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falkberg · 6 years

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The Bluejacket V - Tidal Wave

Tales Beyond the Veil XII

Those who did not see the world for what it is, likely love to tell tall tales about relentless soldiers, valiant defenders and enemies that are the embodiment of evil. It is easy to talk about these things, as long as they are far away and bound in the thick leather covers of a book. In ink on paper, true evil exists and unconditional bravery defeats it. But that is not reality. On the stern of our ship, watching the Invincible sink and crash against the cliff sides our Port Stanley's shore, we were reduced to our most basic instincts, animals in the face of extinction. And in that moment, we glimpsed the true core of human nature, that is not self-preservation or arrogance, as many well-fed pessimists like to believe. But at the core, there was compassion, the profound need, and instinct to empathize with another human being. We were just as afraid and helpless as those on the ship that sunk before us. And fore valuable seconds, we could not bring ourselves to cut them loose.

These seconds cost at least ten sailors their lives, who were killed in an instant. With a noise like thundering echo, a cable snapped and lashed onto the deck as all the pulling force of both ships was suddenly released. It cut through their bodies like a knife, beating them down and back.

Further sounds of tearing threats scared the standing crews away. In droves, the sailors retreated from the aftermost deck. The smell of blood and death in the air provoked a sudden change in heart and discouraged by the snapping cable, nobody dared approach the winches. All but the quartermaster were thrown back, but he and his closest group of selected sailors remained, steadfast in his shadow against the raging seas. Not only did the Invicinble wrench the ropes, it also dragged us down and dangerously slow. Already one could easily see the waves seep over the deck's planks and the winches. Soon, it would reach our hatches and bulkheads, that would break under even more pressure. Time was running low. Voices from the other side, barely heard over the storm, sounded like orders or warnings. I fell to the floor instinctively, only to feel a gust of wind just behind my back. I did not realize how close I had been, until I heard the sudden slump of the quartermaster's body by my side. Struck by the cable light lightning, the man fell over, his shoulder, head, and face ripped apart. Blood mixed with the seas and stuck to my hands, my uniform and each and every breath I took. I held onto a rope that my fingers had found and slowly made my way closer to the rest of the crew. More cables snapped and an entire winch broke away, simply pulled out of its socket on the deck. It fell into the water with a sudden splash. My mind was racing, thinking about how to escape this travesty and the death, the death of comrades and friends. Then fire devoured the world.

I now know that the marching thing from the sea, the riving flood had been moving forward all the while and finally reached the bow of our ship. Limbs, towering high and crushing anything in their way, had come close with a giant's steps. When finally one hit our deck, it penetrated right through an armored turret and into the magazine. Somewhere underneath, pressure, heat, and concussions of the ship set off the powder pouches. The explosion ripped half the ship, the crew and the stepping tower apart. With the combined force of our arsenal, the fireball illuminated the sky and pushed us forward. Violently, all air left my body, my lungs collapsing under the sudden shock wave that flattened the sea all around for a split-second. Several layers of armor, walls and reinforced superstructure protected my body, and still, I felt a pop in my ears and how blood began running down the side of my head. But the most violent result of the explosion was the sudden push backward. Half of the Inflexible's hull was moved back towards the shore and crashed into Invincible with unprecedented force. Both hulls were crushed and deformed beyond recognition and all who had been aboard the Invincible's bow die either squashed or washed away by the sea. If the flagship had had any chance of survival before, her fate was now finally sealed, when the two hulls rammed into each other wand the entrails of both vessels were exposed. Had the Invincible's magazine not been already flooded and probably sunk to the floor, I can only imagine the explosion our crash would have caused. Instead, both vessels simply gave off a collective scream, formed of torn metal and all those souls aboard, suddenly extinguished by the explosion.

