with. I’m kinda a scaredy cat when it comes to this genre, but my wife loves it. The tone was largely inspired by the films of Zach Creggor. I love how he creates a suspenseful and absurd situation, but has his characters react in a semi-realistic manner. It makes a normal reaction seem comedically out of place from the setting and, to me, drives up the suspense and realism.

As always, I would love notes and tips!

The following is a work of fiction and for entertainment purposes only. Without further ado…

It was day three hundred and who’s-counting-anymore on deployment aboard the USS Enterprise. I was supposed to meet the best, if not aging, aircraft carrier in the fleet in the shipyards and spend a majority of my last tour in the navy not at sea, but the familiar drumbeat of weapons of mass destruction in the middle east and civilian leadership wanting to play with their expensive toys led to Operation Epic Mantis. Not what I would have named it, but whatever. After moving my wife into our new home and dealing with an infuriatingly obtuse travel claim process, I was sent to the literal opposite side of the world to join the ship on her latest in a series of extensions at sea.

One day, after about a month at sea, I woke up sweating despite the chill air and breathing heavily. I don’t normally dream, or at least, I don’t normally remember my dreams, but being at sea brings them out of me. One day, after I got back home from my last deployment, my wife woke up to me standing next to the bed, asleep, and muttering to myself. I left that out of my last health physical. I couldn’t see it without my light on, but I had picture of my wife and I at Yosemite National Park taped to the ceiling above my pillow to remind me of the peaceful life that was waiting for me when this was all over.

Back at home, my wife would ask almost daily if I had any dreams the night prior and I would inevitably have to let her down. She liked that kind of stuff. Whenever she had a dream, she would always tell me in excruciating detail all the things that happened and who was in it and everything she felt, saw, heard and smelt. If I was honest, I would have told her years ago that I really didn’t care about people’s dreams. They aren’t real and trying to claw any semblance of meaning from them is pointless. On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt me to politely listen. It makes her happy to talk about this stuff which makes me happy. Seeing her smile is worth it. Maybe if she were here, she could help me figure out what my nightmare was all about.

Already, I was forgetting the details. I just remember… some sort of cow skull? It had horns… Do cows have horns or just bulls? Maybe, yeah… That’s it. One of those stereotypical buffalo skulls you see in western movies in the middle of the desert with a tumbleweed passing by. Is that what scared me? Couldn’t have been. Did anything else happen? I stared into the darkness trying to generate some memory or picture of what was so important as to wake me up before my alarm. No… That’s it. Whatever. Pointless dream.

In the pitch-black I checked my phone. It has been in airplane mode for weeks now and I’ve had to manually change its time zone twice since being on board. The clock read oh-three-twenty-three. I smiled to myself, relieved I didn’t have to get up yet and placed my phone back on the shelf above my head. Today was the first non-fly day I’ve had on the carrier, meaning I could finally sleep in. The last month was a gauntlet of 16 hour days on and off the flight deck trying to get my arresting gear and catapult ‘shooter’ qualifications. I re-adjusted my pillow and rolled onto my least sore shoulder to catch at least three more hours of precious sleep when I felt a familiar tightness in my bowels.

Noooooooo…

I laid still for a few seconds hoping against logic that the feeling would go away. Defeated, I threw my blanket off, facing the chill of the overly air-conditioned steel room, and very carefully reached my leg down to the edge of my roommate, Will’s, rack then stepped down to the ground of our room. I turned my phone flashlight down to its lowest setting and found my robe and shower shoes to make my way to the head. The combination of not seeing any natural light with the uncertain sleeping schedule, I think, trained my gut to associate any time I woke up to be time to do business.

I stepped out into the hall, rubbing my eyes. Thankfully, they always keep the red lights on in this part of the ship so the pilots that flew nights could keep their night vision during the day while they attempted to sleep. The dark, narrow halls bathed in a creepy red glow, combined with the fact that all the rooms in this area of the ship were staterooms, gave the area the nickname ‘sleepy hollow’.

