>The night was without moon, darkness draped the ship as it plied the water
somewhere near Japan. The night so far was without incident and the date,
31st of October, the night for all beasts to rise. The messdeck was now
silent , a night of ghoulish movies to ring in Halloween was entertaining
the crew earlier but now they were all gone, by now they were off to slumber
through the night. The exception to this was the skeleton crew that mans the
perpetual machinery thru the night . On the mess deck all that remained of
the movie watchers was bits of
popcorn, candy wrappers and cigarette butts , I swept them up leaving only
one task before I too could head towards  a warm rack and 2 good hours of
shut eye, my last duty was a quick swab of the mess decks.
I walked quickly into the starboard vestibule , turned and peered with one
eye out through the small portal on the hatch, as I thought, the ship was
running in "black out" mode. I knew the swap was just outside the hatch
against the rail but it was a long three paces into a world where the hand
could not be seen in front of the face, a darkness that pulls images of
beasts , creatures with fangs and all evil things that dwell in ones
imagination. I pulled my hand up slowly with the flashlight as if this could
ward off any of the horrors, my finger slid the switch forward ,click, no
light , all the courage that this small light would have offered was now
gone. I turned and thought how foolish my fears were , there is nothing out
there but ocean and that was many feet below.
I mustered all of my courage , adrenaline raced through my veins , the hatch
pushed aside by my hand and there I was standing face to the wind. My hand
now searched in the pitch blackness for the swab , nothing , I walked out
further into the night, now my hand was not safely holding the hatch, I had
lost my touch with things familiar and still no swab . Now both hands where
waving about frantically seeking out this damn thing and then it happened ,
all horrors shot into the mind all at once when my face hit against a slimy
, stinking , hairy creature . With a single move in shot back through the
hatch and dogged it with both hands almost tearing the metal arm off.
A minute of maybe ten must have passed when I reached down to the now
working flashlight , once again eye to the portal I peered out but nothing
was there. I opened the hatch once again and with the beam of the flashlight
I spied my monster , THE SWAB, apparently I missed it with both hands and
managed to walk face first into it. See the real monsters are there ,
they're living in your own imagination.......
Mark