The Old Gringo And The Sea, Page 2

  But beyond the growing concerns, a date for the fishing expedition was scheduled.

  8.

  That morning, Alfonso and the Old Gringo got up early and prepared all the equipment. The Old Gringo showed his boat to the young man. It was a twenty-meter long beast giving an idea of power and speed.

  Alfonso observed with admiration the huge machine gun mounted on a rod-reinforced tape. The Old Gringo told him that it could spit fifty-caliber explosive shells at impressive rates: it was basically a cannon working like a machine gun.

  After reviewing the other tools and supplies, a few minutes before leaving, Alfonso greeted his family and his sister Marisol, who were on the pier.

  The shy girl tried hard to hide her fear for the upcoming events. She gave him all kinds of recommendations. Alfonso listened to her for a while without saying anything. Embracing her and his parents before leaving, Alfonso drove back a lump in his throat and gave her a boaster salute. In spite of the false self-confidence, in his voice there was something broken and uncertain.

  The start of the journey was a relief for the young fisherman. As the shore receded, the concerns seemed to recede themselves. That was the reason he loved the sea so much. It seemed to enter a new dimension. Everything shrank like the bathing establishments on the golden beach of Ecuador.

  The Old Gringo seemed to manage very well this kind of situations. He gave precise orders to the young fisherman. He explained how the complex instrumentation of the vessel worked, in particular he gave a lot of details about the electromagnetic sonar that could detect large masses in motion. He also illustrated the controls related to the depth charges: they were powerful explosive bullets that, issued to the ocean floor, were ready to explode in a tremendous underwater explosion.

  The Old Gringo stayed at the helm for more than three hours, patrolling the sea areas suggested by Alfonso. The boy, on his part, revealed again his personal testimony of all the monster signs. He also told about other fishermen's testimonies, gathered recently. Few people were able the face terrible threat of the sea monster and lucky enough to keep themselves alive to tell it.

  It was one o'clock in the afternoon. The Old Gringo began to show signs of impatience.

  "We haven't had yet any signal" he said "I was not expecting a short hunt but... I wonder how long we should wait."

  Alfonso wasn't in hurry to find the monster once again. The contact with those unclean tentacles was a shocking experience. Anyway he could understood the Old Gringo's point of view.

  "I don't know" he said "The sea monster is unpredictable. Once that it has been sighted, it can occur an hour or a day or a whole month to see it again. It s' just his unpredictability that make me even more afraid of him. "

  "From the way you talk it seems that you consider it a bit more smarter than us, isn't it?"

  "I haven't said that" Alfonso mocked "I've only said that it's unpredictable."

  "Maybe I misunderstood ..." The Old Gringo said. But his tone implied otherwise.

  With a sardonic smile, he sat again at the helm, starting the engine and moving his boat to a new combat zone.

  But that afternoon nothing happened.

  9.

  At sunset, Alfonso finally proposed to return to the coast.

  "Why?" the Old Gringo asked.

  "Why?" Alfonso repeated "It's getting dark."

  "And then? The light conditions have no effect at all on the sonar. We took turns at the helm and at the instruments. We rested and take a nap at regular intervals. Don't tell me that you still need sleeping ..."

  "But if we face that monster during night ..."

  "It 'absolutely the same thing facing it during day or night!" the Old Gringo said, raising his voice slightly "Nothing is done if something remains to be done. It's a Napoleon sentence."

  With that quote he seemed to close the question.

  But Alfonso wasn't satisfied by a few words.

  "My family, my friends, Marisol at shore are pining for concern!" He said vehemently, standing up on the boat "And I didn't want them to die of a broken heart."

  "I will send a message to the harbor master" the Old Gringo replied, slightly surprised by Alfonso insubordination "And I will pray to get the message that you are okay and that, for the next few hours, you probably won't die ..."

  "What the hell do you know about me, old arrogant man? Have you ever seen that monster?!?! Have you ever been in contact with those slimy tentacles?!? You don't know what I'm talking about. Addressing that unclean being during night is a real suicide! We are going to give him an added advantage! And I will die because of a stupid, stubborn, fool!"

