THE CHARRED SEA

by Barry Charman

They had been children when first they left.

 Leaning over the side of the ship, Jerome wearily jabbed at a black chunk of water that was coming too close. Una was on watch, she’d seen them approaching. He stabbed with a spike until it broke up, then paused to study the view. In the distance, the sun was rising over the brutalised horizon.

 This sea had had a name once. 

 He frowned as he tried to pull it up through the currents of his mind.

 “Jerome.” Una was at his side, “You’re daydreaming.”

 “Watching the sun.” He smiled tiredly then looked around, as he did each morning. There were no other ships, hadn’t been any more in years. Above them, their black sails fluttered.

“Today we’ll reach it, you’ll see.” The old words used to have some feeling to them. Una would scowl, but he knew she appreciated the determination. These days she made sure she’d moved on before he said anything. As if to spare them both her reaction.

 But this morning she was still there, staring ahead into space. Jerome studied her profile. All his life he’d watched her stare at the sea, and watched it give nothing back. As far as he knew those eyes were the only blue left in the world. 

 Beneath them, The Reckoning rocked with the lurch of that world. Once, Jerome had thought about jumping over the side, but water didn’t drown you anymore. It carried you away, and he often had nightmares about where to. 

 The sea is broken, boy. The thing broke it. The thing out there. You have to find it, kill it however you can. It is spewing death into the world…

 He remembered the words, but they grew dimmer each year.  

 They would have found it by now, as long as they’d sailed. Below deck, Fletcher was still studying the charts. He poured over them daily, trying to understand how the currents had changed, how they’d altered their course. Over the years they’d come to realise they had no way to change direction. All they could do was hope, someday, somehow, that they would arrive at the end of the world.

 He watched Una as she contemplated the horizon.

 “We’ve wasted our lives,” he said. 

 She didn’t turn to him, but for a second he felt her hand brush his. He was afraid she would nod, and confirm all of his fears. He didn’t know how he’d react to that, so he turned away from her and resumed stabbing the sea. 

###

Lying in his bunk, Jerome felt The Reckoning sway beneath him. He was weary, but sometimes that wasn’t enough for sleep. Perhaps they’d hit a large chunk of water and come to rest, then tomorrow they could spend their time cutting it up. At least then they’d have some purpose to the day. Some point to getting up. 

 “Jerome?” Billy’s whispery voice drifted down from the bunk above.

 “Go to sleep, Billy.”

 “Can you remember birds?”

 Jerome closed his eyes, in no mood for one of Billy’s conversations. Too often they had no beginning and no end. 

 “Jerome?”

 He sighed. “No.”

 “I think I dreamt of birdsong last night. Think I’ll dream it again?”

 How was he supposed to answer that? “Sure.”

 “Do you remember it? I mean, if you dreamt it, would you know it? Or do you think it would be something else, something desperate? Like the… shape of a memory. As if there was nothing really there…”

 Jerome turned his face to the wall. “It doesn’t matter.”

 “Doesn’t it?” Billy was quiet for a moment. “Guess you’re right.”

 Whenever he talked to Billy like this, he was always left with some faint impression, some echo or doubt. 

 Some apprehension of dreams to come. 

###

Billy had once pointed out Jerome’s bunk was the dimensions of a coffin, and he’d never forgotten it. Each morning he woke, tangled in his blankets, sweat all over him. He dimly remembered that people used to be afraid of being buried alive. His fear was even more irrational than theirs. There were no coffins on the ship, no earth to be buried under. Instead, they cast bodies into the charred sea, wrapped up in sheets. He would think of those blank faces, the fabric masks, as they bobbed on the surface. Sometimes the sea parted and they slipped away, sometimes they stayed where they were dropped. He imagined them floating, gagging, forever.  

 Jerome woke once with his pillow in his mouth and almost screamed. 

 He stared up at the faded photographs pinned below the bunk above him. A long-forgotten family beamed from one in the centre. One of the few things he remembered was asking why he had to go. 

 Only the young will save us. 

 This meant they’d be dead by now. 

 We’ll be waiting for you. Your mother and I. We’re so proud…

 He thought of the drawing he kept carefully preserved in the old box beneath his bed. Though he hadn’t looked at it in some time, it always comforted him to know it was there. A green land and a blue sky were preserved forever in a child’s scrawl. Even though there were faint patches dappled with a boy’s tears… 

 An old emotion pressed against the side of his skull. He turned to bury his face in his pillow, remembering suddenly why the box had been locked for so long.

###

The next morning Jerome stood on the deck with his shirt off, washing from a bucket of densely re-filtered water. He stared as the mutilated sea around him ebbed and cracked. 

 Una appeared to tell him Martha was still sick. He just nodded, there was little to be said. When she left them, there would only be eight of them left. He tried not to think how much time they all had. The thought that they would just dwindle until only one of them remained, that this could end with them never even glimpsing their destination…

A lilting voice carried up from below deck. Piper didn’t sing that often, sometimes the mood took her. They listened for a while, then Una went down without another word. Jerome listened until his mind needed something else to latch onto. He fetched some clothes from the storeroom, kicked a crate on its side, and sat down. Going through all his rags, he tried to darn them for the hundredth time. One sock was just a giant patchwork of stitches and discoloured joins. 

