Mr. Nightmare by Joe Scipione

Author:Joe Scipione [Scipione, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wicked House Publishing
Published: 2022-10-25T22:00:00+00:00

I had been standing near the middle of the circle next to the fire and hadn’t moved much for the first part of the story. When coming up with the story I had the idea to move back and forth behind my friends so my voice would move around behind them and give the impression they were on a ship floating at sea. I wasn’t sure if it would produce the desired effect, but I wanted to try it out. So when I continued the story, I started pacing as I did so.

James didn’t know if he was the only one to notice something was not quite right with the ship. He didn’t talk to many of the other people making the trip, even the few other kids around his age. But once they were out at sea, he, and all of the other kids, had the run of the ship. With nowhere else to go, they roamed free, trying not to get in trouble and having to hear about it from any adults in the area when they went somewhere they weren’t supposed to. While some of the kids ran and played, James wandered silently. He listened to the adults talking about plans in the colonies. He heard everything because he kept to himself and didn’t bother anyone. He even overheard a man talking about the monsters that were supposed to lurk just under the surface of the sea to their north. That, the man said, was the reason for their more southerly course. He listened in as a man and a woman grunted and moaned while they wrestled in the cargo area. But he also heard the ship.

Most of the others were busy with the day-to-day activities and just simply didn’t notice. The ship had a voice of its own. For the first week or two, the ship sounded like a series of rhythmic creaks as it rose up and down on shallow swells of a calm ocean. To anyone who took the time to listen, they would have realized there was more to it than just the sounds of wood and nails sliding and twisting in place. The ship had a voice, and James heard it speak to him as clear as he overheard adults talking about their worries of attacks in the colonies. You just had to listen.

The first time he heard the ship speak to him was in the bowels of the ship, surrounded by an uncounted number of people either sleeping or pretending to sleep. James was lying awake well after dark. His eyes were open, though he couldn’t tell due to the complete lack of light below deck. As usual, he listened.

In his immediate surroundings were the sounds of his father and mother, both snoring as they slept. He’d never known they snored until this trip. He was always asleep before them and woke up after them. At home, they slept far enough away that if he woke up during the night, he couldn’t hear them.

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