Drydock

I couldn’t remember anything when I woke up. My brain pounded against the inside of my skull like it was trying to escape, the pain nearly immobilizing. I cracked my eyes open carefully, only to be met with a stab of light streaming in from shattered windows. Squinting through the brightness, I saw that I was crumpled up in the corner of the navigation room of a ship, the sun shining through the broken glass as it sat low in the sky. The room felt warm, so it must be setting. I was dressed in leather work gloves, pair of tattered steel-toe boots, and a blue jumpsuit stained with something dark and oily. Attached to the front pocket of my jumpsuit was a grimy old ID card, made of a thick, light colored plastic. The card itself was blank, only a small string of numbers on the back, barely visible beneath the dark smudges of… something. Maybe the same stuff that was on my suit.

I carefully shifted to my feet, clutching my head. As I gained more awareness of the state of my body, I realized just how much the whole thing ached. It feels like I got hit by a truck. I stayed hunched over the defunct ship controls for a while, waiting for the pain to ebb enough that I could stand upright. My ears rang and it felt like my mouth had been sealed shut from how dry it was. My empty stomach lurched as the last sensation emerged: hunger.

Eventually, I acclimated to the unpleasantness enough to straighten my back and look out over the deck of the ship. The ship itself was in drydock, walls of rust surrounding the bow. Rows and rows of rusty shipping containers were stacked up below, most of them empty. Their doors hung open, some swaying gently in the sea breeze with a soft metal creak. I pulled my hand away from my head and was startled by the sight of fresh blood smeared across the work glove.

My head is bleeding… that explains a lot. What the hell happened?

I shambled to the rusted doorway at the other end of the bridge. I emerged into the light of the early sunset, the smell of stagnant saltwater washing over me. Clouds hung in the sky in fine gray wisps, drifting along in the muggy air that stuck to my skin. I heard a flock of seagulls pass by, echoing each others calls as they flew towards the shore. The hunger continued to gnaw at my vacant stomach, easily becoming the most distracting discomfort out of all of them.

A faint memory crossed my mind, one of boots clanking on a metal stairway, the warm glow of the ship’s galley through the pitch-black nighttime at sea, me and another man in a blue jumpsuit laughing and eating some kind of mush on a tray. God, it made my stomach grumble just thinking about it, even if my brain insisted that there wasn’t much to be desired there in taste or texture. The path there – the place with the food – had been drawn in my mind like I’d taken it a hundred times before, and the rest of my body willed my legs down the metal stairway to the deck.

Out on the deck, the containers loomed above me. Most of them were not as empty as they seemed, instead strewn with decaying cardboard and shredded plastic wrap, some soggy boxes still intact and filled with odds and ends. One container had boxes filled with CDs. Another had the shattered remnants of lightbulbs. Still, many more only had scraps of packaging to hint at what was there before… the memory was lost in a pale fog that only seemed to get thicker the more I tried to focus.

Before what?

The hunger drove my brain away from the effort, and I moved my body towards where food could be. That would help, food would definitely help. The galley was at deck level, it too had its windows shattered and door coated in a waterfall of rust. My fingers weakly wrapped around the handle and pulled the heavy metal door open. I felt the muscles in my arms stretch unpleasantly as they strained, and I almost collapsed in the doorway from the effort. As I caught my breath in ragged gasps, I looked through the swirling motes of dust in the air and saw a figure freeze amidst the tarnished stainless steel of the kitchen.

His eyes were wide, his body stock still as he looked at me. He was a young man, couldn’t have been more than 30. His face was smudged in dirt and he wore clothes that were more made of stitching than they were fabric, with a messenger bag slung across his shoulder. On his left arm was a red bandana tied over a bloodstained bandage. I tried to think of what to say, what I needed to convey, no– what I needed to ask this person.