 He was staring at the smallest rip when Billy and Tom's bickering went up a notch. They were behind him, leaning over the port side, jabbing at coagulated heaps that were ebbing too close. 

 “I’m under fifty, it’s obvious.”

 “Keep telling yourself that.”

 None of them had kept tab over the years. Jerome smiled, he had no idea how old he was now. Billy knew he was the youngest, and kept pushing his age down whenever it came up. 

 “Look, your skin’s like seaweed, Tom. Come on, you must be pushing seventy.”

 “Seventy?”

 “At least, mate.”

 Jerome’s smile grew at the volume of outrage Tom mustered. The two argued like brothers. It made him think of his own brother, just a baby when he’d left. He thought of all the arguments they'd never had…

 Closing his eyes, he listened to the rock of the ship, the thud of the water. Behind him, Tom raised his voice and Billy laughed. 

 They were his brothers now. 

###

 After the others went down, Jerome sat alone. Concentrating on the horizon, he looked for a rock, or a ship, a hint of land, anything. Last month they’d passed a vessel that had been tangled in a broken tide. They were able to drift past and board briefly. The crew had been long dead, a single body was lying in a cabin. Jerome had turned its face, hoping to find a smile at least, some hint of peace preserved there, but the flesh had been picked clean by whatever creatures were left. A bone grin remained, some perversion of the sad mask they’d undoubtedly lived with. 

 He imagined them, clinging to purpose until their final breath. 

 Did he really want to see anything? What could they find that would be worth it? Sometimes he wondered what he’d do if he saw some great rock jutting out of the water. Would he call below, or bite his lip? Visualising that rock, coming closer and closer, filled him with the oddest calm. 

 Peace came in many forms, he supposed. 

 He heard heavy feet, and Billy’s head appeared at the top of the steps. He grinned at Jerome, then pulled himself up. “How’s it looking?” he asked, as always. 

 Jerome ignored him. 

 He tried not to watch as Billy performed his rituals, going around the deck, checking his nets, poking through slabs of water. Sometimes he caught a fish. In the beginning, he’d been the only one who’d eat them, but they soon realised they’d run out of food without them. For years now they’d lived off of whatever flourished in the sea, an irony that never lost its grip on them. 

 Billy hauled a net on to the deck, something was flailing weakly around inside. He stooped over it, mumbling to himself, before knocking the fish inside against a post. It stopped moving. 

 “We get to live a little longer, how about that?” He joked his old joke, darting Jerome a sour grin. Denial was as much part of his routine as anything else. 

 Billy walked to the bow and peered out as the sea frothed in endless blackened chunks. They never saw anything clear these days. The poison was slick all around, its touch and pollution were all that remained. One day, Jerome thought, the sea would harden altogether, becoming one black mass of land. Death would roll over the world, drowning it in filth. 

 They could rest, then. 

 He closed his heavy eyes, enjoying the salty air, the rush of wind, the thoughts of peace. 

 “Jerome!”

 His eyes shot open. Billy was still standing at the bow, pointing. “What’s that?”

 Jerome slowly got to his feet and walked over. There was a dense dark mass in the distance. The day was still young, but grey clouds had rolled in around them, and a low mist had cost them visibility. 

 Was it land? They hadn’t found land in years. The last time they had, Martin had forbidden them from leaving the ship. The mission was the mission, he’d said. It was their purpose. 

 Martin was meant to be their leader. He’d been the oldest of them, the biggest, the strongest. They’d lowered him down after a lengthy sickness, but thought of him often. 

 “Land?” Jerome asked. If it wasn’t…

 They watched as they drifted on a struggling current, getting slowly closer and closer. The mist thinned, the sun began to break through. Jerome sheltered his eyes against the sudden stabbing glare of the light, then he saw it. 

 The end of the world. 

 Billy hurried down to rouse the others. Jerome heard Una shouting, she didn’t believe him. “Una,” Jerome called, “come up.”

 She was silenced immediately. Sometimes Billy saw strange shadows play on the water, and he made them out to be many things. He played the fool, but no one indulged him. 

 Una clambered up the steps. She shielded her eyes and grimaced. “What is it?”

 He turned to her and shook his head. 

 The others quickly joined them, assembling by the bow. Jerome heard their exclamations, their fear, joy, and everything in between. 

 Piper pulled out her old weathered eyeglass and studied what was in their path. Jerome felt his heart thudding while he waited for her to speak. 

 Slowly, she lowered it. “It’s not land.”

 Neither land nor sea. It could only be the other. 

 They knew the creature slept at the end of the wastes—the end or the beginning—its mouth was open, spewing rot into the water. It had only woken once. The day the world ended.

 Other boats had left before them. Jerome wondered if any had made it this far, while he gripped the rail until his hands turned white. After all these years… They had crossed the charred sea and found its end. 

