The Beach - Part II

Link to article: The Beach - Part II.

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[[=]]
+++ **I**
[[/=]]

John awoke to the sound of singing:

[[=]]
//O Johnny’s gone to Liverpool, 
To Liverpool, that Yankee school!//

//Those Yankee sailors you'll see there, 
With red top-boots and short-cut hair.//

//O Johnny’s gone to Baltimore 
To dance upon that sanded floor!//

//O Johnny’s gone to Callao; 
Those Spanish gals he'll see, I know!//

//O Johnny’s gone for evermore! 
I’ll never see my John no more!//
[[/=]]

He opened his eyes. His head was propped against the driftwood, which he had until this moment thought to be a pillow in Site-184’s personnel quarters. A dull pain ached in his abdomen, and he suddenly felt the pangs of hunger. 
    
He looked up. He was on the beach, of course. It had been no more than a few hours since he'd stepped through the portal that was a doorframe, gilded in those ominous words, on the ship that shouldn’t exist. The air was brighter than it had been before he slept, but he had no sense of the passage of time; it could be the crack of dawn or the waning light of dusk. 

He looked to his right; the campfire was long dead, having been snuffed to a thin sheet of black ash. The sand around it was kicked and disturbed, forming little mounds around where heavy boots had once been. John sat up, grimacing through his achiness. Ahead of him was Irving, the hackneyed old fisherman. He was gashing away at the blubber of the carcass, whistling some ancient shanty. John could see a cleaver of sorts in his right hand, rusted through and wrapped in dirty, bloody tape. He was timing his cuts with his song, swinging down forcefully with each rhyme. Sometimes he would stop, rip a chunk of the meat free from the heap, then resume. At his feet were slabs of fatty white viscera and several other sharp, serrated blades. Despite its grizzly nature, the scene was oddly idyllic.
    
John tried to channel the strength to stand but found there was none. The hunger grew sharper, and he let out a stifled groan. Irving must have heard because he stopped his whistling and turned, a grin spreading on his face. 
    
“Ah, there you are. Sleep well, did ya?” He dropped the saw soundlessly to the sand and started walking over to where John lay. 

Crouched on one knee, he said: “Brought you something while you were out. You’re lucky, the Carp don’t usually come up to these waters.” He reached into his coat and pulled out something wrapped in brown paper. He peeled back its layers to reveal a lump of meat, drained of color, steaming in the open air. “Kept it warm for ya.”
    
He handed it to John, who eyed it suspiciously.
    
“It’s good meat,” Irving said. “Had some myself earlier.” 

Next to the carcass, John spotted other wrappings of brown paper. He took the meat, peeling off a piece, and took a bite. It was tough and salty but tasted fine. A bit like crab mixed with some anonymous white fish. He gagged, and thought of it coming from the same waters that produced the fetid thing across the sand. He downed the rest of the lump, feeling warmth return to his body. 
    
“Thanks,” he croaked. 
    
“Aye. I was hungry too when I woke. But that was long ago.” He turned to look back at the carcass. “Got a head start on it. It’s a tough one, but it’ll crack like the rest. Two pairs of hands are better than one, but only once you have your strength back.”
    
“What’s it for, the meat?” 
    
“Angel meat has all sorts of purposes. For one, it burns like hell, if you can get it to light.” He lifted a greasy canteen from his coat pocket and swished it around. “The oil’s what you want, really. The meat’s no good to eat unless you’re in a real pinch. I’ve got enough Carp to last a week, maybe more.” His tone shifted to a whisper. “The Angel’s flesh is useful, but it's vile stuff. It’s what’s underneath. That’s what we’re after.” His face contorted into an awful grin. 

At that moment, John was made aware of how little he trusted this man. But his words had pierced his train of thought like an arrow. //The bones underneath… the bones… it// must //have bones, right? So why can’t I…//
    
“I see that look on your face.” Irving’s smile vanished, and he looked very cold. “It's the look of a madman. The look of people who try to hold it all up here.” He tapped a finger to his temple. “You can’t picture it until you see it with your own eyes. Until then, it's like trying to see a brand-new color. You’ll lose your mind.” He stood up, rubbing his hands against his coat. “It’s hard work getting to the bones. Lots of gristle on this one. Come join me when you got the strength to stand.”
    
