Jack the Fish Boy

AuthorHouse

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................viiChapter One The Blue World.......................................1Chapter Two Relationships........................................9Chapter Three The Deep End before the Plunge.......................17Chapter Four Magic in the Water...................................25Chapter Five Father's Surprise....................................33Chapter Six LiLi, Guardian of the Mystic Sea.....................43Chapter Seven Peter and the Morthwyl Pens War......................53Chapter Eight Raiders of the Abyss.................................61Chapter Nine Revenge and Tyranny..................................69Chapter Ten Birth Origins........................................77Chapter Eleven Father's Surprise Unveiled...........................83Chapter Twelve League of Kingdom....................................91Chapter Thirteen The Death of Evil....................................99Chapter Fourteen Valley of Shadows....................................105Chapter Fifteen Escaping the Lies....................................117Chapter Sixteen The Return...........................................125Chapter Seventeen Sacrifices...........................................133Chapter Eighteen War Sheol............................................141Chapter Nineteen Mines over Matter....................................149Chapter Twenty Concwest adlaw Llaith................................155Chapter Twenty-one Rescuing Evil........................................163Chapter Twenty-two Whale of a Tale......................................173Chapter Twenty-three Evolution Solution...................................181Chapter Twenty-four Journey's End........................................191Chapter Twenty-five The Green World......................................201Chapter Twenty-Six And Thus the Journey Begins..........................211

Chapter One

"Protect us, ol' great crusader of the mystic sea." Those were the words spoken by tense minds filled with such miserable concerns on a brutal, warm October 10, 1914. The crew felt monstrous heat waves splash up against the Enchanted bowsprit. The Enchanted was a ship named simply after her meaning and prosperous firm appearance. Naked masts bore no sails, nor were there signs of anchoring, as she just simply sat there, floating confusedly and waiting as if readying to decompose. An unexpected gathering met around the railings, staring anxiously at the ocean and waiting for the outcome of an unfolding tragedy. The crew had reported witnessing Mister Jeremy Noble filling up his uniform pockets with loads of sea sand before dramatically leaping off the rail, sinking him straight down into the cold, southern Atlantic sea. The young, decorated first officer was described as timid and a bit of a loner, a good friend to most of the thirty crewmen who could not empathize with the reason behind his atrocity.

Eleven minutes had elapsed since Captain Thomas's last dive into the dark, blue ocean. The men had grown weary and feared the worst for the enduring captain. After all, no man had ever stayed underwater for that amount of time. But history had always endured in ways of evolving the perceived notion on changing even man's amount of time. Surfacing air bubbles from below clearly gave into hope as Captain Thomas rose from within. He held an unconscious first officer in one arm and paddled back to the Enchanted. Mister Lynch had jumped into the ocean to help carry Mister Noble's body up onto the deck. Pale and bloated, his body did not appear healthy as it lay in stillness. Captain Thomas whisked aboard, slid to his knees, began blowing air into his mouth, and listened for signs of a heartbeat. The men huddled about, watching nervously.

Young Jack glanced at the time on his shiny pocket watch. He had never seen a dead man before this particular moment, yet he joined the stunned crewmen and watched his father desperately pound onto the body's chest, trying to revive the life back into Jeremy Noble.

With one arm and a curled fist, Captain Thomas banged and pumped at his chest repeatedly until he tired. The captain wore a brace to help support his other arm, a wooden arm in place of his lost one. Of course, various different stories from some of the crewmembers had surfaced on how he had lost his arm. But the captain seemed to always correct the rumors, telling them of the Congo savage tribes in the African jungles who had severed his arm during a gruesome attack while he was on an archeological excavation. But this was another story.

"George, if you would be so kind, take Mister Noble into my quarters and place him on my table, please," said the captain.

The crew hoisted him away to the captain's quarters, where Jack quietly crept downstairs with suspicion in mind. He hid alongside a barrel across the doorway. The men entered, clearing the table and placing Mister Noble on the table.

"Ready the sails, and hoist in the fishing nets. Full ahead at starboard, and get back to work, gentleman!" shouted the captain, rolling up his sleeves and heading down into his quarters.

Mister Lynch barked out further orders from the quarterdeck. "You heard the Keptain! Double yer efforts! Check the rudder!"

Jack lay uncomfortable, but he was silent and still as his father entered the quarters, leaving the door slightly opened. It was just enough to witness a sudden blinding light outline the doorframe. Scrambling, a wide-eyed Jack went to get a better view inside. But a passing Mister Lynch foiled his plot immediately and yanked him away by the earlobe.

"Get away, lad! Shame on you for spying on yer own father."

Angered, Mister Lynch slapped away at him and made him run up the stairs. The blinding light dimmed. The door opened wide, where first officer Jeremy Matthew Noble stood looking a bit disoriented, but indeed alive and well. Mister Lynch fell back, startled by his sight. Jack ran clear across the deck, stopping at the stem's high bows figurehead just beneath the bowsprit, where he stared at the finely carved wooden angel expanding her glorious, mighty wings out into the blue world. The working crewmen came to a halt as they witnessed Mister Noble step out onto the deck. A gust of wind blew in from the north, inducing the sails at full speed ahead.

