Unseen

Mystic Pines tavern was always busy and bustling. Captains and fishermen found spots for their crew, and Old-Time Timmy was always watching from the bar with his eyes at people coming. The door creaked open, and an urbane-looking gentleman came in, beautiful pea coat, acceptable slacks, and well-dressed oxfords; he was not a fisherman. He looked over to the window where a lone sailor sat, staring out into the Atlantic Ocean.

The sophisticated man came up and asked, “are you Calvin Melville?”

“Who wants to know?” the man remarked.

“I’m Hawthorne Walden, New-York Daily Times and I was told you are the only survivor of the Wuying incident of 1875, correct?”

Melville’s face was stoic, he held his drink in his hand but then began to tremble, and finally, he spoke,

“Get out! Now!”

“Mr. Melville, you are the only survivor, you have a story people want to hear. Please.”

Melville stood silent, holding the glass in his hand, keeping his eyes away from Walden; he wanted him to leave.”

Walden spoke, “I see…well then I bid you good- “

“It was July, 1875, our ship was planning to hunt for whale that day, but it became something else.”

Part 1- That’s not a whale

The Chesapeake Bay was beautiful during the summer; the sunrise upon the blue waters turned it gold as you left the bay. Quartermaster Calvin Melville stood next to the helm commandeered by Captain Josiah. Wuying departed from the bay and found itself in the vast Atlantic hours later; the temperature was humid and hot, but these sailors were used to such heat and today was a good day; they were going whaling.

“Another fine day Captain.” Melville said.

“Indeed Cal, I hear that a pod of sperm whales have been making their way along this line, its going to be a good day indeed!” The Captain spoke with such excitement.

As Captain Josiah steered his ship through the waters, a spotter off the port side yelled, “WHALE AHOY!” and at the perfect moment, the crew of the Wuying caught a sperm whale breaching; an incredible sight and now the Wuying’s target. Melville orders the men to prepare the fishing boat; they load the boat with harpoons and lines and then push it over the side, signaling it is ready. Melville and Josiah get into the boat with Peters, an expert whale hunter, and as Melville rows the boat towards the water where the Sperm Whale is, they hear something. A roar from deep below they look at each other wondering what that was, they look over the side and see blue water but far off in the distance they see a breaching Sperm Whale, but it hung vertically. Violently shaking back and forth, the whale screams until finally it is pulled under the frothing waves of the Atlantic.

The three men in the boat look stunned and confused, and then as Melville stands up, he looks into the water, and he sees it, an eye so massive it is just looking up directly at him; Peters sees it and is about to strike at the creature when Melville suddenly grabs his hand...

“Stop!” he whispers.

“Don’t move, don’t make a sound.” Melville whispers to everyone

“Have you ever heard the roar of a creature? Not this one, it sounded like a thousand shockwaves from a thousand volcanoes. You want to immediately cover your ears to stop them from hurting but you make a move and this things will drag you to the abyss.”

The creature blinks, then the eye disappears back into the depths, the three breathe a sigh of relief, and then Captain Josiah finally speaks.

“I think it’s best we all get back to the ship and get to shore as quick as we can.”

“Agreed, Peters, row as fast as you can.”

Peters begins to row the little boat as quickly as he can back to the ship; the crew of the Wuying sees the boat rowing fast, wondering why they have not returned with a whale carcass, but they did not witness what the three men had just seen.

Part 2- Arrival

“As we made our way back to the Wuying something in my head began to whirl, like a maelstrom of swirling thoughts I heard something and then when I turned around in the boat I caught a glimpse of Josiah and Peters but I saw him too. I saw Śmierć smiling next to Peters.”

Hawthorne said, “Who’s Śmierć? Was he another member of the crew?”

“Who?” Melville said.

“You just said you saw Śmierć on the fishing boat, sitting next to Peters, who was this individual?”

Melville stood silent; he was confused at what Hawthorne said. Śmierć was a name he never heard but also remembered so faintly, like a disappearing light.

The rowboat finally made it to the Wuying and was pulled up by the rowboat hanger; the crew looked confused, wondering where their catch was and why there was no whale? They saw the look on their faces; they saw something they could not explain.

“Captain, where’s our catch?”

“Weigh Anchor! Full sails! We head for dryland!” Josiah orders.

“Cal! It’s best you take the helm, you can get us to shore quicker.” Josiah tells Melville

“Yes Captain”

As Calvin made his way to the helm, he saw him again; the mysterious man now walking along deck and disappearing and reappearing from his sight.

“Now I’m wondering, what will you do when you cannot see what is below you? When I arise from a dead city below to grab all of ya and drag you down to the abyss once more,” the mysterious man said as he sat on a barrel talking to Melville.

“We will be free from you dead thing! You cannot take us down with you!”

“MELVILLE! Who are you speaking to?” Captain Josiah yelled at Calvin

Calvin told him he was speaking to the man on the barrel and pointed at him, but what Calvin saw, they did not.

