Movement diminished to intense stillness, rapt anticipation. He became aware of a perturbing synchronicity, a pulse drumming with his own. Double heartbeats, eerily similar.
“Go away!” he barked. “This is my harbor! My home!”
A cauldron simmered, brewing a squall. The tar felt it in his marrow and uneasily sealed the liquor.
That instant, decades of denial were shed. A lever had been thrown, diverting the galoot’s train of thought to the opposite direction—not reversing but changing track, or tack in nautical jargon. He knew before it happened, in that fraction of a clock’s tick, the tale was no myth. If it was, then he himself did not exist!
A tempest poured upward. The brine surged aloft, a sinister form thrusting out of it, cavernous mouth agape, with a narrow under-flap on top. The white phantom, a figment of hysteria or intoxication, loomed for a stupefied interval as he goggled at it.
With a clap of thunder, the harbor vanished. He was engulfed beyond conical teeth that resembled stalactites, dangling overhead. The gigantic menace submerged, its trap closing.
Keep your wits! Men have survived being gulped by whales. It’s in the Bible. He wished he had faith, prayers, religion. Lying prone, absorbed by a pool of darkness, a lifelong sinner resolved to give the beast a hell of a struggle. He might go to his maker from chronic insobriety, but he sure in tarnation wasn’t going to be dinner for a whale! Especially not a ghost whale.
The behemoth turned, emitting loud clicks, maneuvering a deep natural harbor, righting itself and cruising out to sea. Vapor expelled through a blowhole, audible in the chamber between jaws.
Finn’s grizzled aspect lifted to a pocket of air. It couldn’t be a ghost, the man argued. The dead don’t breathe. “So you’re not Old Bogey after all,” he panted. “Unless Old Bogey is alive.”
The goliath’s maw imbibed water and oxygen taking him. An orb bobbed next to his ear trailing ribbons of seaweed. Bullwhip Kelp, he identified from touch. “Just you and me,” Finn told the ball. “I’m the meat, and you’re the salad. Wonder what’s for dessert.”
Torpid faculties grappled with why the juggernaut appeared to be cradling him like a pill too big. A Sperm Whale had the capacity to swallow a person. He’d caught a glimpse of rugged white skin and judged it a Humpback. However, gauging by the square bulky snout that lunged upside down, a slender mandible parted, he surmised it could only be one type. “An albino like Moby Dick,” he whispered. Then gruffly pledged, “I’ll drink to that.”
To his surprise, a fist retained the bottle. Sopping, trembling, he unlidded it for a generous slug. Heat spread at his core. Finn exhaled. “I’m gonna have a helluva fish story to tell.” He laughed so hard he coughed. “Who would believe it? They’ll assume I was soused to the gills. I reckon I am. Meg’s correct. My brain is half-eaten.” He capped his bottle with numb digits.
The legend swam forth, carrying him from land. It had to be eighty feet. Impossible.
Tendrils of lambent frost enveloped the seafarer’s head. It shouldn’t be this icy. Shivering like a gulag prisoner, he abided in a damp cell, bleak as a cloudy night without moonlight or hope. “Look. Whatever your name is, I know you can hear me. I may be a worthless specimen. I’ve slain your kind and your cousins. Netted, harpooned, and hacked by propellers. I guess this is revenge.” The man’s words forlornly resonated, sprawled in the coffin-like den. “I don’t care if you’re intelligent. If you have feelings. Or if the whale-huggers want a piece of me too. I’m not gonna flip over like an expired goldfish. You challenged me. This is a duel. I won’t surrender. And that means one of us has to die. Are you prepared for that?” Watery splishes and sploshes amplified. Finn shouted, “Are you?”
The cetacean responded, a mournful rather musical horn blast. Finn let go of the bottle to clamp his ears. Vapor gusted from the blowhole, leeward. The cave floor dipped as the creature dove at an angle—a creased submersible.
Finn sputtered, water in his nose. The man’s skull struck one of the huge mammal’s treacherous cusps, now jutting like stalagmites along the flanks. Weaponless, defenseless, already in the brute’s mouth, he presented a scrawny and feeble adversary. Arms flailed to elevate his chin, replenish the air in his bellows. The whale shifted its trajectory, arcing in a steep ascent, and Finn washed to the throat, his breath bated. He was abruptly wrenched inside a slick opaque tube, entering a cavity with a gush of saltwater, coated by mucous like a newborn. Acid irritated flesh. Eyes stung. He knuckled them and could discern his surroundings. He had been sucked into a holding tank, the first of four bellies that constituted the ogre’s digestive system. Pressure from the whale’s volume encompassed him, and fluids churned. Comprehension gripped that his plight was dire. He had to get out. This stage would smother him, then begin the process of breaking tissue.
