In the hallway of a mist shrouded frigate one hundred miles from New York City, Francis Edmund Swift felt his aging muscles bulge. His eyes turned red. His focus sharpened.
He turned his thoughts inward, deep down into a darkness he never asked for but now desperately needed. He felt evil tug against his mind like a taut rope pulling on a ship quickly leaving harbor. It was a quivering kind of wrenching which seemed to stretch his consciousness, screaming for him to let go.
Sweat poured over him as his blood boiled. He felt twenty again. He felt taller, wiser, faster — invincible. He wanted to lash out at everyone around him. Wanted to devour every heart in that hallway - those couple dozen souls. Yet however savage that voice, he still convinced himself that he could control it.
You fool, that evil voice inside him whispered. You damn, damn fool.
Francis shook his head, regaining his composure and remembering he’d been counting down.
“Two…” he said.
He nodded at the armor plated bear stationed at a quickly faltering door which led to the upper deck. The creature’s armor glinted in the hallway’s dying torch light. His eyes were narrow and focused. Desmond didn’t want this fight. He was old. He was dying. But nevertheless he was here, and when a battle loomed what else could a werebear do but fight?
The vessel’s captain tapped Francis on the shoulder. He felt the man shiver close behind him. Felt the feathers of his black ostrich hat dance across his neck. Francis knew he’d never seen combat, yet he considered him lucky having lived comfortably through the violent decades in which he’d made his name. Now that luck would be tested.
“Three!” Francis cried.
The bear dug its claws into the floor. His roar shook the walls. He turned so that one of his armored shoulders faced the upper deck’s door. Then he leapt forward with a ferocity not unlike lightning striking a tree.
The door exploded open, and Francis watched the bear disappear into the upper deck. The sailors around him rattled their rifles and shouted, charging up the stairwell in pursuit of the bear.
Francis nodded to Gail beside him. She nodded back, her own musket rattling in her shooting hand. Slung across her chest was a baby sound asleep. She patted its little bald head.
“She’ll sleep through anything,” she said with a smile. Then she rushed up the steps and disappeared. Francis and Captain Plank followed.
Dozens of harpies soared over the vessel, dipping in and out of the encircling fog, unsure of how to engage these screaming humans. Each of the monsters’s yellow, cat-like eyes skimmed the darkness. They squawked at the hapless warriors below.
As Francis climbed onto the upper deck, a man beside him fired his rifle. A hole exploded through the wing of a harpy overhead, startling the other monsters around it so much that they scurried in a frenzy throughout the misty air. The injured man-bird dropped like an anvil, cracking its beak against the upper deck’s wood. It clawed against the floor, struggling to its feet while screeching. Three sailors rushed toward it and drove their bayonets into its neck and rib cage. The monster swiped at one man, cutting a gash deep into his thigh before another shipmate drove his bloodied musket spear into the fallen harpy’s head.
The beast went limp. Its killer slid his blade out from its skull, shaking it loose and spraying blood across him. He stepped away, panting, already exhausted. Then they all stepped away in unison — none having ever seen real combat with nightlings across their tenure in this miserable war. The world went silent for a moment aside from the dense thumps of wings above. Everyone held their breath.
“Is that it?” Captain Plank said excitedly, still behind Francis. “They can’t possibly fight us with all our firepower.”
Francis shook his head. “They know what’s at stake now.”
Suddenly, a dozen harpies descended on the ship, wailing like banshees emerging from hell itself. The shipmates raised their bayonets. One struck a monster’s belly, but in return the creature twisted around the man, ripped the blade from their flesh, opened its razor jaw and clenched its teeth around the sailor’s throat. The man crumpled into a seizure as the winged beast thumped its wings and carrying him away. His musket crashed onto the deck’s wood as men around it gasped.
Terrified at how quick and surgical the harpy killed their shipmate, the two dozen sailors fired in unison at the swooping monsters above. Blood sprayed from two of the winged creatures. They twirled in fresh descent, crashing into the vessel and showering splinters in their wake. One man howled as claws pierced his shoulders and was carried away kicking into the fog.
Everyone scattered — shouting, firing, thrashing and clawing erupted across the vessel as bird-men zig-zagged above like hornets kicked from their nest.
