Grabline: When the Coast Guard are called to rescue a drifting ship they find one very special,
vengeance fuelled passenger.
THE CROW : TEARS OF THE DEAD
By Tiamat
"Damndest thing I've ever seen" Reeves said, and coming from him it was rich. He had been a
pilot with the Coast Guard for nearly twenty years. He'd seen everything from the earliest
attempts at drug smuggling to victims of shark attacks, or the parts thereof. Dogs adrift on
life jackets, to dead bodies buoyed along the ocean surface with internal gases.
'It's the godamn Marie Celeste again I tellya!" he punctuated his excitement with a squirt of
chewing tobacco over the side. This was looking to be a better story than his famous Love
Boat story. He had emptied a few bottles of Wild Turkey at others expense with that tale:
A couple of lovers had decided to make out in their dinghy, whether their cruiser had not
been an exciting enough locale for them, or if they had 'christened' every other available
space, Reeves had never asked. The couple had lowered the dinghy as their yacht was at anchor
and proceeded to do the horizontal tango as Reeves was fond of saying - it gained a big laugh
every time he found. But with the sureness of accidents and sure-fire whim of bad luck, the
dinghy had broken loose from its mooring during the height of their passion and by the time
the couple realized, they were a good mile from their cruiser.
By the time Reeves and the rest of the Coast Guard crew had responded to the signal flare and
found the drifting craft, the couple were in two minds as to whether die of embarrassment or
exposure.
"And boy was that woman ever fit to be exposed" he always finished both the story and the
latest glass of firewater with this proposition.
The way this was shaping up he'd soon have a tale to better that one! No, not a tale, by the
time he finished this would be a bonafide Tale Of The Ocean!
This was Noyce's biggest fear. If Salty Reeves got hold of this and turned it into one of his
unbelievable pantomimes Noyce knew no amount of denial and real detail could save it. The
old fart was the easiest way of loosing credibility, of which Noyce was willing to surrender
not one iota.
But he was the only pilot available that Noyce trusted to steer The Black Bird during a
night drive.
There were in fact only three people Noyce would trust to these familiar waters during pre-dawn:
Reeves, his own father and himself.
He scratched idly at the cast encasing his forearm and cursed its clumsiness. Damn bone was
itching so bad that he had been awake anyway when his pager had chirped happily and ominously
on his belt at three this morning. During a hectic hour he had called the station to find that
an early bird fisherman had spotted a catamaran drifting in, the course-wake channel. He had
tried radioing and signaling the craft but received no reply. He had radioed it in to the sleepy
Coasty on night watch, which had in turn set Noyce's pager off ten minutes later. Left in
Noyce's hand a crew had been drafted and his precious forty-foot cigarette fast cutter Black
Bird had been fuelled and ready to brave a freezing ocean by four.
He cursed his luck at being dragged out to this drifter - some holiday sea-man not anchoring
his boat correctly was his guess. More money than sea sense he thought as the cat' was swept by
the powerful searchlight on the prow.
"Scheafer!" he called to the other member of his trusted but bleary eyed crew as Polk used the
searchlight.
"SIR!" Scheafer called back eagerly.
"Get a fender over the side there, that tub could dent my boat here if we come-to too sharp!"
"SIR!" the lithe seaman leapt into action tying a fat, hollow fender to a bulwark and dropping
it over the side.
Noyce decided to ignore The noise of disdain Reeves had emitted at his prediction of a bumpy
meeting of vessels.
He knew it was unfair on the old sea-dog but no sleep, a coffee headache and an itchy, knitting
bone was far from a sobriquet
Polk played the cold, bright light over the cat, as it limply followed the oceans rise and fall.
The hollow noise of the small waves made a constant background swish and thump on its hull. It
was a sound Noyce found restful, and one he even used to fall asleep to, They came along side
with precision and stopped with a graceful dip and growl of reverse thrust.
"Polk, lemme see the name of this thing. Scheaf' tie us up to her and get a ladder over her
side. We're going aboard and getting the registration for this girl. How can someone be so
careless with a piece of craft this well made?' It was rhetorical as it was an announcement of
anger.
As the searchlight rippled over its hull and Scheafer threw the rope ladder up and over the
taller crafts side rails, Noyce could see the boat was no more than two years old, no sign of
barnacles and the red anti-fouling paint issued less than three years before. The shape was
sleek and the chrome reflected back star shaped points of light as the light bounced of it. The
tall mast was at least thirty feet tall and was encircled near the apex by a wide rimmed crow's
nest.
The first sign of trouble Noyce spotted was when he saw the sail hanging in tatters from the arm
of the mast. A huge rent had made the yards of canvas useless and hardly any good as a tarpaulin
. Small holes seemed to pepper the material and it was only as Scheafer was about to ascend the
wobbly ladder when Noyce recognized them as bullet holes.
"Shit!" he cursed and Reeves turned to stare. "Scheaf!" he hissed as the young man took his
fourth step. "Scheaf''" he almost screamed soto voce, The young man heard him and glanced down
at his C.O. "You armed?" he motioned to the man's hip out of sight from him. Scheafer frowned
but nodded, tapping his holster and thick black Glock inside. Noyce made a motion with his useful
hand.
Scheafer reached around and flicked off the leather snap around its hammerless slide.
Dawn was beginning to become evident and Noyce was pleased to have the added light, he didn't
want his men going into a situation with torches and adrenaline response. He wanted a scenario
clear and open.
And one with no bullets flying his or their way.
