“I want a constant watch,” Drucilla said to Mr. Pit as she stood up. She took one last, brief glance over the horizon. A black smudge made her double take. She lifted her spyglass to survey it. “Motherfuckers!”
Mr. Pit looked in the direction, “What the root is it?”
“A Panzer altar.” Drucilla passed the spyglass over to Mr. Pit. “The sharks are still circling.”
Mr. Pit looked through the glass for a long time. “I think there may still be someone on there.”
“Can you tell if they’re alive or not?” Drucilla was eager.
Mr. Pit shook his head. Drucilla let out a heavy sigh. She gripped the railing with her fists until her knuckles blanched white.
“Prepare a boat. I want you and Kalak to beat off the sharks and for the altar to be investigated. If there are any survivors, bring them back on board for medical treatment.” Drucilla turned to leave. “Who knows, maybe they know something about what’s going on. Unless they’re cultists in disguise, in which case we'll gut them and throw them overboard.”
It wasn’t long before Abigail and Bard clambered into one of the hunting vessels. Kalak and Mr. Pit escorted the long boat out into the shark-infested waters. They bobbed over the calm sea, powered by the strongest rowers aboard the Penny Dreadful. As the crew neared, they could see the weak form of a man clinging to the rough-hewn slats of the floating altar. The sharks circling it bumped one side in an attempt to rock the man off into the churning waves.
There were four sharks in the water. Kalak’s chainsaw roared over the waves. One of the sharks turned on the sound and made a beeline for him. Kalak was an expert. He let the beast charge towards him, only to weave out of its path at the last minute, cutting the creature’s head in half so that the top of the head resembled the interior of a fleshy canoe. A terrible sucking noise erupted from the wound as Kalak’s blade broke free from the shark’s brain.
Mr. Pit sped up. His jet ski bounced over the waves as he steered his vessel with one hand, leaving the other free for his war hammer. Pit’s massive arm wielded the heavy weapon with ease. He pushed the speed and a great white erupted from the waves just before him. Its gaping mouth aimed right for Mr. Pit’s outstretched arm. Mr. Pit lowered his blow only slightly. The teeth missed his arm completely, his gigantic hammer slamming into the shark’s torso with such force-fed by the speed of his jet ski—that the beast was knocked backward into the water.
Usually, that kind of blow would stun the creature and cause it to drown. Mr. Pit slowed his vehicle to loop back around. The great white emerged discombobulated but as its gaze fell on Mr. Pit, he could see the fury boil in the shark’s black eyes. A boisterous laugh bubbled up from within Pit’s mighty belly. He revved the engine of the small Jet Ski and prepared for the shark to charge once more.
Mr. Pit knew the shark couldn’t be tricked so quickly this time. It wouldn’t leap from the water again. He watched the eyes of the creature as they powered towards each other. At the very last minute, Mr. Pit swerved dramatically out of the way and jack-knifed the vehicle. Once facing the creature’s tail, it was easy to bring himself parallel to the beast. His mighty hammer crashed down on the dorsal fin and back of the shark. The shark bucked out of the waves. The sounds of its cartilage cracking beneath the weight of the hammer echoed over the water before the creature sank into the depths below.
Abigail and Bard made it to the altar while Kalak and Mr. Pit defended it from the beasts. There were great sets of shark jaws decorating the wooden float. Blood, dried black, flaked off the wood. Muscle and sinew from unfortunate sacrifices dangled in red threads from the sharp edges of the shark jaws.
“Is he dead?” Abigail asked me as he bent over the man.
Bard shook his head, “No, but I don’t think he’ll make it.”
Abigail knelt down next to the man. His skin was filthy and burned from baking in the sun. It was hard to see how wounded he was through the massive amounts of blood and grime coating his skin and clothes. Bard felt his gut twist and covered his mouth. He still remembered what it felt like to be one of these potential sacrifices. He recalled the thirst and hunger and exhaustion and fear that riddled him before the Penny Dreadful rescued him.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, let’s get him into the boat.”
