The Last Captain: Part Four
Another dreadful and hellish sleep for the Captain, but this time he didn’t jerk awake. His eyes simply opened ghoulishly, revealing the glossy white. The cold sweat remained, as well as the rapid pulse. He was fatigued, physically and mentally. Once again he decided against getting dressed after rising from bed, instead he just stood solemnly in his bed wear, eyes to the ground.
"Captain!" Miller cried from the deck. Krade had been woefully trudging around his room when he heard the call and followed it upstairs and outside. The sun was bright and struck him straight on. As he approached his mate, he squinted and spoke in a dull tone.
"Yes, Miller, what is it?"
"Come here." Miller motioned for the Captain to come closer. "Here, can you see it?" Miller handed the telescope to his Captain, who peered through. "Straight ahead."
"Oh yes... I do see it." Krade said, noticeably intrigued. In the distance a blurry shadow of a structure had come into view.
"I don't know what it is, but we are coming up on something. It's still pretty much just a dark blotch on the horizon so I imagine it's still a good ways ahead."
"Yes." The word slithered out of Krade's mouth slyly like a hunting snake.
"What do you think?" Miller asked. "One of the islands?"
"I don't know." His Captain replied. He stepped to face Miller and handed back his telescope. "But we can't afford to lose sight of it. Hopefully it is, though. I'd like to port for a bit. I know it can't have been too long thus far, but I haven't any idea or way to find out. And not seeing anything this whole time... I think I just need a rest." He hesitated. "A rest from the sea."
"I feel the same." Miller said. Krade turned around and walked away from his mate.
"I need you to stay here, Miller. Right here, the very front of the ship. Whatever you do, do not let that shadow out of your sight. Keep it in the very center of that telescope, and your own sight, and don't even dream of looking away!" The Captain's voice grew firm. "Hell, I'd forbid you to blink if it were possible. You are not to look away from that structure, and not to leave this spot!"
"But Sir," Miller took a compass from his pocket. "It's only due North. If we just stay on course-" Krade snapped back.
"Miller... You are my first mate. I am your captain. Think of this as a job. I am your superior and you are to follow my orders." The Captain found himself very close to Miller's face. His breathing and entire thought process erratic, various nerves on his face twitching. "I don't give a damn if we've been at sea for three months or just three days! I feel like an entire lifetime has passed since walking upon any surface besides these floorboards. Now we have our chance. You don't even have the slightest idea how I'd feel if you ruined this for me. This is your discovery, and keeping it in view is your new task. Is that not simple? If somehow we lose it, it's on your hyde."
"Captain! You can't expect me to stand still here until we reach it." Krade stepped back.
"Why not? Do you have other plans?" Krade paused like the question wasn't hypothetical. Miller however hadn't a response. "Look at your Captain, Miller. Your Captain is a tense man. And if we miss this, your Captain will not be a very... Happy man." Krade's face trembled and his breathing strained.
"Captain! I'm telling you, we won't lose it!" Krade now fingered the gun that had been at his side during the whole trip but ultimately neglected. He drew it and shoved aside Miller's statement. His eyes bulged open and he spoke in an unsettling voice, as if feigning a cheerful demeanor.
"Miller... You have been given orders. You are to stay there watching the shadow." He took a few brooding steps forward to Miller, carelessly swinging his gun. "And that isn't a suggestion." Miller held onto an appalled expression, and the Captain turned around. "Now if you don't mind, your Captain would like to rest longer." Down the stairs. Miller looked to the shadow on the horizon. From the sky above flew the Gull to meet with him again.
"The curse has begun."
"What is happening?" Miller asked.
"I don't want to alarm you, or make you lose focus of your task."
"Am I being affected?"
"Yes." The Gull growled. "And it is in action all around you, operating unseen. The water rises and the sun burns. Here at sea it is unnoticeable, we are wrapped in a cloud of ignorance, but months pass in what you'd believe to be a mere hour. You surely remember last night, yes?"
"Of course." Miller answered. "Clear as day."
"Five years have passed since you'd fallen asleep." Miller would have froze if he hadn't already upon the Gull's arrival.
"Five... Years? We've traveled for five years... Overnight?"
"Yes, five years since the conception of the curse."
"But, how?"
"Believe me when I say, this is the sea's power."
"What about you?"
"At sea, I as well am engulfed in the veil of time. You and I experience time the same while the rest of the world speeds on. The sea is strange, like a blind spot of Father Time."
"How far have we gone then? All the while seeing nothing until now."
"You might never know." The Gull said. "You might be constantly passing over different landmarks of the world you know, the land where you dwell. And so is the curse, the endless flood."
"You can't be telling me," Miller started. "Flood? Five years of flooding?"
"And more to come, for eternity, as long as the cursed one sails the sea. " Miller looked back to the horizon anxiously.