A harpy landed in front of Francis, extended its wings and howled. Its yellow eyes locked with his red irises. Captain Plank tugged frantically on his shoulders as the old monster hunter slid a silver dagger from his belt. He squared his shoulders. Spread his legs and bent his knees.
Finally, the voice inside him said. Bring me its beating heart.
But then a shot rang out beside him and the feathered crown of the monster’s head exploded in a shower of blood and brains. It crumpled to the ground.
He turned and found Gail already halfway finished reloading her musket. The baby was still sound asleep across her chest. He nodded to her. She nodded back. Then she ran off, disappearing into the violence.
Francis turned to Captain Pike as screams and shouts filled the air. “Follow me!”
They raced toward the helm of the ship as another harpy swooped down behind him. Through his new ancient blood he sensed its wrath like some encroaching malevolent aura. He twisted around and gripped both of the monster’s ankles mid-flight just before the thing could dig into his shoulders. He closed his bulging fists around the thing’s fur and felt its hulking bones crack inside his palm. It thrashed and wailed as Francis hurled the thing downward before crashing into the wood.
He wrenched his silver blade from his belt and effortlessly drove the weapon into the bird-man’s skull, twisting its piercing steel deep into bone. He pulled it out with a spray of blood that spilled into his mouth. He swallowed it, then drove the dagger deep again. Pulled it out, licked his sopping mouth. He straddled the writhing creature and stabbed the blade into its spine, cutting downward to its pelvis to expose precious bone. Francis then clawed at its vertebrae before ripping its entire spinal column from its body as he screamed with a desperate fear only known to war.
Give me its life, the voice inside him demanded.
He tilted the monster’s dripping bones up to his mouth, ready to slurp out the beast’s marrow when suddenly he stopped.
He turned.
Captain Plank stared at him as flashes of musket bursts and yellow eyes dipped in and out of fog close behind. Francis glanced at the spine in his hand. He wiped at his crimson-soaked face. He backed away.
He could control it, he told himself. Fucking control it.
He tossed the spinal column onto the deck with a wet plop, nodded to the Captain, then continued running.
Gunfire tore through the prevailing mist. A man leapt to the ground in front of them. A harpy fell upon him and straddled him. He kicked at the thing as it tore into his belly, pulling his intestines out as if gutting a fish.
Francis and the Captain stumbled up the helm’s stairwell and found Desmond already battling two bird-men in front of the ship’s mahogany wheel. The monsters squawked at the animal, unsure how to proceed. The bear leapt at one and swiped its beefy paw, gripping the thing’s shoulder and wrenching it down with a heavy thud. He pinned it with one leg while thrashing at the other. It dodged his swipes, took flight, then descended and drove its talons into the soft fur between Desmond’s helmet and back plate. The bear roared in pain and thrashed, crushing the spine of the pinned monster beneath it. The surviving harpy swooped away and hovered just out of reach above. It eyed the bear pining for its body. It studied his weaknesses.
Francis pulled his pistol from his belt and aimed. Sparks sprayed from the weapon. A hole punctured the monster’s belly. It shrieked and dipped just low enough for Desmond to grab hold of its leg. He tore the thing from the damp, salty air, smashing it to the ground before he clamped his bear jaws around its head and pressed hard. It cried as its skull was crushed, as its mind went blank — as it sank into that eternal quiet all creatures someday find.
The bear sighed, then stepped away.
Gunfire, screams and bird shrieks echoed from the other side of the ship, but at the helm of the vessel all was calm.
“We’re winning!” Captain Plank said from the comfort of Francis’s back.
Ignoring him, Francis approached the werebear.
“You alright?” he asked. He eyed the wound on the bear’s back. It was a deep slash, four talons which had bore down to the muscle.
The bear shrugged, but then glanced at Francis’s long, sharp fingernails. He met his red eyes and growled.
“Only for a moment,” Francis reassured him. “I can control it.” The bear shook his armored head.
Suddenly, a deafening, shrill cry filled the mists. Everyone’s attention shot toward the white blanket sky. The waters around the vessel began to churn. Wind whistled, picking back up for the first time in nearly an hour.
Francis’s knees went weak. “It’s the queen.”
“Queen?” Plank said. “They have a queen??”
The ship’s mast cracked, split, then crashed downward onto a group of men stabbing their bayonets into a lone harpy. Their shouts of surprise lasted only a moment before the thick wood crushed them into a cloud of red.
