1800 hours, 10th August

Alkibiades. That's his name. It's Greek. Westvallen picked it when I was telling him about what happened. The first thing we did was find the nearest Greek sailor, Crewman Tsoutis, then bring him in to talk to Al. Let's call him Al, because I'm sure as hell not going to keep writing that name over and over. Turns out, Tsoutis couldn't make out what Al was saying and vice versa. He mentioned that there were sparse words here and there that he could make out through some strange pronunciations, but that's it. No real meaning. They must've spoken completely different dialects. Westvallen reckons he’s from one of those real remote villages, the ones that have no electricity or anything.

We sent a very confused Tsoutis back to the engine room and continued discussing what to do with Al. In the meantime, Winters had guards posted in the infirmary around the clock to make sure he wasn't up to no good. I don't think he's dangerous. If he was, he would've tried to escape by now. Kelly’s been spending a lot of time with him. He’s the only thing that’s managed to calm her down. Apparently, in the short amount of time that she’s had with him, she’s taught him a few English words. Simple things like food, drink, water, boat. The girl should become a teacher. She has a knack for it. They’ve become pretty fond of each other.

I suppose I should write about the other more disconcerting thing that’s been happening. We’ve been having more KIAs and the bodies are vanishing just like the others did. Marines are stationed in the infirmary around the clock, but they aren’t spotting anything suspicious. What really concerns me is the fact that I’m getting used to it. ‘Oh, would you look at that, Hickman’s gone and vanished,’ I’d think to myself. It’s horrible. This is not normal. None of it is. We still don’t know who or what’s taking them.

During the poor excuse for a lunch break I managed to have, I caught up with Mendez in the galley. He was telling me that the sketches of the coastline he made didn’t match up with any charts. None. He started questioning his cartography. I think I managed to convince him that he wasn’t at fault, that something real strange is happening here. Who knows if he listened?

I’m lying in my bed right now. The captain ordered me to have an early one after last night. I can’t sleep, though. I keep seeing Tanaka cut up like a piece of meat, seared red. I spent an hour just staring at the ceiling. Then another hour staring out the viewport. I really don’t want to go to sleep. I can hear Kelly talking to Al in the room over. They seem to be giving each other a break from everything that’s been happening.

-

Must’ve been another hour of sleep. I had another dream. It was Captain Westvallen. He was being torn apart by sharks. Their teeth were like hundreds of sharpened daggers. They slid into his flesh like the holes were already there, that’s how smooth it was. They fought over the pieces like rabid wolves, snatching limbs from each other and gobbling up the innards before the others could react. The water was as red as wine. This isn’t right. I’ve had two similar dreams two nights in a row. What does it mean? It can’t be a coincidence. Are they some kind of premonitions? Am I seeing how they’ll die? No one’s going to believe me. They’re going to say I’ve got shell shock or something. But look at where we are. The sun doesn’t set. There’s no beach on Earth like the one we’ve been sailing alongside. I can’t just shrug these off. I wish we had a shrink on staff. He wouldn’t be able to catch a break though, everyone’s got problems in times like these.

0300 hours, 13th August

I didn’t have time to write the last day or so. I don’t even know where to begin. I feel like I can barely remember what happened yesterday. The captain came to the infirmary in the morning to tell us ladies what they discovered. We’ve been sailing down a river. They figured that out when it started narrowing out on both sides. That’s why Mendez didn’t recognise the coastline. It made me feel a bit better, despite the fact that we still had no idea where we were. Westvallen said that a river is a godsend right now, because villages are always built on rivers. If we keep travelling down it, we’ll come across people for sure.

Rachael asked if the radio operator’s had any luck on making contact with any Allied forces. He said no. Then, Winters came over and made the very valid point that any settlements we find may be allied with the Japanese or the Germans. Westvallen clearly didn’t want to think about it at all; he just brushed him off and went back up to the bridge.

It took me a while to find Kelly. She was on the deck with Al. They were sitting under the railing, looking out at the riverbank like lovestruck teenagers. I went to the galley to get some food for them. On my way back over, it happened.

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Al shot up like a rocket. He pointed at the trees and shouted something. Over and over. An arrow hit him in the shoulder, sending Kelly into a panicked frenzy. I dropped the lunch trays and hurried them inside. I think a few more whizzed over my head. I don’t really know, it happened so fast and the adrenaline was making everything feel like it was happening to someone else. Rachael charged over from the infirmary. I was going to tell her to get Doctor Klein, but again, it happened so fast. There was a loud ‘thud’ on the deck of the ship.

