Jonathan Reddoch is co-owner of Collective Tales Publishing. He is a father, writer, editor, and publisher. He writes sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and especially horror. He has been working on his enormous sci-fi novel for over a decade and would like to finish it in this lifetime if possible.
Find more of Jonathan’s work and connect with him right HERE.
SON OF THE SEA
by
Jonathan Reddoch
The little fishing boat sputtered to a stop in the middle of the ocean. Hijo del Mar, or Son of the Sea, was a rusty little weekend charter, currently drifting ten miles off the coast of Baja in the Gulf of California.
The boat was small and shoddy; its splintering deck had seen better days, and the pics from the website were clearly out of date. Perhaps it had hosted one too many cocaine-filled charters for Wallstreet yuppies in the 80s. But that just meant the captain boasted an experienced crew and vessel.
“Outta gas!” The captain shouted. He was damp from sweat; it was sweltering.
“Oh shit!” Said Ash, clutching her young son’s hand. “Are we going to be able to get back to the dock?”
The captain shrugged. “We might need to call in a tow. Could be hours.”
The first mate popped up from under the boat. “Looks like we’ve been leaking oil all afternoon.”
So, the crew fiddled with the equipment in vain while the half a dozen customers filled the time fishing. A group huddled around a father and son who hauled in a whopping wahoo.
Ash wasn’t much of a fisher. Her ex-husband Paul was the outdoorsman. He dragged her and their son Bradly all over the great wide outdoors. Bradley loved it. The allure of the wild untamed wilderness called to them both. Ash tolerated it for her boys.
After their separation, Paul took Bradly on weekend trips once a month. For a while. But the trips became less and less frequent. So now Ash was left to take their eight-year-old hiking, camping, and fishing. She was a lawyer, hardly bred to rough it. But she could hire a guide or charter a boat, paying professionals to lead the way into the wilderness.
The crowd was growing listless. Bradley's eyes looked up at Ash; they seemed to say “Dad is the fun one.”
After an hour, Ash got a tug on her line. “Whoa! It’s a big one!” She had only caught a few tiny river trout in her life. Nothing like this!
The behemoth maneuvered under the thrashing waves. Bradley abandoned his line to come watch. “You got a monster!”
Ash caught a glimpse of a dark form diving under the bow. A few men hovered around her, doling out conflicting advice. One said to slacken the line. Another told her to pull tight.
She held tight but it yanked the rod from her arms, nearly dragging her over. The boat dipped and rose with a massive wave.
Bradley ran to the opposite side of the boat and pointed. “It’s enormous!”
One of the crew removed his hat and crossed himself, whispering, “el diablo de las profundidades.”
The devil of the depths.
The boat began to spin as if in a whirlpool.
The boy laughed as his mother became violently seasick. “Dad said you couldn’t handle the ocean.”
She spewed her lunch out over the side as the boat’s spinning slowed.
“We struck a leak!” Said one of the passengers emerging from below deck. The crew began handing out inflatable rafts as the vessel took on more water.
Ash called for Bradly to join her in one of the rafts. But he wasn’t on board. She panicked to get back on the sinking vessel, accidentally capsizing the raft.
The crew were able to right the raft and get her back in. But Bradly was still not present.
“Bradly! Where is he? Where is my son?”
Ash heard the boy’s faint giddy laughter. She looked up to see her son bobbing up and down off in the horizon. He was being dragged further out to sea by something dark below the surface.
He never stopped laughing, even as he disappeared into the depths of the sea.
Another son taken by the diablo of the depths.