 They had arrived. 

 For a long time, all any of them could do was stare. The Reckoning rocked idly, the sails fluttered quietly above them. Ahead, the creature rose out of the water, half-submerged, some bleak hunched shape. Some vast nightmare they had crossed a world to see but had come to think unreachable. Jerome made himself snap out of it, he turned sharply to the others. 

 “We’re here.” His voice jolted them, they looked at him. “We know what we have to do.” The words felt hollow, but that fact had always been there, waiting listlessly in his mouth.

 Looking at them, he found the same shock that he knew was frozen on his face. Billy’s mouth was hanging open. Piper was shaking her head, unable to accept what she was seeing. The others were already staring back at the creature as if seeking reassurance it was really there. 

 Una broke away and hurried back below deck. Jerome knew what she would be doing. Even after all these years, she still studied the black scrolls. Often he’d gone past her cabin and saw one open on a table. Martin had poured over them when they’d first started, but since he’d gone she’d felt the need to learn anything he would have known. 

 Simply, the scrolls told them to reach the end of the world, and what to do next. 

###

When he found her she was sitting in her cabin, staring at the scrolls, still rolled up and bound on her table. “Una?”

 She didn’t look up. “It’s real.”

 “...Yes.” 

 Neither of them could say any more. It was out there, and they were drifting closer. What was it, and what were they meant to do? These were two questions so old, they’d stopped asking them. The reality, the scale, of what was ahead, could not be untangled from their imaginations. 

 “I didn’t ever think…” Jerome began, lamely, “didn’t ever think we’d make it. You know…?”

 She snorted. “What do you think happens now?”

 He stared at her, helpless. “What do the scrolls say?”

 Una still wouldn’t look at him. She stared into space, while a smile that was more of a sneer tugged down at her lips. “The scrolls say we should have got here years ago, and we should have been one crew of many. We should be young. We should be ready. The scrolls say we’re about to die.”

 She looked at him, then. Her face was strained. She was afraid, she had realised that she wasn’t ready to die.

 “How do we kill it?” he asked.

 “How…? With more than one harpoon, that’s how.”

 He watched her for a moment, then he nodded and walked to his cabin. He sat on his bunk and stared numbly at the floor.  

 The Reckoning could fire one harpoon at a time. It was a ponderous weapon, heavy, slow. Often he’d looked at it, wondering. When he was younger he’d smiled, thinking how easily they would destroy the creature. How glorious their homecoming would be. Only later had he began to wonder how. How was one weapon supposed to make any difference?

 He lay down on the bunk and tried desperately to stop thinking.

###

The Reckoning was becalmed in the polluted water. As he lay, Jerome heard Billy stabbing at the sea as it grew dense and thick around them. He wondered if the creature were asleep or dead, or if there was any way to tell? There had been no eyes that he saw, nothing he could truly make sense of. The thing had just looked curled up around itself, unaware, uncaring. 

 If it was dead, would the world have ended sooner?

 He noticed Paige standing in his doorway. She looked jittery, her eyes were moving quickly, unable to settle. “What are we supposed to do?”

 “Kill it.”

 “Can we?”

 They’d had this conversation before, though he couldn’t remember the last time. Those arguments and discussions felt unreal now. They were old, and the ship was battered. Even if they somehow completed their task, what then? 

 “Tom wants to send the rowboat.” 

 Jerome rubbed his face. Tom was always the impetuous one. Even though they’d been travelling here for most of their lives, now they’d arrived he couldn’t wait any longer. “What does he want to do?”

 “He thinks we should see where it’s vulnerable.”

 Jerome laughed. “Vulnerable.”

 “I want to go. I want to study it, see what it is.”

 “Study it?”

 There was an edge in her voice. “What is it, Jerome? Where did it come from? Don’t you want to know, after all this time?”

 Where? It came from below. The unholy depths. 

 He didn’t say as much, just nodded. They would get in their small rowboat and cross to the creature, see the thing that had taken their world. 

 See their impossible task up close. What else was there? 

###

Night fell on the mountain of flesh. Jerome lit a torch and hung it over the bow. The shape of the immense creature beyond was picked out in the dim light. He sat and watched. 

 Behind him, he heard Tom and Fletcher carving wooden spikes. They wouldn’t be able to make many, but it kept them busy. Billy was below deck, laughing. He’d made dinner and they’d all sat together. Una had them all holding hands in silence. Perhaps she’d meant to say something, reserved some little speech for such a time as this, but words seemed to fail her. Next to her, Paige had winced, as if her hand was being gripped too tight. 

 They’d ended up eating in silence, chewing their fish quietly while they tried not to think about where they were, and what had brought them here. 

 Piper had gone to check on Martha, only to find she’d passed. “I told her. I thought she’d be relieved. But I don’t think it helped,” she murmured. 

 They wrapped her up, but they wouldn’t throw her over, not yet. Not here.

 Tom dropped some spikes down next to Jerome, rousing him from his thoughts. “Four each,” he muttered, “think we’ll get close enough to hurt it?”