All of that was meaningless to me, for I had seen what the firestorm had illuminated in the split second of its ignition. For just one blink of an eye, the light had pierced through the fog and unveiled the mechanical monstrosity that had come from the sea, a myriad of clockworks and cogwheels, pistons and boilers, interconnected more thoroughly than the blood vessels in my own chest.

A pendulum swung above the world, its lowest point piercing the clouds. With each swing, the air was moved into a storm. With each step of the machines, the ground trembled and the ocean churned. With each turn of these wheels in the sky, the clockwork of the universe ticked one second closer to Armageddon. Nothing short of the end of worlds could be brought about by machines such as those that I saw, a soaring, marching city of engines and machinery, coronated with flowing banners and golden pikes on all mechanical limbs and peaks of forged metal.

From there on I ran, surrounded by destruction and rising water. I pulled on the uniforms of fallen comrades, dragged those standing with me and subconsciously took the post that the quartermaster last had held. I forced the initiative and gestured to those who could not hear just as myself. But even deaf from the blast, I screamed, yelling for anybody out there to join our flight, our retreat to the land, away from fire, flames and the burning tar-like mass that had been set ablaze by the ammunition's explosion. Everywhere I encountered dead bodies, tried to take those with me that had lost all life. But some sailors managed to follow, and even faster than me and dragged others with them. Many were injured, others miraculously unharmed, but none seemed to notice anything about themselves or their body. Their sole focus was to get away and get as much distance as possible between themselves and the marching machinery. We ran onto the stern of the ship, where all tethers had been shredded like paper. The deck itself crumbled where it had impacted with the Invincible's superstructure and from there, we jumped down onto the sinking flagship's deck. When I first felt the cold water in my boots, I knew that we had to get away faster. The Invincible was covered in black sleech and debris, both of which made it hard to move along. Even worse was the rising incline of the deck, as the ship slowly turned onto its side. Finally, we had to climb sideways to not be thrown off into the sea. Shortly after that, I found myself running on the ship's wall, jumping over portholes and ruptures in the hull, accompanied by a group of twenty sailors in tattered uniforms that looked nothing like the pride of the fleet that had left this very port mere hours ago. This surreal picture was burned into my mind so deeply, that it returned whenever I closed my eyes. It was a testament to our world being turned upside down, painted in the harsh contrast of black sea and red burning fires. Against the flames, the outline of my comrades seemed heroic and told nothing of their despair hidden beneath smoke and ash.

Underneath our feet, the erstwhile mighty warship sagged away, deeper into the mud that had been washed ashore by the never-ending waves. The black mass of seafloor already covered the land, conquering the land of the living in the name of sunken deities that had not been spoken of in millennia. I can tell you earnestly that I am not a superstitious man, but when the men all around began saying names of things they had old yarns about in the face of this marching apocalyptic machine, I could hardly disagree. Voices of drunk fishermen and comrades in arms that had told me about god's clockwork and the machinations of mad machine builders of ancient times reemerged from my memory. Mumbling and vague descriptions of a second Atlantis that had been spread throughout the Pacific isles came back into my mind. Walking through a stinking layer of slippery material, halfway living and halfway dead, I wished I had ever listened to these drunks and insane for long enough to hear the sweet or bitter end. Littered on the floor were creatures of the deep, some of them oddly familiar characters of some such yarns I had heard, others alien and unlike anything knew to mankind. The creatures, bloated and vile, had not been simply washed ashore. Their numbers were legion and stormed the landmass of the Falkland Isles with intent to conquer the lands of all living things. The churning sea was teeming with ungodly life that climbed over the sinking wrecks that had once been our battlecruisers. Passing us on their way towards land, the beasts flailed tails like whips, hacked at flesh with bloody talons and sunk their teeth into anything in their way. After only a few minutes of their flow, the crew was struggling to fight them off with knives and bayonets, hooks and bare hands. Pinched and bitten by the violent brood of the deep, we eventually reached the broken stern of Invincible, halfway buried in the sea. Even though the sea pushed us further with every wave, the ship's hull had already been entangled with boulders and the cliffs, only budging to the largest of waves. Shipmates of both vessels formed a loose half circle to fend off the encroaching horrors from below, while the rest gathered around the wounded and bleeding. From there, we watched how the front half of the Inflexible burned out completely, mauled by the marching extremities of machinery that slowly moved onward. The vessel kept on burning, even after the machinery had fully trapped it in a forest of metal rods and moving gears. The latter half of its armored hull first moved upward, defiantly rising from the sea a final time. Metallic limbs crashed down onto the hull, shedding armor plating away. For just a moment, it seemed as if the massive vessel's structure would deflect the crippling blow, but after just a split second, the walls gave way and burning coals spilled out from boilers ripped open. A geyser of steam and water rose where the fire fell and quickly obscured the view. The last I saw of the once mighty Inflexible, was the burning stern sinking, covered in the legions of black creatures storming toward land. n. With strained arms and dwindling strength, some of our crew held onto the dying, whose flesh had been torn down to the born. Compassion was helpless. Blood drained into the black water and only made them bait for more creatures to follow the metallic taste. Milky eyes stared back at those who aimed their last sharp knife against the sea. With our backs against the cliff, we awaited the certain end.