He walked off, resuming his carefree song. 
    
John heard the distant voice of Randal Karter in his head: //Watch this one, Johnny. He’s got the eyes of a jackal. And the tongue to boot.// Still, the old man was endearing. He reminded John of his own father, a hardworking man who wanted nothing more in life than a white picket fence. He was an honest man and had worked a job in construction as a foreman. He built buildings he would never have the money to set foot in. Most of the time he was quiet, especially around John. But once or twice, when John had snuck out of class to watch the yellow metal behemoths crush boulders of concrete, he would catch his father on the job, barking orders and tending to the chaos, his eyes ablaze in the mad fervor of work. He recognized the same look in Irving as he hacked away incessantly at the carcass.
    
John pushed up off the ground, head spinning as he fought off a wave of nauseous exhaustion. He covered his nose with his sleeve as he approached Irving. The stench was invasive, and he worried for a brief moment if it would ever wash out of his clothes. Then he remembered his situation and forgot about his need for professionalism. Irving must have sensed him coming because he reached down and lifted one of the spare blades by his feet without turning around or breaking his song.
    
“Careful around the blades… don’t want to cut yourself with that.” A deep gash ran across the carcass, revealing spongy white viscera beneath a thin layer of rubbery skin. Steam emanated from the corpse in hot streaks. Up close, the thing glistened in an alien, iridescent color. Oil poured from wounds where there should have been blood. Irving scraped his hand through the gash, pulling out a fistful of slime. He ran it over the cap of his canteen, collecting some and letting the rest drip to the sand. “There’ll be more than enough for the two of us.” He handed John a rusty saw. “Follow my lead, and don’t forget to breathe.” He gave a wheeze and resumed hacking at the gash. 

John felt ready to puke. 

[[=]]
+++ **II**
[[/=]]

The two cut for most of the day. By the time the sky turned the color of ashen smoke, the white meat lay in tall mounds on either side of the men. The whale was eviscerated; what was left of its main body was a slurry, out of which thin bones poked like dead trees on a winter mountainslope. John remembered the surprise he had felt when he first saw them, several hours ago. 

Irving had peeled back another layer of blubber and gave a sharp yell, as if he had just spotted a rattlesnake curled underneath his bedsheets. John stepped back wearily, wondering if something had gone wrong. “Don’t touch them,” Irving spoke low as if the whale was listening. “Don’t cut the bones; bad luck to cut the bones of an Angel.” He resumed slicing, this time much slower and more methodically. “I think we’re in luck, boy.” He said this as if John was a third-grader who just found a penny on the sidewalk. “This one’s got a pearl, yes it does. A ripe one, ready for picking.” 

Presently, the bones themselves were beautiful; simple yet elegant. The color of white marble. They looked to be made of ivory or something equally regal. John thought he saw lines of gold running through the bones like blood in veins. The full presence of the beast was greater now, but its true form as it would have appeared in life was still a mystery. The thought of the carcass hurt less now; that had both relieved and terrified him.

The two’s pace slowed as the sky darkened. //So time does change//, John thought. He didn’t want to think about the nights here. He trusted Irving had a plan. John stepped from the carcass for the first time in hours, letting fresher air fill his lungs. He dropped the glossy saw and sat down. 

Irving was still knee-deep in the viscera, cutting vigorously into the gristle. Something in his posture had changed; he had stopped his cheery song some time ago and was now focused solely on the carnage. He seemed to peer through the flesh of the beast to something beyond. The yellow fervor crept back into his eyes, and he looked truly, undeniably insane. Then he stopped and reached a fist elbow-deep into the slurry. His expression shifted, from madness to surprise to euphoria. With a shout, he hoisted his hand out to reveal something clutched in his fist. 

“By God, I’ve done it!” He laughed a thunderous laugh, then clambered down to John. “Ol’ Irving’s done it at long last! Damn my old eyes, I’ve got it.” In his hand rested a large, spherical object the size and shape of a billiard ball. It was a dusty rose color, dripping with oil and other fleshy bits. It looked like a pearl and shone with a brilliance John hadn’t seen before. 

“It feels powerful,” John said, awestruck. 

