Published at the Treasures of Thundera Group March 28, 2002
:taken from my original author's notes:
Events a while back inspired me to start a collection of short horror stories. I've always wanted to do one of my own and I'm almost there. When I'm done there should be ten stories in it, I've already posted the first one here, the one with panthro. Since then I've finished a couple more and I'm working on yet another two. The rules I'm following are simple, no more than 5000 words a story (give or take) and nothing stronger than pg13 (I don't think Immortality should be rated r, but just in case I tried to be safe there).
This one stars Vultureman and the Berzerkers.
"MS Found in a Bottle" by RD Rivero (2002-03-29)
Logs usually start with the current date and time – already I've got a couple of problems. I don't have a watch and the time-keeping instruments onboard aren't calibrated for Third Earth. I can tell you it's morning and that's about it. I'd tell you what day it is, if I knew what it was – I stopped tracking the calendar far too long ago to be dwelling on that now. And since I doubt this'll ever be read, if it's Friday the eighteenth or Monday the twenty-third, does it really matter at the end?
I suppose you'd think I'd count myself lucky to be alive, with the freedom and opportunity to write. But I'll be blunt – I'm better of dead. No bother. I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for me. It's a deep, primal urge – call it egoism – but I refuse to vanish without a trace, to die without a fight. It's my fatalistic struggle to be heard, even if this bottle sinks to the bottom of the sea. I know nothing stays hidden forever, nothing lingers on eternally in oblivion.
Perhaps it's madness, driven by my isolation. Maybe the fumes that engulf this vessel have wasted my reason. You couldn't understand unless you, too, were stranded in the middle of the ocean, in a ship haunted by the dead. By corpses with bloated eyes – no – you wouldn't know until then what a hell it is to live beyond your time.
Stories tend to have beginnings – this I can do –
The island of Avia is located in the Tethys Ocean – and beyond that I'll only speak of it in general terms. It's like any other island of this vast, pacific sea: an arc of volcanic peaks, bordered by atolls and corals. Looking at it from above, you'd even call it a paradise for it certainly does have all of the essentials of an Eden – jungles, clear blue lagoons and smooth, silky smooth beaches. Yet, digging below that fertile surface, you'd find the elements of death and destruction.
Nitrates and sulfurs and that's how I'll leave it. To say more would only serve to give our enemies, the Thundercats, advantages that I'd rather not let them have. Let me just add that the resources were of such exceptional quality that, to enrich ourselves with those raw materials of war, we did things you wouldn't have expected of us. We engaged in agreements, alliances – with the Berzerkers.
For over four years we mined the island. Our seasonal operations were usually small and undetectable. We – let me emphasize I – were always careful to leave behind as little trace of our presence as possible. So that way, whenever we'd return, we'd think that no one had set foot upon its soil for a thousand years.
That particular summer, a troop of six Monkians and I had unearthed a fresh current of the precious ore along the smallest volcano's natural vent. I was mildly surprised at the tireless vitality of those mammalians – that particular breed of Mutant wasn't known for its work ethic. We spent months collecting the quarry and packing it into watertight boxes. We hid the crates in camouflaged tents and slept on the other side of the island. I said it was very dangerous stuff.
It was evening when the Berzerkers' ship, the Sea Wolf, 'docked' several hundred yards from the shore – their longboats coming to the beach. They arrived a day late – bad weather, HammerHand said, greeting us. At once we got down to business. Together and very carefully, his men and my apes transported the goods from our tents to their cargo hold. The riggings were firm and steady and the lighting was bright and capable to ensure that no bump or scrape – no quick jerk – would damage the crates or set off their contents. The loading and unloading were always the most dangerous times during the endeavors – my apes, noticeably, opted to stay in the longboats or on land at that time.
Apes –
Shortly we were done and the time for departure was set for that next morning. In the meanwhile, the ship's crew roamed on the island to gather food for the trip back home while the captain and I lumbered in the cargo hold. I was taking notes; HammerHand was making his usual demands.
"Fifteen percent," he said, prying open one of the boxes.
"Our agreement was for ten," I replied.
