The Deep

Captain Everett Sinclair stood atop the bow of the S.S. Buttercup, and he thought to himself that he’d likely seen her lower decks for the last time.
It’d started with the crew; and they were all gone, now. Not for the weak of mind, nor the faint of heart, his advert had read, and yet all he’d gotten were men who’d followed the song down into the depths. They’d even left all their belongings behind. He could still see Polari’s trunk in his peripheral vision, its lock rusted and its top half-rotted away from the wind and rain. Captain Sinclair could remember like it was yesterday how the old driver had been caught, midway through dragging it portside. He’d turn to look at it, if only he could.
Because he’d known something like this could happen, you see. There’d been rumors, whispers on the waves, and all the warnings a fellow could feasibly ignore. And oh, if only arrogance were not on the list of skills required to be a crotchety old fisherman, making his way out to sea as if it were a beast he could tame. If he’d just backed down… if he’d listened, even once, he wouldn’t be standing here now. The captain’s fingers flexed on the steel railing, just to test if they still had any feeling. They did—but only just.
It was day twenty-one of his voyage, day eight of his nightmare, and day two of his permanent stasis. His throat was dryer than it’d ever been in his life, and if there’d been anything left in his stomach when he started, it was all gone now. There were enough rations for a feast down in the Buttercup’s belly, but they were too far in to reach; and even if he wanted to make the trek, he couldn’t. He’d been frozen to the spot for the last twenty-six hours, in a constant battle of wills. His options were limited. He could either descend the stairs into the cabins beneath him, or throw himself overboard into the turbulent waters below.
The wind crested through the metal tanker’s splitting decks, just seconds before the ship rolled within the choppy waves. Raindrops pelted against his skin like thorns, leaving him restless, soaked all the way through, and shivering. The nets ballooned outward, and their flags, torn and tattered from being left up too long, flapped desperately in the onslaught. Captain Sinclair squeezed his eyes shut against the weather beyond. The wind and the water were loud, sure—but the sound of his own breathing was louder, for it made its way into his ears and pulsed against his starved brain, making his lungs feel tight and strangled behind his ribs. An experienced seaman like himself usually stood firm in choppy waters like these, but today his stomach tossed along with the waves, and his throat cracked with each painful swallow. His heartbeat provided a steady and uncomfortable bassline, reminding the captain just how alive he was, and how quickly it could all be taken away. Because underneath it all, buried in the whistle of the wind, there was something else, too: the song.
           Come follow me, dear sailor,
           With us all your dreams come true…
           There’s so much to see, my sailor,
           And all of it’s just for you.
When they’d first heard those words, just over one week ago, they’d been a thing of beauty.
“Been a while since we ‘ad a proper woman out here, ain’t it?” Simmons had remarked, grinning over to his crewmates. He was the primary mechanic onboard their fishing rig, and he always had something to say when he wasn’t on the job. “Somebody’s spoilin’ us.”
“Oi, put that track on loop, would ya, Captain?” Polari had called back, from somewhere in the hull. A few of the others echoed their support. “Beautiful voice, that. Like magic.”
“We could use more magic ‘round here,” the captain had growled from the stern, inspecting one of the nets disapprovingly with the tip of his cane. He always did have an eye for detail. And yet, it escaped his notice that behind him, little Mikey—one of the youngest deckhands, and probably no more than seventeen—had disappeared behind one of the riggings, his eyes strange. Glassy. Distant. “Damn fish won’t bite without it no more.”
The scream that Mikey had let out that day never left Captain Sinclair’s head for long. He should’ve seen it sooner. He should’ve stopped him, should’ve caught him wandering off just in time. At the very least, he should’ve questioned how they could all hear the song so damn clearly on a boat that big, especially when—as they discovered later—their old music player had been off the entire time. Some of the crewmates heard the crystal clear voice of a beautiful woman, while others swore they heard sweet, sultry bass tones or the chirpings of mysterious, foreign birds. Personally, Captain Sinclair had always heard something in between all of those, and yet nothing like them at all: an inhuman, intoxicating call, stronger and more powerful than anything that’d ever graced his old ears before, even in all his time spent out at sea. 
           Come follow me, sweet sailor,
           We have everything you could need…
           If you’ll set me free, my sailor,
           No more shall you long for the sea.
Their comms had been the first thing to go down, the day before the song first began. They didn’t even recognize right away that they were suddenly sending messages into nothing but an unhearing void, not until they’d done a routine check to monitor the weather at their destination and no one had responded. Even that didn’t seem entirely out of place; their equipment was old and water damage was an unfortunate reality. All it meant was that the mechanic had another job to do.
But Simmons could find nothing wrong with the machines. In fact, despite their age, he claimed that they should’ve been working just fine for a good long while more.
“I can’t explain it,” he’d said, scratching at his forehead with one of his wrenches as he stood across the desk from Sinclair. “There ain’t no parts missin.’ None of the wires are shorted. Should still be up, but it’s just… stopped. The entire thing must’ve crashed—I guess we’ll have to think about replacing it.”