Panicky, Finn thrashed. He booted a limp juvenile hulk with tentacles. The stomach’s interior glowed, jittery and macabre, the uncertain gleam of candles, a waning neon bulb. From experience, he knew these titans consumed cephalopods that gave off luminescence. Objects bumped him, flotsam the whale had glugged and couldn’t dissolve. A myriad of squid beaks rustled and rattled. Plastic bags, nylon rope and netting entangled him. By the flickers, he detected a doll, the hair nibbled away. And a glass container, his dregs intact. A navy coat. He liked that coat, but it would weigh him down. A plastic gallon jug floated. The whale had an appetite for junk food. Minus the food. He guffawed, lips squeezed together.
The confirmed lush groped to retrieve his bottle. An insufficient quantity to dump out and upset Old Bogey. The whale was an awful lot heavier than a human and may require kegs or barrels to affect. Cheers. Bottoms up. He couldn’t think of another toast. Uncapped, the bottle emptied. Finn blustered in his head: Take that, you fat wretch! How dare you try to eat a man while resting in his boat!
It wasn’t enough. He was surely doomed. Nobody could endure these conditions, and he had wasted good whiskey. Finn rued not polishing it off himself. The whale might have ejected him for his alcohol level.
Oxygen deprived, his consciousness winked out. Phosphorescent hues extinguished. Dusk and serenity conveyed him on a stream, reclining dormant in a gondola solemnly ushered by an indifferent ferryman. He didn’t care where it was going. This was peace, this was heaven.
A shroud ripped from his cadaver, leaving it exposed to a black acidic rain that drenched him to the bone.
A bleached and bearded soul breathed air through frozen blue lips, flooding his lungs with life. Why was it so cold? Eyelids reluctantly unshuttered. He felt calm, stimulated by the waves of eternity. Finn stared at the depths of the ocean swirling about pupils inkier than the heart of shadows. Who was this man reviving him? “What do you want?” The question reverberated. He was both standing and lying. Without a fundament, it was the same.
“I’ve been confined in this bitter tomb for quite a time.” Yellow and black teeth. Sunken cheeks. A pasty complexion. Gray-rimmed eyes. And an ugly gash from his forehead over his crown. “I was a sailor, the ship and the main my home. I had everything, boy. The sea flowed in me veins. I’d have never traded all that for liquor. A man would have to be a fool.” Unkempt silver hair straggled across his visage. He chuckled. “I’ve met your ilk. It was a besotted shipmate on watch, passed out, neglecting to ring the bell. Instinct roused me, then the hull jarred. I rushed to the deck. The monster breached in moonlight, white as a spirit, only he wasn’t yet. 'Whale off starboard!’ I called. No 'There she blows!’ for it weren’t a normal hunt. More that we were the hunted. The crew woke, their blood racing. That was adventure! We thrived on it, lived for it, day or night. Swift as a tern’s wing, the Dory Anne listed, rammed from beneath. I was knocked off the foc’sle by a rougher hit. Straight down the hatch, into the mouth and belly of the beast. My noggin cracked like a coconut ’gainst a tooth. I’ve been part of him for ages. Counting the hours and days since my demise. Scoring notches in his gut with a knife fashioned from a squid’s beak. Fancied slici
ng my way out. Where would I go? This is home. Ships have chased us. Harpoons would lodge when he was alive. He always escaped, broke lances and towlines till one finally done him in, a slow and painful death, writhing in the deep. Was then I knew I could never be free. Blasted whale and me roamed like a ghostship with a crew of one. But now I’ve got company!” The ancient mariner slapped Finn’s shoulder. “Jolly Jake’s the name. Give ya me last stale breath. I kept it — refused to exhale.”
Finn grew angry. “I can’t stay here. I have a niece!”
“A niece, you say? And how close would you be to this girl?” The sea-dog growled into his ear, “I gave you a gift, son. A choice. If you go back, it has to be without this snake juice.” The old sailor clutched Finn’s bottle. “Swear it, on Davy Jones’s locker!”