“That’s because it is! This here’s a God-pearl, or so the tales go. This thing is eons old, formed in the bellies of the Angels as they drink themselves silly on the souls of men. Some say it holds the power of a star.” He rotated it in his hand. The thing glistened in the fading daylight. “It’s said to bring untold fortune to those brave or foolish enough to go looking for one. Gah, if I were a little younger I could tell you the name of the Angel from the color of this pearl.” He gazed across the span of the beach. “Let's get a fire going, it’s getting cold.” 

The winds from the sea were picking up, sending gusts of frigid air over the beach. The surf itself was more violent than it was during the day, and John could hear the water breaking on the sand like claps of thunder. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he could see black shapes breaching the surface of the sea. It was too dark to know for sure.

Irving gathered some bits of damp wood and dirty paper over the ashen remains of the last night’s campfire. He drizzled some of the oil from his canteen over the kindling and pulled out a carton, a blue matchbox with a mermaid printed on it, and lit a match. The fire burst immediately in an explosive flash. The flames shot up almost to John’s eye level, and he reflexively pulled back. Then they subsided and settled at a low murmur. Their color was a bright white, with turquoise undertones. The air around them was quickly brought up to a comfortable temperature, and John finally relaxed. 

“This will burn all night if we’re lucky,” Irving said. He too relaxed, stripping off his coat and hat and setting them messily against the driftwood. Underneath he wore a black shirt stained by sweat and grime. His arms were scarred by deep slashes, but otherwise lean and muscular. Around his neck, he wore a lace fitted with pale white objects.

//Bones?// John thought. //Definitely. But too delicate to be a whale//. The light of the fire gave Irving eyes of burning coal, and for a moment he looked like a demon. //He saved my life. He might keep me alive. But I won’t trust him, not until I get some answers//. 

“Who are you?” John didn’t expect to get a straight answer, but he asked anyway. Irving flashed a confused look.

“I told you my name.” 

“I don’t mean your name. I mean who are you? Why are you here? Why am I here?”

“You were called, just as I was many years ago. We have something in common, you and I. It’s why we ended up here and not somewhere up there in the mountains. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that.”

“But //why//.”

“You know why.” 

“Fuck you,” John muttered under his breath.

Irving’s eyes flashed pure steel. “What was that?”

“You heard me, you crazy old man!” John was yelling now. “I wake up here cold and alone, you give me a piece of metal and tell me to hack away at that //thing// all day. You feed me food that might kill me, and you don’t have the decency to give me a straight answer about a Goddamn thing. If we’re going to die out here, then say it. //Tell me we’re dead already//.” He stood up as if to leave, not sure where to go. 

Irving shot up to match, his eyes burning with hot fury. Fear shot through John, and he suddenly felt very small.

“//Keep your voice down, maggot//. You’re here because you were called by the void. I see it in your eyes, that wanderlust. All your life you’ve wanted to sail, to lose yourself on that good quest. Well, here you are! You’re looking at it, take it in. You want to go off to die all by your lonesome? You want the sea to steal your breath away? Then go! You wouldn’t be the first.” He ripped his necklace free and dangled the bones over the fire. “Here they are, every sorry sap to crack under the pressure and throw it all away. Me, I’m well acquainted with Lady Death, I’ll put a good word in for you. So what’ll it be? You want to quit? All you have to do is walk out there, and it’ll be done.” He pointed to the pitch-black water. “Make your choice, but do it fast. I’m tired, and I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

John said nothing for a long while. Then he slunk to his knees. Irving was right. Right about everything. He'd felt the lure of the quest all his life. Chasing it had led him this way and that, but now the fishhook had pulled him here, pierced straight through his heart, to this dreaded beach. It was time he admitted that this was what he had always wanted. Irving towered above, and John was reminded of the giant wave he'd seen in his dream. He wondered if they were the same forces.

“So it is decided. You’ll stay as long as you can. but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The two sat in silence for some time after. The air was tense, but both felt like a weight had been lifted from their collective shoulders. They were bound by the quest, whatever it might be. And it wouldn’t end until they were both dead, or until they held the world in the palms of their hands.