“This was a whaling vessel once?” Francis asked, turning to Plank.
“Yes,” the captain replied. “But we haven’t used her as such in years.”
“Is the harpoon loaded?”
“How the bloody hell should I know? Do I look like I load harpoons?”
Francis groaned.
But then the captain smirked. “There’s a harpoon gun at the left, right and stern. That I know. Rummage through the rubbish beside them and you’ll likely find their ammo. We kept them close at hand in case of pirates.”
Francis nodded. “I’ll take it.” He turned to Desmond. “Help the remaining men. I’ll handle the queen. Plank, remain here.”
Plank shuddered as Francis and the bear leapt down the helm’s steps, back to the main deck, leaving him alone.
On the main stretch of the ship, Francis stumbled over the body of a man ripped to shreds. Blood surrounded him in a pool. His face had been clawed away, his belly ripped open. Then he realized more bodies littered the floor. Their eyes were wide, their mouths agape in terror. They reminded Francis of the countless battlefields he’d trudged through — crimson bogs draped in death. His hands shook. His lip quivered. How many graveyards like this had he seen? How many men had he led to death?
A gust of wind rippled over the ship before a sonic burst exploded overhead, followed by a deafening screech. It jolted Francis back to now, back to the task at hand: saving the ship, saving those still alive.
Just beyond the stern of the vessel an enormous harpy with long, flowing blonde hair and feathery bare breasts hovered. The monster was nearly the size of the ship, with a wingspan seemingly the length of a village. It cried out, terrible and stark. The floor trembled. Francis trembled. Everyone trembled. Some men dropped their muskets and ran down into the ship, disappearing below deck.
Francis grit his teeth and raced to the stern. He found an enormous harpoon gun bolted into the floor. Strewn around it were a dozen burlap sacks. He rummaged through them, tossing anything useless overboard. He dug and he dug until finally he found the glistening mute black steel of a harpoon bolt. He clutched it, ignoring its weight which would have otherwise taken the strength of three men to wrench it from its slumber.
The harpy queen meanwhile soared overhead and split the second and final mast in two. With tattered sails, the behemoth beam crashed down across the helm of the ship. Francis turned and grimaced, hoping Captain Plank had dodged it. But there wasn’t time to go and check on him. He’d have to wait.
He loaded the massive harpoon bolt into the gun then groaned as he pulled its tension wire back, cocking the thing in place. He then gripped its wooden handles and aimed upwards as the harpy queen swooped above.
Wood cracked behind him as five smaller harpies landed and howled. He turned and quickly pulled his dagger loose. They snarled at him and squawked.
We can take them, the voice inside him whispered. I want their polished skulls. Drape their flesh around you. Make shoelaces from their veins.
But suddenly, Desmond leapt from the mists and tackled one of the monsters. The others jumped away, shrieking. They turned their attention from Francis toward the raging bear as it thrashed and mangled their comrade.
“Can you take them?” Francis shouted to his friend.
The bear quickly turned its head and locked eyes with the old monster hunter. He nodded with a glint of his helmet. Then he jumped at another birdman who swooped into the air, dodging his swipes.
Francis turned back to the harpoon as another sonic boom exploded overhead. He tilted the massive weapon upward and caught a glimpse of a wing in the fog.
“Come on,” he muttered to himself, staring with narrow eyes at the gray veneer. “Come on.”
A glimmer of white feathers shimmered silently through the mist like a shark’s fin. Without hesitation he pulled the harpoon’s trigger with a lurch and held on tight as the rope attached to the weapon’s bolt whistled and whirled beside him, its host soaring through the quiet air unseen.
A shriek pierced his eardrums, louder than anything he’d ever heard. The harpoon’s rope snapped taut. The ship lurched forward.
Francis nearly fell overboard as the vessel began to tear through the misty waters. He turned back to Desmond.
“I got her!” he shouted.
But he found his friend surrounded by harpies. The beast swiped his bloody paws at the things, slashing the face of one while another landed on his back and pecked violently at his fur. The warrior bear roared and twisted. Armor glinted. Snot and spit flung. He grabbed the bird-man atop him and threw him to the ground while the others jumped into the air, ready to plunge. The ship lurched. Francis turned back to the harpoon.
