Drowning in Gore

by Ledger,John

  Captain Manny “Devil Boy” Wilcox was a pirate captain Scallywag Sam had a great deal of trust in. They had sailed many times together before Scallywag and won his own ship back, and they often met each other when they were concluding their adventures, taking a rest in the many ports of the Caribbean.

  “We’re all expected to be there,” Manny said as he and Sam shared drinks, overlooking a beautiful sunset from the outside of a pub. “Ol’ Blackbeard has done well in bringing us pirates together before, but this idea is different. More thought out and even better.”

  “It sounds quite lofty,” Sam stated, unable to shake the caution from his shoulders.

  “And rightfully so. But is it impossible? Pirates coming together, all of us, no factions, no separate groups. A force strong enough to intimidate the world. Kings are corrupt. Nobles, possibly even more so. Merchants, thieves. From the Americas to the old countries, fat cats run their murderous charades in the comforts of their mansions and castles. What does the pirate do? Labor on ships for days upon end, living the life he loves yet the life he is enslaved to. Run upon fortunes when he’s lucky to loot ships or amass buried treasure hidden by his fellow brothers only a few years or decades before. And for what? To watch those fortunes spent and lost again, so quickly. On inns, and whores,” Manny pointed to Sam’s drink, “and alcohol.”

  “Ha. So forming some united pirate colony will eradicate those problems.”

  “Not a mere colony mate. Ocean’s sake, don’t think so small. An empire. A lawless empire. No gods, no masters. Pirates. Real folk. Men and ladies of the seas. We support each other, feed each other, supply for each other’s thirsts. We build our own land, our own damned world. Then, the sky’s the limit. Kingdoms fear us. The American colonies open to us with rapture. Who’s to take away such brilliance?”

  Utopian. Crazy. Unbelievable- but enticing. Too many confirmations, and Sam wanted to believe it. Manny was trustworthy. The many captains he had met with were well respected in those pirate circles, and they had been behind many great heists and uprisings. What could possibly go wrong from that point?

  And so, planning in advance, getting his necessary supplies on the Royale Mermaid, making sure his crew was in order, Scallywag Sam made his departure and headed towards the targeted location.

  On the long stretch of sailing, conversing with his navigators and crew, Sam questioned himself the entire way. His shipmates looked at him as if he were insane as well, but the confirmations were too strong. They saw familiar ships sailing alongside them and moving from different directions, all headed towards that mysterious altitude, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. Days and nights were trying, but there was always alcohol aboard. At dinners and breakfasts, they sang songs of the old days and the current, melodies celebrating the pirate life. Wenches danced and flirted with their male mates overboard, stories of treasures and blood swapped back and forth. None of the debaucheries or talks made the days go faster, or the cold nights more bearable, but the drinks and wild parties helped to fill the time.

  Closer they edged towards those coordinates, the mysterious points where Blackbeard said they would meet. A brilliant day greeted them as they neared the exact latitude and longitude, a beautiful sun overhead, seagulls flying high above them. Sam could feel the wind whipping his back at a zestful speed, beating into the sails. The pirates, after another wondrous night of debauchery and decadence, were only dedicated to their duties now as they attended the ship chores.

  Sam looked at the surrounding ships, other pirates closing in on the place they were supposed to meet. He wondered if they were as scared and confused as he was though, even those confident captains that had done their best to lure him here. This all must have been some horrid joke. There was no approaching land where the coordinates were marked, no ship waiting idly ahead of them. What were they going to do, anchor themselves at that meeting point when the sea floor was unfathomable leagues down? That was a conundrum. Sam wanted to kick himself for being so stupid, curse his own ignorance, but he would have looked foolish in front of his crew. He would continue to play whatever farce waited for them in the end, and not give in so easily to his own embarrassment.

  One of the ships, possibly hundreds of yards in front of Sam’s own, vanished in thin air.

