The Dutchman

Ed Leeson: Easy there, no one is going to hurt you. I just want to sit down and chat for a minute. We can loosen the restraints if you can calm yourself down. It will hurt a lot less and be easier for both of us.

Tarbish: Can’t, no, can’t stop, watching, always watching, hide, hide, I CAN’T HIDE!!!

Leeson: Dammit Roberts! Gag him again, that screeching and wailing is barely human, it makes me uneasy. He sounds like a creature straight from Hel. Really, he looks like one too.

Mike Roberts: Sorry sir, we ungagged him a few minutes ago after a small dose of sedative. We thought he was calm enough.

Leeson: Calm enough for what? Wrestling a bull? Give him another dose dammit, and no! No objections. Just do it. A mining ship full of corpses and he’s the only survivor? We need to know what he saw out there, we need to know what happened.

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Leeson: Tarbish? Tarbish? Are you alright?

Tarbish: Wha… what? Am I? Where?

Leeson: You’re in the spaceport Tarbish. We are going to get you to a hospital. You are here to rest and heal. You are safe. We found you–

Roberts: Sir, it may not be wise to take his mind straight there, maybe ease into it a bit. You know, we’re trying to avoid another panic attack?

Leeson: You have a point. Yes Tarbish, you are safe here, so you can rest easy. How are you feeling?

Tarbish: Wha… Where am I?

Leeson: I told you, you’re in the spaceport Tarbish. You are on Terra Nova, though you may prefer the slang of, “Oklahoma?”

Tarbish: Oklahoma. Our island.

Leeson: Island? What do you mean by that Tarbish? What island?

Tarbish: Our island, I thought we were safe, thought we were free, thought we were far enough away, but no, no, it… it… surrounds us… surrounds us... please... please...

Leeson: Roberts, comfort him or something, we don’t have time for his sobbing either.

Roberts: Tarbish, you are safe here. The only surrounding you here is this calm, clean room. And outside is our land, the beautiful dirt of Oklahoma stretching out as far as you can see. We are not an island, those are just legends of our old home. We have left that behind. There’s no ocean here.

Tarbish: No ocean? What is outside?

Roberts: Dirt, lots of it.

Tarbish: No, beyond that.

Roberts: Our artificial atmosphere?

Tarbish: No, no, no, NO! Can’t you see it? Can’t you feel it? We tried to escape it, but we can’t! It claimed my grandfather’s life on earth, that raging, roiling deep, the unfathomable depths. Swallowed up, pulled down by what lives there, damned to an endless, restless nightmare among the strangling weeds and crushing depths. I thought the ocean was only there, but that ocean was only a shadow of what we float in, islands, worlds, floating in the void, that terrible void, filled with, with...

Roberts: Sir, what is he–

Leeson: Can it, Roberts.

Tarbish: My father, he saw him once, years later. He swears on it. Saw his father’s face in the deep alongside his ship. Saw him there, beckoning, glowing with a, with a…

Leeson: With a what?

Tarbish: He tried to jump in, my father did. His crew had to restrain him, hold him back from joining my grandfather in the depths. He was ranting and raving, crying out that he must go, must follow the... follow the…

Leeson: Follow the what?

Tarbish: The rest of the crew, they were spooked, they was. There wasn’t a man among them who saw what my father did see. They took him home and all was well until his ship was lost in a storm years later. Though many, myself included, thought him a changed man after that day.

His ship was lost with all hands, all save his mate, Tarbish. Some in my family thought him lucky, which is why they named me after him. Isn’t even a family name, just the name of the... of the damned, the only survivor. He, he… ...

Leeson: Tarbish, are you still… with us?

Tarbish: He said he saw.

Leeson: Saw what?

Tarbish: The… the… the… them. Them, racing all around the sinking ship.

Leeson: Who?

Tarbish: He was forbidden to speak of it, but I would sneak up to his door at night after he’d been at the drink again, I’d sneak up there and listen to him cry. He always cried at night, and we could always hear him. And I would go and hear him sob, and hear him talk, talk of what he’d seen…

Leeson: Tarbish? Go on, what did your namesake see?

Tarbish: My father didn’t go down with the ship. No… No he didn’t. No he didn’t. No he didn’t. No he didn’t. No he didn’t…

Leeson: Dammit man, just speak!

Roberts: Slapping him won’t help sir, he…

Tarbish: He dove in he did. Dove into the deep. Before the ship was even sinking. His crew wasn’t watching, and he dove straight in, never to be seen again. Coat, hat, everything, it all went with him. And, and, and, the ship must follow her captain, so down she went. Pulled down by the… by the…

Leeson: Roberts, do you know what…

Tarbish: Tarbish made it into a lifeboat with a small motor. They made their way towards shore but were driven back in the storm. They fought all night until the storm cleared in the morning. They began making their way home. They ran out of fuel that evening and began to paddle. Tarbish knew they were close. They would probably reach landfall by morning.

Roberts: Sir, his vitals are spiking, his heart rate…

Tarbish: They rowed into the night, taking turns. He dreamed of… of them… I heard him say so, crying, sobbing…

Roberts: Sir…

Tarbish: They were beckoning him downwards. He woke up, and thought he saw the glow in the water all around him, but he only thought he saw. He rubbed his eyes and the glow was gone, but so was his mate. He never saw the man again.

Leeson: Tarbish, what… what happened to his mate?

Tarbish: The glow, the glow, the glowing, no…

Leeson: Tarbish?

Tarbish: No, no, NO!

Roberts: Sir!

Tarbish: THE GREEN LIGHTS! From the black ship! They came for me. They came for ME, THE DAMNED!

Roberts: Look out sir!

Leeson: Dammit man, restrain him. Guards! We need more, dammit…

Tarbish: The black ship, a gaping wound in space blotting out the stars, came out of the depths of nothing, came to drag us down into Hel, to drag me! It wasn’t there, then it was right in front of us! The black ship! The green lights! They flew from the ship, beckoning, calling, and then... killing.

Roberts: I can’t hold him!

Trabish: Ghosts, ghosts of the damned, seeking souls. Crawling over our ship, through our ship, through the walls, through the men, glowing green! They took our souls and left nothing, took my crew, tried to take me!

Leeson: Sargent! Help us restrain him, but let him keep talking, he has to keep talking, just don’t let him…

Roberts: He broke the glass sir! Sir!

Leeson: Dammit Roberts, don’t let go, he’s not trying to kill us. Stop him! We have to know what happened!

Tarbish: I see them, they won’t stop. I cannot get away! I cannot, they’ve come, to take, to take , me, damnation, I can’t!

Roberts: I got it away from his wrists, sir, then he stabbed himself in the gut!

Leeson: Medic! We need a medic! Sargent, put pressure on that, don’t let him… Dammit, he pulled it out! Watch out, he’s trying for you…

Roberts: I can’t hold him sir, too much blood, too slick…

Tarbish: I see them now! See them… always! The green lights… The black ship! Just like the old stories… we are all, all… damned! Damned by, by…

Roberts: We’re losing him sir!

Leeson: Damned by what? By what damn you?!

Tarbish: THE BLACK SHIP! THE DUTCHMAN!

End of Transcript.