Sea of Monsters

Enzo rummaged frantically through the old book, furiously flicking page after page, past charts, diagrams and hand drawings, past lines and scribbles, until he found it. The tattered page showed an ink drawing of a giant octopus emerging from the sea, its tentacles grappling a large sailing ship. Enzo's eyes lingered a moment on the drawing before following more scribbles lining the page margins; notes taken down in a rush, perhaps.

Enzo’s finger moved down the page, as the rocking back and forth of the ship’s cabin in which he stood went unnoticed. And why wouldn't it? Enzo sailed on ships almost every day since as long as he could remember. Enzo was a thin man in his mid-twenties, wore tattered, baggy pants fastened by a strap around his waist and a beige top, which stunk of fish. His sailing boat, The Woniora, rocked back and forth gently. The lanterns hanging from the cabin roof swayed with each rock, synchronized with the ocean.

Enzo stood in the gloom with the book held up to the faint light coming through the cabin window. This time, he had to get it just right. The book couldn’t possibly be lying. After all, it was his father’s journal, and he had written all the efforts he’d attempted right up until his passing a year ago.

Enzo turned the page to discover another one of his father’s ink drawings; a drawing of a large rock jutting out of the ocean. It looked like a giant claw reaching from the water into the sky. Enzo turned to the murky cabin window and saw it – that same rock that his father had drawn, standing right there outside in the ocean. Enzo’s heart burst to life with excitement.

‘We’re here,’ he whispered to himself. ‘We’re here!’ Enzo cried, rushing out of the cabin. Enzo shot through cabin door out onto the ship’s deck where a group of fishermen began lowering their nets into the water. Two more sailing ships had parked adjacent to Enzo’s ship, bobbing in the waves. As they converged on the location, all three ships huddling close to one another, fishermen from each of the ships began casting their heavy rope nets out into the gap between the hulls.

Cries and calls from the fishermen echoed through the cloudy haze. Enzo squinted into the fog and saw the claw-like rock up ahead, bent over like a figure hunching forward.

‘Lower them right here!’ Enzo called to the fishermen as he approached the bow of his ship, his excitement building. The nets submerged beneath the murky ocean surface, sending a flurry of bubbles rising. Enzo shuffled forward past the fishermen and peered over the edge of the sailing boat into the calm, dark water below. He couldn’t see a thing beneath the surface. The depths of the ocean had never sat well him anyway, so a part of him agreed that it was for the best that he couldn’t see anything.

Suddenly, a nearby fisherman pushed Enzo, making him yelp, but caught him swiftly again. The fisherman laughed, his voice trailing into the haze around the ships. ‘Enzo, the fisherman who can’t swim,’ the fisherman jeered.

Other fishermen smugly giggled, watching the antic. Enzo composed himself. It was true and everybody knew it. He didn’t know how to swim, and it wasn’t because he never had a chance to learn how to swim. It was because the ocean had always terrified him. The thought of something lurking in the depths always disturbed Enzo deeply. He recognized his place was firmly on land.

Suddenly, a faint thud pulled Enzo out of his thoughts, as the nets yanked hard, tugging on all the sailing ships. One fisherman fell forward while another immediately grasped an overhanging rope to keep from being flung overboard. Something had caught the net.

‘Raise her up!’ one of the fishermen cried through the silence that followed. Fishermen on all three ships huddled at the edge of their ships and peered down into the water. They routinely caught large schools of fish, but never had the school been large enough to tug on the nets and pull all three ships like that. Some fishermen grabbed the net levers and began winding them, hoisting the nets up onto the deck of the ship.

Enzo watched almost impatiently to see if his father’s predictions had been correct. He peered over the fishermens’ heads into the rising net. The last of the net rose out of the ocean and, almost instantly, all the fishermen grasped their noses in disgust. Caught in the bottom of the net were what seemed to be partly digested fish remains. The smell was offensive and putrid, almost rotten.

‘That reeks!’ one fisherman cried.

‘What is that?’ another asked.

Enzo covered his nose and pushed through the line of fishermen before him. He kneeled down at the side of the ship and gazed eagerly into the floating net. Clearly, he saw something that the others had not. Enzo reached down into the net and raised a bloody fish-head out of the net. Black slime dripped off of the morsel. Enzo cupped his other hand beneath the dripping fish-head to catch the slime. He threw the piece back into the net and ran the black slime through his fingers. He knew exactly what this was. He was close now.

