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"Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels."
Francisco de Goya
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Part 1:
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Singapore Naval Base
Singapore, Republic of Singapore
April 26th, 2013----6:00pm
“So let me get this straight,” The Singapore naval officer said, putting out his cigarette on the table’s ashtray that was among several different folders of paperwork, “the reason for our ships going down the past week is because of a giant dinosaur? Are you shitting me?”
Rick Winston, a man of thirty-nine with dirty blonde hair and wearing a green button up shirt with jeans shook his head. Rick was exhausted and the wear could be seen on his face that now was covered in stubble, “Look! I know I look mad as hell. It seems impossible but, there is a dinosaur. A dinosaur unlike anything that has ever been recorded on this planet and I think its what is responsible for the recent string of disappearances. You need to lower ship traffic until we can find it again.”
“Look,” the naval officer said, “Its been four days since we picked you up and the rest of the survivors of that expedition of yours in Guam. The US Government were the ones that told us here in Singapore to keep an eye one you and to talk to you if there is a problem. Well there is a problem. Five ships have gone down in the past six days and I thought it would be the smart thing to ask your group for advice on the matter, but none of you guys seem to make any sense. The only thing that you do have down is that the ship went down in the storm and that your father, the famous David Winston, died while on his deep sea dive due to pressure.”
The officer looked at Rick, who was doing his best to keep his cool, “Which I’m sorry to hear. Your father was a good and brilliant man.”
Rick nodded, “Yes. Yes he was.”
“Regardless though, we’ve been monitoring the waters and no sign of this ‘dinosaur’ has been reported.”
“You’re looking in all the wrong spots,” Rick said, “Who knows how long this thing has gone undetected in the ocean. I mean have you gotten any communications before your ships went down?”
The officer shook his head, “No. We’ve gotten a lot of static before the ships disappeared on the radio.”
“And what about these mass beachings of dolphins and sharks? Something is in your waters and is responsible. Look at the signs.”
“You think dead whales and my missing boats are linked?!” the officer said raising his voice, “ because that is honestly ridiculous! You’re a scientist. You know better than this! Nothing in these waters is that big or aggressive.”
“Exactly! I’m a scientist!” Rick answered back, “I saw the damn thing. We need to find it. Its a threat to the city if it comes onto land.”
“Well, if the off chance your ‘dragon’ is real and does make it to Singapore, our Navy is more than capable of destroying it.”
“Don’t attempt to humor me,” Rick said, “This is serious.”
“Well,” The official walked back to the table that Rick was at and grabbed a blue folder; he opened it and looked over the official documents inside, “regardless, the United States officials have ordered for you and your group to be transported back to the States as quickly as possible. Your flight is tomorrow morning.”
The official then chuckled as he kept reading.
“What’s so funny,” Rick said with annoyance.
“Looks like you guys are flying first class.”
Rick was in silence. He didn’t know if he should punch the man or just take a breath and let it go, “Am I free to leave then?”
“Yes. A car will be waiting to take you back to the hotel where the rest of your crew is waiting.”
“Thanks,” Rick said and got up from the table and headed to the door.
“Doctor Winston,” the official called out.
Rick turned to face him while holding the door open.
“You should count yourself lucky. You and the fifteen others where all that was left of that crew of fifty. That must have been one hell of a storm you survived for it to have sunk your boat and taken most of crew.”
Rick looked at the man and shook his head, “Yeah. I guess your right.”
Rick closed the door behind him and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He shook his head, trying to not let the memories of that day. That night. That storm; the horrible storm that rocked his world and took his father away from him in the jaws of something that was just so magnificently wrong.
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Fishing Boat Conrit
The Singapore Strait---6 Miles Out from Bintan Island
April 26th, 2013---7:00pm
“Papa,” the little Chinese ten year old boy said to his father as they sat anchored in the Singapore Strait, six miles from the Bintan Island, “are we going home soon.”
The father, tired and worn out shook his head in agreement, “Yes son. Sorry the fish weren’t biting as well as the have.”
“Its okay. Its because of the dragon.”
The father of the young boy shook his head, “Not this again.”
“But father, I saw it last night before I went to bed.”
“It was a dream. Dragons don’t exist except in dreams.”
“I saw it when the lights went out last night. I saw it talk to the lighting.”
"Talk to the lighting?” the boy’s father questioned as he readied the motor engine to drive their little pilot boat back to their shack of a home. He had heard at the bar from other fishers that at night, strange bots of lighting were seen without storm clouds. Many thought it was heat lighting, but what made the rumors more strange, was that they where coming from the ocean itself.
“Yes! It spoke to thunder and brought down lighting.”
The father smiled and ruffled his smiling boy’s dark black hair, “You sure do have at least a creative imagination, maybe you’ll be a writer and make lots of money and don’t have to fish for a living.”
