This is a continuous thread story. Feel free to add in, but follow the Rules:
1. Posts must be related to the storyline.
2. No foul language .
3. No more than one reply in a row...let others jump in too.
4. Remember, continuity is a good thing...
5. Have fun with it.

The rain drizzled down the back of his neck as he hauled the small boat down the beache's shingle, scraping the keel here and there on the odd bit of rough stone and shell...not that it mattered, his boat had seen better days, as had he.

He reached the waters edge and stopped to catch his breath. The sea was peacefully calm, despite the touch of rain. There was a smell of salt that filtered through his senses as the sun began to peak out over the distant horizon. Dawn was approaching fast and the feeling of urgency and anticipation came over him as he shoved the creaky old boat into the water and fumbled aboard.






(:mrgreen: This should be interesting!!!! Great idea!!!!)

He looked back, he could see someone running towards him. He was dreading that this would happen. The person was his apprentice, Eric , which was not exactly what you would call bright. Just as the as Eric was about to get say hi, he fell face first in to the a mud puddle, when he got up, his face was so caked in mud that he could barely speak.

The excursion wasn't starting that well. The previous night someone had stolen the zodiac, and this morning Eric got his toothbrush stuck up his nose again. Even if he did have two left feet, dim-witted Eric had a heart of gold.

He'd bought this old wooden dinghy to get back to his boat, moored offshore, for a mere pack of smokes and bottle of rum. The two of them slipped offshore, the dinghy laden to the gunnels with provisons, and, most important of all - a new fine-meshed beam trawl. Ten minutes later they'd reached the boat - his pride and joy.

Fifty meters she was...from stem to stern...and he knew every inch of her, the ding marks from net hauls on the winches, the scrapes made by shark's teeth on the transom..(that had been a big haul...almost had sunk the damn boat). His boat. His pride...in which all of his money was tied up into also...Daniel glanced back at his apprentice boy, still with a bloody nose, and wondered if he would be able to pay him for this week's salary. Not the way it had been going...such a shortage of fish had scarce been seen on this coast...the talk in town was of doom and gloom, of people leaving in the night, as they could ill afford to make their payments upon the houses they had rented for the summer.

Ah well. The lady stood before him...swaying a bit in the mild sea, making her own noises like his wife did, snoring gently.

It was at that moment, thinking fondly about his wife of these many years, that the dread struck him like a giant wave. He heard the voice again. The voice from the deep.

The voice was like a winter's chilling breeze, although he can't hear clearly what it was saying, but when he heard it, it chilled him to his bones. Eric, the apprentice who justed finished wiping blood and mud off his face looked up to see him, seeing his mentor's pale white face sticken with fear was not the first time. The first time was when they were diving in the brackish cold waters of Hong Kong, when they discovered the remains of a dead police. The second time was when they came staring down at a giant Humbolt squid, in the Alantic. This was the third time. Eric loaded his belongings to the dinghy and waited for his mentor...

"ERIC" Dan's sharp voice cut through his daydreaming, "Tie the boat off to a cleat and get a move on!"
Daniel scrambled aboard the ship, which listed a bit to the port even with his insubstantial weight added...she was a finicky vessel, the Albatross, finicky indeed .

Eric moved towards the stern, after throwing the gear on deck, new nets and all wrapped up into several bundles, tied up with rough jute.
Down in the hold he turned on the generators, and an unsteady light flickered into being, along with the cough of an air filter that would have to be changed soon. Eric still wondered at the change in pallor that came over Dan's face as they neared the ship, as if he heard a horrible noise somewhere...and the way his hands were still shaking as they came aboard.

Some of the townspeople said the ship was cursed, but Eric never paid attention to gossip from the landfolk...the sea had its own curses, and they were far more powerful than those of the earth. For the captain, this ship had always been lucky, taking in more catch than any of the other fishermen last year, and the year before, too.

With the dingy tied up to the port side, the Albatross began to motor out past the docks, chugging softly in the mist. Eric shivered.

It was not becuase of the cold nor because his mentor was acting strangely today, it was because the ship had this special aura that makes you kinda funny, Eric wasn't exactly bright, but he know that something was wrong, espically the red splash of "paint" on the floor and the blood red colour on the gaff hooks , snares and other fishing equipments that looked more suited to a torture chamber in Iraq. It wasn't only Eric, his mentor was also thinking about this the same way...

I will continue since nobodies writing. :cry:

The dinghy slowly chugged out of the harbour and into the open sea.
Eric was looking at some dull gray shadows a few yards from the dinghy, suddenly, the gray figures suddenly surfaced, Eric gave a frightened yelp but quickly shut up when he saw that they were dolpines.
A few hours later, they were there, the Pacific Reef Trench ( aka Death Trench or Kraken Trench.) This trench was the only place where ships avoided, not only the small fishing vessels, even the US Aircraft Carrier Battle Group avioded this place as over 1000 vessels have disappered in these waters. The most famous was the 7/12 incident where Japan's largest battlecrusier, Yamato and the USS Vangaurd disappeared in the area.
So, Eric's mentor, Dan, Eric and the cook, Alberto slowly loaded their gears and prepared to lower Eric and his mentor under the water...

