Dark Things IV

by Stacey Longo

  “I bet you’ve never seen anything like that,” Jimmy said when Sharp finally killed the engines.

  Teddy peered in all directions around him. The boat had become a desolate island. There was nothing and no one in sight as far as he could see. It was just them, the rocky waves below and a brilliant blue sky above.

  “He doesn’t look so good,” Scott remarked, peering over his shoulder at Teddy. “Looks kinda green.”

  “I’ll be alright. It was just the waves,” Teddy said although the boat was still bobbing, just not as violently as before.

  “Take one of these. Balances out the equilibrium,” Rich said as he pulled a beer from the cooler and offered it to Teddy.

  “No thanks,” Teddy said.

  “I won’t tell your dad if you don’t,” Uncle Jimmy said. He took the beer, twisted off the cap, handed it to Teddy, and then got one for himself.

  “Thanks,” Teddy muttered. “How exactly will this balance out my equilibrium?”

  “Well the way I see it,” Rich went on to explain, “the waves will make you wobble one way and the beer will make you tip the other. Put ‘em together,” he clapped his hands once for emphasis, “and you’re golden. I’ve never fallen over on the ocean. Never.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Teddy said. He took his first sip and cringed. The beer tasted acrid and hard to swallow. It unsettled his stomach worse than the waves.

  “Just keep your eyes on the horizon if you’re not feeling so good,” Uncle Jimmy said. “It keeps your head steady…or so I’m told.”

  “Someone sick already?” Sharp asked as he came crawling down from the helm. “I took a group out yesterday with this little girl who chucked all over the deck. If you’re gonna spew, spew over the side. We attract more fish that way.”

  Teddy nodded. Just talking about blowing chunks made him queasy inside.

  Sharp let out the anchor, giving the men another minute to take in the natural beauty of their surroundings, before turning around and ruining it all by throwing open the lid of the large and long cooler on deck.

  “God damn, that stinks,” Scott groused.

  “Like heavenly roses,” Sharp said. He heaved a slopping bucket out of the cooler that smelled like fish and death combined.

  Teddy gagged as he pulled his t-shirt up over his nose. “What is that?” he asked.

  “Innards and undesireds,” Sharp answered. “The guts from yesterday’s catch.” He hoisted the bucket full of viscera and heads onto the railing to dump it into the water. Just as he tilted the bucket, a wave sent him stumbling backward along with a splash of the rotting, red waste, which splattered across the deck. A few red splotches speckled Teddy’s jeans.

  Sharp laughed. “Looks like I ain’t drank enough,” he said. He emptied the bucket, then held a finger to his lips. “I can get fined for this, but fish like fish, and if ya wanna catch the big boys then ya gotta break a few rules.” He hosed the deck off with salt water straight from the ocean, but even though it washed away the blood, it couldn’t kill the stench.

  Teddy forced another sip of beer down his throat in hopes of freeing his head from the combined aroma of rotting fish and gasoline. Without a hook in the water he was already well on his way to being miserable.

  “At this rate, y’all won’t catch nothin’,” Sharp said. He yanked another bucket out of the cooler, bringing with it another obnoxious odor.

  “What’s that?” Teddy asked.

  “That’s our bait,” Uncle Jimmy said.

  “Squid,” Sharp added. One by one, he affixed squid the size of footballs to the hooks. “Pick a pole,” he said.

  “Teddy first,” Jimmy hollered.

  “I’ll take that one,” Teddy said, pointing to the pole on the very left.

  “I’ll take the one next to it,” Jimmy said.

  Scott snickered. “Now we know which line won’t get a hit.”

  “But you haven’t picked yours yet,” Jimmy retorted.

  “One thing about your uncle, kid, is that he has the worst luck ever. He never catches anything.”

  “‘Cept for crabs,” Rich cracked under his breath.

  “You guys fish for crabs too?” Teddy asked.

  “Not those kinds of crabs,” Rich laughed.

  “Crabs?” Teddy echoed.

  “Come on, guys,” Jimmy said in the most mature voice he could muster.