“Ah! You’re not real! You’re her, stuck in my head!”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’m your conscience. The man you could be. The uncle you should be. Abandon the sauce and live, while you still may. You don’t need anything but air, water, food, and love. You have all of that. Appreciate it. Or fester in this purgatory like me. Forever.”
“Wrong. I need that knife. Hand it over.” Scowling, Finn plunged for the blade in Jake’s belt. They wrestled.
“Why should I help a fuddler who won’t help himself? You’re three sheets to the wind, a waste of effort. Your niece is better off without you,” scorned the mariner.
“No!” Swinging a fist, the drunk was alone once again in the stomach of a whale. Frustration and rage filled his heart. Who was the decrepit corpse to give him advice? He would decide how he lived and died, not that seasoned castaway or this creature of midnight fantasies! If he couldn’t slash out, he would crawl.
Seared by acid, the man feistily vaulted side to side, contorting the sac, never doubting he could battle the mammoth from within and be the victor—whereas squids had failed to defeat the predator. Men were not by nature the food of whales. Nor were they quitters.
A mature squid would cram this space tightly. A man had elbow room, and a fighting chance. He tussled and squirmed to the pipe evacuated earlier, then wormed up the esophagus. It was slimy, warm, stifling…yet he gouged and wiggled back to the mouth’s pent layers of brine and oxygen. With a cry of exultation, Finn clawed out and flopped over, then drank air like the sweetest gin. There was less water; atmosphere had thinned. The scrappy fellow’s head was toward the exit, fenced by ten-inch teeth.
“Open your yap, you overgrown minnow!” snarled the captive. “You’re a ghost! This isn’t your world. You can no more incarcerate me as eat me. So open your bus of a snout, and I’ll be on my way!”
Smooth and encrusted choppers lining the under-jaw separated from sockets in the upper jaw. Air and liquid drained with a quick huff, then the base jaw slammed firmly. A minimal amount of oxygen lingered. Waterlogged, the man sagged on a springy mat, gasping for breath, the kelp stranded beside him. “That wasn’t…what I had in mind.”
Nerves tingled unpleasantly, burning like his skin, on fire with apprehension. The environment was stuffy and humid. A muggy film of sweat beaded his brow, though the temperature was frigid. He coughed a plume of rimy fog. The laws were dodgy with a paranormal entity. Somehow, he had to bust out, afore the whale transported him to the darkest fathoms.
Anger rekindled, and a thirst for living. He flung himself at the pallid roof of Old Bogey’s mouth. Finn rebounded onto the tongue. “If only I had that geezer’s blade. Or my bottle.” Groaning, expending precious cool air, he conducted another assault with the same result. “I’m getting somewhere,” he joked. “That had to bother you.”
Finn took a respite to collect his senses, a tender gourd cushioned by spongy tissue. His head ached from colliding with a tooth. Fortunate for him Old Bogey was a relic, grander in size than modern Sperm Whales, or he could have been crushed by a slim and cramped orifice.
“Come on!” Kicking heels like a petulant brat, the man too late realized his mistake. Bogey’s tongue smacked him against the ceiling. He collapsed on it, stunned. “Ohhh.” Ribs were bruised. His face hurt.
The whale snorted then inhaled.
“Here we go.” Finn slid as a dive commenced. Undaunted, he catapulted sturdy legs up, limber and strengthened from laboring. The steel toes of work boots sank into flesh.
Old Bogey released a shockwave of sound underwater. Jaws unlocked. Finn plummeted. A fist latched to a gold ribbon; he and the kelp tumbled in a flurry of sea and bubbles. A radiant white wall of scars, furrows and barnacles passed, bumping him. He ducked to avoid remnants of harpoons, then somersaulted away from a broad tail wagging up and down.
Ripples subsided. Tenebrous shadows embraced. His lungs were splitting.
Briefly disoriented, he followed intuitive bearings and stroked to the surface. The stubbled man devoured air.
An orb emerged, tethered like a preserver. “We made it.” Grinning, he liberated the kelp’s strand then kissed the tan bulb. “Go on. Roll. Ride the tides. You’re free.”
Would the monster return? He gazed at the night, paranoid and sober.
A faint keening summoned attention. The pitch seemed visceral, intrinsic. What could it be? His mind was a vacuum, temporarily dazed. Treading water, he frowned. Eventually Finn recognized it as wind howling through a cave on the town’s coast. His birthplace was named Whistler’s Cove for the anomaly.