As the water enclosed around them Eric couldn't help feeling a sense of aw and wonder at the life he saw under the blue waves... or it could have been the fact that their one man sub was holding two people. Maybe he was claustrophobic... or maybe it was the bean burrito he had eaten for lunch. He couldn't tell.


(Sorry, I don't have a clue how a fishing boat has a sub! It just worked really well that way!)

But what he did know is that it was beans for dinner, but not for him ... at least he hoped not. They were about to undertake a long, deep dive, and beans weren't recommended. The meal was for someone else ....

The food of champions: beans, eggs, sausages, and an unhealthy dollop of sour cream. Ahhhhhh - that was Greg's favourite. Alberto had done well.

Just why had they chosen this spot to dive? Tears ran down his cheek; Eric also in a rather sombre mood, and it wasn;'t because of his throbbing proboscis.

A year earlier Greg, their cobber, vanished at this very same site whilst trialing his new sub, an SQ2132XP AQuaPro Deluxe - the sub they dreamed would capture the squid live, on film. Although the Deluxe was equiped with enough provisions to last 1 year, desalination plants, waste disposal facilities, and an O2 generating doo-dah thingymajig, it was for one year only, and it had been one year and one day since he was lost. Damn that swine who stole the Zodiac - they'd have been here yesterday had it not been for that mishap!!!!

For all they knew Greg could still be alive, starving, out of food, low on O2, unshaven, unwashed, smelling something terrible, and passing his time away whittling away on a piece of wood, making little ships. All he knew was that Greg would be hanging out for a feed of beans, sausages and eggs.

A tear fell on the meal .... they commenced their descent. It would be six hours before they reached the bottom. Six long hours. And the waters were dangerous ... riddled with taniwha, giant squid, and the colossal two-jawed fangiwhale.

During the decent, Eric looked out the sub and found himself staring at a few hundred jellyfish that were the size of of watermelons, it looked very pretty, so Eric decided to snap a few photos of them, he even manage to catch one in one of the tanks. As the sea surrounding them grew deeper, he turned on the lights. For a moment, he think he saw a giant tentacle going past, but when he looked again, it was gone.
Eric's mentor was staring down the botom portal and thought he saw a giant eye, but he thought he must have imagined it since he was obsessed with squids.

Cold water dripped sporadically from the windows and ports of the minisub from condensation, creating an odd rhythm with the cracking and groaning as the outside pressure built up around the frame...whirring motors powered the sub farther and farther down into the rocky depth of the trench, and only the cables to the surface reminded them of which direction was actually "up"...down here, the night ruled permanently...broken only occasionally by the brief sparking of a jewel clad viperfish pursuing smaller fish, and now the bright light of the minisub's halogen lights.

Other eyes noticed the unusual brightness also.

There was movement just outside of Dan and Eric's vision, startling enough to take their mind off the awful smell (at least that was what Dan thought) of the hideous meal they had eaten in rememberance of their friend...who knows if he had managed to live down here this long without going crazy? With no company other than the fish and invertebrates that occupied the Devil's Trench ?

The men were silent, separate individuals averting their eyes
from the other in attempt to conceal separate thoughts over
separate observations. Their reactions were identical: fear.

Eric was first to succumb to the pressure of this silence.
"Dan..I..I..um..I think I saw.." "Speak up, Eric! What is it?"
"Well..um..a moment ago..I thought I saw a large tentacle."
"Dear god. I saw a large eye! T'is a ceph, I'm sure of it!"
"You, too?" Eric sighed, grateful to no longer to be separate.
Separate observations of an identical entity: identical fear.

Just at that moment the minisub began to rock...

...and roll too, as Eric, backpedaling from the starboard porthole tripped, and fell into Dan's way...the right thruster went to full power for a second, and the sub spiraled violently.
"Eric!" Dan shouted, "Calm down...whatever it is, stop falling down all the time !" The sub slowly came back under control, and both resumed their places, scanning the dials and controls.

Eric was a bit shamefaced, but still stared out of the thick plexiglass with wide eyes, searching for what he thought he had seen...that brilliant red flash of colour, a quick view of horned tentacles...

"Hey Squarepants," the captain snorted, "where is your toothbrush? Your nose is all bloody again."

As he wiped the blood from his chin, Eric's eyes froze on those of Dan's, and a bead of water ran from his eye. He raised his arm, outstretched his finger, and pointed straight ahead. You could see it, or was it them, just; something huge.

