From Below

by Darcy Coates

though Forster felt the same sticky, heavy dread that had infected Phillip. As though they had both been sucked into a nightmare they didn’t yet fully comprehend. The voice swallowed. A smacking noise came as lips were wet. Then, “I’m aboard the SS Arcadia. Things are going bad, old boy.” Phillip had his pencil poised at the ready. “What are your coordinates?” “51.43 N, -19.26 W. Or 45.42 N, -14.17 W. Or…hell. I don’t know any longer. I don’t know where we are. How long has it been? There are too many. Too, too many…too many…” Phillip’s stomach churned. He knew the Arcadia. It was a regular on the transatlantic crossing. He’d taken calls from it before—not distress calls, just messages to be passed along, warnings of unfavorable weather ahead, the usual—and had passed back just as many. At no point had he received anything of this nature. He knew the Arcadia’s main communications officer too: Drummer. A good man. Steady, reliable. This voice was not Drummer’s. “It’s 56.43 N, 2.87 W, I think,” the awful voice continued. “Osman is dead, and Baines and Boswell and Rudd are dead, and I think Wilton may be gone as well. There are just too many—” Phillip had written down all coordinates but underlined the last set. He hated the voice’s gasping quality. The way every breath seemed to pain it. The phlegmy gurgle at the back of its throat. “What’s your situation? What happened?”