“Whh… gkkk…” I croaked, the question dying somewhere in the back of my desiccated throat. The words just didn’t come, no matter how hard I tried to force my vocal chords to make them. The other person swallowed, slowly backing up through the kitchen. I reached out and tried again to say something. He let out a terrified yelp and ran, knocking over stained pots and cooking utensils in his wake before disappearing, leaving me in the kitchen in silence.

What the hell? Another noise came gurgling out of my throat, my thought painfully butchered by my broken mouth. Stumbling through the kitchen, I looked around to see where he had gone but saw nothing. A stab of hunger knotted up my stomach again, there was no time to dwell on it.

As with the shipping containers outside, the insides of the galley had already been picked apart before I had arrived. Running my gloved hands along the empty shelves of the pantry, skulking in the desolate walk-in freezer, I was about to give up and move on until I saw a rainbow-colored can of fruit cocktail, tucked away in a rotten cardboard box on the rough metal floor. I plucked it from its soggy resting place, scrambling to open the top. My gloved digits couldn’t get ahold of the tab, which had corroded slightly and stuck to the lid, so I pulled them off with my teeth. I salivated at the thought of its contents, soft chunks of fruit in a sickening sweet syrup, hardly noticing the deep purple bruising on my fingertips.

The can cracked open, revealing the fruit floating around in the sweet liquid. I dumped it into my mouth, my brain lighting up with anticipation of the sugary reward.

Oh god, this isn’t-

As it cascaded down my throat, I realized it tasted absolutely disgusting. The chunks of fruit felt mushy and mealy against the sandpaper texture of my mouth, and I gagged as it slid down into my stomach. I looked inside the can, thinking I’d be met with rotten fruit sitting in fermented juice, but everything inside looked, even smelled normal. My stomach rumbled in protest, demanding to know why I’d stopped. I pinched the bridge of my nose and scarfed down the rest of it until it was gone, heaving between each gasp for air.

I sank to the floor after I was finished, the remains of the horrible syrup sticking to my dry lips, and heard my stomach growl even louder. I wanted to cry, all that effort for nothing. It felt like I hadn’t eaten anything at all, the hunger still raging in my abdomen. I almost felt even hungrier. Clutching my head and curling my legs, I shuddered as I tried to will it away, make my body accept the horrible canned meal I just gave it. It didn’t work.

The other guy could help me. He had to know where some real food was, or at least have some he’d be willing to share with me. I clumsily pulled myself onto my feet again, the fruit churning in my stomach. I shambled into the kitchen, trying to remember where I saw him go. A door in the back of the kitchen was cracked open, fresh scrapes from boots in the grime beneath it. My feet dragged against the metal floor as I emerged into a long metal corridor lined with doors on either side, lit in pale red by the chemical glow of emergency lights.

Another memory came faintly in my mind. Seven doors down, to the right. Somewhere familiar. My body moved almost automatically, the rhythm of my boots on the floor was one I’d felt a hundred times before. Seven doors down, to the right, a door with a name placard on the side that had been eaten away by salty air: LEO DELMAR. I wasn’t able to tell if the name felt familiar, my tongue couldn’t seem to match the syllables.

I pushed myself against the door and it swung open easily. The room was, oddly enough, mostly untouched compared to the rest of the ship. It was small, but still livable. The bed was unmade and covered in laundry, but looked terribly comfortable. There was a small desk in the corner by the door with a corkboard above it. Pinned to it was a picture – two young men in blue jumpsuits just like the one I was wearing, arms over each other’s shoulders on the deck of the ship, rows of colorful shipping containers behind them. Beneath it were more pictures, the same two men with a bunch of others. Drinking, laughing, hanging out. I looked around the room, curious about other things in here, what they could mean to me, and stopped when I saw my reflection in the mirror above the sink.

Looking back was the visage of man who was terribly injured. I instinctively recoiled, covering my face with my hands, taking perilous glances from between my bruised fingers.

Oh god. Is that… me?