  No, not vanished, entirely. The ship looked as if it hit some sort of invisible veil. The veil hit the front of the ship, opening with some warped, wrinkly parting. Sam was struck with how similar the empty space around the ship looked, like a vaginal wound, since he could think of no lesser profane way to describe this opening. Slowly, the ship dived in, the wrinkly empty space consuming it until it was gone.

  Shock. From his skin to his bones, utter dread set in, first as empty as the air surrounding him, then adrenaline spiked with absolute terror and fear. Struck by an uncomfortable wave of perceived loneliness, Sam looked to his nearby crewmates. The feeling of isolation died. By the frozen looks of horror plastered upon their faces like pallid masks, he doubted that he was the only one that had witnessed this horror.

  Beyond where that veil had taken the ship, the skies were just as blue as the skies before the invisible barrier. Sam couldn’t tell whether that invisible wall had disappeared or not until he saw more ships ahead of him enter its wrinkled form. The closer he had gotten, following those ships, the more he noticed an opalescent shift of colors around the penetrated wombs, mirroring the bubbles from foam and soap. He could also hear the veil being penetrated, a sort of unnatural sound that his ears had never heard before.

  “Cursed be,” one of Sam’s shipmates remarked. “Evil witchcraft!”

  “Don’t be so daft,” Sam said, trying to remain calm. “The other captains knew we had to come here, that there was something in these exact coordinates. That strange wall must be it. We should trust Blackbeard and the superiors know what we don’t?”

  “You propose that Blackbeard knows witchcraft, and the dark things that exist in areas of the ocean no man should venture to?”

  Sam groaned. He didn’t want to hear the man’s superstitions, or his trepidations. Such discomforts only mirrored and tripled Sam’s own, the fright he tried his best to suppress behind his human mask. Yet they were drawing close, and the winds seemed to nearly cease the closer they got to that veil. More ships disappeared behind its curtain, and Sam saw nothing from it but clear skies, beautiful waters, a brilliant sun-

  A brilliant sun. Sam looked behind him. Just as it had been since it rose that morning, the sun was still behind him.

  Sam looked at the veil again. A few seconds confirmed what he was beginning to ascertain, that the veil was projecting a reflection, as perfect as a mirror yet stretching as far as the eye could see from that invisible line. Closer now, Sam could see the reflections of the natural world, of the approaching ships, of his own.

  “Prepare, my friends,” Sam said with a nod, clenching the pistol at his side as if it would give him some sense of security. “We’re going in.”

  “Are you stark raving mad?” one of the lady pirates remarked as she moved to Sam’s side at the bow, holding up a pair of binoculars. “We’ll die going through there! Ain’t no manmade wonder we’re entering, captain! In all my years of seafaring-”

  “A first time for any. Blackbeard summoned us here, and the other ships are obeying. We’re going in.”

  The ship continued. Yards dwindled. The fear of the crew was at an all time high. Though many did their best to appear stoic and fearless, even their masked statuesque expressions trembled along with the obviously cowering shipmates. The distances between that invisible, reflective wall continued to die down, the ship’s own reflection might be strong to the sailors. They could see the whipping of waves against the hull, the sails, the steering wheel, their own ship coming towards them like a game of chicken. No one knew how to prepare for the collision that was about to take place.

  There was no preparation. They were in, space and time seeming to wrinkle around them. The sounds of a bre
ak womb were unnatural, zooming past them, the wailing of strange, ethereal wonders seeming to sound all around them. A swirling palette of black and red as brilliant as blood and bright as summer rays, seemed to surround them from the oncoming abstract reality, blazing with unspoken life.

  “This ain’t where no man should be!” one sailor exclaimed.

  For the most part, the sailors attempted to be quiet, to stay calm. Staying stolid was not an easy task. With a sorrowful acquiescence, entering that devilish hole, shipmates gripped the side rails and masts. What was once a quiet, peaceful day was now disrupted as a strange tunnel surrounded them. Scarlet and ebony swirls of ether surrounded them all, rushing past them in gushes of zephyr, whipping through the air freely with a flippant ease.