"Man the wheel, Mister Noble," said Captain Thomas, joining him on deck and ignoring the entire event.

In Jesus's name, the men signed the holy cross above their foreheads and across their chest. A miracle perhaps? In a moment, the incident was over. The crewmen turned back to their chores and never once spoke about the incident ever again. This legendary story would eventually be told again, and it would be written as such into the literary arts by a famous writer who recalled the tall tale of the Enchanted, the crewmen, and God's first sea captain.

Mister Lynch gingerly paced himself over toward the captain, who seemed tall and coercive for the moment. His eyes preyed at the sea, scanning for unusual elements of surprises from lurking dangers abroad.

"Forgive me, Captain, but you saved his life. I don't dare ask how you achieved such grace, but we are all grateful for your scientific medical knowledge."

The captain ignored Mister Lynch, all for the sake of secrecy.

"What drove him mad enough to attempt to take his own life?" asked Mister Lynch, baffled from the very thought of committing one of God's most horrendous and ultimate sins.

"I'm not God, Mister Lynch, nor am I a doctor of medicine. I am, however, a doctor of field anthropology. Perhaps it was not I who saved the man. Surely, a spiritual man such as your own stature would recognize and acknowledge that God simply has a different plan for him just yet," replied the straightforward captain, patiently walking away to console with his precocious young son, Jack.

"What really happen to him, Father? We all witnessed him dead when you pulled him out of the ocean," replied Jack, tossing a coin out into the blue sea.

"Mister Noble was barely breathing when I pulled him out, but, if you must know these things, I used an old African medicine weed that acts as a sponge, absorbing and draining the seawater from his lungs."

"What of the curious bright light shining in our quarters?" asked Jack.

"Extra lanterns to keep his frigid body temperature down from the cold sea."

"Then explain how you were able to stay underwater for so long, Father? Some of the men are frightened of the question," said Jack, angrily sensing another one of his father's made-up stories and lies.

"Lower your voice, young man," whispered the captain.

The crew watched and listened to the fueled argument.

"Stop with these ridiculous questions, Jack. I will not have you ridicule me this way in front of my crew!" replied the captain, annoyed by his spoiled son's sudden change of behavior these last two months out at sea.

"I hate you and this ship. I wish I'd never come along."

Captain Thomas gripped his fist, refraining himself from the harsh words that had punctured his heart ever so slowly and scared his parental skills. Instead, he groomed his stringy hair back with his hand and rolled down his sleeves. "Well, as I recall, I never invited you here."

Captain Thomas walked off, leaving Jack angry. Jack tossed his last coin out to sea. Two dolphins sprang up from beneath the ocean's surface. The dolphins hurled in and out of the water, playfully guiding the bowsprit and her sails. Jack smiled at their innocence and waved at the kindness spreading like the wonderful aroma of an unknown plantlike substance looming through the warm late afternoon air.

"Wish I lived in your world so he could never find me ever again," whispered Jack before the dolphins disappeared into their world.

The days and nights that followed were all a wonder and a strange delight. Though Jack had little time for work, he stole odd moments to gaze at the unending glory of what he never dreamed the world possessed. Colors of tainted blue aided the shaping of the world's horizons, where pale, fleecy clouds changed with every swift move, aspiring only for a golden setting spawned by a changing flawless turquoise sky.

"Indeed, it is a mighty fine blue world, laddie. Do you suppose God knew what he was doing when he created such a delightful masterpiece?" said the wise, old, jolly Scotsmen, Mister Lynch.

"I'm an atheist, Mister Lynch. I don't believe in God," answered Jack coldly. He helped navigate the helm.

"Rubbish! Rest assured, me boy, when the time comes, you will seek him at the most difficult moment in yar young life. Just remember, you won't know what hit ya! It will come from deep within the soul, and you will speak with him. I promise you that much, Jacky."

Mister Lynch unlocked the mesa door below and pulled out an old sea chest filled with his own personal belongings that depicted years of meaningful memories. Jack saw an old book Mister Lynch had attempted to write his life on and a broken spyglass from an old pirate ship. Indeed, the sea chest was memorable, but one particular object did occupy Jack's attention. It was an old, dusty doll sewn with bear fur, representing a cub or a past child's toy of some sorts. It lay inside the chest, as if he'd been protecting Mister Lynch's treasures of life for years. But the moment was brief. Mister Lynch closed the mesa door quickly, sending Jack to ponder his curiosity, but it wasn't long before he recognized a long, green, stale suitcase that his father had stored away for him just a few months before the war had begun. It had been the surprise gift he had longed for ever since he and his father had begun drifting apart. It was special, no matter what the contents inside were. But, rather than troubling Mister Lynch for it, he bit his own tongue and kept his silence at a distance. Mister Lynch displayed his most prized possession, his smelly old pipe.

"This pipe was made from the fin of a hammerhead shark," said Mister Lynch, stuffing it with loads of fine, shredded tobacco from the lower regions of the South American jungles. "You do know what a hammerhead shark is, don't ya, boy?"