He let the lid drop with a loud thud. "If you be meaning to get home, on my ship, you best be knowing just who's captain and who's ballast here."
I rolled my eyes and squawked – every time we traveled we'd have the same, exact conversation. "We have an –"
He spat on the floor – "Argh, I don't care for paper," he slapped the clipboard out of my hands. "Can't read, you know."
"Well, then, can't do math either," I shook my fists. I think he was enjoying the encounter – certainly I wasn't. I reached for my documents, looking at him with a scowl.
The Norseman smiled and laughed like a volcano erupting sheer arrogance. He waited until I was back on my feet before he continued: "If I don't get my fair share, birdy, my crew and I'll be sitting ourselves here, having a vacation, if you know what I mean."
"What, you'll just stay here?" He nodded. "That's insane, the island can't possibly sustain us all –"
"Color me 'I care'!" He tightened his metal grip – I suddenly got his general idea. "I'll tell you what, I'll be a sporting man. I'd give you a chance to get back to ol' Plundarr. But you'd have to navigate the ship yourself." He barely got those last words out through that dreaded laugh.
"Twelve percent."
"Thirteen."
I sighed, wondering if I'd be left with a tin of black powder at the end. "Thirteen." I relented and we 'shook hands.'
He left and I continued the work of inventory.
It was midnight – but I don't recall exactly – it was late at night when HammerHand's men returned to ship from the island with a boatload of fruits and gwanas (the only animals of the jungles). On the deck they observed a pinpoint of light off to the east. The spot, they reported, moved south at a snail's pace of less than a half knot and was far too far away to be completely discernable with the eye. The spyglasses couldn't resolve the image beyond the shimmering of the moonlight on the foamy waves above the horizon.
Yet one of the men, Cruncher, said it was another ship and I was really annoyed when the captain said he'd head off to investigate the matter in the morning. Even then my intuition told me nothing good could come of it. I was going to raise an objection, but recalling my 'negotiation' down below, I realized I couldn't press my luck. It was HammerHand's ship and we did what we were told.
Stars dotted the dark, cloudless skies. Cool breezes, scented with the tropic summer, stirred the sails – the anchors groaned. The air brimmed with an intoxicating excitement – a sense of adventure. The longboats were taken up and secured – the ship was readied for the night while thoughts of loot and treasure spread like wildfire. I confess I couldn't sleep, but not because I was anxious to see what that infernal light was – I just wanted to get it over with so we could return home.
I found a warm, dry place in the stern and there I perched in the shadows. Behind me I could hear the violent splashing of a shark feeding frenzy. It stirred my hunger and I would have snacked on a roasted leg of gwana but I was too tired. Just too tired. I fell asleep.
First, it was the smell that got to me. A malodorous vapor had infested the climate in and around the Sea Wolf like an outbreak of plague. It affected the dream I was having – I've forgotten the details, but it frightened me enough to prompt my sudden alertness. That led me immediately to the second thing, the frantic activity about the deck. Fully awake, I had opened my eyes to a boatload of pirates and plunderers, scurrying about the deck like ravenous animals, waiting to trounce their prey.
But it was that smell.
I staggered to the wheel, chocking and panting for breath. Making my way through the bridge, I noticed the flames of the hanging lamps were burning brightly – too brightly. That's when it came to me, that's when I realized just what it was –
"Where's HammerHand?" I asked Cruncher.
"At the bow," he pointed forward and there and then I saw it for myself, the totality of the scene.
The captain stood at the very peak of his vessel while half a mile away the mysterious other ship – an onyx monolith – loomed above him. What I had earlier dismissed as a mere nothing was, in reality, a ship unlike anything I had ever seen. It was three hundred feet high and a quarter of a mile long. Its front end sloped to a tip – an arrowhead of gold-like alloys was attached onto the apex. Its back end was a straight, vertical wall – three cone-like structures, suspended over the waters, evolved out of the main body.