He caught Polk's nervous glance and pulled a finger across his throat. The searchlight went out
immediately and Polk came aft to stand beside his chief
"Cover Scheaf ' I don't like the look of this. This ain't no drifter,"
"Were those bullet holes you reckon?" Polk asked and swallowed dryly. Noyce nodded and heard a
harsh sliding noise as Polk cocked his own weapon, Noyce followed Polk to the ladder and watched
as Scheafer cautiously slipped over the rail onto the cat's deck.
Polk was no more than two seconds behind him - as agile as Noyce wished he could be if it wasn't
for the damn plaster cast.
He glanced back to Reeves at the pilot station who had remained unnaturally quiet throughout the
operation. So far, he reminded himself
The older man was pointing at the other boat and his face was ashen. His long bony finger a
shaky arrow pinning whatever had brought the fear to his heart, at least an arms length away.
Noyce followed the older man's gesture to the side of the boat.
The name of the boat had been erased. No, not erased: burnt away. In clumsy, smoldering smudges.
The paint peeled off in crackled flakes in some parts whilst other areas seemed to have bled
with melted paint. Thin trails of dark liquid ran down the contours of the prow and stopping
just short of the sea. A large hole was only evident when the boat rose and caught the lambent
pre-dawn across its sharp edges. It was about the size of a fist and seemed to be bleeding.
"CHIEF!" came the urgent cry. It was so loud and shadowed with an emotional edge, that Noyce had
trouble identifying who the call had come from. As he looked away from the hole and to the rails
above he figured out his answer. It must have been Polk as Scheafer was throwing up over the
side in glorious dawn pinks and blues.
Polk had his back to the side rail and his weapon trained up at the main mast.
"It's a bloodbath, sir!" Polk's voice was steady and firm, Noyce was proud and surprised at
the same time as Polk had only been on his team for six months and they had never had anything
more than a DUI and an ex-Marine fishing with dynamite to class a difficult cases. This was
becoming a serious situation and the team, or most of it seemed to be holding together.
"Freeze it, Bud, or loose it!" Polk sternly ordered.
Scheafer wiped his mouth and span around giddily and tried to raise his own weapon. Something
caught his eye at his feet and he wretched noisily again.
Noyce was now at the spotlight and quickly activated it, spinning it on it's tripod and firing
its cold beam up the length of the mast to try and locate Polk's suspect of whatever tragedy
had occurred above. He stopped as he hit the crow's nest with the white coin of light.
A man stood with his arms at his sides, calmly regarding his aggressors. He looked down on them
with a quiet detachment, as if whatever came next would not involve or affect him. An observer
of the whole thing. A ghost passing through the world of the living.
A dark shadow flew across his chest and Noyce swore he saw wings trace a ragged, feathery shadow
across the man's bare torso.
"Now come on down, sir. We just want to get this all sorted out," Noyce called to the man. All
color seemed to be bleached from the man as the searchlight held him under observation.
"What the Hell's he supposed to be?" Reeves suddenly hissed, regaining his voice. "A clown pirate
or what?"
Noyce now saw the man's face, his first job had been to visually search the man for weapons and
he could not see any. At first. A sword seemed to be hanging down behind one of his legs, but
Noyce could only glance the scabbard as the boat moved and swung it into quick view before it
disappeared behind the ghostly man's leg again,
"You can come on down now, sir, In fact I'd really prefer if you came down very slowly and with
no sudden moves. You understand? We are all a little wired here so let's not get into a
situation that some one can't walk away from now. Okay?"
The man made a curious sad down turn with his mouth and this only served to make the white face
makeup -if it was make-up Noyce thought- and black lips accentuated by thin lines pulled from
each side, a more bizarre image to behold. Thin lines came from the mans hair line and ran the
length of his gaunt face seeming to split his face into three when the rolling shadows sank his
face into deeper shade.
Again Noyce thought he saw a bird of some sort flying close to the man, a strobe of black
against gray shadow and white flesh. A black bandanna held the mans hair close to his head and
two long tails of extra material sailed in the cold wind behind him.
"Sir!" called Polk in a strong voice obviously borrowed from his instructor. Very commanding
and in control. In control of what Noyce wasn't quite sure yet. "Do we have an understanding
here? Will you please come down onto the deck?"
"No," came a voice of ice and thunder, A calm chill seemed to flow through all the crew and
Reeves would remember that cold, deathly voice for the rest of his story telling years. "This
does not involve us now, yow or me "he paused and smiled sadly, He seemed to refer to some
internal conflict and then regain his control. The dilemma seemed to have passed beyond his
control or design now, "I have repaid the vile horror that was forced upon my loved ones and
myself. I have given what they should have received for their venomous actions, I have sought
revenge and gained its strength and favor.
"I have tempered my will to become a sword of pain, and I have forged my soul to make the filth
that took my life wish they had never set foot on this earth for they will never see it's
delights again."
Reeves made a clicking noise with his mouth and Noyce saw him twirl his finger next to his
temple.
"Jesus, you think this young man's been eating too many Fruit-loops and they've gone to his
head?"
"Shut it Reeves, We're just going to talk him down first, then you can make your bar room
judgments on his mental state, but for now keep that yap of yours closed quarters okay!" Noyce
felt cold rush through his body as adrenaline began to seep from his blood stream, the initial
fight or flight response now giving way to controlled nerves, as they opened a dialogue with
the obviously deluded or deranged individual above. "I'll give you one minute to come down, sir."
"Or what? You'll threaten to shoot me?"
"Now nobody wants it to come to that ,sir" Noyce called up, and this time he was sure there was
a sword behind the man. A long one at that.