Until, that was, a sharp whistle cut through the smoke surrounding us. From the waves emerged a vessel of unfamiliar design. The small hull was elongated and sharp like a blade, its bow cutting through the waves and sleech with ease. Raw metal, polished steel and sturdily reinforced bars on deck gave the vessel the distinctive look of an experimental craft. The hull, painted in the distinctive stripes of naval camouflage, bore the insignia of the German Imperial Navy. And it approached our wreck so quickly, that all men braced themselves for imminent impact at once. Again, the whistle howled against the wind, as the armored boat rapidly turned to come alongside, scraping the battered hull of Inflexible with a distasteful noise. On any other occasion, the would have been an affront. Now, the vessel was greeted like the lord and savior himself, with men leaping forward to barely touch the freshly painted hull and get a hold of the narrow deck. Mustering what inspiration I had left from the Quartermaster's example, I raised my voice and called them back. If it was bravery, a sudden change of fate or merely the sound of a human voice, the effect was all the same. The sailors froze and regained somewhat of a military posture. With their training has taken over, they stood back and allowed for a quick view of the incoming vessel up close. On the narrow deck, I saw several contraptions that I assumed were metal cages for mines or depth charges of the sort. Perhaps this was to be a torpedo boat or only a quick courier. It didn't matter much now. Hastily, the German crews had stripped the vessel of all equipment not vitally necessary to fit more of the fleeing crew. The vessel was manned by at least two dozen men, holding on to every bit of hull they could, carefully balancing out the waves. They were armed with paddles and hooks, but propelled was the strange boat apparently by a roaring, naked main engine in the back, the only place where a bit of space had been left. A look at the flickering air taught me why. Hectic yells and shouts in two languages were exchanged between the British and German sailors. Neither understood the other side, but nevertheless, the situation was clear. The stranded would hold onto the boat and try to get on board at all costs. On the other side it was clear, that the boat would not hold them and even if they were to succeed, they were facing certain doom. With hand gestures and directing shouts, the sailors finally conveyed what they could to help us. The boat would not be able to carry anymore, but perhaps it's miracle engine would suffice to pull something on a tether. Our experience between the two mighty battlecruisers had made us reluctant towards that idea, but childish superstition had no place. Quickly, the crewmen scurried to ready whatever floating debris they could find.