We got closer and the ship acquired more definite textures. We saw large, rectangular plates, riveted by bolts as large as a man. Windows along the upper, right-hand side indicated the presence of internal levels – their tight grouping and lack of abundance told me that the bulk of the vessel was devoted to the machinery of its propagation. Toward the extreme left, five hundred feet from the back end, was a port – square-shaped and recessed several yards within the hull's surface, blocked by a series of interlocked, metal slabs. The cones were rough and corrugated – they reminded me of exhaust ports, rocket exhaust ports.
"You have to keep your ship away," I told HammerHand.
"What do you squawk about now, Polly?" salivating, he hardly noticed me. "You suppose it's deserted?"
"That smell is methane."
"Yeah, so?" he added an obscene gesture.
"It's flammable. Your engines might explode." I learned to be blunt with 'leaders' of his caliber.'
He signaled his crew to cut off the engine and dropped the anchor.
"Now, where would you suppose all this gas might have come from?" he asked, walking me to the hatch of the cargo hold.
"From that other ship, might be its fuel." I suspected it was a spaceship, but I wasn't going to waste my breath elaborating my ideas to him.
He peered into the grating – the crates, our crates, lay below, in the darkness. I already knew what he was about to say. He never surprised me.
"Twenty percent."
I was about to make a fuss –
"I've got a boat there, loaded with treasure to plunder," he indicted to the ship. "If I don't get my twenty percent, I'll dump it all into the sea. What I'll find in that there spaceship will surely be more valuable than that black dust of yours," he jabbed a finger, a metal finger, onto my chest.
We were on his ship and we did what we were told.
A longboat was set upon the waves and an away team was immediately gathered. HammerHand, RamBam, two of my apes – to oar – and I were to be the first to explore that other ship. I thought we would never make it – we took over twenty minutes to reach it. The fumes had gotten so thick that the Monkians had quickly exhausted and we all had to take turns manning the dinghy.
"That hatch there," the captain pointed to the square opening near the back.
I pointed to a ladder and said we might get better luck if we followed it – I was genuinely surprised that he agreed.
We paddled close to its side and I reached over to feel its hull. A strange amalgam of metal, plastic and rubber, coated by greasy soot, it conformed to the shape and pressure of my hand, yet returned to its previous form when I let go. I found, much to my disgust, that tiny animals had embedded themselves into the substance – into holes they had bored through the material of the outer skin. The larger creatures especially seemed to have exploded in and around their makeshift homes.
I grasped the ladder and was the first to ascend its wet, rusty rungs. The captain cursed – he was right on my tail but it wouldn't have mattered, really, if he had caught up or overtaken me. I knew the rules of the sea and salvage – I had not acted irrationally. The derelict was mine, mine to captain and command – and it was my salvage, too.
My climb through that oxygen-depraved air was almost lethal. We avians have very susceptible lungs but I was determined to make it on my own. I can't remember how long it took me – certainly much less time than it took us to oar to the ship – but eventually I scaled the side of the vessel and reached the top. The rest – except for an ape whom I had told to stay behind in the dinghy – stood along with me on the summit.
Three hundred feet above and half a mile away, the Sea Wolf looked like a grain of sand amidst that wide, open sea. That was how much that spaceship dwarfed the Berzerker's own vessel. It was – and still is, I might add – quite a vista.
RamBam discovered a circular hatchway where an escape pod would have been located. He smashed it open, HammerHand helping him peel back the metal. I stuck my beak into the gap. Air, untainted by methane, circulated within the ship. It was not fresh but it was breathable. One by one we dropped into the opening – it was dark but we had bright beams with us – and the task of salvage was underway.
We were in a dark corridor, a long passage constructed with a thin top and a wide bottom. The ceiling was decorated with dials suspended by levers. The walls were crammed with pipes. The floor was adorned with tubes placed along its edges every ten feet or so apart. I recognized the setup to be the ship's lighting fixtures. I realized, too, that the vessel had been underwater. Everywhere around us was the telltale evidence of that extreme damage: the silt and rust, the slimy appearance of the gadgetry and corroded deformation of the bulkheads.
