Kraken

Kraken

By Dmytry Karpov

“You ever seen a kraken, boy?" Bill sat on a barrel. Dried up hands caressed the tobacco pipe at his mouth. He pulled it away, and his cracked lips shot smoke at me like a cannon. "Ever heard its roar?"

I turned away; the smoke poured through my body like poison. "I heard about it." I sat on my own barrel—one of many on the ship.

Bill stared at me with his one good eye like a hungry fish. A black eye patch covered his other—a souvenir from his last kraken hunt.

The air grew thick with smoke as he nursed his pipe. "We all hear about it." His eye drifted away to the ship’s deck. "I had a friend who heard about it so much he couldn't wait to go on a hunt."

I brushed back my black hair—slippery like an eel— and waited for Bill to go on. But he just stared at the deck as if he peered at the ocean below it. The wind sent cold waves at us, but Bill sat still like sails with no wind. I kept myself steady like wood. I mean, I tried to keep myself steady like wood.

"So, did your friend go on a hunt?" My breath turned into smoke like the pipe's, only paler.

"He did. Him and I." Bill chuckled and adjusted his red hat. "Those stories, they don't tell you everything."

"I hope they leave out more of the good than the bad." I wrapped my arms around myself. Other crew ran around and kept the ship heading north. I should have been below deck in this cold, but Bill always stayed on top. He had hunted more krakens than anyone. I was hunting my first. I could use his help.

"How'd that hunt go?" I asked.

Bill frowned. "My friend, he was never strong. The weak..." he waved his hand like slapping something, "get wiped out."

"I see." I swallowed and moved the barrel under me, managing to drag it closer to Bill; I wasn't the strongest myself. "Did you kill that beast?"

"Yes." Bill finally looked back at me and smiled. "We knew when it was coming. We killed it nice and fast."

"But your friend still—"

"The kraken's quicker than falling water, boy." Bill titled his head at a barrel overflowing with dead fish. "And it don't play with its food."

The fish smelled like the vomit being forced up my throat. I shivered and breathed through my mouth. "I guess that's why the pay is good. This job is like going to hell, trying to get back, and killing the Devil along the way."

"The pay is good cause the kraken corpse sells for lots." Bill stood up. His back cracked. "But that's not why I hunt it, boy." He walked starboard.

I followed. "Why? The glory?" I passed the dead fish barrel, and then another. My hands shook. My stomach twisted like a fish on land. I held bile back as I reached the side of the ship.

"Glory?" Bill scowled and pulled his red coat tight—like blood smudged on the deck. "You ever lost anything at sea, boy?"

I nodded. "My father and I went fishing once. A storm threw him overboard."

I was stuck at sea not knowing what to do. Fish we had caught all around me, rotting for days. Rotting like me. Except I was saved a few days later.

"There be nothing glorious about that," said Bill. "Do you know when you can tell you've found a kraken, boy?"

"No."

"The smell, boy. The smell."

"What's it like?"

Bill looked at the dark water and sniffed. "Like death."

The wind brought the rotten fish smell at me. I closed my nose shut with an unsteady hand. "Do you know if we're near then?"

"I know." Bill turned to face the crew. "Boys. It's time. Bring out the plank!"

"What you use that for?"

"We need bait for the kraken," said Bill, as sailors set up the plank. "And we need it out away from the ship."

I pointed at the barrels. "The fish?"

Bill walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "No. It likes us men more. I'm sorry, boy. The beast needs fresh meat. We always give it the weakest." He looked at the deck. "Always."

"NO!" I yelled and tried to scramble away, tried to run to the middle of the ship.

"There be no use." Bill grabbed me with both arms and pushed me to my knees. "The beast is already here, boy. Can't you smell it?"

I smelled only rotten fish. But that was only...

Bill smiled. "You do, don't you?"

My stomach turned hard. My body shook.

The kraken was here.

It smelled like death.