Time froze. Hung by little more than a prayer and a congealed thread, a drop of blood swang from the tip of Eric's nose. The tear reached his cheek. The congealed thread quivered. The tear reached his chin. The congealed thread broke. Both drops suspended mid air, then careered to the floor. But they never made it.

With a tremendous crash, the minisub spun around in every direction...the fluke of the Cachalot was visible for a brief second, and another shock wave of water hit them, knocking Eric unconcious !
Dan wrestled with the miniature control pegs to try to regain control of the small vessel as pulse after pulse of pressure came from the diving whale's fins and violent passage...

Dans last view before his head crashed against the control yoke was the catchalots tail fluke which appeared to be artistically decorated with a SQ2132XP AQuaPro Deluxe sub.

Then darkness decended.

The sub hit the bottom with a THUD, sediment billowed obscuring all viewports. As the silt settled several writhing tentacles like pythons on steroids appeared out of the gloom and wrapped around the sub and lifted..........

... but was then no more. The SQ2132XP AQuaPro Deluxe sub, a little worse for wear, had dislodged itself from the whale's fluke and landed square on the head of the squid. Brain, blue blood, stomach, gonad, arms, tentacle and pulsating chromatophore exploded in every direction.

The two subs sunk to the seafloor, settling in the mud, their two plexiglass domes facing each other. Dan extricated the throttle lever from Eric's nose, and moved his unconcious body aside. He kicked the battered sub into gear and gently nudged it closer to the dome of his friend's battered sub.

Getting the sub to move forward though was proving to be difficult, as something seemed to be jammed in one of the propellers and was refusing to work it's way out.

Dan wrestled with the yoke and controls, sweating and cursing the whole time, but he was slowly working his way forward. With one last burst of power the sub settled down just close enough to look into the dome of the opposite sub.

All seemed dark and quiet, with no movement to be seen. Straining to peer deeper into the damaged sub, his left arm brushed the floodlight switch and the water around the sub was suddenly bathed in brilliant light.

Throwing up his hads to shade his eyes, Dan cursed and turned away. After minute or two and half blind, he turned rubbing his eyes and peered out towards his friends sub.....

......and to his utter astonishment, as his lights shone in through the dome of the SQ2132XP AQuaPro Deluxe sub he saw Greg weakly waving back at him. He'd survived on mouldy marmite sandwiches,brussels sprouts, speights beer and..........

J

Darn! Not again!

Jack awoke, irritated that once again he'd missed the ending. It always started the same way, an element of truth, perhaps premonition, but then became increasingly bizarre! As lame as it all was, he'd like to know if they made it back. And what was with this idiot Eric!! Shit, he didn't even know anyone named Eric!

He lit a smoke, glanced at the alarm, 4AM, and staggered out for a pee.

"Ya BLO*DY MONGREL CAT!!!" He flicked his foot to dislodge the thrown-up cat biscuit-and-bile mushed between his toes. Wet pellets bound with slime and hair lodged on the wall.

Slipping on the cat biscuit*, he cut his head on a couch corner, rendering him unconscious. He awoke, relieved at first to think his sea adventure was but a dream. Once fully conscious, he realised he WAS on the sub. He was but a dream. He then...

*(the most common cause of coma in the carpetless, according to the BMA)

...realized his name was Eric...it seemed that the blow that rendered him unconscious also reactivated his split personality...Jack/Eric moaned in the bright light.

"Why do you keep going on about cats?" asked Dan, as he waved at Greg and looked for a rag to staunch the bleeding from Erics head and nose. "Only thing they're good for is stir fry with noodles!"

Eric was able to sit up now, and the sub had righted itself well enough on the floor of the trench to where they could use the seats again. "Strap yourself in next time, lad."

Dan's reference to stir fried cat made Eric drool..so much Dan yelled,
"Close your mouth or you'll drown without need of the sea to do it!"
But Eric's thoughts were elsewhere; he hoped Taco was the chef..

back on the boat, Alberto was having fun with a small crab he has find on a piece of floating seaweed. Dan was being looking out wehn he saw a strange bubbles and a wake 100m from the boat. He judged that it would be a large sperm whale or some sort of sea creature that often goes muching on small wooden boats. He took out the crate under all the supplies, he opened it and and took out the only item on the boat that was proud of, the 3 shiny modified AQUA STORM. The AQUA STORM was under water assualt rifle the best there ever was, the 2 foot beuty ran on compressed gas, firing small caliber bullets that can penetrate almost anything. These modified ones were equipped with short range laser sights and the barrel was refitted to fire the LANCE 4 harpoon. Sharp enough to slice through sharks like it was butter. Dan looked through his laser sights and the familer 'ting' was heard as he compressed the trigger and the harpoon went soarling into the air, striking its target with military precscion. The wake suddenly stopped and a large cloud of ink could be seen emerging from the sea. Dan smiled to himself and siad', yep that was ol Archie alright...'