[[=]]
+++ **III**
[[/=]]

They first heard the cry of God in the early hours of the morning, just as the white-colored sun peaked above the jagged teeth of the mountaintops. It sounded different to all people, just as the corpse of the Angel looked to John upon him first seeing it. To his ears, though, the cry sounded how his baby cousin did when she was born: an infant’s wailing, a desperate cry for attention across time and space. It struck John like a bolt of lightning, and he jolted up from his light slumber. 
    
Irving was up already, his body locked in a trance as he stared down the beach. In one hand he clutched the rose pearl. In the dim light of the morning, John could see that he was crying. 
    
“Never would I think in all my life,” he choked through haggard breaths, “to be graced by the voice of God, that beautiful song of white.” His eyes snapped to John’s. “What do you hear, boy? What is he saying to you?”
    
“He’s crying.” John didn’t know how he should feel about this, so he spoke in a neutral, matter-of-fact tone. He knew it was God, that much was clear. No other voice in the universe could carry so far, so clearly. But what that voice was saying, he could not tell. Irving only nodded, wiping the tears from his cheek. 
    
“He’s telling me that I’m ready. That I’ve been good and that I’m ready. Have you any idea what this means?” 
    
John shook his head. 

“It means we’re saved! We’re getting out of here, you and me.” He pointed up the beach, towards the approximate direction of the aimless noise. “Up there, I know not where exactly, but there, up the beach. We’ll find him, my God. And we’ll be free from this madness.”
    
John felt excitement well in him. “You mean to tell me that there’s a way out? A way back?”
    
Irving smiled. “That, and so much more.” He swooped down and retrieved his hat and coat from their spot on the driftwood and stamped out the remains of the dying fire. “Come on, boy. There's no time to wait! Up and at ‘em, //hup!//” It was as if a festive joy had seized him. Like a kid on Christmas morning. 

John couldn’t help but feel excited too, but for what he could not say. They grabbed what little they could, some wrappings of food, bottles of oil, and an assortment of Irving’s trinkets (including the God-pearl, which now sang a flush pink), and left the rest strewn around the carcass. As they trailed up the beach, leaving two rows of footprints in the pristine sand, John gave one last look at the place of his rebirth, and the carcass which lay beside it. It could have been a trick of the light, but for a moment it seemed as if the carcass was sinking wholesale into the sand, like a wounded animal in a pit of tar. 
    
Irving’s carefree singing once again brought John back into focus:

[[=]]
//O Johnny’s gone for evermore! 
I’ll never see my John no more!//
[[/=]]

[[=]]
+++ **IV**
[[/=]]

The first thing the two of them came across as they crossed the beach, besides the endless sand, was a body. 
    
It was approximately human-shaped and lay flat on its stomach face-down in the direction they were headed. Its skin was a matte gray with speckles of white discoloration. Upon closer inspection, these spots appeared to be small tears, giving way to fresher skin underneath. John pictured a rattlesnake he had seen once at the zoo, curled up as it tore its old skin free from its body. 

The corpse was naked, its long arms grasping helplessly in front of it as if it was trying to crawl through its final dying breaths. As John traced his eyes from the back of its head to its feet, he noticed that its lower half was buried in the sand. He impulsively kicked around where its feet should be, but discovered that there were none; its body merely ended, as if its legs had been fused together. What looked to be a tail of sorts was revealed during the kick, and John felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He was staring at a mermaid. 

He held a palm up to his mouth and looked at Irving. The man only looked down with somber reverence. “This one was good in life, aye. A real devotee. It must’ve been called like us. Shame it couldn’t make it.” He squatted next to it and brushed the sand from its shoulders. “Ah well, we’re all soon to die anyway. This one’s swimmin’ with the Angels.”

“What was it?” John managed to croak as he choked down the urge to vomit.

“Child of God, likely. Well we all are, I suppose, but this one had something to show for it. I’ve seen a few in my time here. Supposedly they spend most their time down there.” He gestured to the expanse of water beside them. “We must be on the right track. A worshipper’s never far from a temple. And where there’s a temple, there’s a God.” A smile crept up his face, and he suddenly looked like a giddy schoolboy again.

