Not A Ghost Of A Chance

The Lotus Flower's last grasp attracted a strange rescue.

: Contest Prompt

" Include: ghost, candy, trick'

The Lotus Flower needed paint. Her rusty hull was pitted with need. The diesel engine sputtered and coughed before rumbling slowly into life.

“She’s a ghost of her old self.” Michael Moore spun the wheel and studied the gray brooding sky. A long sip of cough medicine ate its way down his throat. He couldn’t afford anything better to hold himself together. He was as much a ghost of himself as the ship was.

“Aye, she’ll need a trick or two to make it to port in the coming weather.”

Rain turned from spit to a drowning torrent. The craft under his feet groaned as it was forced to face angry waves. “Sweet as candy, old girl. You can do it.” Michael staggered, dropped his bottle, and shivered along with the Lotus Flower.

She had a habit of leaning to port when her storage was full. It had been luck when a desperate longshoreman had agreed to share the profits from twice stolen goods. The Lotus Flower hadn’t had her belly full in a long, long time.

Michael felt the merchandise shift under his feet as the Flower rode high, then fell down a deep gully. The elevator ride threw him, sliding across the deck. The rope tied around his waist kept him from falling overboard. He pulled himself back to the spinning, out of control wheel. “Now, now. No temper tantrums.”

His gut felt torn in two. “What I’d do for some White Lightning.”

The sky obliged with a flash of light, revealing a tanker hull dead ahead. The Flower kissed it, then fell back. The name, “The Rose Mary”, rested on Michael’s lips. “The lost ghost ship,herself.”

The Flower followed in its wake, shorn off at dawn’s storm end, and rode its own lonely way to port.

Wc 300