“I'm beginning to wonder whether the fog ever goes away around here,” grumbled one of the men. “I fear we'll end up taking it back to the Vik with us in our pockets and cursing our homes with it as well.”
“It is damnably thick, and moves like an animal, slinking around this village looking for quarry.”
“Quit your griping,” said Erling. “We did not come here for pleasant sights and the warmth of the sun, we came for plunder, and plunder we shall have or be off to another place. We shall start here, in one of these stone buildings. If there is any treasure to be had at all in this wretched place, it will be in a home whose owner had enough wealth to pay someone to haul the rocks into place.”
Erling unlimbered his axe and reached for the door.
* * *
Across the village, Thorstein was having much the same discussion with his group of men. “Cowering children, the lot of you. Afraid of a little mist.”
“The mist is only the last in a long line of things which have conspired to unnerve us this day, Thorstein,” said a man named Erik. “Have you forgotten the draugr who hitched a ride on our boat this morning?”
“I have not, but he is no longer here. We are, and there is either plunder to be had, or preparations to be made to put back to sea. In the meantime, we've come to the end of the village and not seen so much as chicken stirring. The villagers may have hidden had they seen us coming, but they would not have had time to hide their livestock as well as themselves far enough from here that we wouldn't hear a cow moo or a goat bleat, let alone set up an ambush for us besides.”
“Who knows if we would hear bleats and moos over this infernal stream in any case?” said Kark. “Bjorn couldn't have had to go far for water. It sounds like the water's course is right behind us. Unless it sounds like it is in front of us, or to the side. Who can say when it seems to be constantly moving?”
“I must say I agree with Kark, distasteful as it is,” said one called Selvig. “Even in a mist like this, sound should not prowl about so.”
“It may prowl, but I doubt sound can pounce,” said Thorstein. “I think we're safe for the time being. So let us have some loot or be gone!”
The door of the stone house before them shivered into splinters before Thorstein's mighty hammer, and the men peered forward into the gloom.
* * *
“Odin protect us!”
“What is it, Torben?”
“These carvings. They tell the story of why these stones came to be here. They were erected generations ago to protect the village...” Torben trailed off, squinting at the carvings. “To protect the village from the sea,” he finished in a hushed voice.
“They are certainly stout, but they do not seem to be much of a levee,” said Ufuk.
“No, not from waves or flooding. It hardly seems to make sense, but not much has made sense this day. It says the sea claimed victims from the village, and the power held in these stones, and the runes carved on them, holds it in place. It's written as verse. 'Twelve stand watch to calm the sea, twelve must stand or all shall be, taken by the roaming sea'.”
“Roaming sea? What does that mean?”
“Twelve must stand. But only eleven stand.”
“Yes, and any wave that could knock one of these stones over would take all of them down. Unless...” Ufuk walked over to the sentinel stone that lay on its side. “Torben, look here. There are scraps of rope still looped around it. Someone pulled it down on purpose.”
“Why in Odin's name would anyone want to do that? Twelve must stand. Oh gods.”
The men looked down at the same time at the erosion marks leading from the beach to the sea. Rills and runnels made in the sand by the action of the water. At the same time, both men realized they had been looking at them wrong. They didn't run from the shore down into the water. They led from the water up to the shore. Then the screaming started.
* * *
Thorstein and the other men stood in the middle of the room, looking about them with equal parts awe, curiosity, and fear.
“Do you suppose it is this way in every dwelling here?”
“That would explain the sounds of water.”
“Did you send Bjorn chasing after echoes?”
“I know not. I hope not. Bjorn is a clever man. He can keep his head in a bad situation. He will not let them get lost, and will bring them back safe if they do not find the stream.”
“Do you think there really is a stream, or just more of this madness?”
“Hard to say.”
Water covered every surface in the building, running up the walls like a waterfall in reverse, to pool in a rippling lake on the ceiling. Much of the soaked thatch had come loose and swayed in the gentle current like seaweed. The sight had a disorientating effect, and several of the men stumbled and nearly lost their balance.