I skipped the head closest to my room. I was warned when I got on board that it had flooded with toilet water and stayed flooded for months before I got there and was filled with mold and who knows what kinds of ship-born bacteria growing on the pipes and surfaces. I stepped in there once and while it looked clean now, there was definitely a musty smell… A navy ship is worse than a college dorm when it comes to bacteria and sickness spreading from person to surface to person again. Even the most careful germophobes tend to come down with the affectionately named ‘double dragon’ virus. Monikered after the number of orifices that exude burning fluids while you have the sickness. I had it once already being on board, and I did not want to risk it again.

I walked the 50 extra feet through sleepy hollow and got to the ‘good’ head. I tried my best to keep some sleepiness in my mind and eyes before it all got ripped away by fluorescent white lights inside the head. Fuck me I thought, retinas screaming. I sighed with the realization that I wasn’t going to be able to easily go back to sleep after this mini adventure. No one else was in the head so I had free reign to pick the best, most spacious stall and sat down to do my business and mull over the crazy situation I found myself in.

I fully expected coming into this ship to find a crew torn to shreds with fatigue and stress from having drones and missiles shot at them for months on top of the crazy amount of work that went into returning the favor in spades to the Iranian navy and shore installations. That kind of fatigue and stress is want to make people more than a little irritable and hard to work with. What I had found, however, was a fantastic group of professionals, at least among my fellow shooters. Fatigued? Extremely. Stressed? Without a doubt. Cancer ridden from the exhaust fumes and other chemicals from the flight deck? To be determined at the conclusion of a medical study. But hey, they didn’t take it out on the new guy showing up, which was nice.

That’s not to say they didn’t deserve to be on edge. Since the start of the war, the crew faced a myriad of hardship. Supply chain disruptions cut off supply to fresh food, leading to a time the crew called “cutting season”. Aged and broken water treatment plants on board led to shortages of water leading to the spartan decision to turn off all hot water. Why the hot water? People tend to spend less time in the showers if the water is so cold it hurts. All the while, everyone spent every day and night getting shot at and trying their best to sleep while afterburners and steam-powered catapults are hurtling 20-ton aircraft above their heads.

When I came aboard, I served as a welcome distraction. I got all the questions on what it was like at home. Do people know what the Enterprise and her crew are doing out here? Will they come home to a warm welcome, no welcome, or protests? How was Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”? An ironic question, I thought, considering the circumstances.

I layered about a dozen stacks of toilet paper sheets so thin you could see through, wiped and left my stall to wash. The sink water was frigid and there wasn’t anything to dry my hands on since I forgot my hand towel in my room. I waved the larger droplets off and wiped the rest of the moisture on my robe. With goosebumps forming, I began the trek back to my room. If I couldn’t go back to sleep, I could at least read a little more of that Darcy Coates book my wife recommended to me while I wait for the day to begin.

There are always people moving around on the ship at all hours of day and night. I wish I could say you get used to the constant sound of large metal doors being open and closed all the time… especially while you, specifically you, are trying to sleep, but I’m not a total liar. That being said, I wasn’t surprised to see someone’s silhouette cross the red light in the ‘T’ intersection ahead of me. I was surprised, however, that the silhouette was running. Not just a jog, a bent forward, arms flailing, uncoordinated, dead sprint. I hesitated for a moment as the foot falls echoed in the distance.

There aren’t many reasons to run down the halls of a navy ship. The halls are narrow and lined with industrial piping, tools, electrical boxes, hoses, and a slew of metal obstacles that are primed to bump you in the head or grab and tear your clothes or skin. People replaced their wedding bands with silicon, or stopped wearing them altogether, out of fear of ‘de-gloving’ one’s finger if it were to get caught on something. That’s how careful you had to be on a ship. No alarms were going off so this couldn’t have been a search and rescue aviator running to the helo, nor a damage controlman running to a fire. Still, they were sprinting like their life depended on it. Curious.

