Deep Down

1942

1

“Jack, Jack get up!” A sailor with the last name of Daniels, embroidered in blue silk on his faded white sailor uniform, nudges another sailor who was half laying on and off his cramped bunk. Every dark hair on his head went a different direction as it had grown significantly long with being out at sea for a few years now, and sleeping off a night filled with drinking at a local bar only put icing on the cake. “Jack!” Daniels nudges him again. This time with more force. Jack lets out a groan sounding like a whale in mating season.“We were supposed to report for duty ten minutes ago!” Jack finally opens his eyes that read hate, irritability, and displeasure.

It was always hate that people saw in him the most, and his throbbing, pounding headache from the force of a hangover really brought out his hatred. Especially hatred for pinky boys like Daniels who looked like he ate roughly once a week. Maybe at least once a month. There was no man in him, according to Jack, and he hated those kinds of sailor boys.

“The captain’s been looking for you-”

“Hush it, Pinky Boy.” Jack snaps moving out of his bunk as slow as a ninety-nine year old man with severe arthritis. His thin cotton blankets and sheets had slipped down to the bottom of his bunk as he adjusted himself and sat up.

What did you do to her last night? A little voice in Jack’s head asked. He was hoping the alcohol would have made him forget about last night, and for that question to never be asked in his mind or out loud. And where exactly did she end up? In the dumpster behind that bar? No, too obvious. In the ocean? Yeah, in the ocean. Shark food. All that she ever was and now will be, if she hadn't already been chewed up and gone through its next bowel movement.

Jack, even slower than before, makes an attempt to stand. Only he feels like he weighs one thousand pounds; most of the weight shooting through his muscular legs.

“C’mon, Jack-”

“Say another word and I’ll burn a match right through that slick tongue of yours.” Daniels takes a step back as Jack manages to stand up, and puts his hands behind his back like a nervous cartoon character. Poor, poor Daniels. Always did get the blunt end with Jack and the rest of the sailor boys.

Jack, not even brushing his hair, sloppily puts on his sailor cap, then the Certified Navy Twill polyester coat with badges even he knew he didn’t deserve, then the white trousers, then his white Boondockers which had now been faded due to not polishing them properly.

Daniel awkwardly stands there. His eyes opening and never blinking as he stares at Jack and drifts to la la land. His hands now clasped together in front of him like a little kid begging, looking up at the big candy man at the candy store for a chocolate bar. Jack catches him and snarls like some kind of wild beast hunting down its prey. Daniels, broken from la la land, merely begins to sweat in fear. Preparing for the worst.

What is he thinking? The little voice in Jack’s head asked. He was there last night, wasn’t he? He saw everything. You know he did.

“What do you want, Daniels?” Jack asks in a low, ill-mannered tone. Daniels nearly soils himself, he’s so timid. “What exactly is it that you want?”

“I-I-I-” Nothing but stutters spilled from Daniels’ mouth. Losing his temper (if he hadn’t already), Jack’s hand latches tight around Daniels’ throat, grasping so tight he left red trails on Daniels’ skin, maybe even breaking a few blood vessels here and there.

Daniels gasps for air like a fish. His mouth opened and closed and opened and closed as he attempted to breathe, and his pale face had turned a very obvious blood red from the severed blood circulation from Jack’s tight grip.

“Spit it out, Pinky Boy, spit it out.”

“I-I-I-I suh...ih…” Was all Daniels could manage to spit out.

“You saw what?” Jack coasts him backwards and pins him up against the ship wall beside his bunk. Daniels could feel the coldness of that concrete wall as the back of his head made contact with it and shook nervously. He thinks of his beloved wife, wishing he could write her one last goodbye and an I love you, sweetheart before Jack steals the life of him and tosses it like trash into the ocean. Just like he had done to that poor woman.

“Youh...youh killed huh.” Daniels put both hands on both of Jack’s tense wrists and pulled. Hoping, praying that he could pry Jack’s hands off before it was too late, but Jack only tightened his grip because of what had just spilled from Daniels’ mouth. His veins appeared like rivers on a road map, and his jaw constricted to the point where his front teeth began to chip off in a sand-like texture, and slid down the back of his throat in scratches.