  “What?” Scott asked, twisting open another bottle of beer. “He’s old enough. I’m sure he’s getting laid by now, aren’t you, kid?”

  Teddy blushed, finally realizing what they were talking about.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Uncle Jimmy said.

  Teddy took another sip of beer.

  Scott let the question go. He leaned back in the deck chair and stretched. “Ah,” he sighed, “this is the best part of fishing right here.” He tilted his beer toward the others before throwing his head back and downing half the bottle.

  Uncle Jimmy kicked the cooler lid closed. “Grab a seat,” he said to Teddy.

  “How long ‘til the fish start biting?”

  “There’s no saying.”

  “So you just sit here and wait?”

  “And drink,” Rich interjected.

  “You’ll learn to enjoy it,” Uncle Jimmy said.

  “Hmm,” Teddy hummed. “I can’t believe this is actually considered a sport.”

  “This is the easy part, kid,” Sharp cut in. “Wait ‘til you’re reelin’ one of those suckers in.”

  “The fishing pole doesn’t do all the work?”

  Sharp laughed. “See this?” he said, lifting a harness from one of the side compartments. “If your line gets a hit, ya get into this fast. Ain’t no way you’re gonna reel a marlin in on your own.”

  Teddy swallowed hard. He had visions of himself being pulled overboard by a fish he didn’t care all that much about catching in the first place.

  An hour passed with nothing more interesting happening than Scott and Rich racing their way through six beers apiece. The unfinished drink in Teddy’s hands turned warm. He emptied the bottle in the sink downstairs and returned to find Scott on one side of the deck and Rich on the other, both of them whizzing off the sides of the boat. They tottered on drunken legs with the motion of the Scarlet Rose. Neither of them came close to falling, however; there must have been something to Rich’s theory. The two were in mid-stream when the high-pitched squeal of line going taut rang out from one of the rods.

  “Got one!” Sharp shouted.

  Teddy jumped to his feet—his heart suddenly beating against his ribcage like the kick of a double bass drum—to see which line had gotten the hit.

  “Whose is it?” Scott squawked, rapidly shaking off to get in on the excitement.

  “It’s Rich’s!” Jimmy yelled.

  A quiet sigh of disappointment passed over Scott’s lips. Rich zipped up, eagerly trading one pole for another.

  “The harness,” Sharp reminded him.

  Rich slipped into the harness, which had straps along the back for the other guys to hang onto and a metal rod holder on the front to keep the fishing pole in place. Working quickly, he lifted the rod from its frame on the deck and inserted it into the holder on the vest. He didn’t have the rod in his hands for more than two seconds when whatever was on the end of his line yanked him forward, pulling him halfway over the railing.

  Rich whooped, showing not the slightest sign of fear. Scott and Sharp leapt forward to grab onto the back of the harness. They strained to pull him backward while he wrestled with the reel to turn the winder.

  “You got it, Richie!” Jimmy roared, joining Scott and Sharp in the battle to keep Rich from going overboard. “Keep it comin’!”

  Teddy stood slack jawed and amazed, staring out at the water where the line met the waves in wait of what would break through the surface. Sweat poured down his face, creeping out from under the band of his hat, and in that moment, as odd as it seemed, he felt the sore presence of blossomin
g pimples forming on his forehead. The zits were all right with him, though. Never before had he seen a struggle as exciting as the one taking place before him.

  The muscles in Rich’s forearm flexed, bulging big and tight with each turn of the reel he got off. The fish was obviously enormous, and incredibly strong. Rich would make a gain only to have it taken back from him as his catch fought to get free. For a while it seemed that a stalemate had been reached. Rich, sopping with perspiration, grew tired. His muscles were just as effective as lumps of rubber that had been set ablaze; they seemed to burn just as badly too. Ten minutes passed with neither man nor marlin gaining or losing a bit of line.

  And then suddenly it all became very easy. The reel wound with minimal effort. Jimmy, Sharp and Scott didn’t have to hold onto the back of Rich’s vest as tightly as they had before.

  “What happened?” Teddy asked. “Did it get away?”

  “Nah,” Sharp said. “It’s spent. It can’t fight anymore.”