As I came to the intersection, I looked left in the direction the figure went. No one was there and the door to the ladder well was closed. I shrugged and turned right toward my room. Not my problem. Passing one of the red lights, I was shocked to find myself shivering, and my breath condensing. I get that metal surrounded by vast ocean tends to suck away warmth, even in the tropics, but this was ridiculous. It couldn’t be healthy to go from a boiling hot flight deck all day to this icebox. If no one else is going to say anything, I’ll have to call… engineering? Shoot. I don’t even know who I’ll call. But I’ll call people until I figure it out… Later.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING…DING…DING! MAN OVERBOARD MAN OVERBOARD. ALL HANDS MUSTER AT YOUR MAN OVERBOARD STATIONS. PROCEED STARBOARD SIDE FORWARD AND UP AND PORT AFT AND DOWN. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING…DING…DING!

THIS IS THE T.A.O. LAUNCH THE ALERT 30 SAR. LAUNCH THE ALERT 30 SAR.

Fuck. Technically, I should have turned around and walked out of sleepy hollow, down the ladder well and into the hangar bay to muster with my department, but I was just a few feet from my room and I really didn’t want to stand in the hangar bay in a robe and boxers for the next half hour. I swiped my keycard and opened my room to see all the lights on and Will throwing a shirt on.

“Barely made it back before the swarm.” I said, opening one of my drawers to pull out some gym shorts and an undershirt.

“Who’s HCO?” Will drowsily asked. “Someone’s gotta be in tower to launch the SAR helo right?”

“Yeah. It’s still only like four a.m. so it’s gotta be one of the night guys. Pete I think. Maybe Mike? Not sure. Not us though.” I responded, throwing on my running shoes without wasting any more time putting on socks. “Alright lets go.”

In the halls of sleepy hallow there was a line of people wearing a variety of pajama and leisure wear hobbling toward the aft ladder wells. The tired individuals groaned in frustration from being roused from their sleep. The darkly lit red hall looked and sounded like a spaceship filled with zombies. Not a futuristic and pretty spaceship, but one of those grungy ones where the unprepared crew have to fight an alien monster. It was still chilly, but I couldn’t see my breath anymore. I chalked it up to the extra body heat, or maybe the hatches staying open toward the hangar bay.

After a minute of shuffling in line down the hall, we got to the hangar bay and checked in with Air Department. Then we waited while the ship’s watch team figured out who, if any of us, was overboard. After being in the cold interior of the ship for so long, it was nice to be in a space open to the outside weather. Even if it was hot and muggy in the Indian Ocean. The hangar bay doors were open, and you could see out to the ocean. It was calm and the stars were beautiful. It would still be a couple hours before the sun would rise. I could faintly hear the helo up on the flight deck engage its rotors.

“That was really fast.” I said to the half-asleep group of shooters. “I saw someone running through the hall earlier. Might have been one of the SAR crew I think. Maybe they were alerted before calling away the man overboard so they wouldn’t get trapped in any traffic jams.”

“That would be smart.” Will replied.

“Since when has the ship been smart?” Jim, one of the daytime shooters chimed in, creating a ripple of sharp exhales and a light chuckle in the group.

After the muster was complete, most of us were fully awake so we changed into our uniforms and went to wardroom three to have some coffee while we wait for breakfast to open. We sat at our usual table in silence, sipping the nectar of life. Most meal-time topics of conversation had been explored ad nauseam at this point. We all knew about each other’s family situation, favorite movies, books, video games, and sports teams. We discussed all our hobbies, best states, cities, and duty stations we’ve been stationed at, our current investment strategies, our current and past political ideologies on a micro and macro level, and what we were going to do when the ‘someday’ of return to home port happens.

“Well they got ‘em.” Pete said, pulling a chair up to the table. He was the alert helicopter control officer in the control tower.

“Nice.” I said. “I’m almost surprised. Finding a single person in the ocean at night is hard to do even if they have a rough search area. Are they okay? Know anything about what happened?”