Jack’s mind had been a catastrophic argument between the angel versus the devil in his mind. You shouldn’t be doing this. The angel says. He has a wife. A pregnant wife. That child needs a father-

This twig would end up dead in the war anyway. Says the devil don’t let up, Jackie. And when he’s done breathing, throw him overboard and make it seem like he fell off and drowned. Yeah. Drowned.”

That’s ironic. The angel says. He’s a seaman for christ’s sake. His life revolves around water. It’d be silly to hear that a seaman fell overboard and drowned like he had cinder blocks chained to his ankles. Let go of him, Jackie. Please?

“No.” Says Jack. Finally ending the mental argument with himself. Daniels’ face was looking more like a ripe purple grape as his consciousness began to slip away from his grasp. His eyes swelling and bulging like balloons as he struggles to catch a breath to let out one last weary plea. “Pl...ple...please, Ja...Jack…” He inhales a breath so deep that Jack was unsure if he was going to stop. Then only a short exhale and a face so frozen it was like he had frozen in time. His amethyst neck that was pulsing more than ever came to a halt and ran cold.

You’re a murderer, Jackie. Spoke the angel with a voice so real it was like he was sitting on Jack’s right shoulder uttering into his ear.

“I know.” Jack says aloud. “I know I am.”

2

Jack opens the hatch that leads out to the main deck just an inch and ganders. The crew had started their duties without him, and he didn’t see Captain anywhere. He thinks about assuming that the captain went back to his quarters, but assuming is dangerous, and he knows that. Afterall, this is not his first rodeo.

He heads back into the room with a small feeling of nervousness filling the pit of his gut like a hearty meal, thinking of where to stash Daniels so the guys couldn’t find him.

He goes with his first thought of where to hide him and stuffs Daniels within the narrow space between Jack’s bottom bunk and the cold concrete floor of the ship. No one ever checked down there unless they were put on rat killing patrol. And rat patrol was about to be Jack’s duty for showing up to the captain as late as he was about to be, or maybe even worse. Maybe he was going to be the next one to be thrown overboard.

Jack finds an area on the ship that no one had been guarding, and slips a cigarette in between his pale lips. He gazes across that atrocity of deep blue like a king sitting in the highest tower of his castle looking over his great kingdom , thinking. Thinking, with that salty smell of the ocean stuck in his nose, about the woman. Wondering when folk will start to question where she had gone, what had happened to her, or if she’ll ever come home. Wondering when law enforcement will get involved, and if they ever will get involved considering the popo seem to care less about murder, and more about speeding tickets. Jack smiles at that thought and blows out smoke, along with what was left of his sanity.

After a good smoke, Jack sneaks back into the chambers, grabs Daniels’ stone cold hand, and pulls hard to get Daniels out of his new den, when he is interrupted by a very faint but delicate singing. A very high pitched opera singing that seemed hauntingly hallucinating and luring yet so beautiful. So beautiful that it made Jack freeze as if he had suddenly become cold and lifeless like his deceased old buddy.

You recognize that voice don’t you, Jackie? The devil asks him.

Could it have been the woman he killed? Or thought he killed? How would that even be possible? His hands were tighter than a newly bought pickle jar around her throat, and her eyes bulged out of her sockets. He saw her stop breathing.

Jack’s heart took an elevator up to his throat. He was confused, yet immensely fearful. The kind of fear with the deep feeling in your gut after your mother calls you by your full name to come downstairs, unaware of what you might have done.

He turns the dog on the water hatch with shaky, cold hands. His blood racing and tingling like bugs all up and down his arms. It seemed eerily silent on the ship except for her hallucinating vocalizations of oohs and ahs.

Errrrk, errrk, errrk… the squeaky dog says to him, eerrk, errk… clank! The hatch suddenly jolts following a series of rusty moans and screams as Jack pushes the hatch open.