“What are you talking about? You were just talking to air Cal, nobody is there.” Josiah said.

“Oh, now that is a shame, they cannot see me yet I see them and I see you. And when I count to ten I will be up from the depths.” The mysterious man began walking around Calvin, who was now at the helm.

“One, Two, I rise from the blue. Three, Four, ya will never make it to shore. Five, Six, blood upon the river Styx. Seven, Eight, I am older than the lady of faith. Nine, Ten, speak your amen.”

“STOP” Calvin yelled.

Everyone on the boat stopped moving, and now they heard it, the sound of the creature, like a volcanic shockwave, all stood motionless, some holding bags, others holding cannonballs but frozen like ice. The looks of fear upon their face, and Calvin saw him, the mysterious figure walking along the deck looking at everyone.

“Oh look here, you’ve all gone silent. I can feel your fear, taste your emotions, Oh I feel pain upon this one; holding this cannonball so heavily, it slips from his fingers. If he lets go; you will all soon meet me.”

Calvin saw the sailor; he struggled with a heavy cannonball; without speaking, Calvin mouthed to the sailor to not drop it, to hold on until the creature left, but the sailor mouthed, “I’m sorry,” and with a heavy grunt, he threw it overboard. Time slowed for a moment as Calvin saw the cannonball go overboard into the blue ocean, and when he heard it splash, he waited. Nothing happened, and then suddenly, a tentacle rose from the waves and snagged the sailor and disappeared back into the water before he even screamed. A ferocious roar like a dragon bellowed deep from below, and the Wuying rose into the air! Sailors hung on to anything they could find, and then suddenly, the ship was pulled under the waves. However, nobody felt water rushing into their lungs, they still were on the deck but almost surrounded by some strange mystical field protecting them, but then the ship rose and stopped, and then off the port side they saw it, what Peters, Josiah, and Calvin saw earlier. A massive eye all looking at these men. But nobody moved; all stood still and frozen but looked upon the eye that saw them.

“Down there beneath the cover of the water, a dead thing took us. We were in hell.”

PART 3 - It has a name

“FIRE!!”

The port side cannons all fired away at the massive eye. A spectacular light show ignited the underwater world and struck the creature but turning from curiosity, the upper eyelid slid down. Now anger grew within the beast, a massive roar screeched from below, and suddenly, the Wuying flew upward like magma rising to the surface of the Earth. The ship flew high into the sky with sailors all hanging on for dear life; Calvin held onto the Captain’s wheel tightly, but his grip slipped away, and he fell backward, the force pulling him away from the wheel. He was falling into the sea, and as he crashed, he saw below into the black abyss of what the creature was, but all he saw were rows of jagged mountainous teeth preparing to feast upon fear, blackened tentacles rising from the sludge of the black abyss below. In horror, he swam to the surface and saw the Wuying moving further away from him.

As he began to swim towards it, a massive tentacle rose into the center of the ship. Suddenly, four goliath tentacles came out of the water, two on the port side and two on the starboard, and fell on top of the Wuying! Crushing the ship, the tentacles struck the gunpowder deep below, igniting it and causing a horrendous explosion sending debris flying everywhere. A piece of wood flew into the air and finally landed in the water close to Calvin, who swam to it, and when he finally reached it, he grabbed hold of it and watched as the beautiful Wuying died beneath the waves. Then it reappeared once more, the eye surfaced out of the water and moved in so close to Calvin he could almost feel the eye pulsating with heat, feeling the ferocity of a leviathan staring him down but, it only blinked one last time and finally submerged and as Calvin looked below, he saw it staring back at him, unblinking, becoming dimmer until finally, it was no more. It had retreated to the deep below.

“I drifted for two days, clutching that piece of wood like my life depended on it, looking underneath waiting to see whatever that thing was; waiting for my turn but no. Instead I was saved by a whaling ship, the Pride of Independence; they picked me up and took me back to shore. I told the harbormaster that my ship and crew all perished at sea. But I did not tell them the story.”

Hawthorne said, “Then how did the tale of this leviathan come about then?”

“The ship that saved me was lost to that beast too, a lone sailor survived to tell them a “eye so big” stared them down and then destroyed the ship in one fell swoop. That sailor died of a heart attack days later, he was the second survivor; now I am the only one.” Melville said as he took a drink from his nearly empty glass.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Hawthorne said.

“One more thing, that creature has a name;when my head began to spin like a whirlpool, a voiceless entity whispered in my head some name I never heard. Yet now it sticks with me, everytime I utter that name I see it; I see the dead god of a dying city. I see that eye staring at me.”

“What was it’s name?” Hawthorne asked.

Looking out into the blue Atlantic, Calvin stared at the setting sun, the glistening rays shining upon the water, and then turning to Walden, he looked down at his empty glass and then looked up.

“Julia.”