The Harbinger

The Harbinger

Dusty’s imagination quickly dissolved into reality as he received a rather hard smack on the shin. It was his turn above deck.

He grunted as he grabbed his half-empty bottle of whiskey and dragged his weathered legs up the wooden stairs, trying to shake the last pieces of sleep off himself as he worked his way up and out of the bunk.

It was the eleventh day of their expedition on a modest-sized boat, and the crew of three was beginning to grow weary. Dusty was the oldest, an experienced sailor with over fifty years under his belt, adorned with fading tattoos from his distant past in the Navy.

Charlie, who just finished his watch, was the son of a writer; he had no real business being on this voyage but he was drawn to the excitement of being out at sea. He always had been. Jack, the youngest of the group, was a strangely quiet boy. He seemed to hide behind his dark, collar-length hair, keeping busy and not asking a lot of questions. It was the best way to be on a boat, he learned; especially one with people you didn’t know very well.

Summer had just begun, and 1961 proved to be a promising year thus far. The men were far from their final destination, and although they were in good spirits, they were starting to feel a bit uneasy about their directions… and the passive tension it brought with it had slowly begun to stir the air.

Jack and Charlie were dragging the last of their baby mackerel behind the boat but nothing seemed interested in what they had to offer. Hell, they sure weren’t. The water was unusually calm tonight, with the exception of a few outlaw waves carving away their own escape.

Dusty double-checked his compass to ensure they were still on the correct coordinates. He did not trust the others. Pausing momentarily before securing the steering wheel, he settled into the corner of the feather-stuffed seat cushions. He liked to double up on the cushions so he could lie down while still maintaining a line of sight on the coast.

His south paw firmly grasped his bottle of whiskey while the other one laid atop the cracking perimeter of the deck. One hand for me, one hand for the boat, he thought to himself.

All of a sudden, he was awake again.

A high-pitched shriek had woken him up, and he looked around in panic as it faded from his mind. The rear fishing pole had lit up like a magic wand, and its spellbound line sounded like it was being dragged out into the horizon. Dusty nearly fell out of his chair attempting to get to his feet.

He wrestled his way to the rear of the boat, ready to earn his crew a fresh treat. To his surprise, the fishing line looked as though it was being dragged out on top of the water. He couldn’t see exactly where the line disappeared from the surface, but he knew his fish must’ve already covered some distance.

He gripped the pole with his ripe, blistering hands and pulled it out of its frame. “C’mon beautiful,” he beckoned. “Come to Papa.”

Moments later the pole snapped back towards the boat and was once again a lifeless prop, straight as an arrow. A single gull flew high above him, its wings flapping with hushed poetry. You look rather special, he thought.

It was the same color as the moon.

After reeling in his remaining line, it was just as he had expected. No hook, no sinker, and no bait. “The son of a bitch cut the line,” Dusty muttered to himself. So close… but not close enough.

Returning to his make-shift throne up in the cockpit, he cursed the fishing line leading out towards the horizon, as well as the albino gull so far from all the others. He tilted his bottle back and took a generous swig. I’m losing it… he reckoned.

Before he knew it, he was comfortably back in Phoenix, Arizona...

no ocean in sight.

She was quiet, with the exception of a few moans and groans from her oak undercarriage. The boat was at rest, which meant the men were finally at anchor; and they were enjoying the delicate stillness that came with it.

After almost two weeks of unremitting travel, they deserved to let their hair down a little. Sleep is what they really needed, but that was on the bottom of their list.

They were playing cards on the top deck, smoking and laughing all the while.

Their yellowing cigarettes offered a smoke screen the cards could hide behind, very much like the ink created from a threatened octopus.

The smoke floated along the top deck, like a chimney above a brick cottage, and it was beginning to feel a lot like home.

Suddenly, they heard something out across the water.

A blood curdling scream had cut the midnight air.

The same one Dusty had heard in his dream. The men looked at each other, but nobody said a word. They just sat in silence, cards in hand and smoke in mouth.

There was no more laughing that night.

When they awoke the next day, nobody talked about the sound they had heard the night before. Any boats nearby would have had to be at least twenty miles North, and they all knew it couldn’t have been caused by anything with fins. The goosebumps on their neck and arms had made it very clear to them that it was something else entirely.

Dense fog covered the low brow of the early morning water, and it was not ready to let up anytime soon. Charlie reached for a cigarette and then stopped in his tracks, and then it began to happen. He turned to his left as he heard a fish hit the surface.

Then another one.

And another.

Fish were beginning to ascend upward along the moon-glittered surface.

Before they knew it, hundreds of fish were coming up through the water’s depths, flopping on the top of the water like they had been pulled onto a dock.

The men could hardly believe it.

Jack ran his white knuckles through the grease of his hair. This can’t be real. All shapes and sizes, summoned out of their home in a communal nightmare. Salt-water tar licked the sides of the fish as they scrambled to get back below the surface, like stray balloons fighting against gravity; lost angels in a poisonous abyss.

Hell came early for them tonight, and it was not going to let up.

The moonlight danced across their scales like sparks from a metal fire, igniting in the hearts of the men aboard.

It was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

All of a sudden, a pale flash entered their vision as something landed abruptly nearby.

A white owl appeared on the starboard side of the men, as if it had been released from within a magician’s hat. It’s cold, dark eyes intimately pierced through their flesh; like an old lover, or great grandparent.

It knew them.

The owl was clutching the railing with immense strength, quietly observing them. Studying them. Then, in a blink of an eye, it was airborne again.

Flying high above their mast, it started to orbit the boat like a faraway planet. The bird’s silent wings continued to slice through the night, circling their boat like a hungry vulture.

With one strong swoop, the owl straightened out and plunged forward until it was invisible behind the fog.

It was gone.

Dusty felt as though he was back in Okinawa, and just as his heart rate started to rapidly increase, the thick smell of rotting meat fell down on him like a putrid anvil…

gut-wrenchingly painful.

The men stood in silence, shackled to the moment in splintering fear.

Then, as if it had appeared out from a cloud of smoke, an unmarked boat came into view. It had no sails or flags, or any markings for that matter.

The scent of the decomposing flesh had become suffocating.

The unremitting struggles of the terrified fish continued to pitter-patter across the water. As the fog dissipated, a shape emerged from behind it.

The sailors were baffled by what they saw, and wondered if this was the last thing they’d ever see; if they would ever be back on land with their families and loved ones... but they knew the answer.

The owl started to materialize again through the fog, and this time it wasn’t flying. It was sitting on the shoulder of a sick looking creature, surely not from this planet.

It resembled the stiff remains of a once living human being. Bloodshot eyes recessed into its skull with jaundiced, leathery skin; no nose or ears.

A ghost standing atop a drifting vessel, watching.

Waiting.

It carried a scythe, which the owl was now perched upon.

Blood decorated the blade like the burgundy dress of a young dancer.

The men did not move a muscle. They just stared back at the creature, the owl, and the weapon that unified them. They knew who he was.

Everything seemed to have fallen into the background, except the owl and the buttery whites of the demon’s eyes and teeth. The moon continued to bounce across the water’s surface, gliding off the fish like it had been shattered into a million different pieces.

The owl let out a blood-boiling shriek, once more.

It was an invitation.