  The young man was found to scream the last sentences in a sudden burst of anger. Maybe he was releasing all the hidden tension, accumulated during that apparently quiet day. Everything happened almost without a precise determination.

  Alfonso noticed his tense only by contrast with the impassive demeanor of the Old Gringo, who hadn't lost his poise even when the complaint entered on a very personal side.

  "Is it all?" the old adventurer finally asked.

  "Yes" he replied in a more subdued tone. His voice still had a bit of resentment.

  "Well" the Old Gringo said "Let us begin to clarify our ideas. For now I'm the bad guy. But I think it will soon become clear that the real problem, and what makes you talk like that, is the monster. And the fear."

  "You're just an old pretentious" Alfonso raised his head "We have to compete with something that you cannot even be able to understand ...".

  "Oh, can't I?"

  "Not at all. You're amusing yourself with your baubles and your alleged wartime experience. But nothing can make you prepared for what I saw. Nothing can make you prepared for that thing."

  "That thing ..." the Old Gringo repeated with an higher tone "What the heck is that thing?! The god of the sea? Neptune in person? Beelzebub with tentacles? Tell me what it is!?"

  Alfonso was silent, looking defiantly into his eyes.

  "Maybe you're right!" the Old Gringo said with his voice, still full of fervor "Maybe nothing can prepare me for what we are going to face. Perhaps we're going to lost ourselves into his tentacles. But I'm sure I've a better idea of it than you! I know that what we are going to fight is the ENEMY!"

  "My experience..." he continued "...taught me that in wartime there's no room for trying to understand the enemy, or admiring or idolizing it like you are doing! The enemy is the enemy and we must destroy it! Only this thing matters. It may also be the god of the sea but we are on one side of the fence and he is on the other. He stands in the way of our happiness. No matter if it's a creature of this world for thousands of years or only a few months. No matter if it's an insect or a giant. No matter if he can be loyal, worthy, respectable, or if it's the most vicious of the scoundrels. We will wipe it away, then we will celebrate its funerals with plenty of honors. While there's still a drop of life in it, we can't stay in peace. During a battle the doubt, the hesitation, the uncertainty is far more deadly than the enemy itself."

  The boy didn't speak because . He had a whirlwind of thoughts in his head and those speeches entered in his brain confusing him even more. He needed a little time to clarify. He just sighed, not knowing how to end that discussion.

  "Well" the Old Gringo said. He took that sigh as a kind of surrender "Let's going back where we patrolled this morning and begin to move again in circles. We're trying to attract his attention. If you want, you can rest a bit 'here. I'm going to place myself at the rudder in order to move toward the target. "

  "Thank you" Alfonso said, between irony and resignation.

  The boat departed. The sunset was about to leave once again. The darkness was incoming.

  10.

  Although still shaken, Alfonso surprisingly fell asleep again. He fell slightly in an unconscious dream state in which the liquid consistency of its members slipped into the ocean, losing themselves into its waters.

  He dreamed that the currents carried
him from one place to another of the deep sea, without any hurry, like a pleasure trip. In that strange journey he heard a voice speaking to him.

  These are the dephts of Shandar - the voice said - Cross them to reach the other side...

  What is there, into the other side? - Alfonso wanted to ask.

  But he couldn't, because it was a shooting star of saltwater, lost in the immensity of the other streamers that together was constituting the great mass of the ocean. He could only obey and he did so.

  In the depths of Shandar there was a temple. He walked with reverence, hovering slightly between the capitals and the seaweed, wrapped around them. Penetrating deep into that temple, the dim sunlight died out and the darkness enveloped him completely.

  In a few terrible (exciting) moments he was like nothing in the middle of nowhere. Then it came a wind and the wind changed his nature. He became a slight gust, that the great wind could carry and maneuver at will. With more force, he was sucked up in round spirals until he saw a distant light that attracted him. But it was the wind, of which he was part, to push on.

