Kill the Beast

I nearly fell out of my bunk. Shouts were coming from the top deck, and the ship was rocking like there was a storm outside. My head was beating, and my vision was blurred. I saw a figure across the room moving. “Get the hell up!” it said. My vision focused it was Simon, my bunkmate.

I swung my legs out of my bed, they hit the floor, and I tumbled to the ground. I grabbed a post and pulled myself up. My head was still throbbing. Simon left in a hurry, and I saw him moving towards the upper deck along with the rest of the crew. I looked around the room, found my pants and a rain jacket, if the boat is moving this much it must be a hell of a storm I thought.

I walked out the door, I had caught my balance, but my head still hurt. As I walked up the stairs, I thought what the hell happened last night? I climbed quickly, there was no one behind me, and the person in front of me had just cleared the stairs to the deck. It was bright out there, What kind of storm was this bright?

I stepped out onto the deck, and it was a beautiful blue day. I could smell the salt water in my nostrils and the early morning sun was warm upon my back. Looking out to the horizon the bright blue of the sky was ended by the dark blue of the sea, there was not another ship or land for as far as the eye could see.

I was jostled from the beauty when a harpoon gun was shoved into my chest. I grabbed it, and the bestower yelled: “port side, tie yourself down to the storm line before you do anything else.” And he pushed towards it with a shove. The boat was still swaying side to side, but I had gotten used to it. The roughness of the storm that woke me up subsided.

I moved quickly to the side of the boat where I saw nearly 20 men lined from aft to forward. I found a hole in their formation and inserted myself there. I started tying off the harpoon when I was told: “Aye the storm line first!” I remembered looked down and found my rope. I tied it around my waist so that if I was thrown overboard, someone could pull me back up. Thoughts raced through my head. I was wondering what storm are we preparing for? and what good is a harpoon going to be when it comes?

As I wondered this a noise like no other pierced my ears and the most of the men dropped their harpoons to shield their ears from this noise. It was a mix of nails on a slate, a wolf’s howl, and a witch’s cackle. The waves calmed, and the boat was almost settled when bubbles started appearing in the water. At first, it was a few here and there like a school of fish was swimming by, then it became more rapid like a boiling pot of stew. I looked around at the other men, and each was more puzzled than the next.

“Hold fast men, she’s coming soon!” Shouted the captain from the wheel.

I thought, Who’s coming? Why are they here? But before I could wonder more, I heard a shout from above. “Off the starboard bow, first sighting!” it was a cry from the crow’s nest above me. I turned to look that way and out of the bubbling water emerged a slimy pitch black fish that seemed to be leaping out of the water. Except it wasn’t dropping back down, it kept climbing and getting thicker. It was 20 feet out of the water when I heard again “Off the port quarter, second sighting!”

I turned after hearing something break from the water and another black beast appeared from the sea. It smelled like raw fish and burning wood. It grew taller than me and then taller than the highest mast. Men around me flung their harpoons at it. I aimed and shot the spike at the creature. I let the line out, and as it seemed to almost reaching the great fish, the rope caught on my foot.

In the cacophony of noise I heard shouts from above and as I looked 3 more of these monsters had appeared from all sides of the boat. I grabbed the harpoon in my hand again and reloaded the gun as I looked up at the black beast. It started to rotate, and I stared at it anxious to see what one of these strange creature’s backside looked like.

The beast’s back was a deep purple with circles marked onto it in a light violet. The rings were raised a bit, and it was backing into us. I looked up the stalk of it and saw that there was no head or tail or fins. “Aye aim for the suckers” I heard someone call out. These weren’t multiple monsters, I realized they are all different parts of the same horrific beast.

I thrust my harpoon towards the approaching menace, and the line let out, clear of my foot. It struck true, but the beast was hindered not. A dozen other harpoons landed near mine, but none seemed even to draw blood. It was coming down fast now that it had neared us. It landed quickly, and I could feel the air rush past me as it landed a yard from my feet. As the beastly arm contacted the deck, it knocked the mast in a place it had been broken before, and the sail fell like a tree. The sailor in the crow’s nest fell into the ocean, and he wasn’t wearing a storm line to be pulled back up with.

I turned my attention to the beast in front of me. Men rushed past me with swords and knives to hack away at it. I could hear the arm move, and the suckers were releasing and attaching as it slithered its way about the deck. The other sailors started to draw blood. It was no easy feat hacking away at the thick black skin. A viscous blue liquid began to seep out of cuts on the black monster. I heard two thuds almost in succession, and the ship jostled from side to side. More grotesque limbs crawled onto the craft. Two were on my side, along with the cut one in front of me.

There was sucking all around me, and the black worm-like appendages were crawling onto the deck. A sailor stabbed hard with a long sword and as a reflex, the tentacle hurled itself towards ten other men and me. I ducked to avoid being hammered by the flying appendage. But the others were not as lucky as me. They were thrown overboard, and one man’s line snapped leaving him no way to get back onboard.

As the arms crawled upon the ship, I looked to the port side where they were coming from and finally saw the connection. The boat was jostled, and it felt like it was going to capsize despite its massive size. The arms of the beast steadied the ship like it didn’t want the boat to drop into the ocean below. From the side of the port where the monstrosity was gaining a bulb appeared from the water. It had a fin on the top and a single eye that looked around from man to man. The eyeball was pearl white like a man’s, but there was no color to it. The center was an endless black pit of despair. The pupil swirled around in its socket. It seemed to be analyzing the boat as if the beast was intelligent. I looked at it in bewilderment, and then it looked back at me.