It wasn't until we entered the main chamber that we encountered the craft's inhabitants. The room appeared to be a dining or meeting hall – I counted ten square tables and forty rectangular blocks interspersed about the scene. Rotted heaps of iron-nickel and waterlogged wood-like substances were what remained of the furniture. The long, narrow space was encircled by windows – yards thick – that had been shattered, I presumed, not by the pressure of the water at the bottom of the ocean, but by the attack or accident that instigated its sinking.
RamBam was polishing a fixture he might have thought was gold or silver. HammerHand and the Monkian were pushing aside parts of the fallen ceiling and in so doing they uncovered the slumped body of a dead and bloated alien. The Berzerker was shocked and tried to hide it with a fit of laughter. I turned to see and noticed more bodies at the recess of the chamber. I pointed to the huddled mounds that, with their wide-open eyes and disfigured faces, so frightened the away team that they didn't ransack the remains.
Even then I was unduly disturbed, if not a bit curious, too.
A ladder – the creatures were partial to ladders – led us into a small, dark cylinder that was flooded with five feet of water. A single door blocked our entrance to the rest of the derelict ship. HammerHand made quick work of it, banging it to attain a measure of its thickness and sliding it out of the way. My suspicion was that beyond the yard-thick slab of metal the spacecraft was very much intact and indeed my intuition was confirmed. The air was fresh and the lights along the passages were already on – no doubt it was the source of the glow Cruncher had seen that last night.
What a treasure trove had been opened – but not for the pirates, I'm afraid – for me. I was excited – the Norseman inside me felt I had reached Valhalla. It was a storehouse of knowledge and a repository of technology – the raw materials, infinitely more valuable than our island endeavors, which we could fashion for use in the war against the Thundercats.
We entered what, by that ship's standards, was a medium-sized chamber and there in the darkness we found more bodies. Huddled and frozen, the corpses were a testament to the vessel's unintended deep-sea voyage. I grabbed one of the specimens and placed it over a wooden-like table. With my light and pocketknife I performed a rudimentary autopsy. I announced to the others, who stared with shock and amusement, the results of my findings. Had I more time and the proper equipment, I would have gladly done a thorough and detailed study.
The morphology was a mixture of hominoid and insectan. A green, dense exoskeleton covered the entire, four-foot long body. The head was tipped by a single, thick, rod-like protrusion. It had no openings for ears or noses, only two large, lidless eyes and retractable jaws. The extremities had clear and distinct blood vessels but the trunk had an open circulatory system.
The facts explained their bulk and overall smallness. I understood why they had ladders and possibly no gravity generators: animals with open circulatory systems, if larger than a few inches, were susceptible to fatalities if they fell. Being bags of blood, if they weren't sturdy and compact, they'd hit the ground and burst like water balloons.
Our next major discovery was the control room. It, like the other parts of the craft we had seen, was bare. No fancy artwork, no distracting paint jobs, nothing more and nothing less than what was needed to run the ship and perform its immediate tasks. At last I had found a people – albeit a dead people – who valued the intellect above all things baseless and pointless. I appreciated that, for where I come from ignorance is the norm and the brightest are cut down.
I was struck, too, by the simple order of the bridge. Despite the complex nature of its control pads and readouts, it was logically differentiated by duties and responsibilities. Engineering, navigation and communication, I could tell it was all there, all of it, masked in a language I couldn't understand.
"What a bleeding waste of time," HammerHand cursed.
"She's a ship, captain, she's got to have a cargo hold," RamBam tried to keep his hopes up.
I peered out of the windows that washed the interior with a bright, blue light. I saw the Berzerker's ship – its sails raised high, following us, nearing us.
"Must be below," the conversation continued. "The port we saw from outside."
A loud snap, a hiss that whistled on and on, forever and ever. The derelict craft listed to the right and groaned under the terrible force of its own, immense weight. From the windows I saw that the waters around the spaceship were bubbling violently, the foamy froth was burning brightly. We were in a cloud of methane gas that wrapped us in blankets of an off-green fog.
"Back to the dinghy," a Berzerker shouted.
The away team ran toward the exit – but the gas had made me dizzy and I struggled to stay on my feet. The others rushed in stride, I staggered. I reached the main corridor; the rest entered the tiny, circular room and scaled its ladder.