My mouth had been so dry because unbeknownst to me, my jaw had been hanging open and slack like it was detached from the rest of my skull. The stubbled skin around it was deeply bruised, a smudging of red and purple. Dried blood pasted my dark hair down to my forehead, mingling with the fresh blood from a gash in my scalp. My eyes were bloodshot and sunken deep into their sockets, my nose twisted and broken, and my teeth… Jesus Christ. It’s like they’d been smashed in with a hammer. They were jagged like shattered glass, haphazardly stuck into my gums. If I bore even a resemblance to the men in the pictures, it was impossible to tell with this amount of damage.

From the outside the room, I heard a loud thump. I pushed the door open and started moving towards the source of the sound. From two doors down the man from the kitchen emerged, looking frightened. I tried to form another sentence with my mangled mouth.

“Hhhhhh….hhhhhe…” I rasped, the noise coming out like the cry of a dying animal. The man whipped his head towards me and quickly pulled something from his pocket. Before I could realize I was staring down the barrel of a pistol, he fired.

The bullet ripped through the air and into my torso, then burst out the back in a small cloud of blood. I hardly felt it, most sensations had disappeared under the encroaching hunger. The hole it left was like a cold spot in my body as the air touched it, and my fingers traced against the wound lightly. Dark blood stained the tips of my bony fingers.

What is wrong with you? I tried to scream it out through my broken mouth, only letting out an agonized gurgle. He ran down the hall, hoping the bullet would have stalled me. I continued to shuffle after him. I could feel the muscles in my legs stretch and warp with every step, pushing me forward. My organs were twisted up in the barbed wire of starvation, my arms and hands twitching in anticipation.

I watched him sprint down the hall to a heavy bolted door and start pushing on the opening mechanism. It hardly budged, even as he put all of his might into it. I heard him grunt, the blood flowing through his veins and bones creaking under the stress of exertion. I let out another horrible noise from my throat, trying to tell him I was just injured and hungry.

Why won’t you help me? I just need help, please. I’m so hungry.

As I got close, the mechanism of the door gave way. He slipped through and disappeared behind the hefty watertight door, slamming it in my face. I heard the clamor of boots on metal, then a loud crash as he screamed. Oh no.

I wrenched the door open and peered down into the stairwell. He was crumpled at the bottom, surrounded by the collapsed steps of a metal spiral staircase. His limbs were bent at odd angles and the corroded metal had sliced up his flesh when it gave way beneath him. As the dust settled, he wailed in pain. My heart sank deep down into the pit of hunger inside my body.

He saw me and screamed in mortal terror, trying to pull himself up with his shattered limbs. I crawled down the stairwell, bruised purple digits stretching to wrap around the fragments of metal left welded to the walls. My jaw hung open, saliva pooling around the shattered teeth. He pleaded and fired bullet after bullet into me as I descended, each one passing impotently through my ravenous form.

Stop it. Stop it. I just need help. I’m hungry. I’m so hungry.

He screamed and swore, hammering his fists against me after the gun was spent, thick maroon fluid dripping onto him from my bullet wounds. I dug my sharp fingers into his flesh, feeling it burst under the pressure like ripe fruit. Seeing the bright red liquid pool out of his wounds made my brain light up, knowing it would taste sweet on my tongue. I sank my broken glass teeth into his exposed skin and tore off a chunk of soft, syrupy flesh. The juice dripped out of my mouth, my jaw stretching and contracting to chew it like it was a piece of warm cantaloupe.

Finally.

This part felt familiar to me, as familiar as the walk to the galley and the cabin seven doors down to the right.The yawning rapacious chasm in my body, my stretching limbs and sharp digits puncturing and ripping at flesh, the rubbery muscles in my jaw flexing bite after bite, the taste as sweet as fruit cocktail in my mutilated mouth. Any trace of guilt or horror there was in my eyes was now completely masked by the mindless desperation to sate my hunger until there was nothing left, just like I’d done a hundred times before.