The rhythmic crash of waves was the first thing that roused her from the haze of unconsciousness. At first, there was only the sensation of cold, of water pressing against her skin, of salt stinging her face and lips. Charlie’s body felt heavy and uncoordinated, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Then the next wave came, crashing higher and nearly covering her entire face which was molded into pce in the firm, damp sand. She choked on the salty tide that crept into her mouth. With a violent cough, she gasped for air, lungs burning, eyes snapping open to the blinding daylight. She blinked, disoriented as the shore slowly came into focus—a stretch of sand seemingly untouched by man or beast. The wild roar of the ocean filling her ears, and the strange, unfamiliar scent of a pce she did not recognize began to set in a sense of panic, a sense of dread. Would she die here? Was she already dead?
She pulled herself up by her arms and held herself there for a moment, hoping the discombobution would pass. As her blurred vision was finally starting to take shape, her focus left the immediate shoreline and out towards an endless horizon of blue ocean. Far off in that horizon was a mere silhouette of a ship. From what she could make out, it was heading in the opposite direction of her shoreline. Her head began to feel like it was swimming as she attempted to stand up, causing her to fall back once more to the sand, only catching herself at the st moment by her elbows.
She took long breaths and closed her eyes, trying to recall how she had gotten here or where here even was. She couldn’t remember a thing. She looked back up at the rge, brown dot on the ocean that was undeniably a ship. She could remember in a fsh of memory being on a ship much like that one. She didn’t have much more time to stare and attempt to recall the ship or how she got there when she heard the rustling and snapping sounds coming from behind her.
She fixed herself up once again, both arms locked at the elbow to prop herself up as she turned as much as she could towards the noise. The sand rose to a bank a foot or so above her eyeline, but she could clearly see above the ridge the dense tropical forestry that covered the rest of the isnd. Bent palm trees intermingled with thick shrubbery and tall weeds made it nearly impossible to see past the immediate outskirts of the thick jungle. The rustling and snapping had stopped now, only the sounds of the waves dancing up and down the shore could be heard. No squawking of seagulls or chirping from parrots or whine of pigs that she was familiar with on most isnd vilges. Wherever this was, it was seemingly uninhabited. But she knew that wasn’t true either because of what she had just heard.
She took one st deep breath and moved her legs into positions to stand. They were weak, nearly numb, but she could move them and that was a good thing. Only thing worse than being marooned on a desert isnd, is being marooned on a desert isnd and not being able to walk. She grimaced and sucked in through her teeth as a jolting pain shot from her left foot up to her waist. Another wave made its way up to her and grazed over the leg after the sudden jolt of pain. Now it was burning fiercely. She couldn’t sit like this any longer though. She knew whatever made that noise in the jungle behind her was big and had most certainly seen her.
Considering she hadn’t seen a single sign of life on the isnd besides the creature in the jungle (and she hadn’t truly seen that either), it was safe to assume that whatever it was, was probably cking in the food department and overdue for a decent protein meal. She was easy prey for a rge jungle creature at this moment. Hell, I’m easy prey for a three-legged goat at this point. I am not dying like this… She thought this to herself as she mustered what remaining strength she had to finally stand. Her legs trembled and buckled beneath her, but she managed to stagger just enough steps during it to maintain her bance. She realized she was holding the side of her stomach with one hand. She looked down at it and noticed two things. One, she was bleeding. A lot. The hand was drenched in blood, and considering she was constantly rinsed by waves, the amount of blood to have to come through while also being washed away was arming.
The second thing she noticed is that the area that was bleeding was where she was holding her hand—just on her side by her stomach. What she noticed beyond the blood, however, was that the area was very clearly wrapped and bandaged. White cloth strips were tightly wrapped around her abdomen and upper waist. The spot she was holding was clearly packed heavier with some extra padding as it protruded significantly. How did this happen? And who patched her up? Probably not the jungle monster, that was a safe guess at the moment.
She was thinking a million thoughts a minute about just those two new revetions when she felt the burning on her leg once again. It was as if someone were holding it over a fire and just her left leg was being cooked to a tender perfection. Her pants came down just below her knees but had become ripped and baggy since their original state. She lifted (peeled) off one ripped section from her burning leg to reveal a severely damaged calf. The scratches extended from her ankle to her knee and held no sembnce of pattern. An average person seeing this would think she was attacked by a wild cat or bear of some kind the way the deep scratches rose and cascaded, but she knew better. Barnacles. Large ones that had made a comfortable home somewhere with their families of smaller ones. Somewhere safe and dark. Most often they are found on the old wooden pylons of docks and seaports. But she knew exactly where they had to have come from.
Keelhauled! Fucking keelhauled!
She had heard about keelhauling through sailors who would deliver empty threats to one another under the influence of too much rum, wine, and/or beer. “I’ll keelhaul ya, if’n ya looks at me cards agin. Keelhaul ya right down to the bone, I wills!” Something to that effect would be tossed around from time to time, though it never came to fruition. It wasn’t until months after hearing this threat tossed around that she had the courage to ask what it meant. As it was told to her, an individual who was deemed a criminal, often most heinous or foul, while out at sea must face a penalty.
“A brig is a good pce for holding the notorious, ss. Tied to mast be the nefarious. Walking a pnk be for the vile ‘n wicked. But keelhaulin’…now that, ss, was saved only for the truest of evils. The bckest of hearts. Tie a man up good and proper, see? Bound his hands and legs. Wrap a kerchief tight ‘round his yapper so’s that no demons come a-pourin’ out ‘n infectin’ yer crew. Once ya got ‘em tied up good and propers like, then you tie ‘em once more to a long rope that you wraps ‘round the bottom of the ship. One end be held by a few of the crew on one side of the ship, see? An’ the other side of the ship be the demon itself. Tossin’ the devil off the side an’ givin’ a steady pull from the crew on the other side’ll bring that monster up under the ship and back ‘round the other side.”
