Chapter 3.

I awoke to the screech of my alarm. Fumbling around desperately in of my phone to end the god awful noise. Failing to find it amongst my sheets I sat up, eyes burning in the morning and head pounding. My eyes darted around desperately for a sign of the phone, my pounding skull begging for the noise to end. As I crept through the opening to the galley eyes caught sight of the source of the god awful din. Like cat chasing a mouse I pounced at the thing, slamming my thumb into the button to silence the damn thing. I cursed my drunken self, how dare I leave my phone out here, putting myself through auditory hell. Then my eyes noticed the carrier bag of gatorade on the counter and suddenly drunk Glen didn’t seem all that bad.

I snatched a glowing yellow bottle from the bag and necked it in one, before reaching in for another. I opened the overhead cabinet pulled out a bag of coffee and put on a pot. Opening the fridge and finding nothing but a can of olives, I closed it again and returned to the cabinets. I threw a few handful of dry cheerios into my mouth and washed it down with some piping hot coffee.

Caffeinated and sort of fed, I clambered out onto the deck. My eyes burned as the full force of the morning sun hit me. As I squinted I gazed out across the dockyard at the task that lay before me. Head still pounding, stomach rolling, muscles aching, I gulped down another florescent electrolyte filled sip and set to work.

It wasn't too bad at first, chipping away at the barnacles woke me up and helped me sweat out some of the poison I had filled myself with the night before. It wasn't until i turned on the power sand that the pain really began. Between the deafening noise of the motor and the sheer strength of the vibrations it sent flying through my now gelatinous muscles, I was fighting hard not to vomit or pass out.

Fortunately I held on and before too long it was lunch time. A cup of coffee and a large heaping of fried rice later I was feeling almost human. There was just a little sanding left to do and then it was easy going from there. I finished the last of the sanding, had a cup of tea (black no sugar) and grabbed my mask. I plugged my earphones in clicked on a podcast (something about an elk getting drunk on apples and going on a rampage) and I whiled away the rest of the daylight hours applying a new coat of boat paint to the hull of the boat.

When the work was done I made my way down to the local aldi and picked out some stuff for dinner and a little extra to fill my sorry looking fridge. I hopped aboard Ussain ducked into the galley and began to unload my haul. As I was pulling a bottle of Chianti and some fresh sea bass from the bag and onto the counter I stopped and stared down at the counter. There was a book.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I didn't have books. It's not that I wasn't a fan, I just didn't have the time, I was an audiobook and podcast kinda guy. Keep the brain busy while your hands are taking on the daily chores. Living and working in a dockyard there were certainly plenty of them.

'Perhaps someone left it behind' I thought to myself but then who had been on my boat recently. Dillon sure but he wasn't in the business of bringing books around places. Guitars yes, junk yes, sketchy homemade alcohol certainly, but never books. The only.books I had caught him reading were advanced treaties on neuroscience and books about fairy smut. Neither being something you'd be bringing out in public and leaving around willy nillly.

It was a grey somewhat scuffed little leather bound book. On closer inspection there appeared to be nothing printed upon it's jacket. No title, no author. I flipped the book open and flicked over to the first page. It contained a small inscription written in shakily scrawled pencil.

"To Glen Davis, resident of Ussain boat, {undisclosed} North Wales"

I jumped back in shock, smacking my head against the cupboard behind me. As I clutched at my now throbbing head, it hit me. I remembered where the book came from. IT HIT ME!

"The old man" I muttered to myself, scowering the hazy memories from the night before. "What was it that he had said?" Reaching into my beer scrambled memories I found no answers. Having nothing better to do I flicked across to the next page and found something that looked like a diary entry. Atop the page was a date....today's date....

March 5th 20@$.

Fishing boat beaches on the shore. No crew found inside. Ship stripped bare. This is where it all started.

"What the..." I said aloud but before I could think about what I had just read a thump rang down from overhead.

"Glen! Glen my boy." It was Scully, he poked his old grey face through the hatchway and continued to say "Quickly, I need your help. There’s been a crash"

I swung my coat on and climbed up the stairs into the cold night air. Scully lead me through the docks to the tug boat. There was a few other dock workers running about here and there. A few of the local fire brigade and the life boat workers too.

"What happened?" I asked, as we stepped down onto the tug boat.

"Fishing vessel" Scully said starting the engine and talking through puffs of pipe smoke. "Came towards the bay about ten minutes ago. It's bearing was off. I radioed the vessel. No reply. Crashed onto the beach not long after."

"What about the crew? They OK?"

"That's the thing, life guards been aboard. They say ain’t nobody on the thing."

"What?"

"Yep weird right. Anyway get ready of the winch my boy. We gotta pull it into dock. Can't have it falling down on the dog walkers in the morning can we."

The whole ordeal took about an hour. The fire brigade supervising from the beach as the life boats and the tug boat pulled from the water. After carefully pushing, pulling, levering and shunting we got the boat free. We pulled it into dock and I found myself sat in the harbormasters office with a cup of tea waiting for the authorities to finish their investigations and paperwork.

At about ten o'clock I turned to see the office door creak open. Scully stormed in pulled his cap from his head and threw it down on the desk.

"Any news?" I asked.

The old harbor master sighed and said "It was McGregors boat. His wife reported him missing last month"

"McGregor?"

"Yep, last I heard of him he said he 'eard tell of a good spot out in the Irish sea. Nobody seen him since."

"Any sign of what happened to him?"

"That’s the thing" He said scratching at his bushy beard "Ain’t no sign of a struggle aboard. Ain’t no sign of anything. The ships been stripped clean. No nets, no lines, nothing. But here’s the darndest thing, McGregor weren't never a fan of banks. Kept all his money in a lock box on his boat. It was open, whoever took everything left the lock-box open with near ten grand of cash inside.