I stared into the eye captivated by it. The color of the black pupil swirled like ink in a bottle. I was hypnotized by its beauty. The entire beast was beautiful and huge. As I was locked into a gaze with her, and I knew it was a female, though I saw no biology to confirm one way or the other, I fell in love. It sounds strange, I know. It was the same kind of love you feel when you see a strong racehorse or a well-trained dog. There was something about it that I knew if I killed it there would never be another thing more beautiful than it. I stood there looking into the black pit until I was struck by a man.

His entire body landed on my chest, and I was knocked out of my daze and onto the grimy deck. He wasn’t much bigger than me, but the blow took me by surprise. I pushed at him and told him to get off of me. I looked frantically back up at the bulb to see the eye again, but I couldn’t lock my gaze with it. It was focused on hurling my crewmates around. I kept shoving at the man on top of me, but he wouldn’t budge. I looked at his head, and it was a bloody mess. He wasn’t going to be moving by his own accord ever again. I squirmed away from his chest and toward his legs where I knew I could get out when I heard the loudest clack ever.

At first, I thought it was a crab’s claw, and I imagined another demon was attacking us, but upon further inspection, I saw that under the bulb and beautiful eye, where the legs of this monster connected, a golden beak hung. It was opening, and closing and red water dripped from it. Its two largest tentacles were moved towards and away from this beak and I saw that in my confusion all of its legs had made it on board. I counted around me and saw that there were only seven though. I searched and searched for the remaining leg, and I finally saw that there was a wound on the beauty and it seemed my crew had cut that one off.

A massive tentacle swept above me. I wriggled free from the man that lay on top of me. As soon as I did, I ran from the limb. But it paid me no mind and landed on my fallen crewmember. I heard the suckers engage and watched them flex while the grabbed the man. The center of the tentacle had the largest circle, and they got smaller and more dexterous towards the tip of the appendage. My crew mate lifted off of the deck, and the arm moved him towards the beak which was forward on the ship. It threw the dead man into the beak feet first, and the snout closed around him. It snapped shut before the whole man had entered and decapitated him. The bulb moved back like an eagle does while swallowing and allowed the meal to fall down its gullet.

That’s when I saw it for what it truly was and how I could defeat it. The purple from the appendages faded quickly into a blue the closer the skin was to the beak creating a suckerless eight-pointed star at its center. The blue star almost seemed to pulsate with the movement of the arms similar to a heartbeat of a man.

I spotted a barrel of spare harpoon spears under the beast. I rushed for it, and it seemed that I had passed under the creature unnoticed. I removed a thick harpoon from the barrel and prepared to lodge it into the center of the beast when I heard “Behind you!”

My focus was lost, and I turned suddenly, for I had all but forgotten that others were alive on this boat aside from me and the beast. I saw the purple and black tip of a tentacle rushing towards me like a train on the tracks. I lodged my harpoon at the oncoming attacker, and it landed squarely on the soft purple pads instead of the thick black exterior. This threw the tentacle away from me but moved its path right into the barrel of weapons and knocked it over. Some landed on the deck, but most of the barrel flew overboard.

I heard a scream from right above me and a shower of salt water, blood, and guts, some human some fish, landed on me. I was standing under the beak, and it had just opened to scream in pain. Somewhere in my heart, I felt sorry for the monster and almost considered withdrawing my attack knowing that I had caused distress to something so breathtaking. I was stirred from this illusion when the beak and the rest of the monster lowered itself on me like a chicken pecking at bird seed.

I dodged the falling beak but expected to be crushed by the rest of the monster. I was spared, the beak was barely taller than me, and it lodged itself into the deck halting the decent. The wood held the mouth in place, and I looked up at a ceiling of pumping blue skin inches above my head.

I pulled my knife out of its sheath and thrust it into the tender blue skin above me. A muffled cry of despair echoed from the locked beak beside me. The beast was now moving faster to release its snout from the deck. I ran around the beak with my knife above me. I cut into the tender blue skin of the monster. I saw it dripping its blue blood. I had almost completed my circuit when the deck shook, and the beast came free. I expected the monster to peck at me and swallow me whole immediately. However as it rose up, it fell off the starboard side of the ship. On its way down I glimpsed into its beautiful black eye once more. I felt like I had betrayed the beast by mortally wounding it. The eye shut on me breaking our gaze and I saw as it fell into the water it’s once golden beak now covered in the royal blue blood.

I looked around, and the remaining crew looked at me in awe. I was a sight to behold, the rain jacket I had donned thinking that there was a storm outside was covered in the beast’s blue blood. Then the crew cheered for me.

We spent the rest of the day repairing the ship where the beast damaged it. The crew tried to retrieve the animal, but none of the harpoons could penetrate the black exterior. It floated lifelessly next to the ship for the entire day. The water near the boat had been dyed a light blue as the creature bled out. The body had begun to smell putrid by midday. Throughout the afternoon sharks and other beasts of the ocean swam up to it to inspect it, wondering if it was an easy meal, but not a single one took a bite. By sunset, the carcass lost its buoyancy and started to sink to the depth of the ocean slowly.

After the repairs were done and the beast had sunk to the bottom of the sea we feasted and drank. The captain made me the guest of honor, and I was offered drink after drink of the finest wine and rum we were transporting. I ate until my belly was full and drank until I fell asleep. Though through the process I couldn’t help but feel a little sorrow that I was being celebrated for killing something I admired so much.

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