Angel At Sea

The Flying Dutchman

Chapter Thirty Two: The Flying Dutchman

It was a boat, but not just any vessel, it was a vessel that I'd only read about in the horror books which filled every nook in the Captain's bookshelf. 

The Flying Dutchman. 

Once my gaze was entrapped by those algae ridden sails, the fabric a rusty white from years underwater, it felt like I took a cannon ball to the chest, all of the air ripped violently from my lungs in a merciless moment of violence. I wobbled a little, my legs shaking like gelatin during the quaking of the earth, and my muscles spasmed, seizing my hands about the rim of the crows nest--which was, thankfully, freshly cleaned. 

The boat was just as described within the book. 

The wood was of the most trusty kind, though it was waterlogged and blackened from the sediment and sand from the bottom of the ocean, the wood would never splinter. The bow of the Flying Dutchman was curved upwards and ended in a long, spear-like spike; appearing as the top of a sharp--toothed mouth, the teeth made out of wood and other shells, whetted with perfect precision--with their aim to be smashing into the hulls of other ships and leaving little left of the siding. Along each side, it carried ten canon ports, intricately designed into depicting each pot to be the mouth of some nightmarish, cannibalistic creature.  Along the stern, which also jutted out quite a lot, were poles fashioned as spears, covered in wrapped seaweed and jellyfish. 

The Flying Dutchman carried ten sails covered in dirt, grime, seaweed, sediment, algae--despite this, the Flying Dutchman was the fastest pirate ship ever to be built. Coming in at a close second was the ship I currently stood upon; The Black Pearl. 

The Flying Dutchman glided out of the water, just as a turtle would, coming up for air, not four hundred yards from us! My Captain ordered us to drop anchor, which, loyally, the terrified crew did; the Flying Dutchman wouldn't hurt us? Right.....right? 

I nearly thought of climbing down the mast and running to my Captain's arms, however, what if they decided to attack? I would be caught right in the cross-fire! Then again, so would my Captain! And I didn't want him hurt. Taking up courage, I attempted to take a step down, when,  eerie laughter rang about the silent ocean around us; it's bone shattering coolness taking a harsh grip of my heart, causing it's palpitations to skyrocket, especially when the echos of that ghastly reverberation from the chest of the very devil himself eclipsed me. I was frozen where I stood--in a sort of mummified paralysis of terror. 

As the boat came ever closer, the hoots and yells from the undead crewmen riddled the air where stifled horror did not. The seaweed attached to the sails blew back against the now slightly puckered wind, giving the vessel a ghostly illusion. 

Voices rang out beneath me, one of them, deep, and when I listened closely, it reminded me of the waves slamming upon the deck during a hurricane. "Erik!" The voice boomed as the vessel dropped anchor beside us; their mast seemed infinitely higher than ours, and a few of the crewmen spotted me. The voice belonged to a man I'd only heard about in fiction. 

Davy Jones.  

And, like the vessel, the descriptions did not lie. 

He was a humanoid octopus.

His head was the body of a green-tinted octopus, and the tentacles of the octopus acted as a sort of beard that could be controlled mentally, his sunken in, beadily green eyes gave the impression that his stare was unwavering and consistent. His gaze was the knife sharpened especially for its task, the blade was two quarters thick and stretched the ocean long; it was so precisely serrated that it's ease to slice clean through flesh and body mass without so much a shock from the victim was astounding. Now, the acuminous gaze was slicing right through my eyes, tearing quickly at my flesh before plunging deep within my soul, it's unending epee slitting the xanthanous thread which bound my conscience in half without so much as a hesitation. It carved methodically against every defense I put into place, but all were rendered useless in a matter of seconds--for he always found a weakness. Now more than ever before, I was completely vulnerable; I felt that this man, just by a single disheartening and frankly hideous glare knew every nook and cranny of the outer reaches of my imagination.