‘All that navigation and this is what you lead us to, Enzo? Fish guts?’ a fisherman called, his voice booming in the silence. The crowd that had huddled around the nets were not pleased that they had spent a good part of the day sailing to a location to catch fish, only to have all their efforts be in vain. They couldn’t head back to the village with smelly fish guts to sell to the town’s folk, or worse, no dinner for themselves and their families.

Enzo knew that he had to keep the group on course. He was so close. After all, his father’s journal said so. ‘Don’t you see?’ Enzo stood and faced the disappointed fishermen. ‘This is a fresh kill. It was here. I know it was. This is the location my father wrote about.’ And at that, the fishermen, almost unanimously, groaned in disapproval and headed off down the deck.

‘Wait! We are so close!’ Enzo called. No one cared. They were cold, they were hungry, and they wanted to get going before the sun set. ‘My father’s journal says–'

‘Enough with that old thing!’ a large, grizzly fisherman snapped back at Enzo, removing his rubber gloves.

‘Enzo’s not here to catch fish,’ another snapped.

‘We are so close. Let’s lower the nets once more, only a little deeper this time-' Enzo began, only to stop as the large, grizzly fisherman charged across the ship deck towards him.

‘One more word about your father’s fantasy adventures and I will send you and that damn book into the ocean. Do you hear me, lad?’ the fisherman, who would have easily been double Enzo’s size, spat down to Enzo.

It was hopeless. He couldn’t get through to them. Enzo nodded glumly as he looked down towards his faded boots. But then, with a snap, the net was pulled into the water, its ropes being fed through the portholes in the ship’s side, leaving all three ships rocking in its wake.

The fishermen all stopped in their tracks and turned to Enzo, who was as perplexed as them. Enzo slowly made his way to the edge of the ship and peered over the ledge. The surface of the water pulsed with motion, bounding up and down. Enzo squinted hard, his gaze burrowing beneath the surface foam, further down into the depths. Only darkness. Probably miles and miles of dark water beneath the sailing ship.

Enzo was just about to turn away when he suddenly glimpsed something in the depths.

Movement.

His eyes darted around, hoping to catch another glimpse. A few moments passed in silence. The fishermen watched Enzo peering over the edge into the ocean, straining with all his might to see something. Anything.

Enzo waited patiently. He knew this had to be it. This had to be what his father had described. More silence passed. Please, just one glimpse, he thought.

And then suddenly, he saw it. Like someone had turned the sound off and the world around him had been slowed, plowing from beneath, a gargantuan set of jaws lined with huge, dagger-like teeth broke the surface of the water directly in between the ships.

Enzo jumped, his heart suddenly springing to life after the quiet, and dashed furiously away from the ship’s edge. He ran madly for the cabin door, fighting through the startled fishermen as the violent crashing at the ship’s edge unmuted the silence.

With a mighty burst through the door, Enzo leaped into the cabin and slammed the door shut behind him. The cabin rocked madly and the lanterns swayed, one smashing against the wooden roof, raining shards of glass onto the cabin floor. Enzo dove into a corner of the cabin. He held his father’s journal in a quivering hand as he squatted in the gloom.

Was that it? Was that really it?

Outside, the sound of gunfire, crashing and screaming all rang brutally across the open ocean. That thing was massive, Enzo thought. His other thoughts were far too jumbled to make any real sense of, but he knew he had to help the fishermen. The sight of those teeth and jaws was far too immobilizing though. The jaws alone had to have been several feet in length, making it easily capable of swallowing a man whole.

Enzo cowered for another moment when he heard a deep, reverberating moan echo through the ship. The cabin’s window above Enzo’s head vibrated in response to the sound. And then, silence. Abrupt silence. A silence that left Enzo’s ears ringing after the commotion of the attack.

The cabin slowed, coming to a gentle sway. Had they killed it? Enzo couldn’t hear any more voices from outside. He nervously rose from his position in the corner, all the while a vicious thudding in his ears following suit. He had wanted to see what his father had chased all these years and now was his chance. All he had to do was open the cabin door and stare at his prize.

Enzo edged across the cabin and reached for the door. His sweaty hands held the door knob for a moment, bracing himself. He then turned the knob, pulled the door ajar slowly, and peered cautiously out onto the deck.

Not a single fisherman in sight. Not one. The ships around the Woniora were ruined, with one of them listing severely to one side. The scene was surreal. Awestruck, Enzo looked to one side of the ship and found pieces of debris floating on the surface of the water. He spun to the other side. A fisherman’s hat lay alone on the deck.

Enzo didn’t know what to think. Where did all the fishermen go?

Did they … ? Did it … ?

On the deck before him, a splatter of black slime shone through the haze. Enzo's hands shook uncontrollably and his heart pulsed in his neck like a drum.