The queen harpy flapped violently ahead, taught rope extending deep within her belly. She quickly banked to the right side of the ship, attempting to pull the massive, rusted bolt from her flesh. Francis raced to the second harpoon. This time the bolt was visible amongst the burlap. He wrenched it from its rest, loaded it, pulled the proper wires, took a deep breath then gripped the weapon’s handles with white knuckles.
He aimed and fired.
The rope whistled beneath him.
“Come on,” he mumbled, glancing back and forth between the whistling rope and water-logged wood between his fingers. Time slowed. His breath halted. He felt the damp of the mist on his neck. He felt the evil tug inside.
Just kill the rest and leave, it said. Damn this ship. Damn them all. There’s more beyond these waters. An entire world for us. Spill blood across the land. Let us live. They’re doomed. Just let them die. Leave them.
Leave them.
LEAVE THEM.
The harpoon’s rope went slack as the bolt fell into the sea. Francis shouted in anger. He hit his palm against his head, shaking the voice loose within him.
The queen soared high into the air, attempting to dodge any more attempts at harm. Yet still attached to the first harpoon’s thick hemp, the rope at the stern of the ship snapped tight. It didn’t. Rather it shot upward, deep into the white nothingness above.
The vessel lurched nose-up into the air. Francis tumbled backward, rolling as the ship’s face lurched toward the sky. He clawed at anything around him to stop his descent. He grit his teeth.
You should have fled, the voice inside him whispered. Yet there are still so many beating hearts around us.
A harpy beside Francis, its wings torn like parchment from Desmond’s claws, drove bloodied talons into the upper deck’s wood as the vessel continued its tilt backward, ever vertical. Francis caught himself onto a large metallic rope spool, bolted firmly into the floor. His right arm burned as he halted suddenly, legs dangling as anything not attached tumbled down, down, down. The harpy beside Francis stopped, now firmly grounded as the ship around them roared and groaned.
The beast, only feet from his person, squawked at the old, crimson-eyed man. It pecked at him, attempting to sink its razor beak into his arm — ever the vigilant soldier.
“Have you not yet learned??” Francis cried.
He leapt at the thing as his grip slipped from the spool. He reached outward and wrapped his arms around its tattered wings, sliding down slippery crimson until finally grasping the monster’s furry ankles. The monster’s talons stabbed at his eyes, his nose, his mouth, narrowly missing with each thrust. He tightened his grip around its legs, snapping the creature’s bones like twigs so that they finally went limp amidst a hail of cries. Its legs both dangled as the ship quieted, suspended for a moment perfectly upright. The screams around them ceased.
Suddenly, the vessel lurched downward. Francis held on tight to the harpy’s broken legs, shimmying upward ever-slightly to compensate as the boat soared and howled. The queen harpy flapped helplessly above the ship, knowing now that she couldn’t escape yet still trying to rid herself of the harpoon lodged inside her.
The ship crashed back into the sea. Francis slammed into the upper deck’s floor. The battered harpy beneath him cushioned his fall.
He felt his blood boil as he wrenched his dagger from his belt and stabbed at the monster. He stabbed and stabbed, covering himself in a fresh coat of blood before the miserable creature cried, whimpered, called out in a language he didn’t know, then went limp.
Panting, Francis righted himself drenched in sweat and crimson. His stupid coat was in tatters. His head throbbed.
Desmond roared behind him. The old bastard was still at it. There was hope yet - still time to save this cursed ship. But as he struggled to his feet, a hand reached out.
“You look like shit,” Gail said, the baby still asleep across her chest. Francis smiled.
“She sleeps through anything,” he said as she pulled him to his feet.
“Told ya,” she said.
But then he noticed a deep cut across her face. Blood soaked her neck.
“You’re hurt,” Francis said.
She waved her hand then patted the baby’s head. “It’s nothing. Important thing is she’s okay. And she always is.”
He then glanced around her and found her musket was gone, replaced with a sword in her left hand.
“Fuckers broke my musket,” she said with a shrug. “Chomped right through it. I made due.”
A roar echoed again from the mist, back toward the helm.
“Sounds like your friend needs help,” Gail said before the queen harpy screamed above them, churning the air. “And your other friend needs killing.” She smiled.
“Is there anyone left?” Francis asked.
Gail shrugged again. “Maybe those down below. Once we clear the deck I’ll head back down to help.”
“You’re ok otherwise?” Francis asked, eyeing the sleeping baby.