The rowers donned their lances as the two whalers carried the dying man into the lancing boat. The man seemed to be unconscious, but now and then a hoarse unintelligent murmur would escape his cracked lips.
Kalak cut through another shark with the help of one of the rowers. The last shark fled away, now seeing its meal carted off into the longboat. Abigail laid the unconscious man out on the damp boards of the ship. The trip back to the Penny Dreadful was silent except for the feverish sounds of the man. Every few words, Abigail could make out the cracking, dehydrated whisper of “thank you” make it out of the man.
“Shhh,” she cooed to him, “Just rest. Captain will want to talk to you when we are aboard.”
9.
Drucilla watched the extraction with a keen eye. The sight of her crew loading a limp body into the longboat did not look promising. She hoped he would make it long enough to answer some of her questions.
“Get water, blankets, and Vlad with the med kit,” she ordered the men standing around her without removing her sights from the boat.
By the time the rescue team brought the man aboard, everything was waiting for him. Vladimir gestured for Abigail and Bard to carry him over to a stretch of the deck he’d prepared with some bedding. Bard propped the survivor’s feet up and covered him in blankets to help with the shock.
Vladimir gave him a quick look over and then walked back to Drucilla, “He von’t make it. Vahtever you need, you ask now.”
The man was shivering from fever. Abigail tried to rehydrate him on the short jaunt back to the Penny Dreadful. Even now she wetted his lips in hopes of his voice coming back at least a little bit. Drucilla squatted down next to the man.
“My name is Captain Drucilla of the Penny Dreadful. You are on my ship.”
“Thank you,” the man reached out for her.
Drucilla took his cold, clammy hand.
“Forgive me,” he sobbed and tightened his grip on Drucilla’s hand.
“For what?” Drucilla knitted her brows.
The man’s eyes flew wide open, “We released her,” he sobbed, “We released the kraken!”
Drucilla looked up at Abigail and back down at the man, “Tell us what happened.”
The disheveled man started sobbing. It took him a moment to calm himself enough to talk again, and even then his voice shook with the sorrow he felt remembering everything that happened to him and his men.
“We were desperate,” his eyes never left Drucilla’s, “I promise, if we didn’t have to we wouldn’t have even tried,” his voice cracked and he had to stop to catch his breath. “Our people couldn’t afford oil anymore.” He took another deep breath and grimaced as his ribs expanded. “After last year… whale oil,” his words broke off into fragments in his delirium. “So damn expensive.” He sucked in air as he tried to keep himself from crying, “There was no other choice, you have to know that,” his words ended in more choking sobs.
Drucilla knew what he said was true. Most of the smaller villages couldn’t afford whale oil this year. The shark swarms led by the Kaiku cultists decimated the leviathan populations, and most whalers in this region of the endless dystopian sea had either perished in the Battle of Seattle or had been forced to range ever farther and longer just to bring in enough meat and oil to survive, much less thrive. Now the blackwater was making it even worse for not just whale hunting crews but the people as well. The man looked up at her. She could see sincere remorse swell up with his tears.
“How did you release her?”
The man’s eyes lost focus. His gaze drifted over the group hovering above him as if he could not see any of them. Drucilla squeezed his hand, trying to bring his attention back.
“Tell me,” she said, “Where and how did you release her?”
The survivor made eye contact. His eyes were wide from fear and pain. “We drilled.” He gasped for air, and his eyes started to close.
Drucilla tried to contain herself, but the fear of losing her only chance at information caused her voice to spike, “Tell me where. Where did you drill? How did you end up on that altar?”
She tapped his face with the back of her hand to try and revive him. He came to for a second, but his voice was nearly gone. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was the raspy gulping akin to a fish trying to breathe open air.
Vlad wetted the man’s lips again. He drank full sips of water. The crew watched as a moment of clarity redefined in his sun struck eyes.
“The Panzer wanted to punish us,” his sentence broke off in more sobbing, “Bobby, Jerome,” he tried to calm himself as he remembered the men dismembered on the altar, “We were to pay for our sins against Kaiku in blood for releasing her.”