Thorstein turned and saw too late Selvig reaching for the water flowing against nature. He had no chance to bark out a warning before the man's fingertips dipped into the liquid. The reaction was instantaneous. Water flowed rapidly up Selvig's arm, soaking his clothes and gushing into his mouth, nose, eyes and ears. Selvig tried to scream but managed only a deep retching sound.
The men all stared in horror as their comrade bucked and gargled and then stood still, his head and arms drooping, sodden hair hanging down to cover his face. He raised his eyes, slow as a glacier, to glare at them. Bloodshot eyes that bulged under a thin film of constantly moving water, the flesh around them already wrinkled and bloated from soaking.
The sound of running water faded and stopped as the bizarre tableau all around them became still. Thorstein's battle-honed reflexes took over and drove him toward the exit a fraction of a second before he roared the command to retreat.
The water released its grip on the ceiling and crashed down onto the men, whose screams were quickly reduced to the same horrible gargling Selvig had made. Thorstein, Erik, and Kark were closest to the door, and were the only ones who made it out without a drop touching them. They landed in a pile on the ground outside the house and stared back in horror at the sodden shadows moving within.
“Do you think any others made it?” asked Erik.
“We shall see,” said Thorstein, standing and taking a firm grip on his hammer. The first of the drenched men shambled into the diseased gray daylight and raised his eyes to the three dry men. They were as Selvig's were. Erik drew his sword. “Do not touch them,” said Thorstein. “You may end up just like them.”
More drowned men joined the first. They reached out their arms toward the remaining three, and tendrils of the living water poured forth from their fingers and coiled through the air, grasping for more victims.
“To the boat! NOW!” Thorstein bellowed, turning and running for the shore. “Pray that Torben and Ufuk have her ready and have not been made like them.”
The sploshing footsteps of pursuit echoed eerily through the fog behind them as the three men pelted through the village, squinting for familiar landmarks. The oppressive gray made the already similar buildings even less distinguishable from each other. It would be all too easy in panicked flight to miss a turn and move further from the boat, or run straight into the arms of the walking drowned men.
“Thorstein, I hear more footsteps before us!” shouted Kark. The men came to a stop and listened.
“I hear them too,” said Thorstein. “Who goes there? Bjorn? Erling?”
The footsteps came closer and men took shape out of the fog. Bjorn, Asmund, and Eluf sploshed into view, their hair and clothes plastered to their bodies, writhing tentacles of water surrounding them.
“On to the boat, and don't let those tendrils of water touch you!” said Thorstein, and the men ran on, the sounds of pursuit falling behind step by step.
As the buildings began to thin out, and the soil gave way to sand, Thorstein called out to the watch. “Torben, Ufuk! Are you still with us?”
“Aye, Thorstein!” came the response from several yards to the left of the
fleeing men.
“Ready the boat, we must leave at once!”
“Are all the men with you? Your steps don't sound very many!”
“No,” said Thorstein as they came into view of each other. “The others of our group and Bjorn's are lost. We must be away from here, and attempt to rescue Erling's group later if we can.”
“What in Hel happened?”
“Time enough for explanations once we're away from the village.”
“I thought you said they were lost,” said Ufuk. “The others are right there.”
The men spun around to see a large group of their comrades marching down the beach toward them.
“What's that in the air around them?”
“Water,” said Thorstein. “This place is cursed, the water flows of its own will and takes over men, turns them into those things. One touch and you're finished. Ufuk, see if you can take some of them down.”
Ufuk was hesitant to loose arrows at men who were his friends an hour ago, but as they got closer, he could see they were no longer the men he knew. While Thorstein and the others hurried to make the boat ready for launch, he knocked and fired, again and again. The arrows' impact slowed the targets down, brought a few to their knees, but they just got up again and continued their relentless, squelching advance.
“Look Thorstein, it's Erling!” Ufuk cried out, then his face fell in dismay as he saw Erling's band join the group of drowned creatures on the beach.