Through the cloud of ink they could see Greg frantically waving his arms and gesturing to the communications console. Dan flipped on a switch (why hadn't he done that earlier?) and a tinny voice came blaring through, "You idiot! What are you trying to do, irritate it?"
Dan and Eric/Jack/Stephen peered out at the darkness beyond the lights...nothing was moving.

A deafening silence ensued.

Too much silence.

"Dan? Are you ok?"

DAN?

DAN!!!!

The voices were gone. He was alone. But who was he?

He'd been like this for almost a year. A year and a day to be precise. Six months in an institution, and brain-numbing medication had helped, but there'd been too much pain, too much trauma.

The voice of Nurse Rached.. whose patients included
Jack Nicholson and an Indian Chief, among others.
She smirked evily. "Dan, this is your doctor..."

http://homepage.internet.lu/elasmo/Fox/Jaws.jpg

Jack woke up again, Damn that dream, it's going werider by the moment, ah well, he looked out the window and it was still dark. He sat on his bed for a few more minutes before going to fix himself breakfast, yep, his favourite breakfast beans, eggs, sausages, and an unhealthy dollop of sour cream: beans, eggs, sausages, and an unhealthy dollop of sour cream, that was his favourite...

Dan swallowed the rest of the glop, washing it down with a can of ale, damn the doctor's advice about eating well and avoiding too much alchohol... A glance at the mirror showed a bit of bulge forming above his beltline, but what was he supposed to look like? Some sort of super hero?
He hadn't been much of a hero a while ago...Eric had panicked and had hit the surface line feed, screaming about giant squid or something...the sub they had been in rocketed to the ocean top, and poor Eric's nose began gushing blood as the pressure changed...he never made it...

But he had other things to worry about...his nose was as bloody as Eric's and the pressure has caused the wound to burst and his shirt was already soaked. But he couldn't get to the surface since Eric broke the controls as he stumbled around before..he couldn't think of that moment, it came all too quick..he sat on the floor and began thinking who will find their sub....

So Dan startled himself awake one more time, the oxygen level in the sub had lowered and he found he had passed out briefly, dreaming of that horrendous breakfast of beans, eggs, sausages, with an unhealthy dollop of sour cream and found himself gazing at his buddy in the other sub holding up a sign that said.........

" Do you have anything to eat?" and just below, in well -calligraphed letters, "get me out of here!"

The sub pitched violently. A startled seagull flew straight into the plexiglass dome. The cabin was awash with sound. Bangs, screaching and scraping, keys tumbling in barrels, footsteps, whispering, clicks, unlocking deadbolts, gas axes, and grating.

As splattered guano, feather, beak and leg dribbled down the outside of the dome, Dan slumped in his chair within it. Dan and the gull passed out.

...soaring high over the cliff tops, the wind whistling in his ears, the gull was master of all he could see. Underneath him were the busy ledges where countless nests and hungry chicks sat gaping at their parents. Adults coming back from that long voyage, from out at sea where the fish can be found. He couldnt see his nest...

He had flown this area a million times before but this time something was different, a vague reality trying to dawn on him, a feeling that.... that...... that........... what is plexiglass?

The gull opened one eye, the pain washed over him and he passed out again.

Even though the waves were beating against the hull of the sub violently, Dan managed to struggle to the main hatch and pop the lock that held down the sealing mechanism...the fresh sea air helped revive him somewhat, but his head was still spinning.
Not more than two yards seperated him from the other minisub that had managed to grapple onto his as it lurched from the bottom in a cloud of silt...that subs hatch was also open, and in between huge gulps of fresh air, he could dimly see Greg doing something with a seagull...almost as if he was eating it ?
There was some moaning behind him in the darkness, perhaps Eric wasn't dead after all...Dan waved weakly to Greg, and yelled out, "

"Get your bloomin lips off my seagull".

*hard to control myself* :roflmao:

"hard to control myself!" Greg yelled back, but without much force...after a year of breathing canned air and eating not a lot more than canned beans (which makes for quite a combination), his vocal cords were rather hoarse.

" I didn't know it was your pet..." he mumbled as he munched on some bones and then spat them over the side. A wave splashed into his beaten sub and drenched him. " Hey, can we get up on board the ship before this old girl sinks?"

Dan shook his head...he had raised that gull from a hatchling, and it was always a good luck omen to see it cruising around his mast, like a miniature albatross...hell, that's why the ship had it's name!

"Oh, crikey, " gasped Greg..."What on god's green earth is that behind you?"

And it wasn't his shadow

A string of depleted uranium bullets whizzed past Dan's face and roiled the water aft of the minisub. " I think I got him !" yelled Alberto, gleefully waving around an assault rifle (they had quite a collection on board, in case they ran into trouble).
The subs other access port opened up, and a bloody faced Eric glared up at Alberto, "Dangit! You almost hit me!"