“I know, right? HSC got airborne in record time. All I know was that they took the jumper to medical after landing. A stretcher team was on the flight deck and took them out of the helo after it landed.”

“It was a jumper for sure?” Trent asked with a raised eyebrow. He was the most senior shooter. A position we called ‘Top Cat’. Trent wasn’t a fan of rumors or speculation.

“That’s fair. I don’t know for certain. I just assumed since we had that one jumper a while ago.” Pete replied.

“I don’t remember this story.” I said, hoping the veteran crew were comfortable sharing.

“I think it was two months before you flew on.” Pete started. “Middle of the day as we were between flight cycles, one of the squadron maintainers just started running. They sprinted across the waist catapults, took a driving step off the ICCS station and launched themselves overboard.”

“You can still kinda see the boot print on top of the ICCS station.” Jim added.

“Just… ran off?” I asked, bewildered. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Pete nodded. “Broad daylight, jets taxiing around, and dude just decides to try to kill himself.”

“Jesus.” I said on an exhale and took another sip of coffee. “What happened to him?”

“Helo picked them up out of the water.” Trent answered. “Somewhere on the 70 foot drop he must have had a change of heart cause he held on to the life ring thrown after him. Rumor is that he had been complaining about a voice in his head. Saying it kept nagging at him to do it.”

“Creepy.” I said. You always heard of this kind of phenomenon in news stories, but I never expected to be in such close proximity to it. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I quietly nodded and hoped for someone to think of a more pleasant topic of conversation.

Thankfully, the breakfast line opened up and broke up the morbid silence. I got a couple pancakes and a slightly overripe apple, opting to skip over the bacon and sausage of questionable color and consistency. When I got back to the table, I noticed the ship’s dentist had joined us. I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, but we had already met so I was too embarrassed to ask. He was nice and quite funny, but my short-term memory isn’t what it used to be.

“Hey dude. You’re up early.” I said, trying to sneak a glance at his nametag to no avail. I couldn’t get a good angle sitting right next to him without making it obvious.

“Wish I wasn’t, but that’s what happens in a man overboard.” He replied with a ‘obviously I had to get up and muster just like the rest of the ship’ chuckle.

“Ah. Right. Duh.” I said.

“You hear anything from medical?” Pete asked. “Are they okay?”

“They’re okay as far as I can tell. Alive at least.” He responded. “I heard them on the way by as the stretcher team took them to medical. They sounded kinda crazy, but I guess that figures.”

“Crazy how?” I asked.

“Kept yelling ‘get away!’ or ‘shut up!’ to no one in particular. I got out of there. Not my place, you know? I probably shouldn’t have told y’all that much. They weren’t my patient, but I’m sure its borderline with medical confidentiality.”

“Yeah…” I mumbled, mouth full of pancakes and stifled questions.

The rest of the morning was, thankfully, tame and boring. It was the first day of ‘holiday routine’ the ship had since the beginning of the war meaning the only people working were those that needed to keep the ship moving and the crew fed. Normally, people don’t work 24/7 so sometimes ships like to schedule in a day where people can relax for just a moment. For the shooters this meant catching up on administrative paperwork and watching movies in our office space, a small haven we called the ‘shooter shack’. Jim was on a mission to watch everything Kevin Smith, and I was happy to join him. We got about halfway through “Clerks 3” when our rest was cut short.

This is the T.A.O. Launch the alert 30 DCA side numbers two-one-two, and two-one-seven. Launch the alert 30 DCA side numbers two-one-two, and two-one-seven. Upgrade the alert 60 DCA side numbers one-zero-six and one-one-one to alert 30. Upgrade the alert 60 DCA side numbers one-zero-six and one-one-one to alert 30.