  “Oh,” Teddy muttered. His heart rate slowed although the excitement remained high around him. When the great fish finally appeared he couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. Every now and then it thrashed its tail over the water, but mostly it just floated on the surface.

  “She’s five hundred pounds easy,” Sharp said, clapping Rich on the back. “Nice catch.”

  They used a motorized lift on the side of the boat to hoist the marlin out of the water and then rolled it over the side onto the deck floor where it landed with a painful sounding thud.

  “She’s a beaut,” Scott said.

  “I need a beer,” Rich panted.

  Sharp clubbed the fish over the head, being careful to avoid its spear-like upper jaw, then lifted a hatch in the floor that opened up onto a water-filled compartment which he and Scott slid the fish into.

  “What’d you think of that?” Uncle Jimmy asked Teddy.

  “It was pretty exciting, I have to admit.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not the only one we see today.”

  As the excitement dipped to a level just above where it was before the marlin struck, they settled in again, Rich with a perpetual grin across his face because his stroke of luck somehow confirmed his manliness. Teddy sat low on top of the cooler for the next hour, during which time the odorous blend of fish and fumes started to get to him again. The relentless waves made his head spin. If only the waves would stop he’d be alright, but they went on tossing the boat about as if it was a rubber ducky in a hot tub. His stomach contracted. Soon he found himself swallowing over and over again with an empty feeling between his ears. He knew what the feeling meant. He wasn’t going to last much longer.

  “Uh-oh,” Uncle Jimmy said when he looked over in Teddy’s direction and saw that his nephew was an interesting shade of viridian.

  Teddy parted his lips to say that he was fine, but when he did something other than words came rushing into his mouth.

  “Over the edge!” Sharp shouted.

  Teddy let the torrent of his undigested breakfast, tainted by beer, gush out of him. He couldn’t think of anything worse than smelling gasoline and rotten fish while acidic bile poured past his lips and stung the empty spaces of his nasal cavity. His stomach heaved incessantly, draining him of everything inside and leaving him with a headache on par with what the marlin must have felt after Sharp hit it in the head. Worst of all, he couldn’t stop moving.

  “You alright?” Jimmy asked.

  Teddy pulled his hat extra low to avoid the embarrassment of facing the sardonic stares of the others. “Super,” he said, wiping his drippy nose against the collar of his t-shirt.

  “It happens to all of us,” Uncle Jimmy assured him.

  “Yeah,” Teddy muttered. He spit over the side to get the sour taste out of his mouth. What he wouldn’t give to be back on solid ground. Shore, however, seemed impossibly far away and none of the others showed any sign that they were ready to call it a day.

  “Why don’t you take it easy downstairs for a while?” Jimmy suggested.

  “Yeah,” Teddy said again. “Maybe a little shade would do me some good.

  Teddy retreated below deck, closing the cabin door behind him. For a moment he thought that his stomach might not have been as empty as he previously thought, but the foreboding feeling passed and nothing more erupted out of him.

  The cabin was muggy and moist. The faint scent of mold hung on the air from being closed up all the time. Teddy didn’t think he’d be any more comfortable down there than he was on deck—at least there was a breeze and a cool mist to compete with the fumes up there. The cabin, on the other hand, was suffocating and stale.

  Thinking that he might get some relief, Teddy perked up when he spotted an air-conditioning unit on the wall. His hopes fell, however, when he found that it didn’t work.

  “Great,” he grumbled, glancing back at the cabin door. He almost made his way back on deck, but he just couldn’t do it. The embarrassment was too much to take. He pulled off his hat and flung it at the table. With a pass of his hand over his forehead, he could feel the mountainous range of pimples that had formed. He grumbled again, knowing that he wouldn’t have clear skin for at least a week or more.

  With nothing else to do, Teddy threw himself on the bed. The mattress was deceivingly hard. His body landed with a solid thump that stirred dust up into the air. The blanket smelled fusty. The pillow felt damp. Teddy lay there with his eyes closed, wishing that the water would stop moving just for a minute. The way the bed was situated, he could hear the waves beating against the boat as loudly as if the water was crashing into his head.