Winters barked orders at some of his men and they charged out. I left Al in the care of Kelly and Rachael. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I grabbed a med kit and followed Winters and his men as they filtered back up onto the deck. I suppose it was that they didn’t have any corpsmen to patch them up. I needed to be there with them.

There were already bodies scattered around. Trying to inspect wounds while in an actively dangerous area was sickening. You don’t want to look down. Not paying attention to the things around you is the last thing you want to do. You feel like something is going to kill you whenever you’re focusing on something else. I patched up the ones that weren’t already dead with a dose of morphine, a quick cleaning of their wounds, then bandages.

It was clear as day from the first few bodies I looked at. It was like a butcher putting down an animal. Very precise cuts with an insanely sharp blade. The wounds were made with much more finesse than the ones I saw on the beach.

That’s when I saw her. She came around the corner in front of Winters and the two other marines. A woman, at least six feet and five inches tall, covered in muscle so defined that it put any male athlete I’ve ever seen to shame. She wore a one shouldered dress that exposed her right breast. Well, it would have, if she had one. The flesh was scarred there like the breast had been cut out at an early age. She wore a bronze helmet that obscured most of her face. In her right hand was a sword and in her left a circular shield. What I still can’t come to terms with was how fast she was.

Before the first marine could even fire a single shot, she had bounded over to him and sliced him upward across the belly, spilling his intestines all over the deck. The second one as well as Winters squeezed the triggers of their Thompsons. Her shield became pocked full of holes, but it didn’t stop her from running the other man through. Winters tried to grab me and push me back inside, but she was too fast. I watched as she drew her sword across his neck. His head dropped onto the floor, bounced, then rolled off the side and into the water.

I had to crane my neck up at her. Her shield was nothing but shrapnel at that point so she dropped it. A few bullet wounds peppered her forearm. She looked down at me with this warmth. I thought I was going to die. Then she turned away and walked off. It was just in time for Al to charge out from the infirmary flanked by two more marines. They lasted just as long as the other three.

She seemed to save Al for last. With her back to me, she seized his head with both hands and wrenched. Just like that, with a ‘pop’, he was dead. I picked up Winters’ Thompson, reloaded it, then set it off. The rounds went straight through her. I watched her glance down at her chest, drop Al, then turn to look at me. Pure shock and betrayal was on her face. She took a step forward as she whispered, ‘adelfi’. Then I unloaded the magazine into her. 30 rounds of .45 ammunition. It took every single bullet to put her down. It sounded like someone dropped a fridge onto the deck when she finally fell. Kelly was already by Al’s body. She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t crying. Tears did stream out of her eyes, but they were completely silent. Then, like all the others, the bodies went away when we weren’t looking. It took Al’s a while to go. Kelly just wouldn’t leave it.

There were a few men who weren’t killed outright by whoever that woman was. Compared to how many were killed instantly, it wasn’t much to be happy about. Winters was gone, so command fell to Corporal Kitsch, a weak-minded coward. Tanaka was on the other end of the ship when everything happened, so he was safe. I don’t think I realised it at the time, but it explains why everyone was so eager to ask me if I was okay. She was the first person I killed. I didn’t see it that way; euthanizing is killing, isn’t it? I’ve done it dozens of times by now. But I suppose doing it with a gun is different. I asked Tsoutis if he knew what ‘adelfi’ meant after that. It means ‘sister’.

Having those boys die right next to me was hard. That night, I cried myself to sleep.

The next day, the 12th, was uneventful. I suppose any day would be after something like that. Lieutenant Jackson was careful to keep us far enough away from the riverbank; he didn’t want any killer women leaping onboard again. Rachael insisted that I be given the day off. It was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to keep my mind occupied, not give it time to loop around on itself and dig myself into a deeper hole. I raised such a fuss about it that Westvallen had to come down and formally dismiss me for the rest of the day. I slept. I slept better than I had in a long time. And I had another dream. It was Winters this time. Bleeding out in a lifeboat surrounded by people I’d never seen before. It confused me even more. He was already dead, and that sure as hell wasn’t how he died. Then I woke up in the middle of the night, suddenly remembering that I had to write it all down. I suppose that’s where I am now. Trying to keep myself sane by sticking to this stupid journal thing. I just want to go home. I want to be with Harry again. I want us to be with Keith again.