"If it's all flooded, what are we approaching now?"
"Not all just yet. Though I can't say what it is that beckons your vessel."
"That's just fantastic." Miller said.
"But I can say that it is not too late for you. As long as there is solid ground on which to stand left anywhere in the world, then it is not too late. Perhaps he put it in a very uncivilized dialogue, but maybe you'd do right to heed your Captain's orders." The Gull spread its wings and shot into the sky. Miller watched until the bird was no longer visible, then looked straight back to the shadow.
_
Rest eluded Captain Krade. The simple thoughts he always had became incoherent tangles of paranoia and anxiety. Nothing being said in his mind made any sense. Instead, his train of thought weaved back and forth through long tangents of nonsense. He sat on his bed, still not dressed, with his fingers shaking and twisting like a fish out of water. He spoke out loud.
"Well where are ya, my man?" Calling to the bloody embodiment of the sea. "Got anymore? I would just love to see you and your little friends again. Ha! I said ha! A joke isn't it? You must be living it up over there on your imaginary ship, sharing laugh after laugh at my expense. It is funny, isn't it? I say ha ha! Again! Oh it is so funny. I'll get you good some day, we can share laughs of our own! How about a drink? I still love it, the sea. I love you, I guess. That's the bottom line. Yes, this, here, the uh, sea! Like a true home. But no furniture, just water! Ha! That's my idea of a party! Bring on more I say!" The Captain rose from the bed and started to pace. He continued his rapid fire rambling, barely sounding at all like the Captain we once knew, barely like a man entirely. This was not a man now. "How many color coordinated spirits you got? Mr. Purple and Mr. Red were fun but I just can't wait to meet, say, Mr. Blue! Or Green!" He walked to the wall and pressed his forehead upon. "Where are ya?!" He shouted. "Come on! Take my other leg! Drain the blood from my body! Butcher my entire ****ing person! I need it!"
"Captain." A voice spoke from behind. Krade whipped around quicker than a heartbeat.
"Miller?" He said. In the corner of his room, Krade saw the likeness of his mate. They did not make eye contact. "Oh... Miller..." The Captain sounded deranged. "What the hell are you doing in here? And have you in fact left your post? Can't follow orders, boy?" He began walking to the corner.
"It would seem, Captain." The spectral Miller stared forward, his hands clasped together at his groin.
"Have you no respect for your Captain? You have abandoned the horizon. Damn it, boy! An unhappy man, Miller, an unhappy man. What might an unhappy man do in a time like this?" He walked until they were about three feet from each other.
"That is an interesting question, Captain. How might we find the answer?"
"I'm not going to leave you here long enough, you cretin! You don't deserve to be first mate to a legendary captain such as myself."
"I'm quite sorry, Captain."
"Save it for the eels." Krade reached for his gun, but just as he grasped the handle came a hard and sharp blow to his sternum, knocking him to his knees, struck by a dull blade.
"What kind of man would put someone's life in danger, just because they're too proud? Your first mate, the closest soul to your own." The blow knocked the Captain's wind out and he could not properly speak, on his knees quivering in pain and fury. Unbeknownst to him, Miller remained on the deck, in the same spot he was ordered. Undoubtedly another spirit. The two finally looked in each other's eyes, and the spirit flipped around the knife in his hand. With immaculate precision and agility, the spirit stabbed Krade through his left cheek. He cried out and visible within his open mouth the blade dripped with blood. Rather than sliding it back through the entry wound, the spirit forced the sharp end of the blade to slice a gap on his face. The skin of his cheek now dangled as his blood flowed like a river. Tears began to form in the Captain's eyes. He spoke, but distorted from the surgery, and with a pain greater than he'd ever known.
"Are you going to kill me?" The words were slurred and desperate. A pocket of blood sloshed in his mouth.
"I don't know, Captain." The spirit walked past the groveling Captain and he was alone in his quarters. He crawled on his knees to fetch his bottle of rum. He tried to drink but the booze simply spilled out from the gaping cheek. Frustrated, the Captain threw the bottle against the wall, shattering it. He held the flap of skin back in place in an effort to stop the bleeding.
"A dead man. He is a dead man!" He roared. Then came a call once again from the deck, as if by premonition.
"Captain! Come quick!" Krade struggled to his feet and retrieved his gun, still holding his flesh.
"A dead man. A dead man. A dead man. A dead man." He repeated the words while he limped to the stairs. "A dead man." At that point, adrenaline had taken over the Captain, and he climbed the stairs swiftly. "A dead man!" "Just before the top step, the door to the deck swung open and Miller was seen calling to Krade.
"Captain! We- oh my god! What's happened to you Are you okay?" Krade lifted the gun directly to Miller's forehead.