"Eric, you are alright?" Dan asked incredulously..." I thought you were dead !"

Eric hawked out a clot of blood into the ocean, shaking his head..."Hey, is he actually eating a seagull?" Greg waved back as Alberto began lowering the cable hooked to the starboard winch, seagull leg firmly clutched in his hand as he attached the winch hook to the pintle. Eric shook his head again.
"Always wondered what they tasted like."

Eric wasn;t exactly smart, but he did hace a taste for exotic foods, hes eaten cat, dog, viperfish, tiger, bear claws, owls and rumors say that he liked raw lion thighs...Eric was slightly drooling when he saw a large blob with ink flowing out from a stick, Eric looked closer, it wasn't a stick, it was a Lance 4 harpoon. Alberto jumbed off the boat armed with one of Dan's SCUBA STORM. Alberto was closing in when he suddenly gave a blood curdling scream,' Holy Cow!! This is huge! Dan! Eric! Arm the SCUBA STORMS! This is one huge Humbolt!'
30 minutes later, Eric was scouting on the gunboat's rader tower and Dan was setting up laser triggered machine guns that would pulverise anythng that came within 40ft of the boat from the all sides. Alberto was cutting the squid up after recoding the beak and size, a whooping 59ft and 3 inches without stretching the dam thing! Eric's mentor ( Not Dan) was in the cabin reinforcing the hull with some wood and plastic foam.
Dan was the first to speak,'So the legends are true..humbolts can grow bigger than Ol'Archie.., I hate to imagine what O'l Arch and Messie will think of this fellow.....' He suddenly came to some sort of freaky conculsion that THIS IS where all the real mosters are, not NZ, not Antartica, but right here, Kraken Trench, no wonder its called Kraken..He god dam lives here! Eric must have seen his face go pale as he also replied,'So, you also thought about this..eh?' 'Yeh, mighty freaky when you think where you are at right now..'
Both of them fell slient, not noticing the wake left behind by the real monsters of the deep...

A small band clamped to the remains of the gull, a leg, lay discarded on deck. A bloodied feather ruffled in the night's gentle breeze.

*blip ... blip ... blip ... blip .......* Its signal was weak.

Editor's note: Careful analysis has revealed this small band was infact the backing group for the upcoming Niel Diamond tour . . . the *blip ... blip ...blip ....* signal, becoming ever more faint, appears to be Neil's pacemaker . . but now, back to our story..

In the abyss, the Kraken stirred. It was agitated. Something had happened. His monstrous eyes could vaguely make out a cloud of ink, accompanied by blue blood. The shadow of a ship was reflected in the titan's eye. "Not again," he thought, "Why must they pursue me and my brethren? Why can't we simply live, live without this hunt? I cannot let another one of my children's deaths go unpunished!"

His chromatophores contracted and expanded sporadically with rage. His weight shifted after years of rest. The Kraken's mantle billowed with water, and emptied with incredible force. He shot upwards, towards the boat and minisubs, thinking only of rage.



A titan has awakened, one who should have slept forever...

The Kraken was not the first onto the scene of the murder....The Colossal White Shark was already on the scene kepping away from the search lights and the every annoying machine guns...he knew the machine guns well....countless less unfortunate brethens have been slaughtered for the cause...he witnessed all the killing when he was still a 5 footer....this time, it was different, he was 50 foot now, not even the feared Lance 4 or AQUA STURM was a threat to him with his rock like skin....
Back on the surface, Alberto was in the control room when suddenly a machine gun on the left side fired a long burst into the water..he dashed to the raders and saw the green dot roughly the hlaf the size of their boat, then he could see a wake coming in at their right again...He took the intercom and yelled in ' Incoming at 9 o'clock!! Take it out!' Suddenly serach ligths flared up and Dan's mentor was holding up what looked like a tripod mounted gatling cannan, unloading high explosive shells into the water leaving miniture explosions lighting up the water...The Colossal Shark made a sharp U-turn as the balls of heat stung his eyes and sorched his skin, and and never made it past the 1st defence perimeter before he found that the enemy has made their puny weapons deadlier than the ones they have after the last encounter.....

Alberto screamed, "WATCH OUT FOR THE DORSAL FIN!"

The dorsal think went back into the dark deep water, then suddenly Alberto screamed, the who ship was being rammed by the dam shark!. Eric fired harpoon after harpoon into it but the shark just kept coming...

..causing his heart to beat like a metranome, reminding him of the adage, 'Music calms the savage beast'. "If that's true, then it can arouse it, like in the movie, "Jaws". Suddenly he had an idea. Eric got out the tape of the theme to "Jaws" he'd brought with him, intending to play jokes on the others. He inserted into the player, wound it to the end, then played it backwards. The shark moved on.. "IT WORKED!"

