Chapter 338: The Water Ghost: A Lonely Boat, All Alone
Perhaps the journey there had been so full of twists and turns that she had already used up all her bad luck. The entire trip from the hospital to Miant City went smoothly, without a single mishap.
Thus, only one day later than expected, Everly successfully arrived in Miant City and met the broker she had contacted in advance at a portside café on the easternmost edge of the city.
The broker had already found a boat for Everly.
Everly told the broker that she wanted to explore the beautiful scenery of the Bahamas on her own. Although the broker did not understand her adventurous spirit, the generous commission was enough to persuade him to find a boat that met her requirements.
It was a 30-foot recreational power yacht.
The yacht was made of reinforced fiberglass, with a sturdy structure and enough wave resistance to handle waves over three meters high, making it well suited to the complicated sea conditions around the Gulf Stream. It was equipped with two diesel outboard engines, so even if one malfunctioned, the other could continue operating normally, greatly improving the safety of long-distance voyages. In addition, the spacious cabin and ample interior space made traveling at sea considerably more comfortable.
Everly inspected the yacht with the broker and, under his guidance, took it out for a test drive herself. Finding it easy to handle, she readily rented the small yacht for $40,000 a month.
With the boat rented, the next thing she had to deal with was the incredibly tedious paperwork for her “self-driving trip abroad.”
The Bahamas had a visa-exemption policy for citizens of the United States, allowing them to stay in the Bahamas for up to ninety days without a visa. However, Everly had to make sure her passport remained valid for at least six months beyond her scheduled return date. She also needed to prepare a corresponding return itinerary, a list of everyone aboard the vessel, and proof of sufficient funds, all of which customs might inspect when she entered the country by boat.
In addition to the requirements above, entering and leaving the country by yacht required additional preparations, including the vessel’s flag and registration documents, a marine insurance policy covering the entire trip and the corresponding radio license, an online report to the U.S. Coast Guard, and an online Bahamas entry declaration form…
Just listening to the broker explain everything made Everly’s eyes glaze over.
The workload was terrifyingly extensive. Fortunately, the experienced broker in front of her also offered an agency service. As long as she could afford the commission, he promised to take care of everything for Everly within seven to ten days. Incidentally, that was the maximum speed allowed by the government agencies of the two countries, not the broker’s own limit.
Everly was not short on money. As long as the broker got everything done properly, she had no problem paying him a little extra.
Unfortunately, there were some things that even a well-connected broker could not solve.
Everly wanted to bring some weapons aboard the yacht and take them to the Bahamas for “self-defense,” but the broker told her that unless she possessed a specific firearms permit issued by the Bahamian authorities, any passenger who brought firearms or ammunition into the country without authorization would be violating Bahamian criminal law and could face heavy fines and up to twenty-four months in prison.
Everly tried tempting him with money, but the broker was a man of integrity. He bluntly told her there was nothing he could do about it. After all, he was only a U.S. broker; he had no authority over Bahamian customs.
“If you’re worried about safety during the trip, why not install an infrared surveillance system on the yacht? It can automatically detect suspicious vessels or drones in the surrounding area and monitor and track them. Once it identifies a threat, the yacht’s high-frequency communications equipment can automatically send an alert to the nearest coast guard station. It’s a very effective security measure,” he earnestly urged.
Everly did not want to bring guns merely to deal with dangers at sea. When she went to search for the Fountain of Youth on the island, she would need those old companions to give her a sense of security as well.
Naturally, there was no way she could tell the broker that.
“Then do you have any reliable connections in the Bahamas who could help me get a gun?” she asked as a second choice.
The broker shook his head. “In the Bahamas, apart from the police, only the criminal gangs can get their hands on those things. I strongly recommend that you not get involved with those street gangs. It’s dangerous.”
“…All right, then. Thank you.”
Of course, Everly had no intention of buying a gun from a criminal gang—she would have to be out of her mind to get herself involved with people like that.
So she decided to figure out some way to smuggle a few guns over. There was no need to tell the broker about such a plan, lest she bring trouble upon herself.
Having made up her mind, Everly dropped the subject of guns and instead turned to discussing the paperwork and entry procedures with the broker.
The two of them drew up a schedule for everything that needed to be done over the coming week. After making sure they were on the same page, they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.
After leaving the café, Everly took her suitcase and found a well-regarded five-star hotel near Miant Harbor. She checked in. The broker’s home was also near the hotel, so staying nearby would make it more convenient for the two of them to handle certain documents together later.
The hotel was not far from the marina where the yacht was docked. After dinner, Everly felt a little restless, so she went to the neighboring marina to find her newly rented boat. She took it out to sea and made a couple of trips around the nearby bay to get a feel for the controls. While she was at it, she also inspected the layout of the cabin, looking for places where firearms could be concealed.
Everly had spent most of the afternoon worrying about how she could get weapons into the Bahamas without customs noticing.
At first, she planned to secure the guns beneath the boat. Customs would conduct spot checks of items aboard the vessel, but they generally would not inspect underneath the hull. With the seawater providing cover, who would ever find Everly’s guns?
However, after searching the internet, Everly discovered that this seemingly clever approach was actually impractical. The force of the waves during a yacht’s voyage was considerable, and the restraints could easily come loose. If the waterproofing failed, the firearms inside could be ruined by seawater.
She also considered modifying the yacht itself, but that would require specialized equipment and professional shipyard work. Altering the hull could affect the vessel’s performance and stability, and a poorly executed modification could render the yacht unusable.
