CROSSING (standard:horror, 1458 words)
Author: Danny Raven	Added: Feb 13 2006	Views/Reads: 3623/2286	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A man wakes up and finds himself on board a boat. How did he get there ? Where is he going ? When he finds the answers, he wishes he hadn't.

The last thing I remembered was the sharp pain under my breast bone,
like somebody was twisting a knife in there, then I was on my knees on 
the thick carpet in my study, clawing under my shirt at my chest. The 
pain got worse after that and I suppose I must have passed out. 

When I came to I was fully clothed, lying on top of a large bed. It was
pretty comfortable there, the bed swaying gently from side to side and 
I lay awhile, just staring at the ceiling, so glad the pain had gone. 

‘Somebody must've found me and called a doctor,' I thought. ‘They've
given me a shot and left me here to recover.' 

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the comforting swaying of the bed. Then a
few things occurred to me. 

‘Hospital beds don't usually sway from side to side,' I thought. ‘The
rooms aren't as bare as this. There's usually someone around.' 

Where was I ? 

I sat up slowly, a hand tight over my chest, not wanting that pain to
start up again. My head felt surprisingly clear, considering what 
they'd given me and I swung my legs onto the floor. Gingerly I stood 
up, waiting for the knife to twist in my chest but thankfully it 
didn't. I walked over to the door, opened it and looked out. 

There was a broad passageway ouside the door. Beyond that a wooden
topped railing. Beyond that water. 

Water !? 

Puzzled and a little afraid I leaned against the doorway, wondering how
I had come to be on this boat instead of recovering in hospital. Maybe 
I was dreaming, having a nightmare of some kind brought on by what 
they'd given me for the pain. 

But the slap of the water against the boat's hull sounded real enough to
me though. 

I stepped out and glanced up and down the passageway. There was no-one
else around. I walked over and and leaned on the wooden rail and looked 
out. The boat was on a very broad river moving diagonally against the 
current towards the opposite bank but it was too far away to make out 
any details. 

Just then I heard a door opening further up the passageway. I turned and
saw a man coming out. He must've seen me when he glanced round but he 
didn't give any indication. He walked over to the rail, took a pipe 
from his jacket pocket and started cleaning it out with a short silver 
knife. 

He didn't seem particularly sociable and I would normaly have let it go
but he seemed to be the only one around and I had to find out what was 
going on. I strolled up beside him and leaned on the rail but he didn't 
look up, just continued cleaning out his pipe, tapping the bowl on the 
rail and letting the ashes fall over the side. 

“I think there's been some mistake,” I said to him eventually but he
didn't even acknowledge my presence and carried on scraping at the bowl 
of his pipe. “There's been a mistake,” I repeated. “I shouldn't be 
here. I ought to be in hospital.” 

He continued to ignore me and tapped his pipe on the rail again and
emptied it. I could see some coils of dead tobacco falling into the 
water below. 

For the first time I noticed how black the water was. Black like I'd
never seen before. Black and deep. Where the boat knifed across the 
current, the water foamed white against the hull but this only made the 
black even blacker. A tiny shiver of fear wriggled through me but I 
tried to shrug it aside. 

I looked back at the stranger beside me. His attitude was beginning to
irritate me. “Look, there's something wrong here !” I said sharply. 
“How did I get on board this boat ?” 


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