“Where though?” Drucilla was almost angry. She needed to know where to look for a way to fix this. Nothing would be okay if they couldn’t kill the beast this man released.
The man gestured for Drucilla to lean in close. She could feel his hand grow colder in hers. His grip slackened. His mouth and sobs and words muffled until they were just murmurs. She pressed her ear close to his and listened.
“Take his hand,” Drucilla ordered to Vladimir, “Stay with him until he passes.”
Drucilla left her crew members huddled around the dying man. She let her boots carry her across the deck of the Penny Dreadful as fast as possible before the numbers the man listed disappeared from her mind. She rolled them over her tongue as she took the steps two at a time down towards her quarters. She had no doubt what they were. Drucilla pulled a slim, leather-bound notebook from her shelf and jotted down the longitude and latitude coordinates for the drilling site.
10.
Floating for miles around Atoll Sparta’s main settlement were small clumps of make-shift dwellings attached by a lattice network of docks and nets and ladders stretching between rocks and buildings. The houses were small cubes floating atop patchwork flotation devices, each with a wooden boat secured to its side. Two to sometimes four fishing vessels were tethered together for easy navigation between each other.
Abigail and Bard stood at the bow of the Penny Dreadful. Rust colored algal blooms floated on the surface like cinnamon dusting cold water. The sight of the first signs of Sparta caused strong feelings to rise in his chest. A long time passed since the last time Bard visited his hometown.
The harpooner turned towards Abigail, propping himself up on his forearm. Bard’s eyes washed over her for a moment, admiring the way the sea breeze adorned her tight spiraled curls like dewdrops icing the dark branches of winter.
“Come with me,” he said.
She looked at him, studying the streaks of fawn brown speckled with sunlight radiating around his pupils. She broke her eyes away from his and looked out at the thick green waters. Beyond the field of homes and small fishing and trading boats, she studied the city at the heart of the Atoll.
The larger buildings were packed in around the nets blooming with vegetables or fenced off pens to keep in the pigs. Stretches of slotted wood and pitted metal grating floating upon the waves connected all of them. Small nubs of mountaintops interrupted the walking paths with tiny islands composed of dark, volcanic rock. Never once had Abigail set foot on a fixed structure.
She inhaled the crisp sea breeze and was surprised to find herself enjoying the earthy stench of a human settlement. Memories of the past years flashed through Abigail’s thoughts. Tanner. Kiaku. Morgan. Croatoa. Panzer fish. Shark armies. Blackwater. Now, the dark eyes and slithering tentacles of a kraken. Abigail held her breath in for a moment and squeezed her eyes shut until the memories were washed away by black flecked with light tracers.
“I will come with you,” She looked back up at Bard, “Not for work though.” When she shook her head, her curls bounced around her face. “Make it a night I won’t forget.”
Abigail stood up and walked away from him. Bard watched after her, admiring the way she swaggered. Her fingertips grazed lightly against her thighs as she stepped confidently off to whatever pleased her. Bard picked up his banjo which rested against the siding of the ship and sat down on a stack of cargo crates to watch his home settlement unfold around him. The sounds of the banjo’s strings accompanied the sights and smells.
Atoll Sparta was well known for its commerce lane cutting through the individual bobbing structures. The bare strip of murky sienna twisted through the border composed mostly of smaller trading boats. Some of the vessels were only a few feet, stabilized by oblong floats. These merchants screamed louder than the rest in hopes someone would purchase their fish.
Bard puffed on one of the cigars he'd bartered off of Riddle and lazily gazed at the men and women trying to make a living. The fish came in all shapes and colors. No two were alike. Some wore two different shaped eyes. Others glistened with phosphorescent scales. The red ones were said to be mercurial. The purple were coveted for their scales which could be crushed into pigment for dye and women’s makeup. Even the outlands of the Atoll bustled with life and happiness.