 Hurt it? They would be fleas on its back. Jerome shrugged. The creature had slept so long, nothing was going to wake it now, certainly not their presence. 

 There was little they could do to make it care. 

###

The next morning they were all up early, eating breakfast while the ship swayed gently and the sun crawled towards the sky.

 Jerome, Paige, Tom, and Fletcher carried spikes to the rowboat and dropped them in. They went to the bow and stared at the beast through the early mist. There was little sense that it was alive. It was all coiled around itself. There was something slightly separate to the main shape, it might have been a limb or a tail. 

 All anyone had ever known of the creature came from the early sightings, back when man crossed the air. They had relayed and explained; a vast form had come up from beneath the water and spilled diseased venom into the world. It screamed fire at anything in the air and devoured anything in its path. For a year it had crossed the oceans, gagging bile as it went, before seemingly coming to rest. 

 They fired weapons at it from across the world. It had devoured them like everything else. 

 In the end, they sent the children to kill it. No one else could survive the journey. 

 Jerome wondered if anyone was waiting for them, back in the town he barely remembered? Or if people told stories about them, or had forgotten them after they’d sailed away? Even if they could kill it, end its pollution, would anyone ever know? Or care?

 As they lowered the boat, Fletcher leaned close and whispered to him. “Don’t you think we could just go round it?”

 Jerome aborted a laugh. “And go where?”

 “…Wherever there is.”

 Jerome patted him once on the back, a gesture that meant whatever it meant. He didn’t know what else to offer the moment, other than a brief, almost sympathetic acknowledgement that they were damned to this, and always had been.

###

Once the boat settled in the rocky water, Jerome followed Tom, Fletcher, and Paige, and climbed down. They’d already lowered Billy to start stabbing, now the boat was floating in a dissolved bed of ruined material. They proceeded to cut it free. Probably they’d spend most of the day cutting their way to the creature. Their progress would be painfully slow, as it always had been. 

Reaching a small distance, Jerome paused working to study The Reckoning. Some thrown-together repurposed Schooner, two ragged sails, wood deeply lacquered with properties devised to keep the waters rot at bay. Una stood proud by the wheel, while the rigging whipped in the wind above her. So much of the ship had been reworked and replaced at some time or another, he wondered if it were even the same vessel they’d begun with. Somehow, it had survived everything thrown at it.

 Turning to their destination, he looked over Paige’s shoulder and fixed on a point between what he realised were two unfurled tentacles. There was a flat area that it looked like they could disembark on. 

 Tom and Fletcher stabbed ceaselessly, breaking matter away from them in fetid black chunks. The second they disintegrated, a corrosive smell struck them. 

 “Jesus,” Tom muttered. “We should be careful, I mean, this is where it all began.”

 Jerome glanced around. Was the rot still spilling? The surface around them didn’t seem any darker or filthier than any other they’d seen. Maybe it had ended, in which case... Would killing it even make a difference? Perhaps they needed to make it dive, go back where it came from. 

 “Killing it might be meaningless,” he said, “its corpse might cause even more damage than it is now.”

 Paige gave him a sharp look. “It’s killing the world.” Her voice was laced with as much venom as the creature was spilling. “It has to die. What if it wakes, what happens then?”

 There was no answer to that, he knew. 

 They angled the boat as close to the ridge as they could, then Tom and Fletcher jumped out, pulling it carefully out of the water. Jerome stood up and paused. Staring at the grey matter around him, he realised this would be the first ground he’d stood on

that wasn’t man-made for as long as he could remember. He climbed out and helped Paige after him. They stood and wondered what to do next. 

 There was a stench on the wind that had always been there, but it hit them harder now than it ever had before. Jerome got to his knees and brushed the ground. It was hard and calloused, much like stone. He doubted any harpoon or spike could hurt this thing, let alone injure it. Whatever it was, it didn't belong here, and it didn't care. 

Standing, he paused to stare at the faint, yet grotesque, impression his wet footprint left on the rough charcoal hide. The creature had left its own print on the world. Jerome’s felt small, insignificant. 

 “We should look around.” He knew instantly there was no point to any of this. They would search the area, and all of them would reach the conclusion he had just arrived at. Then they would return to the ship, where they’d have to live with having wasted their entire lives. 

 “Sure looks tough,” Tom said, nudging the ground with his foot. 

 “There’s a weak point,” Paige said. “Has to be.”

 There was a crack of doubt already growing in her voice. All their lives had brought them here, this sum of worthless days. 

 Jerome said nothing. He threw down his spear and simply walked away. The others called out his name, but that meant nothing. He saw a ridge ahead and climbed up it, working slowly as he did. He pulled himself up and turned to look around. The flesh rolled away around him as far as he could see. There was no movement, no cracks, no way through the endless skin. 

 He nodded. 

 After a moment, he decided to simply keep walking. There were other ridges, areas he could climb, some drops. But nowhere he went could he find a point they could attack. Surely somewhere there had to be an eye, a mouth?