There was no shortage of wooden planks, mast poles and life buoys so close to the wreckage. Even boats, still tied to the broken decks under water, had emerged from the depth from time to time. Many of them laid keel up in the water, others had been smashed against the cliff side, but faced with nothing else, the last sailors of the Inflexible demonstrated their resourcefulness and bravery. The truly difficult task was not finding potential floats for the German boat to pull, it was getting to them that proved to be the greatest challenge. The waves, the surging water, and cold salt were difficult enough, but more than ever were we besieged by creatures of the deep that awaited every opportunity to kill. Alone, not many of their warped and twisted specimen would have been any real danger. I saw glowing bits and pieces of little more than gelatin that convulsed between the waves. Small squid, as big as my hand, with giant eyes, transparent fish with long teeth as long as my thumb – they bit, they scratched, they stung with what they had, but after enduring this hell so long, their efforts peeled of the crew with no effect. Only a few, dangerous predators had found their way to us, but those took their victims quickly and were apparently content with a tribute to their deadly hunger, before leaving once again. A morbid thought occurred to me. Of course, they were not eager to get to us. By now, there was more than enough dead meat in the sea. My eyes met with those of a German officer in uniform, who stood at the bow of his curious tiny vessel and oversaw our efforts. His eyes nervously sought out the wreckage of Inflexible, where the machinery was inching forward at a wrenching pace. Perhaps its massive claws were eating away the island itself. Maybe it had slowed down to climb the ocean floor. Whatever it was, it did not stop the horror entirely. Our time ran out with every second and with every breath, the man was considering leaving us behind. But duty forced him to stay, duty and humanity, what was left of it in these times.

When finally a small group of boats and makeshift rafts had been assembled, precious minutes had gone by. The latter section of the Inflexible was gone, the hull of the Invincible trembled under oncoming footsteps of the metallic giants. The invasion of sea creatures had intensified so much that the sailors could not even come close to the water. Before the ocean could take more of us to a vermin-grave, ropes were fixed between the German boat and our floats. With a loud and biting whistle, the machinery aboard came to life and a hot burst of smoke was spewed into the air. A hefty jolt occurred, and suddenly, we were off the Invincible and onto the sea.

The engine of this experimental boat was chugging at an incredible pace and higher pitched than I had been accustomed to by British machinery. Carefully lifting my head in the fragile wooden longboat we were in, I could make out the steam engine that was tended to by two engineers with big, leather gloves and protective goggles. The two machinists were working tirelessly in a small and cramped compartment at the boat's stern, surrounded by sailors of the German cruiser squadron and many hands were helping to keep the machine afloat as best they could. Some had even managed to salvage a flag of sorts from the sinking vessel and now rose it above their head in utter defiance of this state of the world. And yet, despite their undoubted resilience, the efforts of the surviving sailors were inevitably bound to fail in the face of the encroaching, marching forces. Racing the waves was a futile endeavor and still, they pressed on. It was wondrous to me already that the survivors of the German Squadron had come so far in their flight and their bleak faces revealed that their ship had shared its faith with our Invincible. Now, there was no place to turn for our flight, with their boat being pressed between marching horrors of the ocean floor and the rugged cliffside of what had once been the Falkland Isles.

Covering on the creaking planks of invincible's salvaged longboat among my comrades in arms, tasting salt and iron on my lips, I reflected upon the impending end. The world had been shattered and what had transpired over hours before left me speechless even in my mind. I awaited panic or perhaps consolation, a great clarity during the last minutes of life, as I had imagined it before. But confronted with what I could only describe as the end of the world, my mind did not yield facing inevitable defeat. It, I, hung on to the last threads of life, however unpleasant, horrid and incomprehensible it had become. Every one second of it I would give up, not a single moment of this calamity. The prospect of existence ending and giving in to my death had become utterly unthinkable. In this view of our lives, I was not alone. And when the fog finally came, laying its tendrils around our necks and when the mouth of hellish machinery opened ready to swallow us whole, the last survivors on our few boats were not a group of frightened children, but much more akin primeval barbarians, clinging senselessly to every last bit of driftwood and life vest, weapon or paddle, whatever promised life to us the most. In one, collective scream we entered the maw of eldritch clockwork and peaked into the abyss of absolute in-existence.