I attempted one last sprint, only to collapse, wasted and spent beyond measure. For the better part of ten minutes I tried to regain my breath. The air warmed and the methane thinned – oxygen circulated from the vents. Reinvigorated, I arrive at the ladder.
But my mad dash was too late, for when I entered the claustrophobic room the ship rocked to the left and started to sink. Already most of its height was beneath the waves. Water, cold and effervescent, poured into the cylindrical chamber from above. Ancient mechanisms would have surely locked the door behind me but we had slid it open and damaged its internal workings. I knew there wasn't much time before the oceans completely flooded the upper decks. I knew, too, that I was in no condition to swim or escape the suction that would've dragged me under. I had two options: try to make it to the surface where I'd drown, or take my chances and stay within the ship.
I returned to the lit – but flickering – corridor and attempted to close the door by hand. Against my utter weakness, despite the horrific sounds of the waves crashing and roaring all about me, by the slimmest chance of miracles, I slid the massive slab shut. I still don't understand how I did it or how I managed the strength to perform such a feat. Nevertheless, with a click the door was secure and I, more terrified than I care to admit, lay facedown in the passage, on its water-soaked floor.
Looking back, I wonder if I shouldn't have just let the waters take me down – forever.
As it was, I was safe. It was clear to me what had happened. The spacecraft had landed safely on Third Earth, any other scenario, from a crash to a near miss, would have destroyed the fragile alien crew. While on the water, for it might have been built to explore the oceans, there had been an accident or an attack that damaged its methane fuel tanks, burning its outer skin in the process. But the gas had another effect – mixing with the seawater, it lowered its density and compromised its buoyant capacity. The massive vessel, amidst an oily sludge of bubbling water unable to support it, promptly sank.
The lights failed and in the dark, with the aid of my beam, I wandered through the hall until I located and entered the room where I had performed my amateurish dissection. The aliens had gathered and huddled there to conserve their heat energy. Being cold blooded, they had no other way to maintain a constant body temperature. Being warm blooded, I had certain advantages and disadvantages, too, but if was to face their same, uncertain difficulties, I wanted to know exactly why they had chosen that room.
I obtained my answer when I discovered a number of appliances along the back walls. Stoves – it was a kitchen of sorts. I was disappointed, though, when I learned that the cooking elements no longer operated. The burners were, evidently, fed with methane. They must have emptied out the tank in a last-minute attempt to save – or annihilate – themselves.
I found a pantry but it shelves were empty – they must have eaten a last meal, too.
A series of doors led me to a spiral staircase. Rather than delve deeper into that abject blackness, I scoured as much of the area as I could with my light. It was a warehouse of food and supplies, each article carefully sealed and stowed in shelves. Trails of foodstuffs were sprinkled on the steps – they must have come for more.
I grabbed a couple of those tightly wrapped items and returned to the control room – the storehouse was too eerie and the kitchen was too crypt-like for me. The bridge was curiously washed in blue – more, far more than a hundred feet underwater, still enough sunlight filtered through the windows to illuminate the chamber. I huddled under a desk and there opened the food I had taken. The packaging was airtight and the meat – I assumed it was meat – seemed fresh. Eating it, I found that it wasn't putrid or rancid, just that its taste varied from the very salty to the very sweet.
As the ship slowly plummeted, the light steadily dimmed like an aquatic sunset and soon the interior was absolutely dark but for the faint afterglow of the instrument panels. It had gotten cold, too, bitterly cold and for a while I thought I wasn't in the safety of the control room anymore but floating in the ocean. It was an uncanny sensation that lingered whether my eyes were open or shut – but I kept them shut for a haze of sleepiness clouded my mind.
The derelict was mostly air and watertight, it would rise again, it was only a matter of time. I just had to wait it out. Already I was thinking ahead. I'd have to find the engines and seal the gas tanks. I'd have to assemble a radio and contact the Sea Wolf or Castle Plundarr. I'd have to gather more food and supplies and pass the time until my rescue arrived.
You must think this tale's a bit strange. Is it so fantastic? So unbelievable? EVERY WORD of it is true. Believe it. But – it's just that – well – you see, things didn't go quite as I had planned.