  On Ktai island, the winds can change reality - the voice said – Do not oppose.

  He didn't object. He climbed up and up until the wind gave way to the sunlight. He circled a little before the light rays fixed him into a shape that was initially uncertain, then more defined, and finally human.

  It was like a second renaissance. When he opened his eyes, there was a man exactly like him, decked out in old fashioned clothes, with the face half-covered by a conspicuous red cap. Bizarre arabesques snaked up on it and seamlessly blended in with some mysterious signs on his right cheek.

  "This is the temple of Ktai" he said. Alfonso recognized the voice that had given him orders, and brought him there.

  “Why am I here?"

  "The ceremony is about to begin" the hooded man said, ignoring his question.

  Then he spread his arms and bent his forearms forward, to the chest. Between his hands some sparks of light began to dart, first stirred restlessly in a disordered motion, then in the form of well-defined symbols. These seemed to be dark, aliens, ancient, and perhaps born before the human being.

  In the temple the reality began to distort in a kaleidoscope of images, swirling until a fierce angel emerged from the chaos. Her aspect was that of a female warrior.

  Alfonso watched, stunned.

  "The wicked gods are restless" the hooded man said "We have no choice but to lead them away from us."

  "Ktai don't need to fear those false gods" replied the angel "But I want to please you ...".

  At that moment, a great cry rose from the depths and the church was shaken by an earthquake. The ceiling flew away like a butterfly in a storm emerging and from the sea a huge sea monster, looking like a giant octopus, mighty emerged.

  Alfonso was terrified. No sound got out of his mouth.

  The angel went to the octopus and, with solemn tone, said the following words, angrily:

  "Tanador! You should have continued your sleep. It had been better for Ktai and its dark prophecies. I'm judging you guilty. My punishment is going to be the exile!"

  The huge octopus let out a cry and a new swarm of warping space-time texture and sockets began to revolve around it like a tornado. The fisherman remained to look back until he felt his limbs light and impalpable.

  In a few moments, he was again like wind and a new tornado swallowed him up. His consciousness was lost again during that violent journey.

  A few seconds later he heard a human voice.

  11.

  "All right, boy?".

  "The monster ..." Alfonso rave "He comes from ... take it ..."

  "Boy, I'm going to worry..." the Old Gringo said, shaking him vigorously by the shoulders.

  Alfonso regained consciousness. All around it was night and the boy struggled to find differences between his tight eyes and the darkness outside. Then he slowly got used to it, and focused on the Old Gringo's authoritative figure, bent over his face with a questioning expression.

  The young fisherman decided to tell him of his dream concerning the monster. The old adventurer didn't seem disturbed by it.

  "So, in your dream, the giant polyp would come from another world?" he asked "Good for us, so we won't have any moral compunction banishing him to the other world. No complaints even by W.W.F."

  Alfonso stood for a moment, disconcerted by the cynicism of that man. He was old but had a strong and indomitable spirit.

  "Anyway" the Old Gringo continued "There's an update you have to know: the sonar doesn't work anymore.".

  "The sonar doesn't work anymore?" Alfonso said again "What do you mean?".

  "Check by yourself" the Old Gringo said.

  They went together to the instrumentation. The sonar function showed an impossible picture of their present situation. There weren't highlighted deep masses of any kind. There was only an mysterious brightness. It fully lit the screen whose frequency was vibrating like under the effect of an electromagnetic interference.

  "It 's just the sonar that doesn't work?" Alfonso said.

  "Yeah."

  Saying that, he pressed the button that cicled the computer screens: on-board temperature, engine status, speed, air pressure ...

  "Wait!" the Old Gringo exclaimed. He stared the display, dazed. It was full of numerical data that Alfonso could barely understand.

  "What..."

  "Here." The Old Gringo said pointing to a spot on the monitor "Altitude".

  "Then?"

  "We are twenty meters above the sea level."

  "You're kidding, right?" Alfonso said "We are on the sea level."