A little while later, the two spotted something on the horizon. It broke the seamless shore like a black knife, slicing the air in two perfect halves. It was a plume of smoke, black and thick, the kind you see on the evening news after some horrible industrial accident. It shot straight up into the windless sky like a beacon, drawing two moths to a flame. 

Irving’s face was drained of its color in an instant. His voice quivered as he shot out a hand in the direction of the smoke. “There! Oh Lord, tell me it's not true…” He wobbled forward on shaky knees.

John only stood back, confused. “A… fire? Here?”

Irving said nothing. His weariness transformed into explosive movement, and he broke into a run, his arms flailing in exasperation. “Tell me it’s not true, please! Tell me!”

As the two neared, it was revealed that the smoke emanated from the ruins of a building. The flames, if there were any, were hidden deep between the structure's crumbling bricks. The building rested a few paces from the shoreline, and looked like a small shack of some sort. It was made of faded mud bricks, which stood mostly intact amongst the charred remains of whatever wood was used for its thatched roof and floors. A black shape lay half-buried in the sand some distance from the building, but at this distance John couldn’t tell what it was. 

Irving’s hysterics calmed once he saw what had been consumed by the phantom fire. His running slowed, and he collapsed to his knees. His panting for breath turned into a strange breed of ravenous laughter. “God is good, Johnny! God is good. It only be a fisherman’s shack. No matter. Fire’s been known to consume indiscriminately; had this been a sacred place, we’d be in some trouble, boy.” He slowly clambered to his feet. “Let’s take a closer look, aye?”
    
Upon inspection, the building was far more unusual than it had appeared from a distance. It was something of a mix between a prairie homestead and a gothic cathedral. Its roof, which had been entirely made of straw or some other perishable material, had burned away completely, leaving only the brickwork skeleton of the main structure. Thick smoke prevented the two from entering the building, although it was strange that no fire was visible, even up close.  The half-buried shape revealed itself to be a ship of some kind, long past its function. Its twisted metal poked through the sand in a fashion eerily similar to the carcass of the dead Angel. The two opted to investigate a smaller detachment of the building around back, a few rooms made mostly of wood, which remained untouched by whatever had ravaged the main building. 
    
These rooms appeared more homely than the charred brick architecture. Inside was what looked to be a bedroom, kitchen, and study. Upstairs was an attic, empty save for several crates of black, rotten food. The living spaces were mostly spartan, but the study held several bookshelves, filled with old, sunbleached tomes. John flipped through some, only to find he couldn’t make out the language. He did notice several pencil sketches of behemoths emerging from cold seas, screaming to the sky in rage and relief. One book, which looked about ready to crumble, had on its cover an engraving of a dark mountain cloaked in heavy fog, on one side a flat ocean, and on the other a wall of fire. Hidden underneath a pile of blank pages was a hand-drawn sketch of what looked to be the moon, but with patterns John couldn’t recognize. 
    
He set down the papers and looked around. Irving, who hadn’t said a word since they'd entered the building, was standing in front of a table at the far end of the study, looking down. John approached cautiously. On the table were cold pools of melted wax amidst a collection of relics. Statuettes of whale-like Gods, blue-gemmed amulets, and, front and center, a bas-relief of a human, arms reaching up in pleading reverence, adorned by a beautiful blue dress that partially masked its grey, sparking cetacean fluke. The thing shone like starlight, even in the dimness of the musky room. 
    
Irving spoke nothing of it, and John didn’t ask. The two seemed to be under a mutual understanding; this was a place of holy reverence that had been spared from the fire by some greater force. John felt a wave of inexplicable relief wash over him. He felt like he could gaze at that table for the rest of his life.  

[[=]]
+++ **V**
[[/=]]

It was Irving who broke the trance of that moment by abruptly clapping his hands, as if concluding some silent prayer. With one final sweep of the musty building, the two set off in the direction of parts unknown. 
    
Later, when John noticed the stone of the righthand mountains creeping onto the dusty beach and turning the sand the color of night, he became deeply wondrous of the expanse of the world. It was never something he'd truly considered until now, besides the fleeting moments of panic he felt during his dreams. The existence of the mountains was becoming something more than a backdrop of the beach. They were becoming tangible, a present danger. He couldn’t see much of them, only their jagged teeth when the fog broke every so often, but he felt their presence, their looming sadness. He felt untold anguish, memories wrought into every crevasse, every boulder torn free from its smooth cliff faces. “What’s up there, Irving?” 
    