"What if I shoot you first?" the dry, cold voice held no malice or threat. It was a peculiar
statement to come from one so calm and, so far, unassuming. Although it was all assumption so
far on Noyce's part as to what had happened up on the catamarans decks. Actions that had made
a hole in its hull, and secondly reduced a grown man to chuck his breakfast over the side.
Polk's description of a bloodbath gave him the only assumption that the clown man was the
perpetrator.
"Shit!" Noyce said and drew his own weapon for the first time in over a year discounting the
required monthly weapons practice.
The man grinned with his cruelly elongated smile and reached behind him with both hands, Before
either Polk or Noyce could see, they were back again and fill of ugly black death.
Polk fired first, closely followed by Noyce, his compact Barretta sending a thudding shockwave
down his good arm, he wasn't sure how good a shot he would be with only one hand but he wasn't
going to loose his crew by doubting his worth and not firing.
Four bullets struck the man and thin sprays of flesh and blood seemed to leap off of his pale
torso as he absorbed the impact and bullets with only minor discomfort.
A fifth bullet plucked away at the man's leg and bit into the meat of the mans upper thigh.
The thick black canvas trousers seemed to ruffle on either side as the bullet tore through
muscle and exit from just below the gluteus muscle.
"You can see what a false threat that would be to me now don' t you?" he said almost
conversationally as a huge black crow swooped into Noyce and snatched the Barretla from his
weak one-handed grasp.
A deep splash highlighted the guns burial at sea.
Polk looked down at his chief with utter disbelief and confusion. Noyce felt utterly helpless
as everyone looked at him for guidance. Scheafer was even now regaining his lost composure and
feebly fumbling for his Clock. Quite why Noyce wasn't sure - he was either going to throw it in
the sea or eat it himself as it was useless against the crow-man.
The crow-man sat down in a slow smooth movement and crossed his legs as he sat on the small dais
of the crow's nest. The spotlight was beginning to loose its power as dawn rode in with pure
daylight and rejuvenated the colors dulled by darkness, Perhaps even colored the souls dulled
by human darkness too.
The crow-man seemed to relax as a warm ray crossed his arm. He seemed to almost absorb the heat
as if it were a concept long lost to him. The accompanying crow cawed loudly, breaking the
nervous silence, and landed with a scrabble of long claws on the edge of the crow's nest.
"Fuck! If that ain't the biggest damn crow I ever did see!" Reeves sounded astounded and the
crow seemed to regard him to with an equal fascination and then reprove its thoughts and ignore
the old man.
"What's a damn crow doing this far out to sea anyway?" Scheafer queried still shaky and
thoroughly unsure what to do with his revealed Glock. It hung in his hand forgotten and pointless
.
"Seeing that justice, of a sort, is mete," Crow-man replied, More sunlight stroked his body and
the first natural reaction to stimulus Noyce had seen him make, sent a shiver of appreciation
through him. The sun's warmth made his make-up even starker, but the large crow seemed to glisten
with the light. Capture it amongst its demon dark feathers and proudly use it to shine the
darkness of its breast and wings. "Taking back what they stole from me and trying to settle lost
and weary souls. No one deserves a frightened transience. No one deserves to be lost to Heaven
if that is where they should be." The Crow-man's sudden rage grew as each word struck home
somewhere within his own heart. His eyes screwed tightly shut as he leapt to his feet again,
his boots seemingly light as thin training shoes on his feet. "And no one deserves to remain
alive when they take my love and life from me!"
No one moved as he looked down upon his impromptu audience, his confessors or redeemers he did
not know nor care. He had been brought back to resolve his anger and rejoin his loved ones, not loose and furious as a twisting, tortured soul. He was rejoicing in the violence he had made but only on those who had sought to teach him of its existence in the primal minds of evil men and in whose primal evil minds it DID exist.
They had found him and betrayed every promise they made in their sick little charade, for safety
they had replaced it with terror, with co-operation they had re-paid, in spades with brutality
the like he or his precious family had never deemed possible from one human being to another.
And with hope they had smashed all thought of such a desire with a cold hard fact of life: Death.
Cold blooded, feral, uncaring, demeaning and destroying.
It had come in all forms that day and had earned them, a visit from a spirit of uncompromising
revenge a year later as they flaunted their atrocities and still used the same boat that they had
stolen from him. A boat whose decks must have been stained with his own and his families blood,
before he decanted their own foul life blood onto the very same deck plates. He had not even
known that pirates still existed in this day and age. A filthy group of men who specialized in
crime on the ocean and disposing of the victims over the side weighted down with whatever the
pirates could not see a use for, or possibly gain a worthy price for, wherever they sold and
hawked the results of their murderous campaigns.
They had taken his rented catamaran at night and forced his wife to carry out all manner of
primeval pleasures with each of them, with a promise of safe passage if she and her husband
complied fully.
His son had soon seen through their lies and with the purest thought of youth and told them so.
He died before he was twelve: drowned, as his body was towed behind the yacht after being force
fed high grade alcohol brought over from the pirates original boat.
The father had been physically sick as he heard the rowdy group take bets on how long a drunk
kid could last before he drowned, whilst from the other side of the boat in a once romantic
stateroom a howling scream erupted from his beautiful wife as a further atrocity was performed
upon her. He had boiled with such an unleashed rage then that he had succeeded in beating the
lone vagabond left to guard him, senseless - even with his hands bound. But his unfocused
vehemence had made him careless - he got only as far as opening the stateroom door to try and
save his dieing wife. He was unbound, having cut his hands free with the beaten guards knife,
and was trying to wield the long switchblade in some threatening manner.