The seamen stood still , silently like mannequins, and were in trances facing to the right of the ship. The same direction Jack was facing while he was on his nonconsensual smoke break. Some of the men had weaponry or cleaning instruments that dropped from their grasps and onto the deck.

Jack had the fear you felt after your mother calls you by your first name after she discovers what you’ve done wrong. Only this time it was a way worse-feeling.

He nudges the sailor to his nearest left, and what Jack realizes next makes him quiver even more. The sailor felt like he’s been taking an ice bath for over 100 years; no blood flowing through him as if he had died months ago, and his bones and muscles felt like solid cement, as if someone had replaced his insides with it.

Though the man had very much been alive. Jack could tell by the heavy breathing moving his chest up and down. “Wake up!” Jack exclaims looking into the man’s eerily cheerful yet shocked expression. It seemed all of the sailors had the exact same expression. Bulging, bright eyes and mouths curled into wide open smiles giving you a full visual anatomy of the human mouth. It was unrealistic, almost, giving Jack goose flesh on his arms and legs. That woman was coming back for her revenge. And for Jack, that revenge was going to be anything but sweet.

3

This time Jack approaches a different sailor and shakes him at the shoulders. The man doesn’t budge no matter how hard Jack pushes. “Wake up! Wake up!” Jack’s voice is flushed with panic. “C’mon, dammit! Wake up!” Nothing.

Eerrrkk… eerrrrkkkk… eeerrrkk.... Goes the waterhatch, eeerrkk...eeerrrk… clank! Jack seals his eyes like Ziploc bags and takes in a deep breath. He didn’t dare to see what had come out of the chamber.

You messed up… says the angel in his mind, you messed up alright. And now you’re gonna pay for it, Jackie… you’ll pay for it-

The singing, which had now sounded like it was right behind him, suddenly stopped. It was so silent you could hear the waves smacking the sides of the ship.

He began to hear footsteps. Ones that came from boots like the ones Jack and the other sailors were wearing. They were slow as if a slug had put on boots and learned to walk in them. And as they approached, a distorted heavy breathing came from the mouth of whatever was behind him. It was like a high pitched snore, or the sound some mysterious wild animal would make; almost feminine, yet alien-like.

Jack, still hesitating to turn around, senses the figure standing not even three feet away. His bladder weakens, and his heart claws itself out of his chest. Then suddenly, he hears it.

“You’re gonna pay for it, Jackie…” Jack’s bladder finally gives in and soils his pants. The horrific voice, high pitched and very feminine, belonged to Daniels, who was now staring Jack in the eyes with bulging, blank eyes, and a smile that was even more unrealistic than the smiles on the sailors’ faces. Daniels’ head was a grape; purple, and swollen as if Jack had never let go of Daniels’ neck.

“Look what you’ve done to poor Daniels, Jack. You killed him. Just like you killed me.” Daniels’ form slowly starts to change. His once blonde hair turns to a raven black as it grows to shoulders length, his legs began to grow silvery-black scales likes ones a deep sea creature would have, his toenails, now silver and sharp as razors, poked holes in his boots, creating a fin-like structure, and his fingernails grew very abnormally long into sharp, pointy spheres. Jack shakes in his shoes. Watching this monster turn into an even more terrifying monster.

“Too scared to even scream, huh?” Says the monster with a now feminine face. Her smile stretches even wider as she holds her palms up to both sides of her face in a claw-like gesture. “We’ll see about that…”

The nails on her left hand plunge into Jack’s stomach. A shower of blood pours down his white uniform dyeing it a maroon color. Jack finally lets out a scream. A scream that hurt so bad in his throat it was like a jackhammer digging deeper into it. He had never heard himself scream like that. Not even as a baby.

The monster, who was almost completely transformed into her siren form, drags screaming, hysterical Jack to the edge of the ship. Blood trailing behind them as if they were purposely marking their steps.

She jumps. Scales attaching themselves making a fish-like limb and her feet now sharp, silver fins. She takes Jack, still hooked on to her claws, with her. A cloud of blood clouds the salt water as Jack is taken deep down. And now Jack’s name had been added to the list of missing persons.