But then, just six hours later, navigation was down as well. Their radar systems, which hadn’t malfunctioned so much as a tick in years, suddenly went blank—and with it, every other device that could’ve connected them to the outside world. None of their phones were working, including the satellite ones. Nearly every screen onboard just projected static. Every electrician, mechanic, and floor-hand banded together to find the source, but it was all for naught.
Two hours after the song began, the boat itself was the last to cease function. Adrift in the middle of the sea with no communication, navigation, or technology of any kind, the motors all died at the same time, and not one failsafe or safety measure could save it.
It was more than just a strange electrical fluke, or some kind of dumb luck. It was a targeted attack, and they were all prey to it.
One by one, day after day, the creature had stolen his crew. They’d each lived in terror until the song reached them—huddled together on the upper decks, saying their final prayers, hoping that they were safe from the beast below. But no one ever was. Once it’d gotten a taste, it was hungry for life.
           Come follow me, dear sailor,
           Forget everything that you know...
Tears sprung to the captain’s eyes as the song grew louder. It’d saved him for last, for reasons he couldn’t explain and didn’t wish to know. He’d fought the call for the longest out of anyone so far—though he’d seen his second-in-command, a scrawny but tough young thing named Parker, last for nearly a full day before he gave in. Bile burned in his throat as the ship tossed again and he gripped the railing harder, resisting the urge to let his feet carry him where he didn’t want to go. No matter how tempting that fiend’s song became, he couldn’t. He refused.
           In front of him, the ocean stretched endlessly. It’d always been a little unnerving to gaze out past the places their nets went under, just to see how vast and deceptively empty the water truly was. And now, in the dark, it appeared rightly as a boundless, hungry void, where not even the moonlight could penetrate the blackness of each waves’ space underneath. 
           You’d be so happy, my sailor,
           Without me, you’ve nowhere to go…
The captain’s muscles were wound so tight that it felt like they were going to snap. The song was rising louder now, and the lack of food, water, and sleep were making his head swim. Something needed to give. He needed to let go of the railing, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He didn’t trust himself to go in the right direction. Would he wrench himself to safety? Or would he just carry himself down where all the others had gone, down into the deep? 
           Come to me NOW my sailor,
           Follow me to the unknown!
          You need me, you feed me, my sailor…
A shock of lightning christened the air, and just moments later thunder rumbled uneasily, as if the sky itself could sense that the crescendo had finally arrived. The thing sounded more desperate now, more insistent. His stasis had come to an end, and a decision had to be made. Captain Sinclair could barely hear his own breaths anymore over the sounds of the wind and the rain and that goddamn song, burrowing its way in, taking over everything he ever was and anything he ever could’ve been—and yet, its voice was somehow still beautiful, still the most beautiful and tempting thing he’d ever heard in all his days. He was retching, reeling, gripping onto that railing for dear life as the boat rocked with the waves, the decks creaking and wailing out, and his heartbeat’s steady bassline had blurred together into one long pounding:
           … your soul we desire to own.
The next thing Captain Everett Sinclair felt was a shock of water, ice-cold against his feverish skin—and the second he touched the surface, he swam. He swam faster and more furiously than he ever had in his life, even back in the days where his joints and muscles weren’t stiff with age and time. Adrenaline and self-preservation were the only things keeping his system going, and nothing else. Behind him, the song morphed into a scream.
He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone before it all finally faded, leaving only the rush of the wind and the waves lapping at his frame. He turned to see Buttercup somewhere behind him, and from his position, he could just barely make out the windows in her bottommost hull.
Through the salt-stained glass, he could finally see it: the sight his sailors had confronted in their last moments on this Earth. It had a horrible, otherworldly gaunt face, with stringy black hair hanging down on either side. Its lips were still parted in a horrible shriek, and within them rows of dozens of sharp teeth lined its jaw. Its webbed, slimy hands pressed against the thick glass, clinging, like it was trying to reach the captain even now. But the worst part was that, no matter how far away he got, he could still see the pure, unfiltered wrath written all over its countenance.
Some eight days ago, that thing had come up through the vessel like a virus, and in doing so, it claimed the Buttercup as its first victim. The water was what everyone always warned them about: don’t sail off-course, don’t dock on the siren’s islands, and whatever you do, do not get lost at sea.
No one ever warned the captain to be afraid of the ship.
And he stared at this thing—the siren that’d nearly taken every single thing he had—and he simply laughed. He could think of nothing else to do.
“Not for the weak of mind,” he murmured to himself, a bit deliriously, as his dear Buttercup wandered astray forever in the stormy sea, “nor the faint of heart.”
And with that, he turned his old and starving body in toward the horizon, and did what he always had: he set a course, he took a breath, and he set himself free into the deep unknown.
Category:Beings