“But I want to learn to fish. I want to be like you papa.”
The man smiled at his boy and hoped though he would change his mind. He looked at himself at the torn denim vest and the khaki pants with old and worn sandals. What a life he had lived and his son was the only light left in it. It had been two years since his wife died in a boating accident. Since then it had been a struggle; it was moments like this though that made him truly happy. Even though they didn’t catch more than three fish, the sunset was something to behold. The days had been clear and the waters around his home couldn’t be better.
“Alright son,” he said as he cranked the engine which roared to life, “Lets go home and cook some of this up!”
“Yeah!” the boy said with delight, “fish and rice is the best!”
The man smiled as as the boat began to move in the red bleached waters caused by the setting sun, a large wake suddenly rocked the boat from out of no where.
“Hold on son,” the man said.
“Where is the boat?” the boy asked.
The boat is right over,” the man said as he realized he was pointing at nothing. There was not a thing on the water but as the boat settled from the wake, he grew concerned.
“Maybe its a whale,” the boy’s father said.
“It was the dragon. I bet you he took all our fish so he could talk to thunder again!” “Son. It was a whale.”
Suddenly the boat spun wildly as yet again another powerful wake and current pulled the boat. The man could see fear in his son’s eyes and tried his best to smile amongst the confusion, “Just look off the side,” the man laughed, “I bet there is a pod of whales down there.”
The man watched his son look over the side of the boat and he simply shook his head, “No dad. Its the dragon.”
“Its not a dragon! Its a whale,” he laughed as he looked over the side and his laugh and smile faded. What he saw in the water was not a whale. In the murk casted by the setting sun, he could see movement. Something big was moving under the water. Specks of blue lights danced around the dark mass to revel that it had giant protrusions along the back. He could only see their tips. Was it fish? He didn’t know. He just knew he had to get himself and his boy to port soon.
“Hold on son,” the man said, “We are getting out of here.”
The boy lowered himself as the little pilot boat roared and sped away from whatever was in the water. The man had been on the water all his life, but he had never seen that. Could a dragon be really possible?
As the boat sped away, the man could see the shoreline of Bintan Island. There they can get the boat docked and drive the hell away and back to their home in the outskirts of Singapore.
“DAD!” The boy yelled pointing before them as the the two soon saw the giant grey sail-like object rise out of the ocean. Smaller ones came up first and they got bigger and bigger. The boat suddenly rocked it out of the water as the Chinese father and son were in mid-air among their splintering boat. He tried reaching for his son, but the man was to far away among the air borne debris. His life seemed to flash and he didn’t know what to do. The whole world seemed to slow down as he watched what were his last images on Earth. As he watched his boy and soon his own body fell straight back amongst the boat’s wreckage. His last realization horrified him, “These are spines.”
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The Fullerton Hotel
Singapore, Republic of Singapore
April 26th, 2013----10:30pm
The door opened and four people walked in the their two level suite at the Fullerton Hotel. The lone woman of the group flicked a switch to show the beautifully crafted room that was paid by the US embassy to cover their losses in the Pacific. The tallest man was Sean Miller, forty years old with a mess of blonde hair on him. A cocky grin was on his face as he strolled in wearing khaki pants and a white longed sleeves shirt, holding a grey dinner jacket behind his back. “Man that was some bar. Pretty good time I think.”
“Yeah man,” Zach Kings said jovially, “I even got a girl’s number. A pity that we finally are flying back to the States tomorrow.”
“You guys are silly. How do you know it was a girl? We are in Asia after all,” the beautiful blonde hair girl wearing a polka dot dress winked with a smile.
“Singapore is a pretty clean town,” Rick Winston who was last to walk into the room, “he probably just has the number to someone’s wife. Not a ladyboy.”
“Damn,” Sean said as he jumped onto the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table, “way to be a buzz kill Rick.”
Lilly looked at Rick and walked towards him, slipping her fingers into his, “The officer’s words are still getting to you huh, hun?”
“Its just,” Rick said, “if my father was still around, people would listen.”
There was silence in the room as the group recollected the reason why they were in Singapore in the first place. The unnatural truth and the fear of what they by scientific accident lead to the surface.
“Look,” Zach said, “That giant lizard will be picked up by some country’s navy, probably ours, and be blasted to kingdom come.”
“Yeah,” Lilly said, “Its over. That thing is done with.”
