the storm of storms
a horror story i wrote
_ The storm of storms _
Growing up with only one parent is hard to endure. Growing up with two parents and being raised by only one is much harder. All my childhood my father would ether work or be home drunk. In his drunken states he would endlessly recount the same tale over and over.
I hated it, growing up I was always so resentful of having to sit and hear it. His short lived life at sea. Of how he became hopelessly lost on a rogue tide and came before an island on which lived a storm. A living storm that moved like a beast walking upon the water, inhaling whales and schools of fish on tornadoes. Worst of all was how everyone coddled him. They called him sun struck and disturbed.
I only knew the stink of his breath and the loudness of his voice. I was never happier then the day I left for collage. I almost felt a culture shock when I spent my first night not being having to entertain the ranting of a drunkard, not that I am complaining of course. Though I still felt like I had been denied something in my father.
The years passed and I always resented him and his madness. Even after I had become a respected professional and got my own home. I never had much of a care for starting a family. I was never really sure how one would work or run honestly. Perhaps that is what I always felt cheated over. My family whole was broken, maybe I inherited some of his madness after all.
News came of my father becoming gravely ill and I was summoned to his side. I wanted to refuse it, but I feared that if I let my spite govern me then I would really have some of the old man's obsessive lunacy. So I went via plane to the small coastal town my mother and father had retired to and knelt by his bed side.
He looked like a man befitting a death bed. His skin sagged on his body, his eyes were dull, his hair all but gone. He grasped my wrist and groaned.
"boy, you were the only one, what ever believed me." he said, half choking on his own breath. "them all, say I got the crazies. That my brain be addled, but you always believed me... you gots ta do what I was to afraid ta do. I hid behind the bottle, but it needs to be seen. You go... go and bring proof, what for yer old man can rest in peace." after saying this he slipped a folded up piece of paper into my hand and nodded. Then he closed his eyes. The nurse said he was asleep and it was best to not strain him more
even here, even in his last hours. Mad as a hatter and twice as drunk. I felt disgusted and furious, and at the same time I felt. Bad. I spent my life hating this man. Was it really his fault?
I unfolded the paper and looked at it. It had numbers written on it. Numbers? Coordinates! Had he kept these all those years? The paper did seem rather old. Was it odd for a mad man to make detailed coordinates of his delusions? The paper perplexed me greatly. I searched the coordinates and maps showed it to me out rather far to sea, but not so far has to be impossible.
I sat awake looking at the paper and it's faded numbers for hours. Slowly I felt my old resent coming back. He could have written these petty numbers down at any time. I threw the paper away and cursed the old fool, but then I thought of something. He had time still, days at least... Time enough to reach this spot and prove there is nothing there. That he was mad all along. Yes, that would be my revenge for the childhood he broke. I would cast him off to the grave knowing that he had been mad all along. Living storm indeed!
I knew little of sailing so I hired a guide and commissioned a ship, a moderate one with enough size to stock supplies and fuel for the trip which would take days to and from at least, assuming the weather was fair like all the reports predicted. I laughed at the thought of that. Of course the weather would be fine, there was no living storm to spoil my vendetta.
The ship set sail at the dawn and I watched the water and skyline like a hawk for anything. No, I was looking for nothing. To find a lack of anything but sea water and wind. The boat plowed across the water with ease as the day progressed, but has the sun started to set I felt uneasy. I needed light, light for which to see the nothing that would prove the old fool's madness, and validate my contempt. Night begrudgingly passed slowly.
The new day brought unease to my guide he explained we had gone far out, farther then would be safe if something happened the chance of help coming was almost nothing. I didn't care, we didn't turn back till I was at the coordinates. With or with out the guide's approval. I was so excited as I watched the horizon, we were so close to it. So close to my retribution.
All at once my stomach dropped when I saw something slowly peeking on the horizon. An island! Small yes but it was there I screamed in anger. There couldn't be something here it had to be madness! I composed myself and ordered the guide to make landfall. At first he refused, worried that bringing it up to the shore could trap it. He changed his mind when I introduced him to my glock 17 though.
The ship thumped into the sandbar, I followed the guide off the ship. We walked a bit and I noticed something odd about the whole place. There was a odd displacement to everything, like a savage wind had recently pummeled the islands trees and plant life. I trembled and felt my knees go weak. It was just happenstance it had to be, a small storm had hit the island a few days before hand, that had to be it. My guide called my attention to a massive cave, or at least what he thought was a cave.
I think perhaps this is when I truly started to feel the insanity. For as I looked at this so called cave I realized it's edges were carved, like a old archway that had fallen over. A sign of life? Here? Why here!? It had to be wrong, it had to. There couldn't be any truth to that damn story. That damn story ruined my life! I had to destroy it. I had to debunk it! I felt tears in my eyes, I felt so defeated.
I raised my gun and pointed it at my guide. I had one ploy left. If truth wouldn't destroy the old man's tale then a falsehood would have to do. I would say I found nothing and none would be the wiser, none but my guide. I fired once, maybe twice. I watched him stagger forward and into the cave. I felt chills, but took hold of my nerves. I would need to focus to sail back alone safely. More so I would need to concoct a suiting story about my guide's disappearance. I turned and started marching away from the cave, determined to not regret what I had done.
I was almost to the ship when I felt a strong gust, I turned around and saw something from the mouth of the cave. Like a black could raising slowly. I screamed protests as it kept coming, it rose up like a fox from it's hole, still more drifted out. The wind grew stronger and louder as more of the dark clouds bellowed up. I am unsure how long it took but at last the whole of it's mass had come up. Most of it was up over the island but some pillars of cloud still touched the ground like legs. The whole mass held no really shape or form beyond it's slight leg like limbs.
I aimed my gun and fired till there was nothing to fire. Never once did the thing look down at me, if it even could look down at is. Lightning danced within it's cloudy mass and rain fell under it. Finally after a time the thing turned and walked over the water of the sea. Watching it in motion it seemed to move more and more like a four legged creature with a head and tail but the size of it made it hard to clearly depict anything.
I threw my gun at it, I screamed and shouted. Still it never showed a sign of noticing me. I pushed against the ship and it started to drift back to the sea, I scrambled on it and tried working the controls. When I finally got it turned around I froze in horror. Just as my father had said, funnels of wind reached down into the water. It had all been true...
I sounded the ships horn and for once the storm moved as if it was casting it's gaze to me. It was motionless and I glared at it. It wasn't suppose to be real! It was suppose to be all a mad fever dream! Slowly a part of the storm drifted down closer to the ship, the wind and rain and lightning didn't scare me, I was too enraged. Even has a strange glow, like eyes formed in the clouds I wasn't afraid. Even as I knew it saw me, I wasn't afraid.
I recall nothing of my encounter beyond that. I only remember being away that I was in a hospital bed. I looked beside me at a hospital bed at a miserable old man on his final hours and all at once I screamed. "I SAW IT! I SAW KELIFER, THE STORM OF STORMS!"