“We’re fine,” Gail said. “Nothing we ain’t used to.” But then she chuckled. “Okay, maybe some things we ain’t used to. But don’t worry about us. You just get that flappy bitch.”
Francis smiled again. She smiled back. The baby burped.
Gail dashed away back down the ship, down into the mist and its silence.
The queen harpy screamed high above and beat its wings. The rope attached to the enormous monster slapped taut. The ship lurched. Francis dashed over crumpled, pretzel-like bodies of bird-monsters and men. He tripped over muskets. Slid over unspent bullets. The massive harpy screamed and wrenched the ship with another mighty tug.
He stumbled into the last remaining harpoon on the left side of the ship. He sighed with relief finding the bolt already loaded, yet its rope had become unthreaded from the enormous steel arrow. It snaked away down the ship, zig-zagging into fog. He shouted obscenities and dropped to his knees. He pulled on the hemp line, heaving and wrenching as he collected it. The ship lurched again and Francis stumbled forward into the vessel’s railing. He watched the sea churning below him. It frothed and screamed, calling out to him as if every drowned soul across that vast ocean pined for him to plunge beneath its depths.
Join us, they seemed to say in their gurgling unison. Let it go. Let them all go. Join our quiet dark. Wouldn’t it be easy? Wouldn’t it be so nice?
Shouts filled the air behind him. Gunfire, bird calls, cries of pain.
He pulled himself from the railing and dropped to the floor again. His bloodied hands finally met the harpoon’s rope’s end. He jumped up and quickly threaded the hulking thing through the rear loop of the harpoon bolt.
The queen’s sonic boom wings exploded above, rippled like thunder. His head whipped upwards.
“Just a moment more!” he cried, pleading with the miserable thing to let him prepare her death right and proper. He was so close.
Somewhere in the mists behind him a bear roared.
“Just hold on,” Francis whispered. “We’re nearly through this.”
He tied a knot around the bolt’s loop, then yanked the hemp tight with a snap. He gripped the weapon’s handles, aimed as the harpy queen’s fin danced along the churning mists above, the first rope still drooping beneath her.
“Come on,” he said. “Come on…”
Suddenly she erupted from the blanket white. She knew him now. Knew him as her abuser. Knew him as her killer. She screamed, throwing a terrible gust of wind against him, nearly throwing him backward. Yet he gripped the handles of the harpoon. Kept his feet planted. His blood boiled. The evil inside him grinned.
He fired.
The rope hardly whistled before the harpoon bolt ripped into the queen’s throat. The enormous beast shrieked and gurgled. Blood spilled from its wound like a geyser. It thrashed in the air, shifted left, then right. Then it swooped down, down, down and crashed into the upper deck, sprawling across the length of the ship with its arms and legs and talons all extending well beyond the vessel’s considerable boundaries.
It crawled to its knees, nearly overturning the ship with its weight like any man righting himself within a canoe. Bodies slid to and fro. Desmond’s roars punctuated the darkness, unseen. Francis prayed for his safety as another musket shot echoed.
He focused on the queen as she stumbled to her bloodied feet, towering over Francis and the mangled ship, seemingly towering into heaven itself. She was a titan, he thought. A god not unlike Greek fables. He wondered if all they’d told were true. Maybe there could be something learned by studying such ancient texts, rather than grasping in the dark of now. Why hadn’t he considered this? It seemed so obvious.
The ship lurched again, causing him to tumble sideways. But as he caught himself on the blood soaked vessel’s floor, he noticed the queen’s left wing fall slack close beside him. It thwacked and slid. Slurped and crunched. It was limp for the moment, yet still very much attached.
The evil inside him suddenly surged, drunk with lust.
Climb her, it whispered. We deserve to kill a god.
With eyes glowing red, Francis nodded and raced toward the drooping wing, pulling from his belt a silver dagger and a glistening hatchet adorned in runic etchings. He jumped with both aimed at the fleshy, limp wing.
The queen stomped, crashing its talons through the upper deck, down into the lower belly of the ship. Terrified men hiding beneath shouted as bird feet and falling timber crushed them. Ignoring their pleas for help, their pleas for him to cease his bloodlust and just cut the miserable thing loose and let her fly, let them live, let the ship remain — whatever was left — Francis drove his dagger and hatchet into the queen’s dangling wing. It shrieked and thrashed as he slowly climbed upward, driving the blades in and out of the monster’s flesh as he ascended.