 He walked until he wondered if the others would worry, and then found a dark cavernous area appearing in the distance ahead of him. A recess of darkness that looked like a wound torn into the land around it. 

It was a gill. 

 He saw an area near him curve away towards a drop, and heard a rushing sound. Getting as close as he dared to the looming edge, Jerome looked down. Far below, there was a passage of water rushing past. 

 A black river. 

###

He made his way back to the boat. The others had also wandered and returned. They seemed sullen. 

 “Find anything?” Tom asked, barely looking up. Clearly, their walk had only made their objective seem further out of reach. 

 Jerome hesitated. Couldn’t they just get back in The Reckoning, sail back the way they’d come? Wasn’t there somewhere else?

 “Maybe...” He was wondering what to say when the ground beneath them shifted slightly. 

 All of them froze. Panicked, Tom opened his mouth to speak, and Paige threw up a hand to silence him. 

 They listened. 

 Did it know? Could it feel them? 

 Jerome was wondering how quickly they could row away when the world tilted under them. There was a deep cracking sound, and then something came loose from the water, rising high up into the air. It was a nauseatingly slick tentacle, leisurely uncurling as if the sun had caught it and it wanted to touch the heat. 

 They were all gawping at this grotesque spectacle. Jerome shook himself. “We should leave-”

 But it was too late. The ground heaved, and the tentacle suddenly lashed back into the thick churning water with a violent impact. 

 Jerome was flung to the ground, he saw Paige and Fletcher fall and roll. Tom dived into the boat, hoping to find some stability there. The force of the tentacle caused chunks of altered water to fly up. The hideous ossified matter impacted all around them in loose clumps. The boat was struck and Tom cried out. In the distance, someone else was shouting, but Jerome couldn’t make out what. He lay curled in a foetal position just waiting for it all to stop. 

 Some dim withdrawn part of him wanted to laugh. It was madness. Everything they were supposed to achieve, everyone they were meant to save. What a waste. What a foolish waste. They deserved this. 

 The slimy filth-engorged tentacle thrashed above the water for a while, then it slowly, lazily, slipped back under the surface. Had it even known they were there? Had it lashed out, or was it merely stretching? 

 Laughing where he lay, Jerome doubted it mattered. 

 After a while, he became aware of Fletcher standing over him. He opened his eyes, and they looked at each other. Jerome felt all of his years as he slowly got to his knees, looking about for the others. 

 The boat had been violently struck and was lying on its side. Jerome looked to the other man, and Fletcher shook his head. 

 “Paige?”

 Fletcher walked away. He went to the edge of the “land,” and stared out across the water. Pointlessly, Jerome called out her name a few times, but Paige never answered. He stopped soon thereafter, knowing she never would. 

###

They managed to right the boat and clambered wearily back inside. It was seaworthy, just about. 

 Most of the spikes had been lost. Fletcher asked if they should look for them, but Jerome’s laughter was more than he could bear. In the end, they pushed themselves back into the water and rowed without talking. 

 The sun was getting low as The Reckoning came back into sight. The sky looked as mournful as the sea, it was not the first time Jerome had observed the phenomenon.

 Una was at the bow when they first came in sight, she disappeared for a moment, and then the others were there to watch them return. 

 A rope was lowered, and they secured themselves, before slowly climbing up. Una’s face loomed above them, she was counting heads, but her eyes had already absorbed the number. 

 His feet hit the deck with a hollow sound that he felt echoed all around them. Jerome looked up, Una and the others looked pale. “…Pointless,” he said. He searched for something else, but could only shake his head. He walked off while Fletcher tried to find more words.

###

Piper was crying. 

 Jerome pulled his blankets around him, his own sounds were muffled. He could hear Jane make comforting sounds somewhere nearby, but the sobbing didn’t lessen. 

On the deck Billy was pacing angrily. If he strained he could hear him stabbing at the sea. Una and Fletcher were talking in her cabin. He was probably telling her his impressions, his observations. Jerome wondered if she were writing it all down somewhere. 

 There was only six of them left. 

 For a moment, he tried to recall how many of them there had been at the beginning, but he’d never managed it. He always made himself stop, and this time was no different. 

 Six… 

 Why had they come here?

 Haunted by this question, Jerome reached under his bunk and dug out his box. Battered, tin. Uncaressed. He found his old drawings, and gazed until he felt something well up inside. He found himself going through his bundle of old diaries. He’d kept many when they’d first set out. It had felt important then.

 Jerome went to one of the last entries. It must have been ten or more years ago. He’d stopped when he realised he wasn’t recording the mission any more, but the memories he’d left behind.  

 He took a deep breath and read. 

###

Thought of mother again. Red hair, I think, like Piper’s. (Or did I get that from Piper?) She’s standing on a pier, waving. She stops, turns to father and buries her face in his chest. I turn away, embarrassed. Doesn’t she know we’re heroes? Martin makes me stand there and watch them. I was angry with him. Years later, (Ten? Twenty?) I thanked him. He didn’t remember.