“Here’s where it happens. Once that vilinous creature hits the water and gets to bein’ pulled ‘round, he’ll bang up good against the side of the ship. Stays there he does, stuck to the side of the ship whiles the others pull him, see? What you’s don’t often sees is the underbelly of a ship ‘ats been at sea for many a years. There be life down there. Biggest and sharpest barnacles could ever id eyes upon. Tears ‘em up as they slides along each and every one of ‘em. The big ‘uns always gots a family of little ‘uns with ‘em. So there’s no end to the tearing of skin and bone until they’s hoisted back up on deck. Never seen a man survive it ‘afore. If’n yer not sliced to ribbons by the underbelly, you still has to holds yer breath for it all. And if’n ye manage to live through all that, you’ll bleed out or go mad from illness and die shortly thereafter. Ain’t a pretty way to die, ss. But it be a sure way…”
Charlie reached her arm around to her back but didn’t get it far when she felt the same fierce pain all along her back and buttocks. She didn’t have to feel it to know that her entire backside resembled a warped cross-stitched top of a gooseberry pie. Especially if that pie had been fiddled with by small creatures like squirrels or birds, ruining the pattern and tossing about all of the red jelly filling every which way.
Charlie’s eyes began to swell with tears. She wanted so desperately to stop herself from shaking as she sobbed since the pain was far from tolerable, but she couldn’t help it. Her cries became screams, not of words but pure agony. She screamed out once more, as loud as she could push herself to do so in pain and desperation, and then she felt a heavy click in her throat. The scream turned into an airy whistle. She stopped and began to scream again, but just an airy whistle was produced. She could hear the exasperated whimpering in her breath as she mindlessly grasped at her throat and continued to swallow what little saliva she could produce. Each swallow met with a strange click in the back of her throat and the feeling that it was being poured over some strange, lumpy obstruction. She could breathe perfectly well, but she could no longer speak. She couldn’t make any audible noise besides that airy whistle.
Her panic shifted when she heard it again. The rustling. More snapping noises, louder and more pronounced. These weren’t just some branches falling off of a tree in the breeze. Something was inside that jungle, watching her. In that moment, she turned towards it and her entire body went cold. The foliage was too thick to make out anything, but she could swear she saw the faintest glow of bck eyes behind the leaves. They just stared at her. She wiped her eyes but got some sand in them, causing her to wince and blink desperately. When she cleared most of the irritants, she looked back into the foliage. The rustling and snapping had stopped, and she no longer saw the deep, bck eyes.
She kept staring at the spot, hoping that she would see the outline of whatever lurked within that jungle. She wasn’t sure how much time passed as she stared waiting and hoping to see something when she realized she was at the edge of the foliage now. She reached out and touched a rge leaf that resembled a massive elephant ear with some holes scattered throughout. She looked at the leaf, hoping maybe she would see an insect or some sign of life besides her own. There was nothing.
She gazed at the leaf, her mind drifting away to somewhere that wasn’t here on this remote isnd. Away from the excruciating pains that covered her entire body. Away from the--*rustle rustle snap rustle snap SNAP*
A loud snap louder than the others inadvertently snapped her attention into the foliage. That’s when she saw it. A hulking, shadowy figure standing only inches away from her. It stood at least three feet over her, but by it’s broad shoulders and posture she could tell that it was still leaning in towards her. Deep, bck eyes met hers as she began to hear the breathing. It was guttural and coated with thick saliva or mucus as the breaths pulsed in and out with seeming excitement. Its features were too obscured by shadows and darkness of the foliage to make out what it was (if it even was something that she could identify).
She stood frozen, facing it directly now, her mouth agape. Its head took shape like that of a winged dinosaur of the past, elongated and beak-like. But there was no beak, just a bck shadowy maw that began to widen and open. Charlie looked on, frozen in horror. The deep bck eyes looking directly into hers as she felt two cold, hairy cwed hands slowly wrap around her arms, just below her shoulders. At first, they had no real grip. And then the grip came, strong and unwavering. Charlie could feel the strength of the creature in its grip on her arms—it felt as though it would snap her arms like twigs if it cared to squeeze just a little tighter.
The maw continued to widen beyond where its ears may have been, though there were no signs of those either. Widening and opening at a painfully slow pace, that gurgled breathing now becoming louder and hotter against Charlie’s face. Small, thin white fangs like thick needles protruded from its gums, stretching all the way to the back of its head. The mouth continued to open wider, revealing more of these teeth. The creature’s head resembled a stein mug lid, peeling itself open from the hinges at its jaw. Charlie realized this creature intended to eat her and produced the only means of a scream that she could—once again a quiet, airy whistle as the air left her lungs with emphatic force.
The creature’s mouth slowly began to close around Charlie’s head. She could feel the needle teeth slowly digging into her scalp above her brow and under her chin. She could feel the warm blood trickle down the top of her head where the teeth now dug deeper into her skull. It became a cold stream that swept into her eyes. She blinked furiously, her eyes rolling back into her head. She couldn’t struggle. She couldn’t scream. She had to accept that this monster was going to eat her alive. And then the monster’s jaws smmed shut.
Charlie awoke in the wagon, panting heavily and sitting upright. She looked around frantically with her eyes and slowly wiped her brow with her forearm. When she looked at her arm, it was damp with sweat much like most of her face, neck and clothes. The others had not yet awakened as it wasn’t even light out. Her panting slowed down and turned back into a normal breathing pattern. She slowly id her head back down, staring up at the wagon’s tarp ceiling.
Fucking keelhauled…