As they stepped forward, runnels of water spilled forth from their feet and poured across the sand toward the men. Kark screamed as one found his leg and flowed up his body and into his mouth. Without thinking, Erik drew and swung his sword in one smooth motion, lifting Kark's head from his shoulders. Instead of gore, a geyser of water sprayed out of the stump of Kark's neck, rushing up the sword before Erik could drop the contaminated weapon, up his arm, his neck, his face, to choke off his terrified scream and pour into his eyes and nose and ears.
Thorstein hoisted Torben into the boat; he and Ufuk slammed their shoulders into the hull, and pushed the keel free of the sand. They hauled themselves over the gunwale and grabbed oars to get as far from the accursed village as their exhausted and burning muscles could take them before they collapsed.
As Thorstein looked back toward the beach to see if their assailants still gave pursuit, he saw them lined up along the surf. As one, they knelt and plunged their hands into the water. “Row! ROW!” he roared, thews bulging as he strained against the ocean.
“Thorstein...” Torben pointed to a spot near the stern where a small trickle of water was beginning to run over the side and pool on the floor.
The men exchanged a glance, the grim defiance and steely determination of their northern blood flashing in their eyes.
They drew their weapons and waited.
OLD BOGEY
Lori R. Lopez
Fog danced and skimmed the surface, a nocturnal ballet accompanied by the rub of piers, the lap of water against pilings. It was a night of dense mists, unfit for man or beast, save one—a legendary creature that prowled and ruled obscurity, hunting for its latest meal, the flesh of humankind.
So they said. Finn Strand McGinney trudged along a street lit by sparse lamps, a fist choking the neck of a bottle. “I’m the luckiest man on the seven seas,” his baritone voice crooned, “because I am still alive!” He learned that song on a whaling vessel as a young man. There was a lot of truth to it. Unlike provincial wives’ tales; gibberish about leviathans. Made-up nonsense.
A minor splash in the harbor gave him pause. Eyes bleary, the whiskered salt peered into a soupy cold. Tentacles reached for him…wispy arms of vapor. He couldn’t see much, vaguely etched details, but he was able to steer blind and remain on his feet. This region of the town was mapped on his psyche. Finn used to set sail from the harbor, until skippers stopped hiring him, fearing he might fall overboard drunk. German and Irish, maybe it was in his blood. Maybe he had no choice.
“Pirates guzzled plenny of rum and nobody tole them it was against policy. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a nip to warm a feller’s bones. World’s gone soft in the head,” he griped, stumbling to the pier where his dinghy the Esmeralda was tied. She was all the deckhand had left of the ocean since he was resigned to toil as an odd-jobber on land, spading dirt, unloading, mending and mucking. Even the dock master rejected him. His dignity had been robbed with his sea legs.
Finn swayed at the edge of solid ground, a concrete verge dividing soil from water. He sniffed the breeze then squinted. Something was out there, studying him. He could sense it, a chill that prickled nape and spine. No little fishy, either. It was big. Not that he swallowed the yarn about a pale sea-monster dubbed Old Bogey. He knew better. Whatever lurked in the ocean was genuine. He had witnessed all her demons: Giant Squids, Great Whites, Orcas, thick eels half the length of a trawler that some claimed were sea-serpents. He watched shipmates meet death screaming, their blood paint the water red as burgundy wine.
The only thing he was afraid of resided on shore.
A peculiar buzzing. He grunted with confusion. “Ahhh.” Remembering, he dug in his trousers for a fold-up gadget. “Speak of the devil.” His niece had given him the phone and was the sole person to call its infernal number. “Hullo, Meg.”
“What are you doing, Uncle Finn?” Not even a greeting. She was worse than a nagging bride.
“I’m doin’ fine, Megan. Thanks for asking.”
“I said what, not how. Never mind. I can hear the slurred speech.”
“This is the way I talk!”
“If you’re plastered.”
“Now come on, I just had a few, to wet my whistle. I’m going straight to bed.”
“I hope that’s true. You’re not very reliable.”
“Least I’m not a drug addict,” he teased.
“I tried pot one time! Don’t go near the water, Uncle. You know how you get.”
Jeebus, her too! “How do I get? Like I’ve got half a brain? Quit worrying about me.” Finn snapped the device shut. Maybe he should have said goodnight. She meant well.