 My father had a beard, black. My mother had white pearl earrings. She threw them away because they’d “come from the sea.” Despite that, I caught her once listening to a sea shell, a sad pretty smile on her face. I didn’t let her know I’d seen. I loved her. 

Jerome let a page fall open at random, wanting to read something from long ago.

Don’t remember the day they told me. Just them sitting me down, faces so pale I thought maybe our dog had died. Something came up in the sea, they said. People were saying it must be very old, ancient. It’s making the water sick, and the water’s making people sick. I remember we had fish for supper, which no one ate. Mother cried later, father didn’t know what to say to her. I’d never been so scared.

###

He could have read more but knew he shouldn’t. There was so much about his mother, so many unfinished thoughts-

 Jerome let it go and put the diaries back in the box. 

 They had left as heroes. They had come to save the world. He wanted to laugh, but it wasn't in him anymore. 

Eventually, the weeping that carried through the cabins abated. It felt wrong to isolate himself, selfish, so Jerome got up and walked to the galley. Billy was sitting with Una. She was shaking her head. Jerome paused in the doorway while she talked. 

 “…no point. We can’t even go back, we’d never make it. Do you think we could make it anywhere?”

 Billy murmured something uncertain.

 Una hung her head. “We could use up the harpoons. Just so we know we did everything we could. No one could blame us for not doing any more. There is no more.”

 Her fingers drummed listlessly on the tabletop. Billy reached out and she froze, his rough calloused hand patted hers. Neither looked at the other. 

 Watching them, Jerome saw their sacrifices. He thought often of the life he might have lived if he’d never been put on this mission, he couldn’t even remember if he’d had a choice. If they turned back or tried some other way of life before they died, there would have been no point to their years at sea, no point to everything they’d lost. 

 It would be like wasting their lives all over again. 

 He walked into the galley and nodded at them. Billy quickly pulled his hand away, and Jerome acted as if he hadn’t noticed. He took a mug from the shelf and filled it with red water. Billy had fermented a drink over the years that they kept stoppered for times like this. The long nights. 

 The hard nights. 

 He sat with them and drank. “There was an opening,” he said, “a gill, or something. Might be we could sail into it.”

 Una frowned. “Sail…? What good would that do?” She’d been emptied, he saw. All that fire she’d carried for the entire journey had dimmed completely.

 Jerome sighed, then pointed at Billy. “Tell her about your hidden cache.”

 She looked quizzical, while Billy winced. “Remember those chunks we’ve been passing the last few months? Blackened-red, real strange water. Well, I’ve been storing some below deck.”

 Una gaped. “Paige said it stank, the fumes told her it was flammable.”

 Billy scratched his head. “Yeah, she said it might be explosive, so I kept some, just in case.”

 She looked angry, but that gave way to something thoughtful. “So… we kill it from inside?”

 Jerome shrugged. “Maybe. We came here to try, didn’t we? Paige and Tom just died for nothing. Might be all we did was come here to die. But is that it? That all our lives were meant for? We’ve got to hurt this thing, at least.” Looking down at his lined hands, he felt it all well up inside him but fought any crack that might enter his voice. “All our lives… for what?”

 He couldn’t say any more. Billy was nodding. Una sighed, like she felt the worth of their lives was coming to a head. Everything had led to this, and it loomed like the creature outside, vast and unavoidable. 

 But a death on their terms beat the life that wasn’t. 

###

Fletcher and Billy worked on the sails, while Jerome and Una carefully carried the chunks of liquid up from the hold. Wrapped in cloth, they put them down on the deck while Piper, reading through Paige’s notes watched. 

 Jane was at the bow, probably wondering how long it would take them to cut their way forward.

 Una unwrapped one of the packages and quickly turned her head away, heaving. She wrapped it up again quickly and looked questioningly at Piper. 

 “She didn’t know what they were made of. Some mineral. Possibly residue of something from the creature. She thought they might be of use, but far too dangerous to handle.”

 Una darted Billy a look but didn’t say anything. 

 She wanted them to at least try the water first, see if it reacted the way they hoped it would. So she, Billy and Jerome took some of it out in the rowboat and used spikes to make a passage far away from The Reckoning and the beast. 

 Jerome watched them disembark. They clambered cautiously over the most hardened crust-like water, found a spot, then kneeled and cut into the surface. Billy shoved a package into the shallow hole he’d made, then they hurried back to the boat. Billy had rigged up a small fuse and lit it, now Jerome started rowing them away.

 They got to what they hoped was a clear distance and waited. 

 Half a minute went by, and then a huge fiery plume burst out of the hole. Flames flickered high, before faltering in the air. The eruption made them all duck for cover, while shards crashed violently all around them. 

 Billy was chuckling to himself. Jerome just looked at Una, she nodded. Resigned to the shape of their death. 

###

They stabbed the water to prepare their way, then unfurled the sails. The Reckoning set its course and sailed around the creature until Jerome pointed out the stretch of water that led towards the gill. The Reckoning shuddered as it slowly turned and entered the narrow passage. 