For a moment, Bard’s mind slipped into the darkness threatening them all. He pushed the kraken from his mind and reminded himself they were there to fix this. In all the time Bard spent upon the Penny Dreadful, he had yet to see it fail. The fate he carried for his crewmates, Captain, and ship soothed his mind. He spent the short remaining portion of the voyage basking in the sun and letting his banjo sing over the waves.
11.
There existed a chaotic magic on the docks of Atoll Sparta. The buildings leaned upon each other in mismatched heights and materials. Tarps and kelp roofed some structures, other’s crinkled tin and metals sparkled hot beneath the sun.
The docks were solid. Sparta’s people took pride in their Atoll. Wherever wood was absent due to the need of flexibility, durable lines laced the two portions together. The Spartan citizens weaved the rope with such care that one could walk across it without risk of stumbling or catching a toe between the knots.
The most notable feature to new visitors was that the children played on the docks. You could hear their laughter before stepping foot upon the structure.
“There are so many of them,” Abigail was bewildered. She counted nine children all playing together upon the docks.
Bard’s face flushed with pride as he watched Abigail rush back to the railing to catch a closer glimpse as the ship approached the Atoll. Children were a sign of a healthy community. Children playing were a sign of a wealthy society. He took one last glance before he swung his bag over his shoulder and stepped down the gangway. Bard turned and walked backward so he could see Abigail’s face.
“Sure you don’t want to come with us?” he smiled, “It’s still not land.”
Abigail bit her lip as she took a longing glance at the curiosity stretching out before her. “I can’t wait to, but right now I have work to do with Kalak and Artisema.”
“Later,” Bard gave Abigail one last smile before turning to his home.
Drucilla and Mr. Pit were already standing on the docks, buckled together in private discussion. Bard took note of the way Dru kept looking towards one of the merchants across the dock from her. As he drew near, they ceased their conversation and turned to face him.
“Bard,” the Captain barked, “Come here.”
His steps quickened until he was in their confidence.
Drucilla continued, “Tell us—is it safe for us to leave our holds full?”
Bard’s lip curled into a mischievous smirk. He loved his home, but underneath the glamour, it was just as shifty a port as any, “Probably, but I, uh,” Bard cleared his throat out of embarrassment in front of the merchant, “I’d go ahead and unload.”
Captain Drucilla did not hesitate to act on t
his information. She produced a small glass shield protected by a ring of brass and layered upon a mirror. The device created a beam, reflecting the rays of the sun. She turned it in her hand so that it revealed two bursts of light. A similar signal responded aboard.
“Vlad?” Bard guessed.
“Aye, let’s go.”
The three of them started on their journey through the Atoll. The outskirts of the city were designed for ultimate protection. It was a solid ring of structures. The only entrance was through an arch branching out over an extra wide stretch of docks. They walked on the main stretch running through Atoll Sparta. Halfway down a line of docks cut through to form a cross. Those ended in “T”s encircling and connecting back to the arch creating a concentric arrangement forming the symbol of a target. From a bird’s eye view, one would see the four main roads and the thick circle, followed by the protective ring of shops, then docks, and then boats. Within the target, a labyrinth of smaller alleys and passageways connected a vast network of tightly packed homes and businesses.
There was constant motion within Sparta. The three of them kept with the flow of traffic. The smell of cinnamon and fish wafted through the air.
Bard yelled over his shoulder, “My buddy is just off the far side of West Main, it’s been a long time, obviously, but he's usually right where I left him.”
“How far is the walk?” Drucilla quickened her pace to walk alongside him.
“We’re not going to walk.”
Mr. Pit touched Drucilla’s arm and pointed out a bicycle in the distance. It had a small travelers cart attached to the back. A tall, thin man leaned up against a tall wood pillar just behind the cart.
Drucilla tried her best to conceal her excitement. “How much?” She asked me, stepping ahead of us towards the man.
“Whachu got? I only take water tokens.”
“No oil?” She asked.
Blackwater Kraken (The Dystopian Sea Book 3) Page 4