Even he thought it was laughable, pathetic even, as he burst in upon his wife's attackers and
saw how completely they had destroyed her. Diminished her to nothing more than an object of
animal lust. The look of both shame and hope on her face as he called to her crushed his soul
before the five men jumped him, beating him senseless within seconds and crushing his larynx as
swiftly as they crushed his heart.
He could not expire knowing the future sorrow and pain his wife would further suffer. He could
not rest.
He could not die! He would not die.
He did.
But love has a way of breaking barriers.
He returned a year later, with a fury only built upon in his time of death. Vengeance stalked
that very same yacht that very same night a year later.
It was a murderous extinguishing beast and it carved a trail through the bloody sons of the sea
like a thunderbolt - It slit throats, gouged eyes leaving a bloody screaming wreck, it caved
hearts with a powerful thrust of a paIm. It shot men with hardly a rational thought: a weakness
it may have had had it not known the violence these men were capable of and if it hadn't wanted
it so much.
From beyond a watery grave the spirit had risen like dark pieces of glass until it had merged
upon the surface of the sea and been greeted by a cawing, cajoling messenger from deaths dark
region.
"You now have your chance" the dark crow said " Live to kill those who killed you. Let your
vengeance be fulfilled. Yours was an angry spirit and angry spirits do not rest well. They are
bothersome, and a noisy pain in the arse to boot. You, my friend were one of the nosiest I think'
have ever heard. It's thanks to me they let you back. No, no need to thank me quite yet, you
still have a job to do.
" Do you think you have it in you?"
The dark form had risen from the waves, risen until only the tips of it's boots were sunk in
the beaten foam.
The cry came from deep within the very soul of mankind. A despairing roar that spoke only of
rage, and struck fear into any cognitive being who may have heard it and its meaning. There
wasn't so much an undercurrent of death as so much a pure expression.
"There you go, that's the spirit. Make me proud son!"
The crow had flown a straight course to the yacht and its swimming shadow had followed - its
strange, white and black marked face seeming to appear as the flesh dried and unpuckered from
its water-swollen slate.
Terror rang around the yacht as soon as a scream could be uttered, and that was only because
it was meant to be heard. The roused pirates found one of their own pinned to the mast with a
boat hook, both his legs off the deck and blood seeping from somewhere in his grubby jeans. As
the dark spirit had flown from one victim to the next it made it's way through the once familiar,
now degraded, dirty yacht, in a cold methodical pattern.
More than once someone put up a fight and tried gun, knife or blunt instrument to stop the
killer amongst them. The first three times the Crow thought. That he would die all over again,
but the brusque black familiar it had collected told him the rules-
"You can't kill somethin' already dead. You can't kill someone you already killed,!"
Fire, broken bones, a broken spine, a broken glass meal, knives, a shotgun fired until it was
empty, punching holes in the side of the boat as the slugs smashed trough the victims body at
such a close range. The Crow used everything at its disposal to dispose of the pirate crew. An
angry fire was kept well stoked as every face he saw wrung bloody memories from his sub-conscious.
But as he came to the end of his brutal journey he finally came upon a horror not even he could
look at. He felt his heart grow hard as he kicked open the small cabin door and knew he had to
make this death the swiftest if he was going to return to his grave safe in the knowledge of
reuniting wit his love.
Tears began to stream down The Crow's face as Noyce and his silent crew heard the last of the
man's confession.
"She was still alive! They had kept her alive for their own use. My beautiful angel was still
alive!
"For all the horror of that day that l heard and saw, she had had to live through even more.
More than any mind could bear I suppose. It was a miracle she could still talk. You have no
idea what they had reduced her to. She was barely human. It was unspeakable.
"How can one human being do that to another. Aren't we supposed to be the rational, evolved
ones? Rulers of our own planet, shapers of our own environment. Beings evolved to a higher
intelligence than any other creature on earth?
"What they had done to her wasn't even animal, it was an abomination!"
The Crow reached behind him and pulled the long sword from behind his back. The blade was
dulled in the center with blood.
"We died on the same blade. I pushed it through myself and then held her to me. In that last
moment I do believe she recognized me. Through the haze of whatever they had been doping her up
with, and through the scoured stillness of her mind, I do believe she saw me.
"Why else would she have smiled as I held her. And why else would she wipe away the tears of a
dead man as he wept as she died?"
Noyce could not fathom what he was hearing, it was all too strange but somewhere inside he wished
that it was based somewhere in truth. Belief that love could conquer death was not an unpleasant
concept for him. But where did you draw the line between fact and mythical magic? Hard evidence
and a man who seemed to be invulnerable to small weapons fire seemed to a good starting point.
"My time is past now. You will see others in your time I'm sure, but pray they are not your
enemy!" The Crow raised his arms to form a cruciform and then made a smooth swan dive from his
nest. The wind seemed to embrace his body and buoy it up for a second, giving the human crow a
feeling of flight for a brief moment.
The large bird flew away, towards the new brimming sun and was lost in the glare as Reeves
watched it leave the strangest of strange situations he had ever been in.
"STOP!" cried Noyce with a hoarseness in his voice he didn't recognise.
But gravity had The Crow and in a graceful arc he hit the water. The body seemed to fly apart
into a thousand black and silver mirror shards and spread out into the
Ocean. The deep blue water accepting back its supernaturally revived occupant once again.
Noyce rushed to the side of the boat and watched the mirrors dart and spin in the water as
they seemed to blend into the ripples and mirrored ribbons of the oceans surface.
'Well if that ain't the damndest thing I've ever seen!" he said.
THE END
This is my first Crow fan fiction piece - but not my first short story, hope it shows!