 At the bow, Billy and Fletcher frantically hacked at the water, chunks of which were being pulled by a current that made them quicken their pace. 

 “We don’t know what we’re heading towards!” Una shouted. 

 Jerome grabbed a tight hold of the rail as he felt the ship surge beneath him. He tried not to panic as he felt them lose control. They had no idea what they would find inside. 

 He looked over the deck, they were sailing down a rank river. Ahead of them, the gaping darkness of the gill loomed ominously into view, like a giant abysmal mouth.

 Beneath them, the water, or whatever it was now, was surging and pulsing like lifeblood. The stench was unbelievable. 

 Soon they reached the gill’s opening. It arrived like some terrifying tear in the sky, an uncaring blasphemy content to spew death upon them. They passed through and everything was abruptly consumed with darkness. They crossed some vile veil or membrane, and the water pushed them forward inside a cavernous tunnel. The air was brackish and foul. The others joined Jerome at the bow with cloths over their mouths. 

 All around them walls closed in like a grim pulsating nightmare. 

 Piper was muttering to herself. “…must be some organ, could be the heart, something vital if it’s pumping this fast…”

 Jerome bit down on his lip, saying nothing as the wretched water pulled them on. The sails fluttered violently above, straining as the strange airflow applied unnatural pressure. He tried to think of some way they could have done this and survived. Perhaps if they’d used the rowboat, but it would have stood no chance against this current. 

 They drifted on. The air was coarse, most of the others remained below deck, while Jerome and Billy kept watch. They would arrive at something sooner or later, surely?

 It was another world. The river below was black, flecked with shards of material coughed up from some dark intestine. Lurid lights flickered on the walls, that spoke of some inner pulse. Jerome imagined the creature tumbling in the depths, spinning round and round... 

 He tried to feel some awe, after all, no one could have ever seen this before. But this was the thing that cast a shadow over the world; all he could see was that darkness.

 No. There was movement. 

 “Oh Lord!” Jerome stumbled back, his feet tripped over some rope and he fell to the deck. Billy glanced over at him, a bemused smile forming on his face. Jerome caught him with a wild look, and the smile froze. 

 Jerome pointed. 

 Billy followed the finger and saw the things that were trying to pull themselves onto the ship. He screamed something inarticulate and lunged for one of the spikes, knocking the intruders back wildly while Jerome clawed his way back to his feet. 

 He grabbed another spike and joined him. Were these things natural? He couldn’t remember. They looked something like crabs, but he didn’t remember them being this big. Pincers clacked agitatedly as they pulled themselves over the side. 

 Billy cried out for help, and the others quickly clambered up the stairs. Creatures were now falling on the deck from somewhere above them. There were other things as well, writhing forms that pulsated with neon insides. Jerome could only see them when they flailed and glowed sickly, then he trod on them as sharply as he could. 

 Did these live inside the beast? Had they been pulled in, perhaps altered through some unnatural process? Or had it brought them up with it?

 Something lunged at him from the darkness. It had an eel’s body, but the appendages of a spider. Though these animals were dim in his memory, he knew they didn’t belong together. 

 He thrashed at anything that got close, from the corner of his eye he saw Piper and Fletcher throw a net across something and bundle it over the side. Una was shouting at them not to throw over anything they’d killed, she was probably wondering if they could eat them; always practical. 

 Jane fell as something thudded into her from above. A tail coiled around her throat and she cried out. Jerome staggered over and knocked the thing away. It fell in a corner, dazed. She pulled herself to her feet, then went over to the creature and stamped on it angrily. 

 Something screeched in the dark above, then they heard splashing sounds as if the things were fleeing. Jerome went around the deck, striking any of the weird things wherever he found them. 

 He struck the last one and looked around when it finished thrashing.

 An eerie calm descended. Everyone assembled by the bow, ready for something else to emerge from the water. When nothing did, Una led the others below deck to check for any damage, while Jerome and Billy continued their watch. 

 “Never thought it would be like this,” Billy muttered.

 Jerome laughed, briefly. “Remember when we were young? We were just going to board the damn thing, stab it to death?”

 Billy shook his head. “If you’d have known about all this, would you have come?”

 Jerome shrugged. “Was there a choice?”

 They watched a little longer in silence, listening tensely for any further splashes. Jerome had had nightmares about this day, but they’d been nothing compared to this. 

 “There!” Billy pointed. 

 They were approaching a curtain of bright tissue that led to a large chamber. Beyond, some dense matter was pulsing slowly. It was all that the passage led to, while from here the tunnel curved around and away. 

 Did the river lead out to another gill, another exit?

 “Drop the anchor.”

 Billy nodded and made himself busy. 

 When the anchor fell, Jerome threw the ladder down and descended. The ship shuddered against the current but settled. He could smell something overpowering, similar to the chunks Billy had collected. The material was like bile. Was it some clog, some clot? Jerome wondered what one spark would do in this place?