Fuuuuuck. There goes our relaxing ‘holiday routine.’ Jim and I hurriedly threw on our yellow flight deck float coats, gloves, and helmets with connected radios and rushed up to the flight deck. We were well on our way back from the war somewhere in the Indian ocean and there was no way Iran would have launched a drone or missile at us this far away, especially when there were two other carriers much closer to them. It didn’t matter. The order was given and we just had to get these jets in the air.

We got out to the flight deck and started our launch and recovery station pre-flights. On my way to the arresting gear, I saw the waist ICCS station being raised and could barely make out the boot print on the flat, metal, surface pointed directly towards the ocean. I had never been in a state of mind where I would want to do something like that, thankfully. The unfortunate reality was that if you spend enough time on this planet, especially in the armed forces, you will come across individuals who go through with it. Suicide. It could happen anywhere at any time, and it was often the people you expect the least. During this war, we were more a danger to ourselves than the enemy was at this point. I shuddered and forced myself to focus on the task in front of me.

While checking the arresting gear cables a jet, loaded with air-to-air missiles taxied within feet to me. I looked at the plane director and saw they were signaling for the jet to turn. Fortunately, it was to turn away from me. Unfortunately, that would mean its exhaust would be pointed directly at me. I grabbed the shoulder of the sailor running the checks with me and crouched down. You only get blasted by jet exhaust once before you start giving it the respect its due. Even crouched down, I could feel the searing air rush over us, making the little exposed skin on my face and the top of my neck tingle from the heat. After a few seconds, the jet turned again, and we carried on and finished our inspection. Jim launched the jets and a few hours later, I caught them. Just another normal day in the most dangerous workplace in the world. I turned in early that night. If I wasn’t going to have a day off, I might as well get some extra sleep. I curled up in my rack, closed the curtain, put on my noise cancelling earphones and opened my e-reader to wind down my mind.

God damn it. Again? Slave to my digestive system, I threw my blanket off, rolled over, and carefully lowered myself to the ground to meet my shower shoes. Deep and steady breathing came from behind the bottom bunk. When did Will come in? My body was on autopilot as I stepped out into the soft red glow of sleepy hollow. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I wrapped my arms around my body. Why is it so fucking cold? I took a few more steps toward the good head and froze in place.

What the fuck is that?

There at the end of the hallway, floating at eye level and looking directly at me was a floating bison skull. Am I dreaming again? I must be. Would I know it if I were? I don’t remember falling asleep. Could it be a lucid dream? Is this real? Does it matter? The skull floated, perfectly still and looked at me with empty eye sockets. One of the faint red lights began to flicker and I could see my breath again. Muscles all over my body tensed and shivered in a state of conflicting fight or flight.

Snap! Crack!

Loud bursts of sickening noise came from the skull as it began to grow. It stretched lengthwise until the jagged hole where its snout would be became a sharp point. Despite the cold, I could feel sweat run down my back. My breathing was completely out of my control, and I couldn’t get my feet to move from under me. I kept staring at the skull’s elongating eye sockets under the flickering red light. The bones breaking and snapping stopped. It didn’t have the bottom half of its jaw, but the top half curved up in a disturbing grin. My mouth was dry and I swallowed.

The skull shot towards me from across the hall like a barracuda in the water. My body acted on instinct and I hit the deck. A sharp, cold gust of air blew over me. I rolled over expecting to see it continue its flight path down the hall.

You aren’t worth it.

I woke up in another pool of sweat, breathing fast and sharp.

“You okay dude?” Will asked from across the room. I opened my curtain to see him in gym clothes, using a flashlight to not wake me up with the overheads.

“Yeah. Nightmare. What time is it?” I asked, returning my e-reader, screen still on, to my shelf. I had no idea if it was the middle of the night or the middle of the next day.

“Its only zero-five. I just got back from checking the schedule. Looks like you are on nights now. Bow shooter at twenty-hundred. You sure you’re ok?” He asked, seeing the sweat still on my brow.

“Thanks. Yeah. I’ll be ok. I don’t ever remember my dreams. I already forget what it was.” I lied. “I’ll try to sleep in to be ready for tonight if anyone needs me.”