“No its not,” Rick said as he walked to coffee table and sat next to Sean, “Look at these newspapers. There have been reports of ships disappearing since we got rescued. Strange lighting. Mass beachings of marine life all over Indonesia. Sightings of something big in the waters--”
“Its okay. Its not here.” Lilly said, putting her fingers in his hair and massaging his scalp. She leaned close to him and saw how exhausted he was. She was starting to fall all over him again but she was missing the man she saw on the boat. Before his father went down. Before that thing came from that abyss. Before their boat sank. Just before all the insanity of Challenger’s Deep. It was even harder for her, but she was happy that she would no longer have to see that face again.
“Well,” Zach said, “Regardless I’m going to start heading to bed soon. Sean?”
“Rock, paper, scissors for the couch again?”
“Of course,” Zach smiled and raised his hand towards Sean, “Best two out of three?”
“Thats our cue to come upstairs and take the bed sweetie,” Lilly whispered to Rick.
Rick looked at her and gave a weak smile, “Bed sounds really nice. Maybe a bath too.”
“I like where your head is at,” Lilly winked.
The two others looked at them and shook their heads, “Would you guys please just get a room?” Sean said.
“Well,” Zach chimed in, “just go to your room and keep it down.”
Lilly giggled, “We’ll do our best to keep it down. But no promises.”
She lead Rick by her hands from the couch and up a spiral staircase up to their bedroom where they had little of their belongings. The clothes that they all wore was from money given to them when the US officials in Guam let them go after their integration by an apparent insurance claim that David Winston left if anything went wrong on the expedition.
The crisis of their ship’s sinking was baffling to all officials and due all the data of the ‘discovery’ was lost due to the interference from the storm they were in and the sinking, causing no one to believe their claim of the creature. They had been through a lot. They were in the water in life rafts for half a day before they were rescued from a SOS the captain of their ship, Captain Bates, called out before he lead the crew to the life rafts; the creature then surfaced and attacked the ship, dragging the vessel back down into the depths of the Pacific. The creature’s massive size and savagery on the research vessel, Leviathan Seeker, sunk the hundred and twenty foot long ship to a premature grave in the Pacific. In the chaos, almost half of the crew died including the tragedy of Rick’s father being killed personally by the creature upon discovery in Challenger’s Deep.
As Lilly and Rick went up the stairs, she looked at the man she was falling for; their past was so sparse and honestly, she was amazed that he let her back into his life. They knew each other in college and they dated a few times, but she broke his heart thinking that he wouldn’t amount to much due to living in the shadow of his father. But even before the giant monster rose out of the ocean, Rick was doing well for himself. Instead of being in his father’s shadow, he worked with him and had his own research. She started reconnecting with him a year ago when she as a well known journalist was sent to do an interview on his new book, The Mythology of Evolution, which explored the idea of mythological creatures being an example of sporadic cases of evolution. It was a popular book for the common place though it had criticisms in the scientific world. They started to rekindle and he asked her out officially again the night before they boarded the Leviathan Seeker, since she was the on-site journalist who was going to document the exclusive story about the deep sea dive.
Despite appearances, she was also having the hardest time with everything though since the rescue. Since they left Guam for their stop with Singapore, Lilly had been having night terrors of that creature from deep below. It was taking a toll on her, but she couldn’t let Rick know. He had enough and she didn’t want to be burden to him.
The two entered their room with Lilly slowly and delicately unbuttoning Rick’s shirt from behind. She rested her head on his shoulder and smiled as the two held onto each other in the dark room, only the lights of Singapore’s harbor illuminating their shadowed bodies. “Why don’t I run a nice little bath for you and maybe while you’re relaxing, I’ll join you.”
Rick smiled, “That sounds great. I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. It means a lot that your sticking with me after everything that has happened.”
“Well,” Lilly said, “I think you are worth the monsters.”
Lilly could feel his body get rigid at that last part and she regretted saying that word.
“I really hope not,” Rick said.
Lilly watched the man head to the bathroom, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“Not that,” Rick said as he stood in the doorway and looked down, shaking his head, “That there are more of them.”
As Rick went into the bathroom and the sound of running bath water started to rush into their porcelain tub, Lilly stood horrified in her head. She hadn’t thought of that in all the chaos. Was that why Rick was more fearful and worried about the whole situation; it wasn’t just the idea of that thing from the trench making landfall on some unsuspecting city, it was the idea that the creature wasn’t the only giant roaming the planet.
Lilly began undressing as her luminescent skin started to appear in the lights of the harbor. As her dress faded into the shadows of the room and she stood in laced underwater, she felt like this was just the calm before the storm. As a journalist this was a breakthrough venture, but it was horrifying and surreal. She had written on the front lines of stories of wartime Iraq, talked to survivors of devastating natural disasters, and naturalists in the most hostile environments. As turned and started to take off her bra and throw it in the direction of her dress, she realized that even though some could say she could handle; this giant creature maybe something that no one can handle.
