Tabula Rasa

Pursuit of another story brought me to the dismal town of Cox's Cove which clung with grim determination to the barren coast of west Newfoundland. Nothing more than a cluster of low, squat buildings around a small harbour, fully exposed to the caprices of the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean, Cox's Cove was a bleak and desolate place. I had arranged to stay at the local pub, which I now realised served also as postoffice, store and police station. It was 3pm when I arrived, and the light was already beginning to fade, but none of the buildings were illuminated, which stuck me as odd. Being a fishing village, where the days start early, most trawlers are back and the sailors home this time. When the owner arrived, I enquired about the dearth of lights and he explained many had left town due to some unsettling circumstances. The scent of a story in my nostrils I pressed for more details but he bade that I wait until evening when I could hear the tale first hand. I assented and went to my room to rest after a long journey. That evening I returned to the main room for a meal and to nourish my ravenous curiosity. A savage wind hurled itself against the windows as I was introduced by the owner to a swarthy man who went by the name of Rugger who, after his tongue was lubricated with sufficient whiskey, told me of the events of the preceding month. Rugger was the captain of a trawler, catching crabs and lobster just off the coast. The previous month he and his crew had encountered a boat drifting about a mile out which, from the insignia on the hull, appeared to hail from Norway. It did not respond to repeated radio calls so they approached and used their crabbing hooks to haul the boat alongside and climb aboard. Once on deck they saw that the ship must have got into some distress with broken fishing equipment littering the deck. Entering the wheelhouse they saw blood smeared on the walls and many of the navigational charts and implements strewn about the small room. The pattern of devastation followed down into the crews quarters and the galley, with blood and shattered equipment strewn across the rooms. There was, however, no sign of the crew. A large cabinet had been flung across the door of one of the cabins and after heaving it back they pried open the door and were hit with the foetid stench of humanity. They saw the figure of a man, slumped in a corner, caked with blood and detritus. They approached and found him to be alive, though barely - his heartbeat was weak and fluttering and his eyes rolled back. They took him aboard their own boat and brought him to shore, towing the other boat behind. Snow came in hard and they arrived in town late, too late to attempt to drive to the nearest clinic, so they tried their best to feed him some water and thin soup and set him up in one of the rooms here for the night. The man burned feverishly and occasionally muttered in a language they could not understand. Concerned he may endanger himself if he stumbled out the room in a feverish dream they locked the door from the outside. The owner joined us now and took up the story. He described how we went to see the man early the next morning to find that, when he unlocked the door, the window had been smashed out and the man was gone. The snow, which had continued overnight, covered any sign of tracks. They organised a search party and scoured the town and the surrounds but could find no sign of him. They also inspected the boat further and they found human remains in the man's cabin, which had evidently been partially eaten. They surmised that perhaps the boat had been caught in a storm, causing multiple injuries of the crew and perhaps washing them overboard, while knocking over a cabinet and trapping the two men in the room. After a long time at sea, the man they found had been forced to eat the other. By this juncture in the story a few of the other locals had joined us and nodded solemnly along with the retelling. A middle aged woman picked up the thread saying that they searched for a few days but found no sign of the man and therefore called it off - given the weather a man in his state would be dead by now. However, since then there had been a number of incidents in the town. A few days after the search was called off, Janice Katlin's dog had been found dead, it's throat ripped open like it had been savaged by a bear. Janice had not heard a thing in the night. One of the Peterson boys had gone hunting and never returned and several of the town's inhabitants had sworn to having seen a figure moving amongst the tree line at the edge of town. At this point, as the collective telling reached a heightened pitch, the door to the pub slammed open and the wild gale whistled in with a flurry of snow. I am not ashamed to say I jumped at the sound and I noticed even the stalwart locals looked unsettled by the sudden noise. The owner swore and strode across the room. Gripping the door firmly he began to force it shut against the violent night but paused before it was fully closed and peered out. He then let go of the door which was flung back brutally by the wind, shouted something which was lost to the tempest and strode out. We stared dumbly as as the violent night desecrated our sanctuary with it's bitter winds, not realising that was the last time we would see him alive.