If you have any feedback please let me know, as it is always great to get a review -good or bad!
vengeance fuelled passenger.
THE CROW : TEARS OF THE DEAD
By Tiamat
"Damndest thing I've ever seen" Reeves said, and coming from him it was rich. He had been a
pilot with the Coast Guard for nearly twenty years. He'd seen everything from the earliest
attempts at drug smuggling to victims of shark attacks, or the parts thereof. Dogs adrift on
life jackets, to dead bodies buoyed along the ocean surface with internal gases.
'It's the godamn Marie Celeste again I tellya!" he punctuated his excitement with a squirt of
chewing tobacco over the side. This was looking to be a better story than his famous Love
Boat story. He had emptied a few bottles of Wild Turkey at others expense with that tale:
A couple of lovers had decided to make out in their dinghy, whether their cruiser had not
been an exciting enough locale for them, or if they had 'christened' every other available
space, Reeves had never asked. The couple had lowered the dinghy as their yacht was at anchor
and proceeded to do the horizontal tango as Reeves was fond of saying - it gained a big laugh
every time he found. But with the sureness of accidents and sure-fire whim of bad luck, the
dinghy had broken loose from its mooring during the height of their passion and by the time
the couple realized, they were a good mile from their cruiser.
By the time Reeves and the rest of the Coast Guard crew had responded to the signal flare and
found the drifting craft, the couple were in two minds as to whether die of embarrassment or
exposure.
"And boy was that woman ever fit to be exposed" he always finished both the story and the
latest glass of firewater with this proposition.
The way this was shaping up he'd soon have a tale to better that one! No, not a tale, by the
time he finished this would be a bonafide Tale Of The Ocean!
This was Noyce's biggest fear. If Salty Reeves got hold of this and turned it into one of his
unbelievable pantomimes Noyce knew no amount of denial and real detail could save it. The
old fart was the easiest way of loosing credibility, of which Noyce was willing to surrender
not one iota.
But he was the only pilot available that Noyce trusted to steer The Black Bird during a
night drive.
There were in fact only three people Noyce would trust to these familiar waters during pre-dawn:
Reeves, his own father and himself.
He scratched idly at the cast encasing his forearm and cursed its clumsiness. Damn bone was
itching so bad that he had been awake anyway when his pager had chirped happily and ominously
on his belt at three this morning. During a hectic hour he had called the station to find that
an early bird fisherman had spotted a catamaran drifting in, the course-wake channel. He had
tried radioing and signaling the craft but received no reply. He had radioed it in to the sleepy
Coasty on night watch, which had in turn set Noyce's pager off ten minutes later. Left in
Noyce's hand a crew had been drafted and his precious forty-foot cigarette fast cutter Black
Bird had been fuelled and ready to brave a freezing ocean by four.
He cursed his luck at being dragged out to this drifter - some holiday sea-man not anchoring
his boat correctly was his guess. More money than sea sense he thought as the cat' was swept by
the powerful searchlight on the prow.
"Scheafer!" he called to the other member of his trusted but bleary eyed crew as Polk used the
searchlight.
"SIR!" Scheafer called back eagerly.
"Get a fender over the side there, that tub could dent my boat here if we come-to too sharp!"
"SIR!" the lithe seaman leapt into action tying a fat, hollow fender to a bulwark and dropping
it over the side.
Noyce decided to ignore The noise of disdain Reeves had emitted at his prediction of a bumpy
meeting of vessels.
He knew it was unfair on the old sea-dog but no sleep, a coffee headache and an itchy, knitting
bone was far from a sobriquet
Polk played the cold, bright light over the cat, as it limply followed the oceans rise and fall.
The hollow noise of the small waves made a constant background swish and thump on its hull. It
was a sound Noyce found restful, and one he even used to fall asleep to, They came along side
with precision and stopped with a graceful dip and growl of reverse thrust.
"Polk, lemme see the name of this thing. Scheaf' tie us up to her and get a ladder over her
side. We're going aboard and getting the registration for this girl. How can someone be so
careless with a piece of craft this well made?' It was rhetorical as it was an announcement of
anger.
As the searchlight rippled over its hull and Scheafer threw the rope ladder up and over the
taller crafts side rails, Noyce could see the boat was no more than two years old, no sign of
barnacles and the red anti-fouling paint issued less than three years before. The shape was
sleek and the chrome reflected back star shaped points of light as the light bounced of it. The
tall mast was at least thirty feet tall and was encircled near the apex by a wide rimmed crow's
nest.
The first sign of trouble Noyce spotted was when he saw the sail hanging in tatters from the arm
of the mast. A huge rent had made the yards of canvas useless and hardly any good as a tarpaulin
. Small holes seemed to pepper the material and it was only as Scheafer was about to ascend the
wobbly ladder when Noyce recognized them as bullet holes.
"Shit!" he cursed and Reeves turned to stare. "Scheaf!" he hissed as the young man took his
fourth step. "Scheaf''" he almost screamed soto voce, The young man heard him and glanced down
at his C.O. "You armed?" he motioned to the man's hip out of sight from him. Scheafer frowned
but nodded, tapping his holster and thick black Glock inside. Noyce made a motion with his useful
hand.
Scheafer reached around and flicked off the leather snap around its hammerless slide.
Dawn was beginning to become evident and Noyce was pleased to have the added light, he didn't
want his men going into a situation with torches and adrenaline response. He wanted a scenario
clear and open.
And one with no bullets flying his or their way.