  Teddy could have been that way for ten minutes or ten hours. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to total darkness. The air in the cabin felt cooler than it had before, although the blanket still smelled fusty and the pillow still felt damp. And the waves, they hadn’t weakened one bit.

  Teddy rubbed his eyes and rolled off the bed. His throat was sore from vomiting. His tongue tasted terrible. Forgetting about his hat, he unlatched the cabin door and threw it open to be greeted by a cool breeze and overwhelming darkness.

  “Uncle Jimmy?” he called. But Uncle Jimmy wasn’t there to respond. No one was.

  Feeling very cold all of a sudden, Teddy ventured on deck to find nothing more than two empty deck chairs alongside the two coolers on board. A nearly empty beer bottled rolled back and forth each time the boat shifted. The rods were still in place at the rear of the deck, their lines still out in the ocean.

  “Hello!” Teddy hollered. He could feel himself hovering on the verge of panic. “Where is everybody?”

  He squinted out into the darkness. He couldn’t see very far, but even so, he could tell that there wasn’t land in sight.

  “Jimmy? Sharp?” Teddy cried. A quaver sounded in his voice. “Can anybody hear me?”

  With a rise of hope, Teddy scurried up the ladder to the helm. Nothing. There was no one there. A tiny digital clock to the right of the wheel indicated that it was just after midnight. Somewhat stunned, Teddy dropped down to the deck.

  “This can’t be,” he said to himself, half thinking that he must be lost in a bad dream. “This cannot be happening.”

  The sounds of the ocean, however, seemed to argue the opposing view. Teddy was very much alone. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  Unwilling to give up, Teddy, clinging to the railing, rounded the deck while peering over the sides in search of something that might tell him what happened. Deep down he wanted it all to be a joke. Of course the guys were trying to pull one over on him. It was his first time out. They were just ruffling him up, hazing him. That had to be the reason.

  “All right,” Teddy said, “you got me. You can come out now.”

  He waited and listened. No one appeared. No one spoke.

  “Fuuuck,” Teddy moaned. He really was panicking. He didn’t know shit about being out on the open water alone. Even worse, he didn’t kn
ow which way was home. Everywhere he looked he saw the same thing: water beneath a black sky.

  Trembling, Teddy made his way up to the helm once again. The instrument panel was off. All gauges were dark. The radio wouldn’t transmit even a single squawk of static. The only thing that seemed to work was the compass, but seeing as though he didn’t know the direction from which he came, an arrow pointing north was of no help to him.

  “Come on,” he groaned, desperate to have something happen, but then his eyes landed on the empty ignition and he knew right then and there that he wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not unless he found a key.

  Teddy spent the next two hours searching every nook and cranny of the helm and the cabin below. He searched not once but twice, only to come up empty handed.

  “You had to fall asleep,” he berated himself, tears clinging to his eyelashes. His stomach lurched. Admitting that he was powerless scared the hell out of him. His knees going weak, Teddy fell into one of the deck chairs and stared out at the nothingness that surrounded him.

  He sat there, horrified and numb, until—thwack!—a solid crack rattled the deck from below. Falling sideways, Teddy had to catch his breath before getting to his feet. The thumping sounded again. And again. And again.

  “Uncle Jimmy…” he said, too terrified to investigate any further, yet equally as frightened to just stand there without looking. With his face scrunched in anticipation of the horror he might uncover, Teddy hoisted the hatch from the floor.

  “Jimmy?” he said again. But all that came back at him was a spray of water that slapped him in the face as Rich’s marlin—not quite dead despite the blow it suffered—flapped its tail.

  Relieved, yet still on edge, Teddy let the hatch fall back in place. Praying that things would indeed look brighter in the morning, he retreated to the cabin to wait out the dark hours. As soon as the first signs of light crept through the cracks around the cabin’s door, Teddy, dehydrated and worn, emerged. If things had been different he may have been able to enjoy a sunrise unlike any other he’d ever seen, but hurting the way he was, he didn’t cast a single look toward the horizon.