Unfortunately, the tape, played backwards , also said "we worship the devil" !!!
"Oh no, cried Alberto." that soundtrack was made by Led Zeppelin !"

Greg, from where he clung (bloodily) to the seagull leg and the transom of the Albatross, said "I knew we shoulda played I am, I said that would've got rid of all beasties within a hundred km rad......i.........uuuuuuuuuuuuuus"

He slips back into the deep, the krakens tentacle clubs firmly attached to his................


J

"yipes!!!!!!"
screamed Greg, as he just about flew out of the water, dropping his gnawed bird leg (band still intact, they make them tough) onto the deck...

"You sound like Minnie Mouse." Eric commented...blowing on the the gatling gun barrels to cool it down a bit...

... and promptly pushed the barrel of the gun up his nose. Man, this was NOT his day!

Alberto instantly ran into the sotrage compartment and reached for the small black box, he opened it and took out the Tesla Gun. He ran out and shot the Kraken's arm and the thing went flailing around smashing the rader tower. Greg fell onto the floor and was knocked out. Dan's mentor was looking at the shark with mild interest not to mention shooting at it with Eric's Gatling gun. Then the shark and the arm moved away, leaving the ship....10 minutes later, everything was back to normal excpet that there was no rader tower and what remains of it it being firmly bolted to the hull for added protection..'Dam' Dan muttered as he checked the propellers, the dam shark to the whole thing with it!...

... and through all of this chaos, the small transmitting band continued to send out its weak signal.

*blip ... blip ... blip ... blip ...*

Shaking his head to clear out the rattle of gunfire and explosions, Greg heard a faint "blip" from down near his feet...Dan strode over and picked up the half chewed gull leg and put it to his ear, as if it was a small phone...
"Have you gone insane?" spurted Greg (still in a light voice, cracking) "That is my leg!"
As Greg lunged to grab the leg, Dan slipped off the ring from the bone and gristle...he pitched the piece of meat into the water, where it was quickly devoured by four banded butterfly fish (who relish seagull flesh, but rarely get to taste it, having a small mouth and all ). Dan noticed that the ring had a lovely series of swirling characters on both the outside and the inside, and it seemed warm to the touch.

"This is precious to me." He said, in an oddly flat tone.

The Kraken was wounded. It had lost an arm to those stupid humans! He knew it would grow back, but the stump was in immense pain! Those people were too well-equipped to attack. They could not hope to defeat something of the supernatural, he thought. That was when he called upon his brother, the hideous Cthulhu. A deep, guttural voice replied to Kraken."I am here, my brother." A green mass of claw, scale, and tentacle arose from the deep.

"Your turn, Cthulhu," said the wounded squid. "My powers cannot compare with human industry."

"Very well."

"But I must warn you, the humans are clever. They utilize music and other strange things to drive us off. Beware the Neil Diamond record, Cthulhu. Avoid it at all costs!"

"Brother, I will return with tidings of destruction and death. In the meantime, recover. The water around you is a cloud of hemocyanin."

And with that, Cthulhu departed to wreak havoc on mankind once again...

As Dan placed the ring on his finger, huge sky-flung monoliths erupted from the sea around the ship...basalt pylons with unimaginable carvings gibbously carved deep into them that warped the very light of the sun...
The Albatross rolled from port to starboard as a pressure wave came up from beneath her...the crew staggered about...Eric screaming and pointing at the water below, Alberto crossing his arms and smiling smugly, Greg attempting to get into the kitchen , and last of all, Captain Dan...who seemed in a trance, while the world around him shook.

the top part was hidden in the clouds. Although you can see it came from the water, nuthin was living on it, on molluscs no algae, no nuthin. Dan thought something werid was going on....but it was Eric who spoike first...um..did you summon that with the ring?

Dan replied, "No, m8..I just tapped my heels three times.."

As Greg was trying to open the stubborn kitchen door in vain, there was a rumbling from beneath the ship, and fish began to leap out of the water in fear.
But all of this failed to avert the crew's attention as the galley door flew open (knocking Greg's thin frame to the deck) and Stephen emerged, dressed in lace thigh highs and a micro mini..."What are you doing wearing my best pumps?" He yelled accusingly at Dan.

And super heroes
Came to feast
To taste the flesh
Not yet deceased

For all they knew ...

"And super heroes
Came to feast
To taste the flesh
Not yet deceased

For all they knew..." sang out Alberto...causing all of them to pause. The roiling of the water began to subside a bit, and even the mighty god Cthulhu shrugged a bit, and decided that perhaps he hadn't slept quite long enough yet... he would return to his deep R'lyeh and dream for a while longer, hopefully able to wash the horrifying image of an overweight pasty white guy dressed in tight fitting clothes out of his mind...

