Dead Sea

It was well-equipped, George found out, as Gosling pointed out all the features. There were countless pockets for equipment, flares, inflation valves that you could pump with a bellows (included), and a survival kit. The survival kit, probably the most exciting feature, came in a waterproof, rubberized box. It contained 18 pints of fresh water, 8 flares, 2 bailers, fishhooks, fishing line, a signal mirror, flashlight, extra paddles, bellows, a first aid kit, and food. The latter consisted mainly of chocolate, bread, freeze-dried soups and stews, glucose and salt tablets.

There was a line running from one end into the water. George was examining it. “What’s this do?”

“That’s our sea anchor,” Gosling explained. “Sort of like a water parachute. It keeps us from drifting due to the wind.”

“They think of everything,” George said. And they had.

There was even a small waterproof flashlight and extra batteries, a bunch of lightsticks. Using one of them, Gosling set up the radio beacon and VHF radio. He started transmitting right away.

George swigged from a plastic water bottle. “Hell, we should be okay now. I mean, hell, at least we won’t drown. Sooner or later, this fog has to lift and then…”

But he didn’t finish that and Gosling did not comment on it. For that was really what they were both wondering: what came next? What would happen next? Because something had to and that something could either be good or bad. Sure, they were safe and sound in the raft and Gosling was an old hand with survival equipment. He’d keep them alive. But beyond that?

No answers.

No nothing.

Gosling finally gave up on the radio. “Nothing out there. Just static. Kind of a buzzing sound now and then.”

“Do you think it’s a signal?” George asked, trying to keep that hopeful tone from his voice.

Gosling just shrugged, his face artificial-looking in the glow of the lightstick. “If it is, it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”

George sat there, telling himself he had to be satisfied with what they had because things had definitely improved. And he had to be happy with that. But he wasn’t happy with that, he was not satisfied by any of it.

“Paul,” he said, realizing it was probably the first time he’d called Gosling by his Christian name. “Paul… what the hell is this all about? The fog, the wreck… all of it, it’s not right and we both know it. You had to watch what you said before when we were aboard ship because I was a passenger and you were in charge. But now you might as well come clean… where in the Christ are we?”

Gosling pressed his lips tight, looked stern. Maybe he was formulating a lie, a half-truth, something that would keep George’s spirits buoyant. But in the end, he just shook his head and ran fingers through his graying crewcut. “Don’t know, George. Don’t know where we are or how we got here anymore than you do” He took a sip of water. “Sailors, they like to tell stories and one they’ve been recycling for ages is the one about the Sargasso Sea, the Devil’s Graveyard, the Sea of Lost Ships and all that… some awful place where ships and their crews never return from…”

He recounted the tales of the mythical Sargasso for him, explaining that there was nothing truly mysterious about it. That, yes, lots of ships had disappeared there, many derelicts had been found drifting, but he couldn’t say as to whether it was worse than any other body of water. It was a seaweed-sea, he told George, a floating desert of weed and those weed banks were as large as islands in some places. It was like a whirpool of sorts, with conflicting currents at its edges creating a great dead, weedy area. In the age of sail, ships had been becalmed there and quite a few never escaped. They were found crewed by skeletons. When men did come out, they told unpleasant, disturbing tales of things they’d seen.

“But it doesn’t mean anything, George. It really doesn’t. None of it proves a goddamn thing,” he said, trying to dispel the import of what he’d already said. “There are sane, logical explanations for most of that business. But most sailors? They prefer the more outlandish explanations. Makes for a good spooky tale to pass the hours with.”

George didn’t like any of it, didn’t actually believe it any more than Gosling did… but it accounted for a few things and that’s what dried the spit up in his mouth.

“And you’re saying our last confirmed position was at the edge of the Sargasso Sea? The real Sargasso Sea?” he asked.

Gosling nodded. “Yes. And then…”

But George knew that part.

That fog rolling at them, the air being sucked away… and then they were lost, navigational instruments acting funny. Sure, he knew that part just fine. Gosling wanted very much to dismiss it all, but once the cat was out of the bag, just try and get it back in.

“What if there is something to it, Paul? What if we’ve sailed into one of those dead zones you mentioned, a dead sea? What then? Where in Christ does any of that leave us? What can we do?”

But Gosling just shook his head.