He caught Polk's nervous glance and pulled a finger across his throat. The searchlight went out
immediately and Polk came aft to stand beside his chief
"Cover Scheaf ' I don't like the look of this. This ain't no drifter,"
"Were those bullet holes you reckon?" Polk asked and swallowed dryly. Noyce nodded and heard a
harsh sliding noise as Polk cocked his own weapon, Noyce followed Polk to the ladder and watched
as Scheafer cautiously slipped over the rail onto the cat's deck.
Polk was no more than two seconds behind him - as agile as Noyce wished he could be if it wasn't
for the damn plaster cast.
He glanced back to Reeves at the pilot station who had remained unnaturally quiet throughout the
operation. So far, he reminded himself
The older man was pointing at the other boat and his face was ashen. His long bony finger a
shaky arrow pinning whatever had brought the fear to his heart, at least an arms length away.
Noyce followed the older man's gesture to the side of the boat.
The name of the boat had been erased. No, not erased: burnt away. In clumsy, smoldering smudges.
The paint peeled off in crackled flakes in some parts whilst other areas seemed to have bled
with melted paint. Thin trails of dark liquid ran down the contours of the prow and stopping
just short of the sea. A large hole was only evident when the boat rose and caught the lambent
pre-dawn across its sharp edges. It was about the size of a fist and seemed to be bleeding.
"CHIEF!" came the urgent cry. It was so loud and shadowed with an emotional edge, that Noyce had
trouble identifying who the call had come from. As he looked away from the hole and to the rails
above he figured out his answer. It must have been Polk as Scheafer was throwing up over the
side in glorious dawn pinks and blues.
Polk had his back to the side rail and his weapon trained up at the main mast.
"It's a bloodbath, sir!" Polk's voice was steady and firm, Noyce was proud and surprised at
the same time as Polk had only been on his team for six months and they had never had anything
more than a DUI and an ex-Marine fishing with dynamite to class a difficult cases. This was
becoming a serious situation and the team, or most of it seemed to be holding together.
"Freeze it, Bud, or loose it!" Polk sternly ordered.
Scheafer wiped his mouth and span around giddily and tried to raise his own weapon. Something
caught his eye at his feet and he wretched noisily again.
Noyce was now at the spotlight and quickly activated it, spinning it on it's tripod and firing
its cold beam up the length of the mast to try and locate Polk's suspect of whatever tragedy
had occurred above. He stopped as he hit the crow's nest with the white coin of light.
A man stood with his arms at his sides, calmly regarding his aggressors. He looked down on them
with a quiet detachment, as if whatever came next would not involve or affect him. An observer
of the whole thing. A ghost passing through the world of the living.
A dark shadow flew across his chest and Noyce swore he saw wings trace a ragged, feathery shadow
across the man's bare torso.
"Now come on down, sir. We just want to get this all sorted out," Noyce called to the man. All
color seemed to be bleached from the man as the searchlight held him under observation.
"What the Hell's he supposed to be?" Reeves suddenly hissed, regaining his voice. "A clown pirate
or what?"
Noyce now saw the man's face, his first job had been to visually search the man for weapons and
he could not see any. At first. A sword seemed to be hanging down behind one of his legs, but
Noyce could only glance the scabbard as the boat moved and swung it into quick view before it
disappeared behind the ghostly man's leg again,
"You can come on down now, sir, In fact I'd really prefer if you came down very slowly and with
no sudden moves. You understand? We are all a little wired here so let's not get into a
situation that some one can't walk away from now. Okay?"
The man made a curious sad down turn with his mouth and this only served to make the white face
makeup -if it was make-up Noyce thought- and black lips accentuated by thin lines pulled from
each side, a more bizarre image to behold. Thin lines came from the mans hair line and ran the
length of his gaunt face seeming to split his face into three when the rolling shadows sank his
face into deeper shade.
Again Noyce thought he saw a bird of some sort flying close to the man, a strobe of black
against gray shadow and white flesh. A black bandanna held the mans hair close to his head and
two long tails of extra material sailed in the cold wind behind him.
"Sir!" called Polk in a strong voice obviously borrowed from his instructor. Very commanding
and in control. In control of what Noyce wasn't quite sure yet. "Do we have an understanding
here? Will you please come down onto the deck?"
"No," came a voice of ice and thunder, A calm chill seemed to flow through all the crew and
Reeves would remember that cold, deathly voice for the rest of his story telling years. "This
does not involve us now, yow or me "he paused and smiled sadly, He seemed to refer to some
internal conflict and then regain his control. The dilemma seemed to have passed beyond his
control or design now, "I have repaid the vile horror that was forced upon my loved ones and
myself. I have given what they should have received for their venomous actions, I have sought
revenge and gained its strength and favor.
"I have tempered my will to become a sword of pain, and I have forged my soul to make the filth
that took my life wish they had never set foot on this earth for they will never see it's
delights again."
Reeves made a clicking noise with his mouth and Noyce saw him twirl his finger next to his
temple.
"Jesus, you think this young man's been eating too many Fruit-loops and they've gone to his
head?"
"Shut it Reeves, We're just going to talk him down first, then you can make your bar room
judgments on his mental state, but for now keep that yap of yours closed quarters okay!" Noyce
felt cold rush through his body as adrenaline began to seep from his blood stream, the initial
fight or flight response now giving way to controlled nerves, as they opened a dialogue with
the obviously deluded or deranged individual above. "I'll give you one minute to come down, sir."
"Or what? You'll threaten to shoot me?"
"Now nobody wants it to come to that ,sir" Noyce called up, and this time he was sure there was
a sword behind the man. A long one at that.