  As Sam gripped the steering wheel, he couldn’t tell whether he could see any of the real world anymore. The waters, the skies, the clouds, and everything familiar had evaded him. There was only the ship, and that unreal manifestation of existence cluttered around him. He heard the unnatural sounds as they grew louder, and each note started to remind him of a church choir. An ease greeted him at first, hearing those notes that reminded him of the imaginings of angels, holy beings encircling God’s throne, but fear gripped him just as quickly when fantasies of sirens entered his struggling mind. Would he crash against unseen rocks, forgotten in history, or would this tunnel lead somewhere, anywhere, awarding the Royale Mermaid with survival?

  They survived for now. The wild, capricious movements of the abstract, sanguine environment calmed. Black and red started to move out, dispersing and gaining some sense of equilibrium from strand to strand, condensing slowly and forming a new, more tangible environment. The waters became visible again in a wide ocean of crimson, no blue or white visible on its viscous, thick surface that stained the rocking sides of the ship with bloody smears. The sky was a darker red rising towards a cosmic black, smoky with its melding from gore tainted air to pitch black night. The breezes were low and heated, the humidity nearly unbearable.

  Along the sides of the Royale Mermaid and before them were many other pirate ships, sailing towards a discernible fate.

  “Feels like we’re in the damned center of the underworld,” one pirate woman remarked, clenching her chest as she peered over the side, shuddering.

  “My God,” exclaimed a pirate. “We’re in hell! This is hell, ain’t it?”

  Sam couldn’t squash their fears, nor did he feel the desire to change them. He was scared as well, undeniably so. The ocean of blood surrounding them, the smell of death everywhere. Day turned into night so fast, and no one could provide them with any answers.

  There was one thing that gave Sam a little glimmer of hope.

  Land was ahead. Some of the ships had already docked, possibly ten or more. Many other ships, including Sam’s own vessel, weren’t too far behind. This must have been the place, and Sam held onto his faith, believing in Blackbeard with as much fervor as a God fearing man held to his cross.

  Faith in Blackbeard, and solace in the booze. Sam reached into his buttoned shirt and pulled out a flask of whiskey. Sweet venom would calm his horrid nerves.

  The ships crept closer to that foreign coast in the center of those gory waters. The shallower the waters grew, Sam and his crew members could look over the edges of the ship and see floating hearts along with other body organs and even bones. Huge, disturbingly beautiful, black crows flocked around the coasts and over the waters, not a seagull in sight. Flies and various insects hummed and buzzed over floating dead bodies, some of those bloated and rotted corpses knocking against the sides of the ships as they sailed by.

  Sam’s mouth dropped as his eyes fell across that ‘land’. There was no sandy coast, no sight of mud or brown dirt. Stones and trees seemed nonexistent here. As if formed by magic, a conglomerate of flesh and bone clumped together to form this eerie island. Yes, cadavers, guts, and skin mashed together in a thick, compressed mass of death. Sam wondered how long those bodies had been there, piling, creating this landscape he would have once deemed impossible. He knew he wasn’t dreaming, but how he wished he was.

  More ships were closing in on the land. Sam looked around to see other captains and shipmates from other ships. Some of the captains, he recognized. They were the ones that convinced him to believe the letter and to come here. They didn’t look confused or scared at all, though their shipmates looked quite frightened. On other ships, captains less familiar to Sam looked just as weary, and their fellow pirates even more so. Sam ascertained that most of the people around him didn’t have a damn clue what was going on, or where all of this would lead.

  Looking on the flesh formed ground, Sam could tell a lot of the landscape had become hardened, crystallized, looking as if it had been well preserved. The island was quite expansive, going for miles in its spread circumference. Though no jungle or collection of flora was in sight, he could see a huge mound in the center of the island, made of dead bodies, towering over the land like a high valley.

  The ships that had landed were well supported by that rocky mass of countless bodies held together by some arcane adhesive, anchored in that thick swarm of blood. Sailors stepped from their ships onto downcast plants and with the aids of ropes thrown over the sides. They walked on the ground, some areas obviously softer than others as soldiers seemed to struggle at moving their feet in certain patches.