The two bathed in the warm bath and let passions stir the warm waters with their movements. As the climax of their passions reached their peak, both Rick and Lilly had felt the issues of the world fade away. Putting on underwear for both, the two laid in their silk bed together and looked up at the ceiling. Lilly felt safe on Rick’s chest as she could hear his heartbeat as her head bobbed on his breathing. She looked at the bed side clock and saw it was a little after midnight. It was a new day; April twenty-seventh and in just a few hours, they would be finally heading home and the nightmares of the Pacific.
“This is nice,” she said into the silence they had created.
“Yeah,” Rick replied, “Its like we can finally breath.”
“And tomorrow we can be way from this place. Back in the States.”
Rick nodded, “Yep. I could use a vacation from all this before I go out again.”
“Go out again?”
“Yeah. We need to find that thing Lilly.”
She lifted her head and looked at him like he was mad, “You are kidding right?”
He adjusted himself so the two were sitting on the bed together faced to face, “Well of course Lilly. Facts aside, we discovered a living, breathing dinosaur living at the bottom of the ocean that could probably bring down an ocean liner. It needs to be studied.”
“That thing is a monster,” Lilly said, “and we should let it be dealt with the proper people.”
“But we discovered it,” Rick said and looked out at the harbor. He could see a large tanker coming to port, “and I have a feeling it was planned.”
“What?” What do you mean planned?”
Rick took a breathe and looked at Lilly; even in the low lighting of the room, Lilly could see Rick was being deadly serious, “I think my dad knew of that thing. In the last few months, he was becoming obsessed on the deep sea oceans. And on the henosaurids.”
“You mean the dinosaur species your dad found a while back?” Lilly asked.
“Yeah. He kept having me do research on the ones that where found in coastal environments. And to make it worse I guess,” Rick said, “even though it was dark when we saw it, it kind of reminded me of a Henosaurid. Large skull, spiny back and those tusk-like teeth on the jaw. Its oddly similar to the genus.”
“And they got that big?”
“No dinosaur, no animal,” Rick said, “has ever gotten that big.”
Rick grew silent and kept looking at the oncoming boat in the harbor, “Well, not that we know of.”
Lilly wanted to argue to Rick. The thing, despite what Rick was saying, was still at the end of the day for her a monster. It had already taken human life and who knows that kind of impact it would have on humanity. But she didn’t want to fight. It was getting late and she just wanted that feeling of safety again. Even though it seemed like Rick was on the fence on whether to be admiring or fearing the giant animal, he made her feel safe that it couldn’t get them again. She didn’t know why she felt that way. She never needed that feeling before, but as she kept reminding herself, this was much different from anything that life had presented her. The only thing that remained true, was that Rick cared for her like he always did.
“By the way,” she smirked, “you were pretty good back there in the tub.”
Rick was taken off guard from the comment, “Trying to distract me?”
“I don’t want to talk about monsters. Its the last night in Singapore for us and we go home,” she said as she crawled onto of him and put her face in his, “why don’t we make it a little memorable.”
Rick smiled and the two began to kiss, feeling the safety and comforts of not having to think about their situation. As long as they where busy with each other, the world full of questions and horror was just a bad dream. With heavy and erotic breathing, Rick began to undo Lilly’s bra when suddenly, a loud boom was heard echoing across the room and a sudden blaze of light entered their room.
“What the fuck?” Lilly said as she moved off Rick and looked out the harbor. The two quickly jumped off the bed and headed to their window to see the tanker in flames.
“What happened?” Rick said.
“Terrorist attack maybe?” Lilly replied.
“Look!” Rick said, “In the water. Something is in the water!”
“Oh no.” Lilly said as Rick pulled her closer at the sight they thought they had escaped from. As the tanker burned, the two saw the metal tanker sudden have more explosions ripple the ship. Giant spikes started to emerge in the center of the ship, splitting it.
“No,” Rick whispered under his breath, recognizing the jagged spikes to not be something of metal, but of bone. He would never forget those spines as the orange glow of the fires revealed black stripes and emerald scales rising out of the now sinking ship. All of Singapore was looking at this spot as it was the mighty head of the giant dinosaur rose out of the flames. Its jagged maw of teeth opened to let loose a powerful roar as the fiery glow of wreckage illuminated the giant dinosaur to Singapore’s busy port. Rearing back, the dinosaur yet again let loose another roar. Louder and stronger, Lilly and Rick shuddered at the sound that everyone in the city could hear; the leviathan announced its primordial presence to the world.
End of Part 1
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Next Time:
With chaos ensuing the harbor of Singapore, Rick and his comrades must find shelter in the wake of a rampaging giant. As the creature demonstrates its true powers and ferocity, the world trembles at what is to come............
All content unless otherwise stated is (c) Henry Winston Ball 2007-2013