“You got it man. Take it easy.” Will nodded and left for his morning workout.

I rolled over in my rack and felt my sheets and blankets absolutely soaked in sweat.  Even if I wanted to go back to sleep, I wouldn’t have been able to in that mess. I stripped the bed and bagged my laundry. As I reached for my door handle, I paused. My hand shook. I burst into the hallway of sleepy hollow and rapidly looked around. Nothing. I exhaled, feeling like a child and left for ship’s laundry.

The next couple weeks were easier in terms of shooting the catapults compared to the previous month, but we still had to take shifts in the control tower for the helicopter squadrons as they did their patrols and training flights. It was boring, but at least you could sit and read between radio transmissions. I was fully qualified to stand the watch by myself, but Mike wanted company and hung out in the control tower with me. I didn’t mind. Another person to chat with.

“Did you hear?” Mike asked, looking up from his book of crossword puzzles.

“Hear what?”

“We are getting extended again. All the way to fucking December. That’ll make two Christmases that I’ve missed with my family.” Mike’s words dripped with venom. He was the kind of person to call out bullshit when he sees it. He was often right, but being right didn’t help his mind be at ease. When flight operations slowed, Mike had an excess of anxiety he couldn’t displace with work.

“Did Captain say that over the 1MC earlier? I haven’t heard of it.” I responded.

“No. Sandy in Operations heard that it might happen.” He answered.

“Well that’s…”

“The last time he heard that something might happen, we got in a stupid-ass war and got extended. Twice.” Mike cut me off, knowing where I was going. “What drives me crazy is that life is still going on at home. It’s like we’re in prison. My kids are growing and living and forgetting about me. Before they shut off the Wi-Fi, I managed to get a laggy video-call in the middle of the night with my family and my daughter said, ‘who’s that?’ And that was months ago! I’m a complete stranger to my own children. For what?”

I let him keep talking. I’ve seen Mike this way before. Nothing I said ever helped. If anything, he saw it as an opportunity to argue about how awful everything was. He wasn’t wrong, and I tried to commiserate with him from time to time, but I didn’t experience all that he had. The best I could offer was a shallow “I’m sorry.” A few hours of periodic radio calls and chatting about places we want to visit when we eventually get stateside passed before Pete came into primary flight control to take over for his shift.

Mike and I climbed down the eight flights of stairs and walked down the long hallway, spanning the length of the ship, towards wardroom one and two for a middle-of-the-night dinner. The hall to wardrooms one and two had a lot of small gaps between the frames of the ship that made people have to step up and through one at a time. These odd portals appeared as if a water-tight hatch could have been fitted there but wasn’t. We called them ‘knee-knockers’, and they tended to create traffic jams in busy areas. At night, the whole ship switched to the same red lights that we had in sleepy hollow, and I couldn’t help but feel on edge.

“Jesus it’s cold down here.” Mike said. I could feel my heart begin to thump. It was cold. More than that, it was freezing. It felt exactly like it did in my dreams, but this wasn’t sleepy hollow and I wasn’t alone. This was different. I tucked my chin down and wrapped my arms around myself.

“Its never been this cold on this level before. I can see my breath!” Mike continued. We were in one of the main halls on this level, but, eerily, there was no one around. The air around us condensed, leaving trails of droplets running down the wall and dripping from the ceiling. I cursed never replacing my ‘lucky’ boots as my foot slipped on the wet and smooth floor. Their luck ran out a while ago with their tread.

“What the fuck is that?!?” Mike suddenly stopped in front of me in the narrow hall. I slipped forward in a puddle and bumped into his back. He took a stabilizing step, grabbing hold of a toolbox on the wall to keep upright.

“Sorry! What?” I asked and looked past him down the hall to see what would cause Mike to freak out so much.

No.

It can’t be.

Am I asleep?

My shivers turned to full-fledged shakes as I reached up and grabbed Mike’s shoulder, pulling him back.