  The smell of death grew stronger as The Royale Mermaid neared that necrotic island.

  Sam’s ship finally settled against the edge of that filthy coast. Death reigned everywhere. Bone bits stuck from the woven tissue of artificial earth.

  Without a word spoken to one another, their visages painted with dread, Sam’s pirate family cast their ropes and planks, making their unwanted exits. They descended to that evil earth of rot and guts, the ground unbelievably stable in its diseased patchwork. Sam felt awkward and disgusted as, a few steps from crystallized organs, his boots met softer, new entrails, crushing down to produce a geyser wetter and thicker than mud.

  A fellow pirate vomited beside Sam, the rotted smell filling his lungs without mercy.

  “What an awful place,” remarked one of the crew members.

  Around the fleet of the Mermaid, other numerous crews were departing their ships, struggling along the hellish landscape. Sam recognized a great number of them, men he had drank with in pubs, went to war with on ocean fronts. Many of them were intoxicated now, just as Sam was with his flash held tight in his right hand, obviously trying to deal with the strange territory they had set foot upon. Sam could remember a number of ships, from The Dirty Devil to Agnes's Bastard. Brave sailors, amazing, swashbuckling swordsmen and talented shooters.

  “Truly a world of demons,” Sam admitted, though no one was in sight but the pirates, all walking towards that unholy mound at the center of that dead island. Through that crowd, he assumed that everyone was following whichever captains were in front. Could anyone possibly have any idea where they were going?

  Sam and his crew merely followed the crowd, having nothing else to guide them. After what felt like nearly half an hour of walking, struggling through the unpredictable surface of skin, guts, and muddy blood, Sam finally saw an opening in the mound. The mound seemed to house a cave, and all of the pirates were entering it.

  “A damned cave,” one of the pirates muttered, joyless.

  “A cave!” exclaimed another. “Leading into the bowels of hell, no doubt! Oh mother, this is it! An end of a life of sinning! Infernal punishment for a pirate! Forgive me, God, forgive me!”

  The hysteria of some of the pirates surrounding Sam disturbed him more than the dismal environment itself. They were jumping to conclusions, assuming the worst, and he didn’t blame them. All the same, he would have rather found exactly what the land held than assuming this was hell, or an end awaited. Blackbeard wanted them here. They would form an alliance. Perhaps Blackbeard had some strange help from devils, and this was their land, their world. Perhaps coming here was a privi
lege for a pirate, and not a final day of reckoning. Either way, Sam was only proposing theories, not pushing conclusions. He was in no rush to realize what was going on, and he would take his time, use each moment to remain humble in his pursuit of the truth. Assumptions would lead nowhere but feed fear.

  The mouth of the mound was growing wider, the cave unbelievably dark. Torches and lanterns had been lit. Swords and pistols were drawn from the less trusting pirates. Sam could see neighbors, pirate brothers and pirate sisters, glancing at each other warily, hands shaking with weapons cautiously held at their sides. How he feared what was to come. Would a war break out then and there? Would scallywags and scoundrels lung at one another, fearful for what was to come in that cave? Or would everyone remain calm, going down that dark, incomprehensible shaft, following the other fools in front of them, trusting wherever that space would lead.

  Hell, Sam’s mind chanted uneasily. Hell, hell, hell.

  As they neared that gaping hole, Sam believed that he could start to hear something strange. Believed, for the only sound he heard with his physical ears were the sounds of humans struggling through the entrails decorating the land of death, feet blopping, men and women grunting from harsh steps. Whatever strange sounds he was picking up, they were not heard by his ears, but by his mind. From that open tunnel, he could hear the faint calling of music, soft and melodic, yet discordant in some fashion. A soothing cacophony, sounds of which Sam had never dreamed possible, beautifully distorted notes that were angelic and haunting all at once. They penetrated Sam’s heart, puncturing him with a sickness beyond description, and suddenly he wanted to die instead of hearing those tormented notes which seemed to burrow in his brain, diving into his captivated head like maggots. How he wanted to turn back.