  "The sea level is a conventional altitude" the Old Gringo explained, patiently "And when there are deviations from that level, my equipment detects them. That's all."

  "So why are we twenty meters above sea level?" Alfonso asked, more and more restless.

  "Just a simple thing" the Old Gringo replied "The tide".

  In that moment a sort of tremendous cry rose up from the depths of the abyss, mixed to the rumble of a distant thunder. The sea was flat in an unnatural way. Like a sudden lack of life. A distant lightning threatened an imminent storm.

  "It's only the tide" Alfonso repeated "Or something big and powerful enough to influence it... something like... Tanador."

  With a heavy stone in place of the stomach, the two men watched the altitude indicator, which was continuing to rise ... twenty ... twenty-five ... thirty ... forty ... fifty meters! And the sea surface, like an impalpable thin sheet, began to buckle and swell like a balloon about to explode, while the dark depths of the ocean began to emit an aberrant luminescence that grew and grew in intensity.

  The sea surface is then opened by a mass of greyish slimy texture that grew and grew, then erected his silhouette in the dark sky.

  It was Tanador, the huge giant octopus, awakened from his sleep and catapulted in our world against his will. His bright eyes seemed to stare at the tiny silhouette of the boat as if it represented a troublesome insect.

  The two men remained open-mouthed for a second.

  12.

  Then the survival instinct prevailed.

  "Maybe I slightly underestimated my enemy" the Old Gringo said "But it will not happen again ... Alfonso!".

  The young man turned towards him.

  "Put the engine in action and start moving! I'm placing myself on the heavy machine gun!"

  They promptly joined the two predetermined positions. Tanador was meanwhile studying the situation, seizing the smells, the physiognomy of the scenario, the size of its preys. It was looking like an hunter without hurry. It was considering the possibilities of its victims.

  "Eleven o'clock!" the Old Gringo yelled. Once he was placed on the automatic weapon, he heard the engine put on by the young sailor.

  The boat began to move away, towards the given direction. In that moment Tanador showed the intention of starting the hunt.

  Clasping the hands to the g
un belt with a satisfying grin, the Old Gringo fixed his eyes to the sea monster that was beginning to shake its long tentacles.

  "Very well, old chap!" he said "Let's see what you can do... you're going to find some hard bread for your shellfish teeth!"

  Its tentacles advanced. A long strip of putrid membrane rose to the right side of the boat and began to collapse suddenly towards it, like a tree destined to fall on a fragile hut.

  Alfonso noticed it and yelled:

  "Beware!"

  But the Old Gringo had already noticed its movement. He turned quickly the machine gun's mouth of fire by ninety degrees, than he started a violent gust. Loud rumbling fifty-caliber bullets riddled the vicious tentacle, who was torn and frayed, falling heavily on the craft. Shreds of slimy shellfish meat also felt on the boat with their sickening stench. Alfonso couldn't restrain a feeling of disgust.

  "I think you have to do much better than this, my friend!" the Old Gringo yelled to the creature "Otherwise we'll going to put you on the spit."

  Alfonso was shocked by that wisecrack. But the blatant bravery of the Old Gringo helped him to enter into the battle's atmosphere. He putted aside his fears and doubts. From that point on, it would have fought to defeat him.

  13.

  Tanador reacted with surprise. No one had ever dared so much for thousands of years. At one of its powerful appendages, no longer felt the weapon that terrorized the Ktai sea, back in the astral plane of origin. It felt pain. No one had accustomed it to that feeling. It was not pleasant to learn it now.

  It recognized its enemies. They were two little beings able to maneuver a mechanical fish: they were the human race. A race so fragile but so insidious too. It only needed a split second to crush a human specimen. But some of them were strange and terrible, had powers, resources, capacity. One of them, with the help of that winged being, was able to get it away from its kingdom.

  For months he had traveled far and wide this new and alien sea without finding a viable force capable of opposing to its greatness. And now two other human beings. Two tiny, insignificant, useless creatures were attempting to combat it.