Rover of the Sands

You are struggling back into the swirling winds to ask Slugger about his vision when you sense a presence immediately before you. You stop short.

“Who goes there?”

“It’s just me, Bill Tracy.”

“Jesus you scared me half to death.”

“Sorry, Sweetheart. Didn’t know you frightened so easy. Didn’t think a big man like you with your big baby-making skills would be afraid of the dark.”

“Tracy, you’ve always been a cunt, but maybe just this once you could…”

You stop dead in mid-sentence. Tracy leers at you for a moment until he sees the look in your eyes, at which point he turns around to see what you’re seeing.

But she’s already gone. It was an Apparition. You know this in your mind even as you feel your heart race relentlessly and you struggle to catch your breath. For just the smallest moment, hovering in the fog, you saw a female face, aged and deformed, smiling malevolently and with eyes of intense blue-tinged flame.

“Been hittin’ the sauce with your old buddy Slugger then? Don’t think the little lady will be liking that much.” Bill Tracy punches you hard in the arm before disappearing into the storm, not having seen a thing.

Disoriented for only a moment, you turn resolutely to the Captain’s quarters. Forget Slugger. You now have your own news to report. An Apparition on the ship can’t be a good sign, especially the possibility of two in one day. The rules on these things are clear: report all sightings, imagined or otherwise, to the highest in command. That would be the ship’s skipper McCann.