 He climbed into the rowboat and indicated to Billy he was going to take a look. Billy waved back. Pushing away from The Reckoning, Jerome tried not to complete certain thoughts that were emerging. 

 As he reached the membrane, he pulled out his old knife and cut slowly through it. He peered into the chamber beyond. It was filled with a thick liquid, some of which was already seeping out. Jerome nodded and cut a wider hole through. The liquid began pouring out, and the organ beyond pulsed quicker. 

 The stench was beyond anything Jerome had ever imagined. He dropped back into the boat and waited until he could bring himself to look again. The chamber was half empty. 

 Jerome stared, and decided.

###

When he climbed the ladder and got his feet back on the deck, Jerome explained. 

 Una took him to the galley and begged him to reconsider. 

 “It’s alright, Una. Think about it. You can follow the current and maybe get out, probably through another gill. I’ll use the rowboat, do what has to be done.”

“But… why?”

 “It’s the only way. We can’t leave a fuse, what if something happens to it? The chamber’s already full of liquid, we can’t risk it.”

 She didn’t know what else to say. For the first time in many years, he took her hand. 

 For the first time, she didn’t let go. 

###

Jerome watched from the rowboat as The Reckoning pulled up its anchor and turned towards the shifting current. With alarming speed, it was pulled away from him. He saw figures waving, but was holding onto his oar too tight to respond.

 He was content to watch. 

 They’d waited for him to push the boat through the membrane before raising anchor. Now he jumped out and started pulling it more towards the pulsing object in the heart of the chamber. Chunks of the flammable water weighed it down, but he pulled it all the same. 

 He had matches, and a stick wrapped in swaddle. Could one torch kill the darkness?

 Pulling the heavy boat over to the organ, he paused. 

This was the moment. Finally, at the end, his entire life would have meant something-

Then he heard the splashing. 

Jerome looked to the opening he'd cut. The things were gathered there, fumbling, slippery, misshapen, stumbling over each other in a frenzy to get inside. With a slight push, they all began tumbling in, thrashing about as they flooded towards him. They knew he was there. He felt a wild flinch of panic as if the beast knew he was here and had sent them. 

The thought fell over him like a black cloak, he knew it would choke him if he let it. He staggered back, his mind blank but for the horror of their presence. They were all tentacles and teeth, surging towards the sounds he made. A lurid bubbling noise reached him, an incensed chattering. He could never fight them all. Jerome glanced at the boat, the torch was inside, but his legs were frozen in place. Just as he thought about moving, about trying at least, something at his feet writhed-

 And he slipped. 

 Jerome went under the foul water, gagging. He sank, forcing his mouth shut while his arms flailed wildly. Something had pulled him down sharply, without warning. He was too old to swim against the rush, his strength had left him long ago. Trying to kick, to claw himself up, he instead sunk to the mushy floor. 

The water churned with indistinct shapes, they were searching for him. 

 He would have cried, but the world would not have noticed. 

 This fit. After all, a worthless life should end no other way. He would die in the belly of the beast. He’d crossed the world to hear it scream, now his own screams would be ignored. The days had been made from tricks like this. 

 What did it matter? A death was a death. 

 No. 

 There were flashes that came to him then, things long ignored. Suppressed. A lock of his mother’s hair wrapped around a chubby finger. His father’s hand tightly clasping his shoulder. 

 Am I leaving? Do I have to?

 You’re going to save us. You’re all going to save us. Because we can’t.  

 He remembered his mother’s embrace upon the gangway. That look of despair upon a face so beautiful. The only face he’d carved into his soul.

 There had been few faces since then. Fewer with each year. 

 If he should see that face soon, he would meet it smiling. 

Somehow, he managed to straighten his body and push against the floor. He was able to right himself, to the point where his feet found the spongy ground beneath him, and he was able to propel himself away from it. His arms waved, his legs kicked. Every beat of his heart frantically thudded in his ears. He didn’t know how many were left, but by God, they would all count. 

His face broke the surface, and he spluttered, breathing in the rancid air. The things were all around him, but he shoved them away, pushing through them with a frantic energy that he'd thought beyond him. Beating them back, he made his way to the boat. 

Jerome hauled himself over the side and clung on while he recovered. The cloying air gave him sharp focus. It was poison, poison left untreated too long. 

 He grabbed the torch where it lay and found his matches.

 There would be no way for him to know what he’d done, how much damage or how little. But if he hurt it, made it retreat, sunk it, affected it in some way…

 Whatever happened, he knew in this moment his life hadn’t been wasted. Not a second, because it had all led to this. 

 All around the creatures thrashed in agitation, as if they knew, as if it knew. Jerome took a breath, cursed them, then lit a fire that quickly consumed everything around him. The glow was somehow beautiful, somehow the fire felt like it was embracing him. The world was shaking—

No, gloriously, he knew the world was screaming. 

###

 Son, across the sea is a thing that spills death into the water. But one day one boy—then a man—might find it, reach it, and make a difference!

 What would he do then? 

 Then he’ll come home, son. Bless him, then he’ll come home.