In this fog, he couldn’t spy the shore, couldn’t distinguish harbor lights or the red one blinking on a jetty. But he had two decent ears and could navigate home. Yanking laces, Finn discarded his boots and swam defiantly past a bent metal buoy. The beast’s tail swatted it, he appraised. A bell was crumpled. He had seen boats, an entire ship wrecked by whales protecting their pods, struggling to live.
The survivor traversed a distance, alternately paddling and listening for the whistle; tuned for the approach of a cunning phantom.
Sperm Whales were reputed to have the biggest brains of any creature alive or dead. Old Bogey was smart, not to mention hostile. A rogue, hounded and wounded, turned belligerent. Whales were not aggressive unless provoked. The majority were placid. Easy targets. Curious and friendly.
The man unleashed a sob. Tears streaked his countenance, merging with the ocean. How much of the sea was grief and suffering? How much blood? He had spilled his share.
Finn’s maiden voyage was aboard a whaler when he was sixteen. Months of despicable slaughter. It was very real. He couldn’t stomach the gore of carving, flensing blubber. He saw their eyes in his sleep: staring at him with looks of agony, torment. Pleading for mercy. That was far worse than blame. Guilt-ridden, he jumped ship and sailed with fishing vessels. Then merchant steamers, international freighters. The harbor cruise and whale-watching boats wouldn’t accept him. In the end, nobody would. He had whiskey on his breath.
Maybe the guilt drove him to drown his sorrows…caused emotions to harden. Maybe he lost his soul like Jolly Jake; he just didn’t know it ‘til now.
Had Old Bogey materialized to punish him for his sins? To haunt him?
“Here I am!” yelled Finn, repentant—arms dripping above the water, legs pumping below. “Get it over with. I deserve it!” His voice faded. The ocean was quiet.
An undercurrent of activity and tension frothed, stewing, fomenting a maelstrom as an ornery presence circled. Finn welcomed the specter, convinced he was cursed to decay in a demon whale’s paunch.
The sea foamed. A chimera towered, breaching. An eye peered from a mountainous ridge white as snow as the whale flew by, arching downward. Saltwater doused Finn, aggravating patches of scorched leathery skin. He spat and fought for balance, alert, slapped in the face.
The fog dispersed. A disk hovered, casting silver translucence. Finn ogled a familiar aspect in awe. As if it were a sign—or a symptom of mental fatigue—Megan’s features beamed at him from the Moon. Jolly Jake’s words echoed in his skull: “Your niece is better off without you.”
It wasn’t true. She cared. She
gave him this phone, didn’t she? Finn patted a trouser pocket. He must have done something right. Did she know that he loved her? That he kept her pictures with him, and a birthday card she made for him? Leaning back, legs fluttering, the man unbuttoned a shirt pouch and unfolded the photographs of a smiling little girl, a teenager, and a woman. A construction-paper heart with childish handwriting, crayon doodles. The treasures were soaked. He refolded them, stowed them in the pocket, then buttoned the soggy fabric.
He couldn’t remember if he ever told her that he boasted about her constantly in the tavern where he ate and drank. That she was the daughter he never had.
Meg was the one he wanted to relate this crazy incredible story to…the one who would never believe it without concrete evidence.
Old Bogey leaped behind, saturating him.
Finn delved for the phone in his pants and held it out of the water. Did it still work? It was supposed to be waterproof. This would be a good test. He examined the instrument. A window lit up on the outside; it was functioning. She had instructed him how to shoot pictures, but that was a while ago, and Finn was probably bored, thinking he wouldn’t need it. By accident, a button on the side had switched the screen to camera mode. So that’s why it keeps making that clacking noise in my pocket. He must have numerous dark photos of lint. Which way should it point? He squinted, finding a teeny lens. The guy fiddled with exterior controls, viewing himself on the screen. An experimental clack. A verifying clack. Got it. Further monkeying produced a flash.
His hand shook as he aimed the camera-phone, awaiting the spirit.
Glimmers of white. The speed of the whale’s orbit increased to a dizzying pace. Finn’s legs were tired. The Moon shone without pity, an implacable visage. “This is for you, Meg. Wherever you are.” Would he see her again? He wanted desperately to impress her—to earn the respect of a girl who must regard him as an embarrassment. An eyesore. A public spectacle. She couldn’t consider him her uncle, or anything more than a drunk.
Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans) Page 13