"What if I shoot you first?" the dry, cold voice held no malice or threat. It was a peculiar
statement to come from one so calm and, so far, unassuming. Although it was all assumption so
far on Noyce's part as to what had happened up on the catamarans decks. Actions that had made
a hole in its hull, and secondly reduced a grown man to chuck his breakfast over the side.
Polk's description of a bloodbath gave him the only assumption that the clown man was the
perpetrator.
"Shit!" Noyce said and drew his own weapon for the first time in over a year discounting the
required monthly weapons practice.
The man grinned with his cruelly elongated smile and reached behind him with both hands, Before
either Polk or Noyce could see, they were back again and fill of ugly black death.
Polk fired first, closely followed by Noyce, his compact Barretta sending a thudding shockwave
down his good arm, he wasn't sure how good a shot he would be with only one hand but he wasn't
going to loose his crew by doubting his worth and not firing.
Four bullets struck the man and thin sprays of flesh and blood seemed to leap off of his pale
torso as he absorbed the impact and bullets with only minor discomfort.
A fifth bullet plucked away at the man's leg and bit into the meat of the mans upper thigh.
The thick black canvas trousers seemed to ruffle on either side as the bullet tore through
muscle and exit from just below the gluteus muscle.
"You can see what a false threat that would be to me now don' t you?" he said almost
conversationally as a huge black crow swooped into Noyce and snatched the Barretla from his
weak one-handed grasp.
A deep splash highlighted the guns burial at sea.
Polk looked down at his chief with utter disbelief and confusion. Noyce felt utterly helpless
as everyone looked at him for guidance. Scheafer was even now regaining his lost composure and
feebly fumbling for his Clock. Quite why Noyce wasn't sure - he was either going to throw it in
the sea or eat it himself as it was useless against the crow-man.
The crow-man sat down in a slow smooth movement and crossed his legs as he sat on the small dais
of the crow's nest. The spotlight was beginning to loose its power as dawn rode in with pure
daylight and rejuvenated the colors dulled by darkness, Perhaps even colored the souls dulled
by human darkness too.
The crow-man seemed to relax as a warm ray crossed his arm. He seemed to almost absorb the heat
as if it were a concept long lost to him. The accompanying crow cawed loudly, breaking the
nervous silence, and landed with a scrabble of long claws on the edge of the crow's nest.
"Fuck! If that ain't the biggest damn crow I ever did see!" Reeves sounded astounded and the
crow seemed to regard him to with an equal fascination and then reprove its thoughts and ignore
the old man.
"What's a damn crow doing this far out to sea anyway?" Scheafer queried still shaky and
thoroughly unsure what to do with his revealed Glock. It hung in his hand forgotten and pointless
.
"Seeing that justice, of a sort, is mete," Crow-man replied, More sunlight stroked his body and
the first natural reaction to stimulus Noyce had seen him make, sent a shiver of appreciation
through him. The sun's warmth made his make-up even starker, but the large crow seemed to glisten
with the light. Capture it amongst its demon dark feathers and proudly use it to shine the
darkness of its breast and wings. "Taking back what they stole from me and trying to settle lost
and weary souls. No one deserves a frightened transience. No one deserves to be lost to Heaven
if that is where they should be." The Crow-man's sudden rage grew as each word struck home
somewhere within his own heart. His eyes screwed tightly shut as he leapt to his feet again,
his boots seemingly light as thin training shoes on his feet. "And no one deserves to remain
alive when they take my love and life from me!"
No one moved as he looked down upon his impromptu audience, his confessors or redeemers he did
not know nor care. He had been brought back to resolve his anger and rejoin his loved ones, not loose and furious as a twisting, tortured soul. He was rejoicing in the violence he had made but only on those who had sought to teach him of its existence in the primal minds of evil men and in whose primal evil minds it DID exist.
They had found him and betrayed every promise they made in their sick little charade, for safety
they had replaced it with terror, with co-operation they had re-paid, in spades with brutality
the like he or his precious family had never deemed possible from one human being to another.
And with hope they had smashed all thought of such a desire with a cold hard fact of life: Death.
Cold blooded, feral, uncaring, demeaning and destroying.
It had come in all forms that day and had earned them, a visit from a spirit of uncompromising
revenge a year later as they flaunted their atrocities and still used the same boat that they had
stolen from him. A boat whose decks must have been stained with his own and his families blood,
before he decanted their own foul life blood onto the very same deck plates. He had not even
known that pirates still existed in this day and age. A filthy group of men who specialized in
crime on the ocean and disposing of the victims over the side weighted down with whatever the
pirates could not see a use for, or possibly gain a worthy price for, wherever they sold and
hawked the results of their murderous campaigns.
They had taken his rented catamaran at night and forced his wife to carry out all manner of
primeval pleasures with each of them, with a promise of safe passage if she and her husband
complied fully.
His son had soon seen through their lies and with the purest thought of youth and told them so.
He died before he was twelve: drowned, as his body was towed behind the yacht after being force
fed high grade alcohol brought over from the pirates original boat.
The father had been physically sick as he heard the rowdy group take bets on how long a drunk
kid could last before he drowned, whilst from the other side of the boat in a once romantic
stateroom a howling scream erupted from his beautiful wife as a further atrocity was performed
upon her. He had boiled with such an unleashed rage then that he had succeeded in beating the
lone vagabond left to guard him, senseless - even with his hands bound. But his unfocused
vehemence had made him careless - he got only as far as opening the stateroom door to try and
save his dieing wife. He was unbound, having cut his hands free with the beaten guards knife,
and was trying to wield the long switchblade in some threatening manner.