"You ungrateful bastard!"
"Captain, please!" A terrified Miller whined. "It's a lighthouse, Captain. A lighthouse!" Krade glanced past the man in front of him to the sea. The very top of a lighthouse was before the ship. It appeared to be old and quite weathered, once vibrant paint now chipped away. Krade relinquished his gun and approached the front of the ship, noticeably injured. Miller, shaken, watched,
"What is this, Miller?" His words still sloppy. He let go of his cheek and it dropped from his face. "What the **** is this?!" He shouted. "What's happened here?"
"Sir I don't know, I-I..." Miller trailed off after remembering the Gull's latest warning. An endless flood, he thought. But he kept this to himself. "Captain! You're severely hurt! What's happened?" The Captain was demented as he approached his mate.
"Oh I'm fine, Miller. Really, I am. You can do your worst but I am still fine."
"What?" Miller was puzzled, unaware of his violent doppelganger from below deck.
"Does this bother you, Miller? Do I disgust you? Did you botch your stab job?"
"Sir I don't know-"
"Don't play with me, boy." Krade reached and grabbed a small knife from Miller's belt and snatched it fluidly. He pinched the severed section of his cheek with one hand and held it firmly. With the knife he started cutting through the opposite end. By now blood had stained the ship all around, a deep red, but more gushed from the Captain's face. He cut all the way through, hacking off the entire cheek, and dropped it to the floor. Miller watched in terror as the slab of skin splashed onto the bloody wood at his feet. "Is that better? What do you want from me?"
"Sir, please-" Krade interrupted once again, grabbing Miller by the throat.
"Sir, please, oh dear lord please." He mocked with a shaky voiced interweaved with fractured laughing. "Please what, Miller? What is it?" Miller tried to speak but couldn't summon the syllables past his throat as it collapsed in the Captain's vice like grasp. "What's the matter? Trouble breathing? You'd love so much to finish the job you started, wouldn't you? All the recognition for you. Oh but Miller, where would you be without me? What would you have had I not given it all? You're a worthless dog, you would be nothing without me. Kill me and it would be known, the great Windsor Krade, ultimate Captain of this ship! You, on the other hand, would not be missed or mourned. You are nobody, Miller. Not without me." The first mate was reminded of the warnings he'd received, the knowledge of the curse. It was time.
"You need me all the same, Captain. You always have. But alas, it doesn't matter anymore." Miller lifted a mighty knee into Krade's gut, freeing himself from the chokehold. With the knife on the floor, Miller slashed the Captain's back vertically and tore off a length of material from his shirt. Krade was on all fours clutching his gut as his first mate unleashed a horrid stomp to his Captain's temple. Withe the fabric, Miller tightly tied the Captain's hands behind his back. On the floor, the helpless Captain looked to Miller with his eyes glazed over. Behind him was the Sea, seemingly laughing at the Captain's pain. He spoke to Krade only.
"So the Sea is your home... Captain? Then the Sea is where you shall remain, alone until you are swallowed by the waves." Miller deployed the bridge and connected it to the railing of the lighthouse with dexterity. The Captain became limp while his mate carried him down the ramp. Miller threw him to the floor.
"Am I nothing without you, Captain? That's something I'll have to learn on my own. But whatever action I may take, the fact remains, that you are a dead man." Miller quickly ran up the ramp and brought it back in.
"No!" Krade screamed. "Damn it Miller!" He let up the sail again to catch a breeze before cruising away from the lighthouse.
"I'll send you a postcard! I'll tell you all about the land, because there isn't any left for you!" Miller called back to the whimpering Captain.
"No! No!" Krade shouted with increasing sustain, his energy slipping away. "Miller you son of a bitch! You can't leave me here!" He was now at the point where heavy sobbing overcame rage, and his words cracked as they dripped out of his mouth like the blood from his cheek. "You can't leave me here... Alone... Miller, please... I'm sorry." He'd been trying to rip his hands free and finally did, and stood up. The ship was long gone. "Please, won't you please return? This isn't what I wanted. Please Miller... Your Captain... He is a sorry man now. I'm sorry, Miller." His voice decreased in volume as he knew that his first mate wasn't going to return. Sullenly, Krade opened the hatch on the floor to a spiral staircase and followed it down. The further beneath the water, the more murky and wet the walls became. There was water dripping from splits and cracks all over the damp room. At the bottom of the stairs was another door. Water had been gathering up to here, now at the Captain's ankles. He opened the door to find a room, a home. Waterlogged furniture and damaged odds and ends were strewn about the floor. Krade made his way to a desk where he found a calendar. "You did it, Miller." The great Windsor Krade said aloud as a single tear fell from his eye onto a note that had been jotted on the calendar.
Around the world!
"You're going to make a great captain."