Since hiding things beneath the hull was not practical, Everly began researching common methods of firearms smuggling. She found that smugglers generally relied on concealed compartments, disguised cargo, or falsified documentation.
Her vessel was a yacht rather than a cargo ship, so disguising weapons as ordinary freight was not an option. As for forged documents, while they could theoretically be produced, obtaining a Bahamian firearms permit under suspicious circumstances would only create more problems. With Everly as the yacht’s sole occupant, there would be little room for a convincing cover story.
That left concealed compartments as the most plausible possibility.
Because modifications to the exterior of the hull were impractical, any such changes would have to be made inside the cabin. Everly knew enough about firearms to disassemble them, and she began considering how the yacht’s interior might accommodate concealed storage.
However, the more modifications she made, the greater the risk of discovery. She would have to carefully consider the yacht’s layout and decide how much concealed storage was appropriate. That was one of the main reasons Everly had come out to take the yacht for a test run herself.
After all, getting caught with firearms would mean being thrown into a Bahamian prison, and she still had to find the Fountain of Youth. When would she have time to sit around in prison?
After practicing her boat handling for a while, Everly steered the yacht into a broad, deserted stretch of sea and shut off the engine, letting the vessel drift on the water. She left the helm and began searching the cabin for suitable places to install concealed compartments.
She was absorbed in tapping and inspecting various parts of the cabin when a faint voice suddenly came from outside the boat.
“…Everly… Everly…”
The voice was quiet, almost drowned out by the sound of the waves. It drifted indistinctly through the air, sounding like a sigh—or the hushed whispering of some unknown creature.
Everly instinctively glanced outside.
It was 6:30 p.m. Winter was approaching, so night fell early. The cabin was brightly lit, while outside was shrouded in darkness. Only a small patch beneath the windows was illuminated. Beyond that, there was nothing but the pitch-black sea and the scattered lights of land in the distance.
A lone boat on the sea at night. One person aboard, completely alone. And someone outside repeatedly calling her name…
In an instant, Everly’s mind filled with classic ghost-story scenarios: a water ghost searching for someone to take its place, or the spirit of someone who died in a shipwreck, unaware that it was already dead, clinging to boats every night and calling out to people.
Stories like these usually ended with the protagonist being unable to resist their curiosity, going outside to investigate, and getting dragged away by the ghost.
So Everly ignored it completely. Without a second thought, she started the engine and drove the yacht toward shore as fast as she could.
As she drove, she wondered what exactly was in the water—and how it even knew her name…
Stories like these were generally more popular in Asia. Why was one showing up in an American horror movie? Was this some terrible Sino-American co-production?
There was another strange thing, too. By now, Everly’s danger warning still hadn’t been triggered, and Buddy hadn’t issued any warning either…
Not long after the yacht started moving, the voice disappeared.
Everly frowned, wondering whether she had managed to shake the thing off, when she suddenly heard a series of soft knocks coming from the cabin.
The sound came from beneath the boat, traveling through the thick fiberglass hull and echoing repeatedly through the cramped interior. Even with the engine roaring, the crisp tapping remained clearly audible.
It was exactly the same sound Everly had made earlier when she had tapped the hull with her curled fingers.
Feeling the faint vibrations traveling through the hull, an image involuntarily surfaced in Everly’s mind:
At that very moment, separated from her by nothing more than a layer of hull, something that looked like a “person” was clinging to the bottom of the yacht, imitating what she had done earlier and repeatedly rapping its knuckles against the hull.
Once. Twice. Three times…
The knocking continued relentlessly, keeping up the same steady rhythm beneath the boat for a long time.
Everly’s scalp prickled, and cold sweat broke out across her forehead.
There was no way any human being could remain underwater for that long. Whatever was in the water had practically announced that there was something wrong with it.
It had caught up with her.
It had latched onto her!
For now, it had merely followed her from the sea to the harbor. But what next? Would it crawl out of the water and onto land and continue haunting her there? Would it become even more dangerous once it reached shore?
Had she made the right choice by fleeing in the boat, or had she made a mistake? Should she have used the power of the sea to destroy that thing instead…?
The yacht was fast. At full speed, it reached the shore in the blink of an eye.
Everly slowed down, carefully avoiding the other boats nearby before maneuvering the yacht back into the spot where she had docked it earlier.
Once the engine was switched off, she discovered that the knocking had stopped as well.
With the strange noises gone, the cabin finally returned to the long-lost silence.
There was no voice calling her name. No knocking.
Only Everly’s heavy breathing and the ceaseless roar of the waves.
“Splash!”
In the silence, a distinct sound of water suddenly came from the left side of the yacht.
Everly turned sideways, almost pressing her face against the glass on the left. Through the thin pane, she saw a pale human hand smeared with blood suddenly slap onto the edge of the yacht.
Then a familiar face appeared.
Long hair split between black and white, drooping eyes dripping with seawater, thick silvery-white eyelashes, and a tall, delicate nose bridge—
It was the giant whale Kesuye, whom Everly had not seen in quite some time.
He was clinging to the railing, gazing pitifully at Everly with an innocent yet aggrieved expression.
The human and the whale locked eyes.
As though startled, Kesuye abruptly ducked his head down, leaving only one bloodied hand inexplicably raised high in the air.
Then, from outside the yacht, that same ethereal, plaintive voice from earlier rang out once again.
“Everly… The propeller scraped my hand. It hurts…”
Everly: “…”
Well, look who it was!