Annoyed, he jammed the telephone into his pocket. When did he start answering to her? She was only his niece. Make that his only niece. His only family. And him for her. The girl was all he had on this earth.
“Don’t matter if she’s the queen of England. I dun need to be henpecked. Or sent to dry-dock,” Finn carped. “She needs to keep her shrew’s beak where it belongs—out of my affairs.” He dredged the gizmo from his britches and pantomimed hurling it to black water beneath the fog, imagining a dull satisfying sploosh. “Goodnight, Niece.”
He tucked the phone in its berth, amused, then unscrewed and tipped whiskey to parched lips, taking a swig. Cripes, Meg would kill him if he lost the durn thing. She paid extra for an indestructible waterproof model to shield it from storm, spray, and spilt alcohol. The gal was thorough. He swiped the back of a hand across his mouth and closed the bottle.
An ex-girlfriend once accused him of having more tolerance for liquor than for being loved. Finn chortled. That was a fact!
Plodding the brink of the wharf to a ramp, he gingerly descended a walkway with safety ridges a guy could trip on. This ridiculous obstacle course led to a flush expanse. Weathered planks bounced. The pier and he were unsteady dance partners, a perfect match. For some reason, the port seemed agitated. Finn stared into the haze. Perhaps he should do as he promised, stagger to his tiny room over a barbershop and flop onto a squeaking rack.
Heck, I’ll be in a casket soon. His liver had to be pickled, his gut rotted by booze. If he was going to shove off, kick the bucket like his niece fretted, he should be in a boat.
“A man must choose his passions. And his poisons.” Finn wove to the end of the boards. Stooping, he tugged at a poorly knotted line. The rope slipped his grasp, and the dory began to drift. “Oh no you don’t. Wait for me!” Clumsily, Finn hopped, tipping the vessel, banging shins and kneecaps. Reeling to the center, he managed n
ot to capsize. The man clasped a gunwale, pulled himself onto the rowing seat then blinked, baffled. “Why did I untie you? I’m not going anywhere.”
Muttering to himself, juggling his bottle, the duffer removed a bench plank toward the bow, stationing it flat. He knelt to loosen the middle seat from slots and position it by the other. Finn awkwardly wriggled out of a garment then stretched himself in the skiff and sighed, wrapping the vintage peacoat around his torso, lulled gently by current. This was his favorite place to relax when weary, not a lumpy mattress in a lonely room. The mariner missed going to sea, missed the camaraderie, the motion of the waves. He couldn’t afford a sailboat or motorboat with a cabin, such as those tied or anchored in the harbor.
“I could die like this,” he vowed with contentment, his face to the stars twinkling above an oppressive bank of fog. Stars were so clear out on the ocean, so bright.
A mass in the water bumped the dinghy. Finn sat up and fanned a grayish brume with his hand to peep at murky liquid. A white shape glided ghostlike below the choppy texture. His bottle lay seeping an amber puddle. “No!” A croak of anguish. Markets and the pub were battened for the night. He couldn’t fetch a substitute ‘til morning. He liked going to sleep with a bottle, same as a baby. The man perched his chin on a wood border and brooded at the sea. What was down there, a shark? He had heard of twenty, thirty-footers shooting up to unsettle small crafts and tip the occupants out. Rubbish, he spurned. Stories. Then the water erupted. An enormous mouth of jagged monstrous teeth rose higher, higher, higher…
A yelp cut off. He jolted awake to the Esmeralda rocking in unnatural swells. There was no wind. It was something in the drink—whether the salty or the fermented. He wasn’t alone, and he was no longer dreaming. “I can’t see you, but I can feel you,” Finn murmured into the night, his voice grave as a foghorn.
He fumbled near a thigh. Fingers connected with glass. Whiskey sloshed. He raised the bottle, vastly relieved, and unthreaded the cover. “What a nightmare,” he grumbled, thinking of his tonic. Finn smooched the bottle, then took several chugs. It soothed a man’s anxious soul…while damaging everything else.
Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans) Page 12