“We gotta g…get out of here.” I murmured, eyes locked on the floating skull thirty yards down the long hall. Despite my words, my feet would not move. Mike stood stark still, staring at the skull. Down the hall, a low groan emanated. The air continued to condense as a wispy fog rolled along the floor and walls, refracting the red lights to give the visual of the hallway constricting around us.

SNAP! CRACK!

“Fucking run!” I yelled myself into motion, pulling Mike behind me. I wasn’t going to watch this again. We turned and sprinted back down the hall.

“Help! Wake up!” I yelled, running past room after room. Where was everyone? The fog continued to collapse upon the hall, and I barely saw the knee-knocker in time to hop over.

“Ah! Fuck!” Mike was not so quick and took a bad fall. I turned, mid-sprint, and slipped and skidded to a stop a good twenty feet away from my friend. My original intent of running back to pick him up to his feet was immediately foiled as I saw the long and pointed skull hovering above him.

CRRRACK!

The skull split in half lengthwise as Mike tried to clamber away on an ankle bent too far in in the wrong direction. The inside of the skull was riddled with stark white spikes of bone and cartilage that writhed and vibrated as the whole structure stretched and grew. I was frozen with indecision trying to decide if I should go help my friend, run, or bash my head into the wall to try to wake up.

You are forgotten.

The skull snapped shut around Mike’s head. Muffled screams came from inside the skull as Mike’s hands desperately grasped at the skull’s eye sockets, trying to pull the thing off. In the red lights, I saw trickles of blood ooze out of the eye sockets down Mike’s hands.

Please let me wake up soon.

Mike suddenly fell forward on his hands and knees, his screams and groans inside the skull resonating and sounding more animalistic by the second.

SNAP!

His back broke, caving in and curving upward. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched his body break and bend at unnatural angles. When it was done, it stood on all fours and stared straight at me. A deep and resonant humming groan came from the beast.

It charged. Mike’s hands slapped against the ground and scrambled to grab hold of any purchase to gain bursts of speed as it ran at me on all fours. I gave up on my hopes to wake up and scrambled into a desperate sprint. I didn’t even know where to go. I hoped that this elongated beast wouldn’t take turns too easily and took the first right I came across.

SLAM!

It crashed into the bulkhead soon after I turned, renewing the chills down my spine as it screamed its groaning call, a blend of human screams of pain with bovine roars. It was much closer than I thought. I didn’t look back, opting to try to gain as much distance as possible. I decided to rush to security four floors down. Surely someone armed would be on watch there. I continued to the nearest ladder-well and rushed down two steps at a time. I was so worried about landing my steps, I missed that this ladder-well had a low ceiling and banged my head before crashing to the bottom.

FFFFUCK!

I turned to my back and shook the blurriness from my vision to see the beast at the top of the ladder, staring down at me, blood streaming down its eye sockets and onto its arms. I could see Mike’s frantic eyes inside the sockets, wild and wide open. I rolled to the side as the beast hurtled down the steps. Scrambling to my feet, with cold air on the back of my neck, I rushed down the last set of stairs and threw open the hatch to security and screamed past the brig.

“HELP! I’M BEING ATTACKED!” I yelled, desperately relieved to see the master-at-arms there in her security vest. Her face rapidly contorted from surprise to shock as she reached for her service pistol.

“Get behind me!” She commanded, stepping forward with her gun drawn, getting ready for a clear shot. A small part of me was very impressed by her reaction under pressure. The second I passed her, the shots rang through the deck. I turned to see her unload a dozen shots into the beast. Blood spurt from the exit wounds out the back of its body and legs, but it kept charging. A shot hit the skull and broke away one side of the face, revealing Mike’s bulging eye and ripped apart head. It wasn’t working.

What now?

Where can I go?

The beast leaped and punctured its pointed, elongated bone-snout straight through the master-at-arm’s face and out the back of her head.

Anywhere but here.