He drove his blades into its meat. Licked its blood as he tilted his neck upward. It was a waterfall of crimson. A glorious bloodbath.
Hanging now from its writhing shoulders, Francis looked down. He was at least fifty feet above the vessel now, peering down into the tarnished body of the smuggling ship. Flames licked where the monster’s talon’s punctured holes. Men, small as ants, reached up to him, pleading still for him to stop. Pleading still for him to cut her loose.
She can still fly, he thought he heard them say. There’s still time.
But beside him he found the second harpoon bolt wiggling in the harpy queen’s throat. He holstered his hatchet, keeping his dagger ready in his other hand, then leapt to the hulking arrow and wrapped his free arm around its metal which sagged against his weight but didn’t fall.
In desperation the queen took a sputtered flight, not realizing the harpoon rope would simply snap taut once more and prevent it from fleeing — like it’d always done. Yet still the monster fought.
Francis twisted and screamed as the queen thrashed through the air. Mist clouded his vision, so high above the carnage rose. He pulled himself toward the thing’s neck like some clumsy ape shimmying across a thick tree branch. Blood sprayed over him as he inched closer to the gaping wound. He raised his dagger high, then drove it into the bird-woman’s throat to gain new balance. The monster shrieked and thrashed. Its arms were too short to reach its neck, yet still it clawed. He held on now with only his dagger. The blood inside him pulsed and burned. He howled and pulled himself upward, grabbed onto the miserable monster’s lower beak. He pulled the dagger out again and with his one arm on the God’s lower jaw then swung himself upward with a strength he’d never known.
In mid-air he plunged his dagger deep into the beast’s eye, locking him in place as it screamed. His legs flailed as he crashed against its enormous, bloodied face. Below him the ship split in two as the harpy’s legs burst downward through the crippled vessel’s heart. Water gurgled. Men shouted. A bear roared.
Yet still he screamed and thrust his free hand deep into the bird’s eye. Nothing could stop him — stop them. He pulled himself inward, climbing now into its throbbing eye socket as it wretched and wailed. Vomit exploded its mouth, spilling over the tarnished ship and any who remained upon. Human bone, organs, wood and rust ripped through the air. He stabbed his dagger against the God-bird’s bones, breaking his way through crimson darkness as the terrible voice inside him cried with joy.
His long fingers wrapped around the queen’s brain stem. He sunk his razor teeth around its silky sinew. He pulled at it. He sucked on it and clenched his teeth around its sacred life.
So ancient, the voice inside him whispered. There is beauty in us sharing this together.
He felt the life of the horrific monster drain away. He felt its joys die. Felt its love of generations flourishing around it fade. Once she was in love, he felt. Once she had hope and dreamed of a land far from what those around her called Carolina. She was old, had known this land before man had ever roamed it. She felt love, pain, anger and sorrow. She pleaded for him to stop. To let her live. She would run, she said. Please just let her run. Let her fly. Please.
Francis tightened his grip around her spinal column. His teeth clenched further. Then he felt the slick muscle and sinew around him lurch and give.
The bird fell from the sky. He quickly clawed away, back through the skull, back through the eye. He leapt into the air just as the enormous bird-woman crashed into the churning sea behind him. She said no further words. Cried no further tears.
Francis slammed into the water. It was terribly cold, very unlike the blood still boiling within him. The sea wrapped around him like a hug. He was under it now, pulled ever-downward by his stupid coat. The miserable thing wrapped around him like chains, grabbing against his limbs as he kicked and kicked, hunting for the surface. Finally he wrenched it free. He didn’t watch it sink.
Francis burst above the ocean’s waves and gasped. In the distance the smuggler ship was split in two, groaning as it slowly sank beneath the midnight sea. Screams echoed through the moonless night. Flames flickered inside its gurgling hulls and he noticed then that the mist around the bay had receded, revealing dozens of bodies floating throughout the waters adorned with both flesh and feathers.
He kicked his feet and pulled his bleeding hands up to his face, fighting against the lapping waves.
“Desmond!” he cried.
“Plank!” he screamed.
He shouted for Gail and her baby.
Yet as he watched the vessel sink into darkness, the only answers he received were from the churning sea. His blood cooled. His limbs went limp. And then all turned black as Francis fell into that eternal quiet all creatures someday find.