Stephen, of course, was somewhat psychic...and heard the scattered thoughts of the ceph god..."Hey, up yours!" He shouted, flipping up his hand in an illiicite response and pointing it down at the water..." I make one heck of a great pot roast !"

"Really?"

Cthulhu was intrigued...

"Very yes!" replied the grammatically incompetent Stephen.

Unfortunately for Stephen, having the words of an elder god uttered in his mind caused his capillaries to burst, and soon he was writhing around on the deck with Eric, all a tangle of pantyhose and smeared makeup...

"Stephen...Eric.... What in the bloody blazes are you doing? Get up and stop this nonsense. Come help me clean up the mess....The sharks are scouring the sea for seagull remains and look....The ship is damaged there's a large hole, open to the sea...." screamed Greg.....

Eric being his usual self, was quick to answer ,'If it's going out to sea, does this mean that the water's going in?' 'Sigh, idiot, yes, watering is coming in and help me clog the ehole before we go down with the dam boat!'

But something wasn't right. An ehole portal to the very depths of hell had breached, and an eerie green, ghastly smelling smoke trickled from it.

"DAN!!!" Eric spun around, reaching for the Stoocha PPK89 FerkenGattler, but it was too late ...

A pillar of intertwined death and stench, a writhing, heaving mass of dismembered wailing and screaming black-eyed living-dead and dead-living exuded from the portal, their molten limbs and matted, faecal-laden hair tumbling through the soot and debris of millenia in hell ...

"Wow. That's weird." Said Eric

Alberto, on the other hand has already dashed into the kitchen. Dan was amused and annoyed,'Alberto! What in the world are you doing? Cooking a meal for them!?' Alberto ignored Dan and took a hammer and pulled out a few nails from the floor and lossened the planks. Dan was still talking' Oh wow, like a wooden board would beat all of them ack tro hell...' Alberto reached into the missing planks and took out what he hid under it, AQUA BOW and AQUA STURM, he then started handing out ammo and guns that could've equipped the whole army. 20 M16s, 5 AK-47s, 2 MP5s, 1 SMAW (machine gun), 3 uzis, and even 4 RPGs. Dan was amused,'So no wonder we got less fish but the ship was heavier the last time we went to Iraq...' Alberto replied,' Shut up and shoot at all the dam zombies or whatever these dam things are.' Eric was handed 2 M16s and a RPG, Greg got the SMAW, Dan got 3 MP5s and a RPG, Alberto was using the Aqua seris. But Eric's mentor was nowhere in sight...thinking that Eric's mentor was already going to heaven, they ran onto the deck to battle the undead from hell. When they ran out, they saw Eric's mentor mounting the AQUA STORMs onto the broken rader dish, he qucikly placed it onto the hull's hole ( which weas made by Kraken eariler) 'Voila! A AQUA Turret!' Everyone was amazed by Eric's mentor's skills. But they qickly continued with going to the deck since the undead are already within meters of the ship...

Then the Elven Princess Gadiarkin appeared from the eportal in a blaze of impossibly white light and in a low mysterious voice said " That won't work, they're here to party.........you need to make the super strong liquid waffenfinscher punch and crank up the stereo"


"oooooooh" said Alberto as he rushed to the galley and made up this drink (he just happened to have all the incredients sitting ready).

Soon the stereo was blasting out "Sweet Caroline" and all the undead were oozing in a drunken stupor round the deck, our intrepid hero's(?) were leaning on each other and singing "1000000000000 green bottles hanging on the wall" at the top of thier albeit slurred voices and the kraken was break dancing round the boat.

Gadiarkin look at the debauched bacchanal and sighed " Men" she said and left a large packet of aspirin and alka seltzer in the wheel house before departing back through the eportal.

Six hours later...

The party was still going on but most of the super strong liquid waffenfinscher punch was missing our hero's mouths and ending up on the deck where it smoked and ate through the planking like the blood from the alien in ALIEN, but no-one seemed to notice........

that was until the undead all started to burst open like the poeple infected poeple with aliens in ALEINS. Alberto, who drank the most was also vomiting blood. Dan who missed the drinks looked at the ingredients and saw that the ingredients were: 1 litre of Battery Acid, 55 liters of vinigar, 45 lemons, other acidic things you have in handy.
'This ani't right' Dan muttered as he searched for his box of baking powder..WHen he finally found it, he opened 1 box mixed it with water and forced fed Alberto to drink all the baing powder water, all 50 liters of it....

Alberto began to fizz and froth.

and expand and turn purple.........

"I'm loosing it!!" he screamed as he......

Floated off the deck like an enormous purple balloon and drifted up, quickly the kraken interrupted its break dance and wrapped an arm around him, hauled him down and.........

squeezed!

