text: [Themes: horror, horror]
  
  I hear a noise behind me, coming through the bedroom door. I consider my options.
  
  > run back up to the hallway
  He had checked through the vent first to make sure the intruder wasn't in there. He needed the element of surprise.
  
  There was something else he needed, and the awful idea had come to him that he should look in the nightstand drawer. He found them there—Dammit, Steve—feet and feet of black rope restraints. As if he knew how to tie a knot...but maybe it would help. Before he left he was sure to rip up the photo with their two smarmy faces.
  
  He could hear noises on the other side of the bedroom door. He picked up the heaviest paperweight he could find.
  
  > go on
  The formal living area has shiny hard furniture and expensive abstract art. Not nearly as nice as the TV room. An open porthole lets in the sea breeze to lift the blanket of stillness.
  
  > continue to the hallway
  He could hear the footsteps retreating up the stairs from the living room.
  
  The man was still thinking about the old gang—that damn photo had put it in his head. He remembered how good a time they'd been having—drinking, partying, spending as much of Steve's late old man's money as they could. Steve had hated that man so much. I need to spend all this cash before I die, dude, he'd said, before swigging more champagne from the bottle.
  
  Too bad, dude.
  
  Then one night—one wonderful night, when he thought he was making some headway with Marisa, or at least she'd let him get a hand a little up her skirt—the whole boat had gone dead. The lights, the motors, everything. Just stopped.
  
  The smart thing to do would have been to call the Coast Guard. The radio was there, still working, and Joe knew how to use it, same as he somehow knew how to sail a gigantic yacht. But they'd all been drunk as skunks, and someone came up with the brilliant idea of taking out one of the oared inflatable life boats.
  
  It'll be fun, someone had said.
  
  He had agreed, except that they'd decided he would be the one to stay behind. Try to get the boat working again. Stick around in case help showed up. That kind of thing.
  
  We're counting on you, man, they'd said solemnly, before drifting off to sea, hollering with drink, looking all the world like a bunch of rich, well-dressed First Class assholes paddling away from the tragedy of the Titanic.
  
  Now, he decided to check out the kitchen before going up. He saw that that the knife was gone, and its place in the butcher block still empty. So this person was a threat, after all.
  
  He hurriedly reached for a smaller, duller blade-not perfect, but okay for his purposes. It fit in his back pocket--inaccessible, but easier to manage.
  
  He decided he'd go back up the vent in the bedroom.
  
  > go on
  I'm in the hallway when I hear the noises. I need to find a place to hide, quick.
  
  > go into the bar
  After the noise from the life boat had faded, it had been quiet for a very long time. He'd gotten the power back on, even got the motor working again--though he still didn't know how to sail a yacht. He spent his time playing video games, eating sumptuous meals he would spend hours creating, drinking enough to try to forget all of them and their stupid, rich asshole faces.
  
  But it had been quiet.
  
  Until the transmission came.
  
  Help, it had said.
  
  He'd heard it squawking from the radio over the Sun Deck, but he was so drunk he didn't quite register it at first.
  
  HELP! it had insisted.
  
  He had stumbled up the stairs, fiddled with unhooking the radio, and then just stared at it in dumb silence.
  
  Help!
  
  > go on
  I settle down behind the bar, and wait to hear if any more noises come up.
  
  They do. There are footsteps coming from the family room.
  
  > stay in hiding
  Please help...oh God. Please! Please....Eric, I know you must be there.
  
  He'd looked at the radio quizzically.
  
  Oh God Eric...you've got to help, you've got to...call for help. Someone's found us. At first we thought everything was fine, but then....oh God Eric...Joe and Tina are dead! Steve...Steve is dead. I've got myself barricaded in here and YOU'VE GOT TO CALL FOR HELP!"
  
  Her screams had risen to a peak and he could hear a dull thud that sounded as though someone were breaking through a door.
  
  Eric had shaken his head. He was so drunk he couldn't even figure out how to work a radio. Deep in his mind he knew he needed to do something, but all he could picture was their smirking faces as they had paddled away, leaving him to the boat to be alone.
  
  After a while the sounds coming from the radio had stopped.
  
  > go on
  I stay hidden except to peek around the bar, to see that my quarry is a youngish, college-aged man. Rumpled but seems like he might have the ability to be good-looking. Maybe.
  
  He goes up the stairs. Now is the time for surprise.
  
  I can't let him take the boat.
  
  I can't let him find the bodies.
  
  > follow him
  Eric got up to the Sun Deck and ran over to the side where the ladder was, leading down to the boat. He hadn't been able to take it earlier because of the damn rope—he was no boy scout and knew he'd need to the knife to cut through it.
  
  As he descended, the unwieldy paperweight and restraints fall to the side, into the rolling black water.
  
  After Marisa's last transmission, once he'd sobered up enough to realize what had happened, Eric had spent nearly a week paralyzed with fear and second-guessing. By the time he had finally gotten control of himself, he'd realized that there's no way the killer and his boat would still be in the same location. Even if he'd known where that location was. Calling for help would be useless.
  
  The guilt and self-loathing cycle was never-ending. He'd done the unthinkable—he'd stood idly to the side while his friends were murdered. He'd never see them again, and it was the worst feeling he'd ever known.
  
  After a couple weeks alone, he'd started scrubbing every square inch of the boat.
  
  Except for the Jacuzzi. It was the last place he'd been close to Marisa, that night.
  
  He wouldn't go in it again.
  
  > go on
  I've got plenty of friends in high places, but they're not going to be able to help much if the authorities can trace my registration to a boat full of bodies.
  
  > dash up the stairs
  Eric was halfway down to the boat when the smell hit him. He slowed his descent on the ladder, but that was when the man's face appeared over the side of the boat. It was a face full of madness.
  
  Eric couldn't tell if he had a weapon or not.
  
  > go on
  I can see him now. He knows I'm coming for him.
  
  > follow down the ladder
  He ran into the boat, but before he could slam and lock the door behind him he was thrown back by the smell, and the sight of Marisa sitting on a chair, arms propped on a table.
  
  This was not the beautiful, lively Marisa that Alfred had known, but a Marisa distorted with death. A man's arm casually hung out of a pantry closet behind her.
  
  > The door behind him opened quietly
  I swing the knife.
  
  It comes right up between the intruder's ribs. I hear and feel his satisfying grunt of pain, which rapidly becomes a scream.
  
  It'll all be over now soon.
  
  > go on
  Eric slowly faded into blackness, though not fast enough. He was entranced by his stupidity--he hadn't even thought of the small, dull blade resting in his back pocket.
  
  The pain was unimaginable--even worse than the pain of what he had done to his friends, which had been haunting him for months now. He hadn't though anything could be worse than that.
  
  As his consciousness faded, he dimly wondered what what coming next.
  
  > The End
  I stuff the body in the closet with the others.
  
  The one girl--Marisa, I know her name, now--yes, I'll keep her out for a while. I'll need some entertainment on my long journey.
  
  This was a fun diversion, though.
  
  I undo the line, turn the boat around, and head due west for my next adventure.
  
  The sea rolls and tosses beneath me, like a lover.