“Well…
this has been quite the vacation.” Emerson Lighthouse said dryly, his voice
hoarse from all the shouting. He was
cold and starting to feel quite nauseous drenched as he was from head to toe in
blood and excrement. The tiny rowboat which
had facilitated their escape was being tossed this way and that in the stormy
night seas. The one small consolation: it hadn’t yet started to rain.
“Look
on the bright side,” Petharic yelled back so as to be heard above the wind and
waves, “one way or another, this will all be over soon.” He waved the Colt
around menacingly, as if drawing out a target around Emerson’s face.
Emerson
might have taken the bait and snapped but his mood had festered into something so
vile that he was no longer able to consistently respond. More often than not, over the last several
hours, he would lose himself for lengthy, sullen moments, caught in a loop
where he was getting angry over nothing more than his own anger. He licked his parched lips before recalling
the noxious coating his body had been doused in. It was all too much: the violent rocking of
the boat; the suffocating stench; the lack of sleep; the fighting… and the
stress of running for their lives from a foreign criminal justice system. He
felt his stomach heave. Gripping the rail for support Emerson tried retch over
the side of the boat. Somehow he missed. He began to wonder if the prudent
course of action wouldn’t be to just jump in and drown.
“This
is entirely all your fault!” he accused after he had somewhat finished being
sick. Under the flash of lightening, his
rage took on an almost demonic countenance. “I should never have listened to you!”
“My
fault!” Petharic almost pulled the trigger shooting Emerson where he sat. But
his hands were so cold and slick in their own coating of kraken goo that he
wasn’t so sure of his aim anymore… a consideration made all the more relevant as
he was down to his last bullet.
“YourfaultyourfaultYOURFAULT!”
Emerson bellowed nonsensically.
“Good
God man, you’re hysterical. Pull yourself together.” Petharic sounded
disgusted.
“If
you hadn’t been threatening me with that ridiculously obscene gun of yours the
police would never have pulled us over!” Emerson pointed out.
“Well,
if you hadn’t had a bag stuffed with narcotics in the back of the carriage we
never would have been arrested!” Petharic countered. “And besides, it was my plan that got us out!”
“Got
us out! Out where? Where are we Petharic?” The question was purely rhetorical.
He knew very well where they were: floating in a leaky rowboat in the middle of
a stormy ocean about 150 nautical miles southeast of Armada Breakaway. “And
what happens if and when we ever get back to New Babbage?” Another rhetorical
question…they both knew Petharic planned to shoot Emerson the moment he handed
over what Petharic had been sent to retrieve.
“Listen…
there is no sense in starting into bickering yet again.” Yelled Petharic,
“We’ve had quite enough of that don’t you think!”
Emerson
was about to reply when the ocean began to foam and fizz like a soda-water
float. “Here they come!” Shouted
Petharic as he holstered the Colt and gripped the sides of the boat. “Get
ready.”
“You
are sure this bath of bloody-entrails-sea-kraken-sludge will protect us.” While
not strictly phrased as a question this statement demanded a reply.
“I
think so!”
“You
THINK so!” Emerson’s indignation flew into an all-out rage. “I thought you knew for sure. I thought you had some sort of educated insider
information in the area of air-kraken mechanics.” At this point his ire became
so intense that it actually slipped out by way of a snort. “I’ve sat in dead
kraken guts for two days and you think it might work!”
Emerson
completely lost it. He charged the stern
of the little rowboat with his hands aimed for Petharic’s throat. Petharic responded by cuffing both of
Emerson’s ears, followed up by an unexpected head-butt. Emerson staggered momentarily stunned before
responding with a sharply thrust knee to the groin. Who could say what
threatened to overturn the boat more… the increasingly violent bubbles bursting
around them or their own increasingly frenzied attacks. The cursing was obscene as they wrestled for
dominance. There were no rules with which either combatant constrained himself.
Petharic eventually succeeded in flipping Emerson onto his back and pinning him
down with the gun-hand while slapping him across the face with the other
yelling, “Wake-up dummy! Wake-up!”
Emerson
woke up by wrenching the Colt from Petharic’s grasp. He then beat him in the side of the head with
the butt of the gun to knock him away. Emerson regained his balance first,
rising to his knees and pointing the gun at Petharic chest. With his free hand
he started pulling at his shirt and vest, popping buttons as he tore it open
down the front.
“I
can’t take another moment of this intolerable stench!” Emerson shouted as he
struggled maniacally to free himself of his top. Switching the Colt from hand to hand he
worked himself out of his shirt then balled it up and threw the bloody, crusty
garment at Petharic. Rather unsteadily,
he continued the process with his pants and boots. In the end, Emerson made for quite a sight,
swaying almost to the point of being off balance, naked as the day he was born,
aiming the loaded Colt at Petharic’s head. He looked as if he had every intention
of shooting… but he never got the chance. Something came up under one side of
the boat so suddenly, and with such force that Emerson went over the rail.
The
underwater turmoil roared in his ears. He spluttered and splashed, flailing
madly as the cold salt water repeatedly washed over him. He tried to kick his
way to the surface but the water was so agitated with an effervescent
turbulence making it a challenge just to stay afloat.
Somehow
he managed to get his head above the surface long enough to shout, “Petharic,
throw me an oar, I’m drowning.” But before Petharic could respond the Kraken
began to take flight rising from the frothy brine. Hundreds, if not thousands,
of them broke the churning surface of the ocean. Dripping, dark and horrifying…
mantles pointed skyward… great writhing tentacles like suckered serpents trailing
beneath… the creatures took to the air.
Something
brushed against his legs. Emerson felt himself being pushed to the surface… the
calcified mantle of one leviathan breaching the surface beneath him. As the creature continued to rise, Emerson’s slid
down along the hard surface towards the soft fleshy part. While admittedly
vague on his understanding of cephalopod anatomy, he identified the soft ‘centre’
as the head. Eventually he came to rest
against the outward curving lip of the mantle. He was surprised to discover it provided
a somewhat secure backrest against which he was able to settle in with a
moderate degree of comfort.
Below,
not wanting to lose his chance, Petharic leapt from the boat catching a
creature as it rose from the depths. Emerson held his breath as Petharic
somehow managed to find a handhold and scramble securely to his own little
nook. Suddenly Emerson started to panic.
“Petharic!”
he called out. “The water has washed me clean of the dead sea-kraken guts!” But
Petharic was in no position from which to offer assurances. Emerson watched with
a mix of horror and relief as the beast upon which Petharic was perched reached
a great suckered tentacle up and with a very precise flick, knock him into the
air. Another tentacle caught Petharic
before he hit the water and deftly brought him to its mouth swallowing him down
in a gulp and a half. It all happened so
fast that Emerson could hardly believe what he had seen. Who
would have thought that dead sea-kraken would be the perfect bait.
Despite
howling wind and churning sea, the night seemed to assume a sombre silence.
Emerson waited, hardly daring to breath, expecting at any second the tentacle
that would knock him off his perch… but it never appeared. After his bath in
the ocean he smelled more of salt water than dead sea-kraken. The beast upon which Emerson rode appeared
oblivious to its passenger. It continued
to rise-up leaving the storm clouds far below, joining the monstrous flotilla adrift
towards the northwest, beneath a starry sky. The winds, according to Petharic’s
jailhouse plan, should carry him and his hosts all the way to the skies above
New Babbage. As Emerson settled in for
the flight he was suddenly bothered by two nagging thoughts. First, how does
one entice a giant flying squid to land upon arrival at one’s destination and,
more importantly, how does one maintain a sense of dignity when disembarking
fully nude!