Before any of us realized what was happening, he put his hand down on the table and chopped it off with one whack. Then he held up his arm and looked at it closely as the blood pumped out of his grisly wrist in long, red squirts. He was still grinning insanely.

Suddenly, his whole body seemed to shudder in one enormous spasm of release. He looked at his wrist again, cried out, and collapsed unconscious on the floor.

Stuart is still alive. We did what we had to and cauterized the wound. I think we did a pretty messy job, but then none of us has any medical training, and time was of the essence. We took him below and tied him to his bunk. Incredibly, he woke up. Now he is babbling about his eyes offending him. It is horrible.

Are we all going to go insane? Is this what lies in store for all of us? I mean, Stuart was the most calm, level-headed one of us all. If it could happen to him, then...

Sharlene is half screaming, half crying again. Her gibbering babble is very unnerving. When I took her some water, she spit it out at me. She screeched that I just wanted to rape her like all men did. Then she laughed, and said that the horned beast would eat my heart alive. And began screaming again.

I am afraid.


5/4 2230 hours A black gloom hangs over the ship. I think we are destined to become just another mystery added to the Sea of Lost Ships. And lost souls.

Brutal, inhuman murder has struck on my ship. Ramon has gone mad. First Sharlene. Then Stuart. And now Ramon.

After the incident with Stuart this morning, I had the men begin stripping down the engines and checking out all the electrical systems. I have been trying to keep them so busy that they would not have time to worry or brood. Besides, they have to feel that they are doing something positive and that our situation is not hopeless. I wish I could feel more confident myself. I see the men looking at each other, and at me, with distrust in their eyes. We all wonder which of us will be next to go over the edge.

It was about half an hour after sundown and we were still below decks tinkering futiley with the stubborn diesels. We were working by lantern light and I thought we could get in several more hours before everybody was dog tired. I sent Ramon up to get some coffee from old Curley, our cook and deckhand on this voyage. I suppose I should have been suspicious when he didn't return right away.

About twenty minutes later, Curley burst into the engine room, wild-eyed and gibbering insanely. After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally settled down enough to tell us what was wrong: Ramon was murdering Sharlene!

All of us rushed up to her cabin and broke through the door. And stopped!

It was a sight to make your blood run cold.

Sharlene was dead, mutilated beyond belief. Her head had been cut off and was lying on the floor next to her bed, eyes and mouth still wide open as if screaming noiselessly in terror. Her once attractive body had been slashed and stabbed and cut until it was little more than a bloody lump of abused meat. She had been partially disemboweled. And kneeling between her bloody legs was Ramon. He was raping her while tearing and gnawing at her entrails like a wild animal. As he noticed us, he growled savagely through red-stained lips.