Previously: After the terrible storm of November 1616, a discovery besets the crew of the merchant ship Atargatis. New readers might want to start at PART 1 HERE
“No-one else could know. If my instincts about them were ever confirmed, no navy would ever sail, no fisherman would ever cast again. We would boil the oceans with nukes.”
— REDACTED, August 2023
Daylight, Westerne Sea, the Kyngdom of England, the eightenth day of Blotmonath, in the yeare of our Lord God 1616, being Thursday.
“Nay… it cannot be,” Doyle persisted. “They were kyssing, Master. It could not be sooth, they were KYSSING.”
“Nonsensical prattle! What babblest thou, man? Look to thy wits. Get them aboard. Haul them in.”
“But Master… it is Tom!”
“Gird up thy self, man.”
Russell went to swing a backhand at Doyle, and pulled back short of the strike. “Speak not ill of the dead, fellow. Cast it overboord, for God his sake. Let the thought of thy brother sleepe, lest the rest of thy wits be spoyled.”
“Nay, Sir, it were ill lucke to cast them overboord.”
“Cease thy childing prate: what shal it bee? Ill luck to bring them aboard, or ill luck to hurl them backe againe?”
The fused lump was pulled out of the water and dumped on the deck. The crew curiously gathered round while Doyle sobbed. Master Russell pushed past his crew and knelt down for a closer look.
“Deare God, it was he.”
Resembling a smooth, elegant biological sarcophagus, or a fleshy overcoat if you will, it was wrapped and warped over the sailor, completely enclosing the man from the front, holding his arms and legs tight together, like clingwrap. Under the clear thick folds of flab, this abomination had bone, muscle, somewhat like that of a human. Approximations of skull, spine, limbs, faced down onto the sailor, and gripped around him. Hugging him.
Beneath the translucent jelly, one could see tubes and pipes leading into the mouth and nose of the sailor underneath. One only knew how deep they went into him, and for what reason. The creature shuddered and revealed more pipes lower down, pumping in peristalsis, leading between the sailor’s legs, and presumably inside him there too.
These inner workings were as clear as the view through a beached jellyfish on a summer day. The translucent, almost clear flesh of the creature allowed the crew to see not just the construction of the creature, but also the creature in motion. Tubes and flesh squeezed and released, pumping and squirting fluids and solids back and forth between its own organs and the orifices of its victim.
Through the thick pearlescent flesh, the victim now looked hairless, wrinkled, and white. Days, months, or even years like this had turned his whole body “pruney,” like fingertips left in water.
The whole organism, the whole embrace, both parasite and host, reeked. A musk, sweet and ripe. Not unpleasant. Slightly intoxicating up close.
Coxswain Martin spat out to sea, “What devilrie hast thou brought aboard, Sir?”
“I know it not. Nor wold I know. Coxswain, salt them, sheet them, and binde them. Stowe them beneth deck for the nonce. I wol have it warded by watch. Understoode?”
“Aye.”
“Aye, Sir.”
The crew carried on for another three days. The weather remained cold but dry, the sea relatively calm, and food could be gathered, fish pulled out of the water with crude thread nets, attracted by the crew’s collected vomit and excrement. Larger fish were then attracted by the spent guts of the fish. The crew’s mood was the best it had been since before the disaster aboard the Atargatis. There were no shortage of volunteers to keep watch over the boats new, exotic, intoxicating stowaways.
“Who is for supper to-day, Colin?” joked Coxswain Martin.
“Let us see, shal we?” said Colin.
Colin picked up another mackerel, thrashing around on the deck, and held it up to his face.
“What be thy name, lad?” he asked the fish.
Colin pulled a face at the fish. The fish gasped for air in his hand. Colin looked at Martin.
“He saith his name is Bob. E’en as the last.”
There was a muted laugh amongst the crew, and Colin swung Bob down onto the boat, killing it. Colin held Bob up to his face again.