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the tentacle released it's grip. Eric bobbed to the surface like a cork. Through the rolling salty, bloody haze, through the fires, wreckage and the sickening writhing bodies of the drunken undead floating pathetically in the water, Eric saw a most unexpected sight.

Eric's mother, with her hair in rollers and wearing a yellow sou'wester, was thrashing the Kraken with an oar. She was standing in a small coracle laden down to near the waterline with food parcels, munitions and cakes. "Leave my son alone!" she bellowed at the animal, gesticulating wildly with the oar. The beast retreated. "Honestly, I can't leave you alone for ten minutes. Why do you always insist on getting into these messes?"

"Awww, MOM! You always ruin my fun!" Whined Eric.

Mom was amused but still angry,' I leave you for 10 minutes and look! You're stuck in the middle of the sea with these wackos, then you play around with this red purple glob of meat (Kraken) and this overgrown goldfish (The shark). Honestly, you're coming home with me, youre dinners getting cold, I had Taco come and cook your favourite, meatloaf.' Eric, ashamed of himself, sat on his mother boat waiting for his mother to continue to rant about his mentor, Alberto and everything else.

"Wow..." commented Alberto, she is strict!

And through all of this mayhem, the little band continued to send out its ever-weakening signal ....

*blip ... bl... blip ... bli ... blip ... b ... bli ...*

blip....blip....blip...BURP[B][I]
"What the heck was that??", burst out Dan....still wearing Stephens very vouge pumps (and contemplating the future bunions these fasionable shoes would give him)....he wobbled trying to regain his balance, staring with disbilief at his band, his ring, his precious. Could it be?? Was it a message???

Dan started to cringe and crawl around the deck saying......."the yellow face hurts us .....it does....gollum, gollum" he glared at Alberto, Stephen, Erich and Erichs Mom............"nasty, tricksy hobbitses!

Suddenly, a large hairy man wearing a T-shirt and tacky shorts appeared and said, "Hey, stop the LOTR cliches, or i'll sue you for every cent you have!"

One of the undead, aware of the strange man, cam staggering forward to take a bit out of him, only to have Eric's mom beat him into submission...

Dan's reaction was beyond belief....he simply stood there, jaw slack and drooling.. the sea gull band had his mind in a twist. The large hairy man approached him, grabbed him roughly, putting Dan in the most dasterly position one can ever experience...the dreaded high school wrestling team head lock accompanied by the infamous noogie. Hairy knuckles rasping over and over Dan heads of hair...what little he had was about to fall out. It was Stephen who interviened, with his fine kid gloves (which nicely matched his ensemble) he smacked the furry fellow twice across his face. THWAP THWAP!!! And defiantly bellowed out "Dan ate beans you fool....the friction you cause could blow us all to hell and back!!"

Undetered, Dr SOS took out his cigarette and lighter . . . .ah ha ha he claimed- the smoking ban doesn't apply here . . . .

Little did Master O know that one of his devious yet crafty underlings had turned all the smoke detectors back on and set them on ultrasensitive...

TPOTH

...and not only the smoke detectors, but the guided missiles headed this very moment for the lit cigarette, as they were heat guided...and their thermal sensors picked up the glowing ember from miles away, where a mysterious trawler lurked in the mist...

Eric's mom was amused,' See? I told you I can't leave you wackos with my son for 5 minutes! Now what are you going to do?' Eric was running around trying to find some water to put out the embers from Dr.SOS's cigeratte although they were in the middle of the sea. Eric's mentor was also amused by how Dr.SOS appeared on the deck in an instant like teleporting in the Harry Blockhead books.

As Dr O'Shea materialised on deck, a passing 1890 dated motorlaunch drifted past, oblivious to the drama unfolding beneath.

The motor launch was captained by: Capt. Algenon Renfrew-Ahab. Also present were:
Bosun Michael 'The Stoat' Boxleitner ('Give me a tall ship and I'll ramble on for money')
Petty Officer William de Villiers III ('Put that pipe out you idiot'.)
Flugleutnant Horst von Stein zu Gotterdamerung ('Wir fahren gegen Engeland')
Chief Engineer Grofax the Unwashed ('I am unwashed, but I'm an engineer')
Herpetologist Steve 'The Monkey' Shatner ('Crikey! What am I doing here?')

And the passengers:

Lord Augustus Brittanicus Rawlinson of the Raj. ('Zulu's, thousands of them')
Lady Penelope Estelle ('Hello')
Bishop Eusebius the Apostate, Bold Pontiff of the Diocese of the West Saxons. ('Eggs!')
Chips, the Bishop's pet pangolin.

The launch sailed past the scene into the distance, none of these characters interacting in any manner with the drama unfolding, and will take no further role in this story.

:roflmao:

... now back to the rather thin plot

*bli ... b .... bl .... b ..... blip ..... ...... p ..... bl ... *

Eric's mom was amused, 'So more wackos?'