Even he thought it was laughable, pathetic even, as he burst in upon his wife's attackers and
saw how completely they had destroyed her. Diminished her to nothing more than an object of
animal lust. The look of both shame and hope on her face as he called to her crushed his soul
before the five men jumped him, beating him senseless within seconds and crushing his larynx as
swiftly as they crushed his heart.
He could not expire knowing the future sorrow and pain his wife would further suffer. He could
not rest.
He could not die! He would not die.
He did.
But love has a way of breaking barriers.
He returned a year later, with a fury only built upon in his time of death. Vengeance stalked
that very same yacht that very same night a year later.
It was a murderous extinguishing beast and it carved a trail through the bloody sons of the sea
like a thunderbolt - It slit throats, gouged eyes leaving a bloody screaming wreck, it caved
hearts with a powerful thrust of a paIm. It shot men with hardly a rational thought: a weakness
it may have had had it not known the violence these men were capable of and if it hadn't wanted
it so much.
From beyond a watery grave the spirit had risen like dark pieces of glass until it had merged
upon the surface of the sea and been greeted by a cawing, cajoling messenger from deaths dark
region.
"You now have your chance" the dark crow said " Live to kill those who killed you. Let your
vengeance be fulfilled. Yours was an angry spirit and angry spirits do not rest well. They are
bothersome, and a noisy pain in the arse to boot. You, my friend were one of the nosiest I think'
have ever heard. It's thanks to me they let you back. No, no need to thank me quite yet, you
still have a job to do.
" Do you think you have it in you?"
The dark form had risen from the waves, risen until only the tips of it's boots were sunk in
the beaten foam.
The cry came from deep within the very soul of mankind. A despairing roar that spoke only of
rage, and struck fear into any cognitive being who may have heard it and its meaning. There
wasn't so much an undercurrent of death as so much a pure expression.
"There you go, that's the spirit. Make me proud son!"
The crow had flown a straight course to the yacht and its swimming shadow had followed - its
strange, white and black marked face seeming to appear as the flesh dried and unpuckered from
its water-swollen slate.
Terror rang around the yacht as soon as a scream could be uttered, and that was only because
it was meant to be heard. The roused pirates found one of their own pinned to the mast with a
boat hook, both his legs off the deck and blood seeping from somewhere in his grubby jeans. As
the dark spirit had flown from one victim to the next it made it's way through the once familiar,
now degraded, dirty yacht, in a cold methodical pattern.
More than once someone put up a fight and tried gun, knife or blunt instrument to stop the
killer amongst them. The first three times the Crow thought. That he would die all over again,
but the brusque black familiar it had collected told him the rules-
"You can't kill somethin' already dead. You can't kill someone you already killed,!"
Fire, broken bones, a broken spine, a broken glass meal, knives, a shotgun fired until it was
empty, punching holes in the side of the boat as the slugs smashed trough the victims body at
such a close range. The Crow used everything at its disposal to dispose of the pirate crew. An
angry fire was kept well stoked as every face he saw wrung bloody memories from his sub-conscious.
But as he came to the end of his brutal journey he finally came upon a horror not even he could
look at. He felt his heart grow hard as he kicked open the small cabin door and knew he had to
make this death the swiftest if he was going to return to his grave safe in the knowledge of
reuniting wit his love.
Tears began to stream down The Crow's face as Noyce and his silent crew heard the last of the
man's confession.
"She was still alive! They had kept her alive for their own use. My beautiful angel was still
alive!
"For all the horror of that day that l heard and saw, she had had to live through even more.
More than any mind could bear I suppose. It was a miracle she could still talk. You have no
idea what they had reduced her to. She was barely human. It was unspeakable.
"How can one human being do that to another. Aren't we supposed to be the rational, evolved
ones? Rulers of our own planet, shapers of our own environment. Beings evolved to a higher
intelligence than any other creature on earth?
"What they had done to her wasn't even animal, it was an abomination!"
The Crow reached behind him and pulled the long sword from behind his back. The blade was
dulled in the center with blood.
"We died on the same blade. I pushed it through myself and then held her to me. In that last
moment I do believe she recognized me. Through the haze of whatever they had been doping her up
with, and through the scoured stillness of her mind, I do believe she saw me.
"Why else would she have smiled as I held her. And why else would she wipe away the tears of a
dead man as he wept as she died?"
Noyce could not fathom what he was hearing, it was all too strange but somewhere inside he wished
that it was based somewhere in truth. Belief that love could conquer death was not an unpleasant
concept for him. But where did you draw the line between fact and mythical magic? Hard evidence
and a man who seemed to be invulnerable to small weapons fire seemed to a good starting point.
"My time is past now. You will see others in your time I'm sure, but pray they are not your
enemy!" The Crow raised his arms to form a cruciform and then made a smooth swan dive from his
nest. The wind seemed to embrace his body and buoy it up for a second, giving the human crow a
feeling of flight for a brief moment.
The large bird flew away, towards the new brimming sun and was lost in the glare as Reeves
watched it leave the strangest of strange situations he had ever been in.
"STOP!" cried Noyce with a hoarseness in his voice he didn't recognise.
But gravity had The Crow and in a graceful arc he hit the water. The body seemed to fly apart
into a thousand black and silver mirror shards and spread out into the
Ocean. The deep blue water accepting back its supernaturally revived occupant once again.
Noyce rushed to the side of the boat and watched the mirrors dart and spin in the water as
they seemed to blend into the ripples and mirrored ribbons of the oceans surface.
'Well if that ain't the damndest thing I've ever seen!" he said.
THE END
This is my first Crow fan fiction piece - but not my first short story, hope it shows!
If you have any feedback please let me know, as it is always great to get a review -good or bad!