“Forgive me Bob…. I…”
Just behind Bob’s head, Colin saw the horizon come into focus. He blinked and lowered Bob. Three lines were rising up out of the ocean beyond the horizon. A few seconds later, sails came into view: the side profile of a large ship.
“A ship! Jesu mercy, we are saved! SAVED, I say unto ye!”
“Pirats? Nay — privateers?”
“O Jesu, it is the Spaniardes. Who here can speake the Spaniard’s tongue, Master?”
“Not sufficient, good friend.”
“Then let us pray they like our English fare!” Colin scraped the scales of Bob against the side of the boat, and thrusted his finger through the fish’s anus to pull out the offal through it’s belly.
“And mine owne fishie fingers!”
The crew laughed.
“If Spaniard it be, lad, then guard thy tongue. Else they shal cut it from thee, fishie fingers or no.”
“And marke, that ship is bound too far leeward ever to cross us. And with too great a pace, though but halfe sail. Better we hang our fishie fingers to the oares and ply for lande. No succour cometh here, not of frend nor fo.”
The distant ship continued to cross in the distance and pull away from them, until it was lost in the haze and dip of the horizon. The crew felt some relief and some disappointment. Songs started up again.
Charlie, the oldest oarsman, cleared his throat and yelled,“Oh aye, good fellowes!”.
There was a cheer from the crew and Charlie’s huge barrel chest took in a deep breath.
“Saylour, Saylour, strandèd on the sea,
Hast thou a kyssing-fish thou canst sell to me?”
“By the way side, high diddle aye do,” the crew replied
“Thou art no jester, Charlie,” said Doyle.
“Yes Sir, yes Sir, that indeed I do,
I have a kyssing-fish that I may sell to you.
Well, I bare the kyssing-fish home,
thinking she’d like a swim,
So I fill’d the chamber-pot and threw the bugger in.”
“By the way side, high diddle aye do,” the crew replied again.
“At midnight I started up, well-nigh in a fit,
For my wife rose up for to make a shitte.
Husband, husband, she cry’d out to me,
The devill’s in the chamber-pot, and she’s caught hold on me!”
“By the way side, high diddle aye do.”
“Children, children, bring the looking-glass,
Come see the kyssing-fish hath bit thy mother’s arse.
Children, children, did ye hear the grunt?
Come see the kyssing-fish hath bit thy mother’s cunt.
Here endeth my tale, I have no more store,
Save an apple in my pocket, and thou may’st have the core.”
“By the way side, high did… SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
A piercing shrill rang out from below, silencing the crew with a painful modulating whistle. The crew stumbled, and those with hands held them over their ears. Boswain Botham walked out from his watch position, smiling a glazed giddy look, holding his head, in complete joyous rapture.
“’Tis the thing, the thing beneth the deck! The sound issued from the thing! Oh the beauty. Oh the Guilt. Thou shal not need mercy granted for thine is our glory forever to Dingir Atar-‘ata”
“Glory forever to Dingir Atar-ata”, the crew chanted.
The noise did not stop until the Spanish ship, now far, far in the distance, had changed course and turned to head toward the longboat.
“By the way side, high diddle aye do.”, the crew roared.
Thank you for reading!
Hi reader. It is an absolute blessing to have you subscribe and get involved in this work. Thank you so much, it’s very motivating. And I hope you enjoy this home.
The first drafts of shorts and stories filling this website have so much continuity, grammatical, and plot errors. They do get revisited. But who cares if the vibe is right and it’s fun.
Right? RIIIGHT?
I am much blessèd thou hast scroll’d unto the bottom of these. If thou knowest one who might taketh delight in Between the Cracks (or if thou wouldst fain collaborate on endeavours), do share upon yonder socials, or dispatch them an epistle.
This original content is human made. GPT and LLM tools are used for research and helping correct the god-awful use of my mother tongue FFS.
Drop the drunk-on-monster crew a line in the chat or comments and see you soon, reader.
