TheBoySaunders.com

Once upon a time, Patti, Rod and Tom found themselves in a lifeboat, adrift at sea. They had been on this massive ocean liner, you see, which had been operating a rock ‘n’ roll cruise for ageing rich people re-living their youth, but then hit an old World War II mine (or something similar) and the boat sank with the loss of all hands (apart from Patti, Rod and Tom who, as I mentioned earlier, managed to make it to a life boat together). As none of them had any particular nautical skill, they quickly ran out of food and water. Tom ended up drinking brine and quickly went bat-shit insane, so Patti clubbed him to death with the heel of her boot and they feasted on his sweet, sweet flesh.

Some time later, when Tom’s bones had been cracked open for their marrow and licked clean and even the leather in his shoes had been gnawed at hopefully, the mis-matched pair admitted that they were in dire straits. Rod’s eyesight was better than Patti’s, they had decided during endless games of Eye Spy, but all he could see was ocean stretching to the horizon on all sides. On the morning of the 28th day Patti managed to catch a seabird with her bare hands. They ate it raw, washed down with the meagre rations from the ingenious system that Rod had rigged up for catching rainwater and morning dew. This was the last thing that either of them ate.

By the 36th day, through cracked, dry lips and delirious from sun-stroke, Rod and Patti agreed to fight to the death. After hours of tense negotiation they agreed on the rules. Any weapon that the lifeboat offered up would be fair game and no quarter would be given. The victor would indulge in a cannibalistic orgy of feasting, the loser would be dead, and then eaten in the aforementioned cannibalistic orgy. Although Rod had the height and weight advantage he lacked Patti’s steely determination and lust for blood. Rod thought back to the soulless look in her eyes as she repeatedly drove the spiked heel of her boot into Tom’s cranium, and at that moment he was lost. An empty can of beans careened off his skull, disorientating him long enough for Patti to fall upon him, armed with an oar and spitting with fury, a miniature whirlwind of wrath and desperation. She beat him back, indefatigable, machine like, kicked him in the shins, crashed his head against a locker… In his last moments of life, Rod noticed that the end of the oar had been pre-sharpened – how long had she been planning this? – before the flat end bounced off the side of his skull, knocking him senseless.

Slowly and deliberately, Patti stood over the prone body of Rod, his legs spread grotesquely, like a sailor. Relentlessly she placed the jagged end of the oar against his smooth throat. A bubble of blood escaped from one nostril as his fingers scrabbled nervelessly against the rough wood. Her eyes betraying no hint of humanity, Patti exerted pressure, the point sliding through skin and cartilage before coming to a hard stop against the deck of the lifeboat. The scream he made was so high pitched that nobody heard. Rod’s body spasmed, once, twice then lay still and Patti stood over him, barely breathing, eyes fixed on some point in the distant horizon, clinging to her makeshift spear with a vice-like deathgrip.

Some time later she stood, still motionless, staring down into the depths of the ocean, her fingers all entwined in the air, as the waves crashed against the bows of the boat, coming in like Arabian stallions, gradually lapping into sea horses.