"Of course I do. What a silly question to ask. After all, we are at sea with all creatures of the Atlantic," snapped Jack, appalled by the insulting question. But he seemed a bit confused and uneducated. Truthfully, he knew nothing about these creatures.

"Your father had this pipe made for me many years ago. I value it simply because of the true story behind it, a story so ghostly that it dares to give you nightmares when you're even awake."

The crewmen walked over and sat next to the rails, listening to Mister Lynch's lofty fables of the cruel sea.

"They say there is a place in these very areas of sea that are dark and sinister. Even Lucifer himself is afraid to sail through it. Many ships have passed through this wicked place, only never to return again. They have all disappeared, swallowed by the bluest of the sea. But there is a particular fable passed on by the only survivor who also dare not ever sail through these parts of the world ever again. Somewhere below, laddie, lays a mass graveyard filled with ships of all sorts. Many have speculated the graveyard's history goes as far back as when the age of the long ships sailed through the rough seas and their brutal Viking men died while trying to rule these ghostly spirits, only to fall victims to their ruling. Souls were rendered from their dying bodies, forever joining the forbidden sea against the creatures that defied authorization."

The crewmen chuckled, laughing at the ludicrous fable, except for eleven pale and flake-skinned men with long, bristly hair and beards as long as one's arm in length. They were not of British descent, nor were they from a country recognized as one. Certainly deemed as outsiders, they never quite fit in with the rest of the crew. Best friends amongst each other, they were indeed. The loyalty to serve the captain was undoubtedly their highest honor, and they would fight for him until the very end of all ends. Though they remained silent, they curiously listened to the eerie fable with great interest to their own mission of cryptic worlds. "I have also heard similar tales of this place in the ocean," replied George, pouring himself a cup of hot tea.

"Ten years ago, I learned of the bewitching fable when I was in America, working the harbors in Massachusetts. I met a ruthless German man named Goeth who commanded a small transporter cargo ship named the Dead Ship. It was said that he carried priceless Asian artifacts, including an immense king's chest filled with gold coins. One dark night, as he sailed across a violent storm in the deep southern Atlantic sea, the shift crew who had been asleep was suddenly attacked from the dark waters that would feed into the night. Several hungry sharks ripped through the ship's flooring, sinking the ship and terrorizing the screaming men in the red water. The artifacts and gold chest would sink to the bottom of the ocean like an iron weight, where rippling effects formed a large sand crater next to a canyon's abyss. Soon after, the Dead Ship would become the very first of many ships to follow and conceal the crater for many years. But this is not the end of the fable. A lost map leads right to the location of the treasures and the many sunken ships. The only survivor who escaped the wrath of the blood-infested waters that night was the mapmaker himself, Goeth. Now mates, there has been no sign of any Germans out here. If my calculations are correct, we are not far from the dark, infested waters simply known today as the Dead Ships." Chilled by the fable, Jack rubbed his chest, seeking comfort. An overwhelming and gut-wrenching feeling concerned him and the direct path they sailed upon.

"You're going to give us all nightmares, Mister Lynch!" shouted a crewmen, pulling the dusty, old bear out of the sea chest and playfully cuddling with it.

The men laughed and poked fun at the sappy jokester while the evening dinner bell rang on time, scaring Jack half to death. The crewmen laughed at a pale look he had displayed before quickly running away below quarters.

"They're just silly tales, Jack. Come back, laddie!" shouted a crewmen, laughing. The men drank their ale, sang, and danced. They laughed and shared other stories while sailing into the evening hours of the blue world. The eleven crewmen disappeared from the deck and would not be found again for the remainder of the night.

Chapter Two

A written letter was sealed tightly in a small, glass bottle that sat by the captain. Jack walked in unannounced and immediately smelled a familiar food odor, thus complicating matters for the cook.

"Potatoes again, Father? Surely the cook can conjure up a heartier recipe not involving Irish spuds. I thought the Enchanted was supposed to be a scout ship searching regions of the Atlantic for signs of the enemy?"

"Indeed we are a scout ship. Britain's finest, I assure you. This mission will be recognized as a success, even if we don't encounter the enemy." The captain briefly stored the bottle up in the cupboard.

"A British scout ship disguised as a recreational ship serving potatoes for a third night. The disguise is horrible if we were ever boarded." Jack sat down at the table.

He wiped down dried-up bits of excessive food particles off his knife and fork. Insulted, the ship's cook walked away, frowning at the act. The cook stared deviously at the spoiled brat sitting at the table, where he poured wine and served yet another batch of steaming Irish potatoes. Perhaps it was a rigorous intent on behalf of the cook. Nevertheless, it was a hot meal, and all except Jack would be grateful for the serving.

"Excuse me, Captain, but does the lad not enjoy me meals?" The cook diligently placed slices of bread on the table.

"No, I don't like potatoes or your cooking!" Jack shouted rudely.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Jack the Fish Boyby Jesse H. Colbath IV Copyright © 2009 by Jesse H. Colbath IV. Excerpted by permission.
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