I awoke to discover that the ship had resurfaced. Elated that I could see the daylight again, I laughed and built up the courage to get out from under that table. I heard a curious sound – a bang. Something had hit the vessel, something, I couldn't tell. I wondered what it could have been but, to be honest, I just assumed it was a bulkhead or tank that had shifted position. At the moment I had more important things on my mind and – because the din hadn't returned – it didn't matter to me.
I opened the sliding door and climbed the ladder. I reached the top of the craft, looking around the horizon encircling me – and as I did that I spotted the Sea Wolf, capsized. It had been the thing that had smashed against the side of the derelict ship. It must have been caught in the bubbling waters and sunk, too, killing everyone onboard.
The dinghy, the longboats had vanished. The away team – the Berzerkers and the Monkians – were dead, all dead. I had no way to escape. I had no guide for direction, no means to know my position. I had never felt more alone, more completely and utterly alone – it's a sense of longing and foreboding that persists to this day.
Discouraged, I returned to the inner levels and explored every deck, every room. I searched for spare parts, tearing whole sections of electronics off of panels. In the control room I inspected the materials I had gathered, spreading the components on a tabletop. The technology confounded me – it was thoroughly unfamiliar and would have taken me a lifetime to discern its secrets.
I just couldn't believe it. I returned to the roof of the spaceship. In the time that had passed the Berzerker's vessel had vanished. Perhaps it had sunk, perhaps it had been caught in a current and swept away. Regardless, it was gone and it was sunset. The clouds had parted and the skies had turned a dull orange-red.
I sat out in the cold, under the stars hours, trying to refocus. I had to find something to do, something, anything, to help me, rescue me – free me. I had to get things together. Plans.
Of one thing I was pleased I had been wrong about – the vast bulk of the ship wasn't dedicated to the engines but for the storage of food and supplies. That warehouse I had found was only one of a thousand – I had enough nourishment to last me the rest of my life.
But I don't want to spend the rest of my life here in this – this island. This island whose resources grow sterile in my feeble hands. I can't stand it here, can't you see that? The skies are ever gray and the winds storm eternally. Gloomy twilights are my mornings, starry voids are my nights.
And it's cold. I haven't learned how to use the heat yet – I suppose I'll have to soon. There's a part of me that would rather let the frigid temperatures kill me. Yet there's another part of me that thinks that maybe, just maybe, I'll be saved and must survive until that day.
I've run out of options but not out of hope – not entirely. I still have the engines and enough fuel to get me to the shore. I work on it, on the thrusters, just to have something to do, just to keep my mind active. But I don't like to spend too much time in that part of the ship, because of my demented and irrational fear that an alien is living and lurking down in that machine room.
I've gone mad. Mad. And the corpses – I'd throw them overboard, but to even touch them sends me into a rage. I wonder if the Thundercats can see me. Liono, he has that sword with sight beyond sight – he knows where I am, yes. I know he knows where I am. It's true, but it's not true. So maybe he doesn't, maybe he does. It depends on the day, on the time. How I feel, how I'm doing. I – no one knows where I am and everyone probably thinks I'm dead. I can't even contact my home because I don't have the means or the intelligence to string together the resistors and capacitors I'd need for a radio. Yet I'm supposed to be the smartest, goddamned Mutant. I – I'm conflicted to the core: I just can't but I must –
Why didn't I let the waters carry me away? Why did I have to live?
I linger, terrified by the knowledge that at any moment another tank might rupture and sink the vessel. Everyday that passes without incident brings me one step closer to the absolute surety that it will happen. And when it does, will the ship rise again? Or will I die like my unearthly hosts in that abyss, in that eternal graveyard of the sea? I don't know, I can't say. But perhaps by then I'll have gone so totally insane that I, like an animal, won't even be aware of my own death.
Right now I'm trapped in a current that's leading me south. I'm going in circles, too, I can tell that by noting where the sun rises and sets. I'm going in circles, each round shortening, shrinking – my ultimate destination, I can't comprehend.
Such as it is –
Vultureman