Turns and stairs seemed to slow it at least a little, so I ran across the mess decks to the next ladder-well and hurried up. I labored through the five flights of climbing all the way to the flight deck. My heart felt like it was going to explode and I was gasping for air, but I didn’t dare slow down. I came up at about the midpoint of the ship on the port side and resumed my sprint, weaving between all the aircraft parked on the deck. I risked a look over my shoulder to see the beast cresting over the side of the flight deck and still in pursuit. Its eyes were glowing the same red as the halls below decks.

Head’s up on the fantail while doing power checks on two-one-two. Head’s up!

The flight deck intercom blared and rang my ears without any hearing protection in. There are people up here working on a jet on the stern, and it was about to go up on power. With no better ideas, I ran toward the jet, no life vest, no hearing protection, no lights, desperate to escape this unwaking nightmare. I could barely hear the groaning shout of the beast behind me over the rush of wind on the exposed flight deck. The cold air on the back of my neck informed me how close the beast was and to not let up.

The jet I was running towards had its lights on and its engines began to whine and grow into a roar. I rushed past the flight deck personnel and hit the deck, crawling underneath the fuselage. Behind the frantically waving plane captain came the beast, charging on all fours, hands bloodied from the flight deck’s non-skid and with glowing eyes locked on me. I couldn’t hear my own yells of warning to the plane captain over the roar of the jet’s engines above me.

The beast leaped. It arched through the air in my direction, like a fox to a hare. Nowhere else to run. I clenched my eyes shut.

BOOM!

The jet above me lurched as the beast was sucked into the jet intake. A mixture of jet fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluid shot everywhere, dousing me and everyone nearby.

FWOOM!

Fire shot across the flight deck, quickly igniting my clothes and some of the fluid on my hands and face. I would never have been able to fathom this level of pain before this moment. Nor the smell of my skin burning. The flight deck personnel around me weren’t doing much better, running this way and that. Desperately rushing toward extinguishers.

You can’t help them.

I was futilely trying to pat out the flames on my sleeves when the flight deck fire suppressant system activated right under me, lathering me in foam and extinguishing the flame. Wiping the foam away, I found myself surrounded in persistent flames on three sides and the edge of the ship behind me. My body blocked the foam from covering the rest of the flames in the area and now I was trapped.

I was in immense pain. My face felt like it had melted off, my lungs rebelled against the chemicals and fluids I tried to breathe, and my eyes watered and blurred as the fumes stung at my face. I turned to face away the flames and towards the sea. Behind me, fire raged, alarms blared and every sensation and sense was assaulted. In front of me, the sea quietly rolled, ignorant to the folly of the men and women riding on its waves. Infuriatingly stable and calm. After giving my eyes and lungs a moment of rest, I turned to look for a gap in the flames.

Wouldn’t it be better out there?

The beast stood on two legs in the fire. Mike’s jersey and pants were ripped to shreds and burning along the shredded edges.

Why would you want to come back to this?

It stepped forward and the flames came with it. I was being hemmed in.

“Get away!” I croaked through the fumes.

You have helped no one. You have only caused pain.

“Shut up!”

The beast stepped closer still and I instinctively stepped backwards. My foot slipped along the ordinance jettison ramp behind me and I stumbled to pull my foot back from the edge of the ship. The beast and the fire got closer still. My already burned skin stung and blistered all over. I couldn’t see Mike’s eyes in the blank sockets anymore. By the sickening smell, it was likely a lot of what was left of my friend had burnt up. Most of the body was exposed bones and the odd tendon.

There is much less pain this way.

The beast lifted a hand with burnt skin and exposed finger bones and pushed me over the edge.

I want to live.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING…DING…DING! MAN OVERBOARD MAN OVERBOARD. ALL HANDS MUSTER AT YOUR MAN OVERBOARD STATIONS. PROCEED STARBOARD SIDE FORWARD AND UP AND PORT AFT AND DOWN. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING…DING…DING!