The old man didn’t have to look at where John was pointing to know what he was talking about. “Nothing, Johnny. Not anymore. Never been up there myself, to tell you the truth, but I’ve heard old wives’ tales about those peaks. They say men used to live there, back when the sea was still young, before it birthed God. If you can believe it. Aye, man’s hubris, they say, was what killed the mountainfolk. They say there are ghosts up there, in the caves and the valleys. I don’t buy it, nay. There are ghosts everywhere.” 
    
“People lived there? Like, real people?”
    
“So they say. But that was a long time ago. There’s not much in the name of towns anymore.”
    
The silence of the beach was deafening. John could hear the voice of God if he concentrated on the silence, the emptiness between each crash of the waves. But it was so constant, so droning, that he had internalized the sound long ago. It seemed to have become part of him, like the sound of his own breathing or the pulse of his heart. 
    
John broke that thunderous silence. “What’s past the mountains?”
    
At this, Irving’s eyes grew wide, and he brought a finger to his lips. “Speak not of the lands beyond. Bad luck, they say. Tis’ a sin to speak of it.” The silence returned with the tide. 

[[=]]
+++ **VI**
[[/=]]

They reached the end of the beach by late afternoon. What had just been a flat, desolate stretch of polished sand and shallow waves had at once become a dynamic, angry space. Before the two men was a towering cliff face, as sheer as it was tall. It careened over them like an impossible skyscraper, threatening to collapse at the touch of a particularly strong gust of wind. At its base were monstrous waves, tiny in comparison to the total mass of the rock but cyclopean to the men, who were but insects in the face of such unobstructed power. There was no way forward that did not lead to total pulverization by the hungry waves. Each crash of the water upon that rock face was like an explosion, peeling boulders off the cliff like chalk, reeling back, then striking again. In the distance, perhaps above the cliff or maybe beyond, John could see distinct flashes of light that breached the fog and strained his eyes, a blaze that could only mean lightning. The sight was madness, not because it posed any direct danger but because it felt like the first real thing he had seen since he woke.
    
Above the din of the waves and the storm, the two men could hear the pleading cry of something divine, something whose patience was wearing thinner by the hour. 
    
“This can’t be the end, nay, God will provide.” Irving was pacing the beach, looking for something to rescue the voyage, to take them beyond this impassable space. He dropped to his hands and knees and began clawing at the sand, chanting the same phrase. 

//God will provide, God will provide//.
    
Despite the little, pleading, ever-shrinking voice that was his rationality, John felt no doubt about Irving’s words. He merely smiled, thinking of nothing but the moment he might see the mouth from which that divine sound was coming. 

[[=]]
+++ **VII**
[[/=]]

Across space and time, a ship the color of night caught the scent of the next as it rounded the coast of Greenland. It was closer now, and its iron frame rattled impatiently, but it was not time yet. No, the second was not ready. Not as the one called The Sailor had been. He was ripe for the voyage, the terrible ship thought. The next will not go that easy. And so that Dread Ship would have to wait a little longer, as it had waited eons before. 

Its ancient pipes rattled, conjuring briefly the face of The Sailor, a newborn plucked from the crib. He would now be on that beach, that endless sand and tide. Somewhere a pipe burst and showered its deck in steam and hot oil like blood from a vein. Another image flashed against its rusty hull. A man, cloaked in yellow, with lines on his face that told a story of madness beyond mortal obsession. Its pistons and pulleys hissed involuntarily, and a mixture of primal rage and fear boiled as it remembered the man it ferried a lifetime ago, a man whose door held two short words and exuded blasphemy like radiation: //The Whaler//. It howled through gritted teeth made of splintered shrapnel. It will meet those flame-yellow eyes of his once again, in this world or the next.

For the rest, it did not matter what happened to the people it ferried across the sea of time. All that mattered to the Dread Ship was the voyage. The first, the second, and then the third, the fourth, the fifth, sixth, and so on after that. Each must be found, each must be taken, each must be delivered. That was its job. 

It was very good at its job.

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The Beach - Part II

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