Not until salty water washed over my face and I looked up to see a scythe cut through breaking waves with the vigor of gods did it dawn on me, that the forces that had shaken the earth itself to its core, took not the slightest sliver of interested in a few dozen survivors of meager humanity. The German boat danced on roiling waves like a cork, rising and falling, but not being broken by tides that were merely side effects of events of an entirely different dimension. We were swished aside like flies and as such, evaded the sudden fatal blow almost with ease, as none of the forces around us were truly chasing the tiny bit of metal and flesh that had once been the pride of two self-proclaimed mighty navies. The machine was around us. Crawling with creatures from the deep, black sleech and ghostly lights, the screeching machinery had surrounded us wholly. To every side, we could see wonders and horrors, things that should not have been and did not adhere to what humanity understood the world. Lightning dancing in transparent cylinders illuminated scenes that could have driven a man mad if his gaze lingered on them for too long. But we lived. In the midst all of this, we, humanity, rulers of the world and the seas, were met with nothing but deafening, uncaring indifference.

…

When my boat was detached from the tethers of the rest, I at first took no notice, distracted by a sudden panic caused when a kugelblitz fell from the sky, where humongous coils were charged with unimaginable energy. White orbs descended all around and vaporized water where they came in contact with the ocean. The white steam produced in shrieking geysers was imbued with the strange liveliness of the white fog we had observed before the surge had come. The solution to the mysterious nature of the white tendrils was little consolation to those who could not escape the spheres of blinding light burning through the walls of their wooden boats like paper. Some jumped into the water, only to be burnt by the sheer power surging throughout the waves. Others who held their ground were set ablaze from a meters distance, their hair smoldering all the while. The only salvation was a jump to another boat, trying to not let panic overtake. I fled, my instinctive self-preservation dictating swift action when I saw the lights drawing closer.

The most horrifying thing about these lights was their beauty, their hypnotizing shine that haunts my every thought to this day. It was too late to go back once I realized, that the broken raft I had landed on was drifting aimlessly further and further apart from the steamer. I could barely hold onto the drifting wood, much less move without risking to fall into the dangerous water. What followed was blackness, intersected with blasts of white light from above, when a discharge filled the sky with thunder and the crackling of static electricity made my hairs stand up straight, prickling on my skin. I did not bother to open my eyes and see what I would not understand. I do not know for how long I lost my consciousness after that. In fact, for the longest time, I was not reassured that I have truly awakened on the shores of this island, where the black sleech did not reach quite yet. But I did stand up from the wreckage that had been washed ashore, where once the long march had met the palace hill. And I walked that path to the governor's door.

…

The suspicious Bluejacket stood still for a moment, words still stuck on his lips after he had ended his story. He opened his mouth silently a few times, before finally regaining his voice. “I knew”, he remarked “that it was only a question of time until the black sleech would come. The mist, the fog, the marching outside. I have heard it before. I cannot tell you more than this: If it had any interest in destroying me, it would have done so already. Either this is eternal torment or a farce in which mankind plays little role.”

His final words were not written down by the chronicler, who swiftly rolled up his pages and handed them to the sailor, who sat defeated at the wall, his head hanging down. The crested head of the creature tilted slowly forwards, as it moved its body in eerie elegance. Bystanders watched, no longer captured by the story the man had brought forward, as if he was no longer one among them. The sergeant in blue alone came forward, released from the spell that enthralled all those whose story had not yet been written and kept for posterity. After having seen the new world, little fear was left in the man that had now the satisfaction of knowing the truth in what his mind had doubted all along. He understood what the bluejacket had seen, for he had seen it in much a similar way. Together they rose and stood before the chronicler, who slowly turned around, now flanked by the two humans that had given their stories and something else to the new power that would reign the world. The remaining guests were taken aback at first, but it was not long until a third one came forward, compelled to share what had been haunting them for so long.

#Tales #Beyond the Veil #lovecraftian #horror #story

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