The voyage to New Bremen Island took the better part of the day. I stayed below in Jethro's cabin, still can't sleep; the motion of the ship rocking back and forth isn't calming. The air in the cabin is cool yet smells musty, heavy with the scent that old ships have, with a slight whiff of personal cologne, but it isn't revolting or anything like that; it is rather quaint. The crew of Jethro kept to themselves, but many were annoyed, if not the angered looks in their eyes directed at me gave it away, being the newcomer on board their fine vessel. We ate up a meal of a shellfish pot of freshly caught crabs, clams, lobsters, shrimp, and corn, mixed with spices and a Spanish Chorizo sausages bacon gumbo, cooked up by a mulatto creole fellow named Edgar, who came from New Orleans.

"So you a coppa or somthin?" a young Negro, by the name of Calvin directed his question at me; he seems to be an eighteen-year-old, has a strong southern drawl, and probably came from Mississippi or Alabama. Calvin has the typical look of a black man, with a large flat nose and fat lips; he has small brown eyes and ears, short black curly hair, and a fit body that is useful on ships.

"I am, yes, but mostly a Detective," I answered him, wiping my mouth with a napkin.

"Wha that?" he asked, eating rather rudely, smacking his fat lips as he ate another spoonful of gumbo. I can tell he is probably uneducated and perhaps illiterate. Jethro raised him all his life as a sailor, and he knows nothing more than how to work a ship and sail it.

"It's a line of work in any Police Department within a city or town that investigates crimes. We are tasked with gathering evidence and witness reports to give to the prosecutor to convict criminals. We are also like cops, given the power to arrest people if we have any reasonable doubt they are guilty and must be brought in for the courts to face trial by a jury of their peers." I explained the best way possible to Calvin.

"Jethro says folks like ya are like snitchin rats, always lookin to pin somethin on us." Calvin comes back at me with a bit of hostility, that a few of the crew members chuckled warmly, even Jethro.

"No! We're nothing like snitches. As I said, it is our job to collect evidence and witness reports in a crime scene and piece together what happened and only to deliver our findings to the prosecuting attorneys." I said with mild annoyance, as Calvin's attitude was grating on my nerves.

"Ya betta, cuz, if you be snitchin for riches, ya get stitches and thrown intah ditches and fed on by hungry bitches!" Calvin flashed a cheeky smile, pointing the tip of his bowie knife at me as the rest of the crew and Jethro himself erupted with laughter, yet Jethro's amusement was more fatherly. I share in the laughter, nervously hiding my awkward chuckles in the tin mug I drank from, filled with Jamaican Rum.

It's nighttime over the Atlantic. For two hours now, Jethro's ship has been sailing in an unnatural screen of fog that came upon us like a rolling wall, so thick you couldn't see past your nose. His compass went haywire as we entered the fog, kept spinning in all directions, and my watch suddenly stopped on me; the hands frozen at 6:12 p.m. Jethro had to use the diesel engines of his ship to propel the boat forward into the fog; keeping a steady speed of ten-knots. We were sailing originally eastward. Now we didn't know where we're going, and the winds are dead.

Jethro's crew of twenty-three men were on high alert, looking out for any icebergs floating on the waters; they were equipped with long poles to push icebergs out of the way of the ship if it came close or rocky reefs appearing that would ground us.

"23 Fathoms!" called out Gusto from the starboard, taking measurements.

"Hm, we're approachin the shallows." said Jethro, scratching his beard as he turned his wheel to portside. I stood quietly by his side at the wheel helm of the ship.

"20 Fathoms!" called out Santos from the portside.

"We're headin in the right direction." Jethro gave a nervous laugh as he pointed the bow of the Sea Banshee to his original larboard.

"Turn down the speed ta five knots!" Jethro ordered as the rumbling sound of the engines became lower and methodical in its mechanical rhythm.

Then, the fog parted from the bow of Jethro's ship, and we entered a clearing. Some miles before our sights is New Bremen Island, shrouded by darkness; the air is oddly warm, there is no snow or ice on the shores or on the island, and the black waters around us seemed iceberg free. The nearly full moon peaked right over its forested mountain; that's silver rays seem to praise its summit like a crown. I looked upon the evening sky, and there were many stars out. Yet stranger still, I saw a shimmering of rainbow lights, like something from Alaska's aurora borealis, with strange stars that made a distinct pattern of a ten-dotted circle of some kind and each star is coloured differently. It is like I entered into a dream or another world, seeing the alien evening heavens above the island and feeling the warm, pleasant weather.

"Hm, we must be on the north side of the island. Saint Hildegard is yonder south, and that be another 24-mile trip." Jethro looked up at his sails and saw the warm wind is now being caught again on the cloth.

"We'll drop anchor about 100 yards from the coast. And thar ya may go, Lancy." Jethro looked back up to the sky oddly. I could see his old eyes illuminated by the golden glow of the lamp; though he is well-learned, he has an odd, confused look, as he has never seen anything in this strange setting before. Jethro focused on those alien celestial bodies; he is unfamiliar with the rainbow colouration of that strange aurora borealis simmering in the deep dark indigo of the skies above, which was never seen before in other parts of the east coast or all of New England, for that matter.

The Sea Banshee was just a-hundred yards from the craggy coast, where we came into a hidden cove. The rocks, from a distance, looked like basalt rock formations, which are joined into polygonal formations. Jethro's crew was getting a rowboat off the starboard side. Calvin and Edgar volunteered to row me to the shore. I sat in the middle of the boat, looking at Edgar on the stern, while Calvin sat at the bow, and my duffle bag lay on my feet. I could see the Sea Banshee still alive with activity, with the aid of the golden glow of its electrical lights.

Suddenly, everyone froze as we all heard a strange echoing ringing sound coming from a far distance. It sounded like a bell of some kind. Still, the sound was alien to human ears. As best I can describe the sound of those bells. The chimes of the bell's toll sounded like a heavy wooden beam being hammered by an iron driving piston, and the resonating of the sound came off watery, like from underwater. The sound is repetitive as if calling to prayer or counting the hours of the time. I counted the steady chimes, and it came to nine strikes, so I guessed 9 p.m.?

"What is that?" Edgar asked as I can see his unease from this strange alien sound.

"Probably a church bell or clock tower bell?" I answered as best I can, trying to reassure him as he nodded his head. We continued to row the boat to the shore. And from out of nowhere, my eyes widened with petrified terror as I witnessed, It. Slithering up the sides of the Sea Banshee, birthed forth from the black abyss of the sea, where gigantic slimy, rubbery tentacles of a Kraken, that I figured on that dreadful moment.

"Wha is that?" Calvin cried out in a frightful scream as he pointed in the direction of the Sea Banshee, and Edgar quickly turned his gaze over his shoulder, only to be greeted by the unnatural terror.

Our ears filled with the horrific screams of the crew, who were set upon by multiple monstrous tendrils. There were ten tentacles of the monster searching for sailors, feeling the air for them, and then many smaller tendrils morphed from the larger tentacle, sprouting like wild roots and wrapped around the bodies of unfortunate sailors like creeping vines. The masts of the ship were snapped easily, and the oak hull was cracking and breaking apart, splitting in half and spilling out its cargo of rum barrels and bottles.

In between the two split halves of what once was the Sea Banshee is a massive snapping white beak. The monster's head appeared from the waters, round in shape with four large bulbous pale-yellow eyes near the beaked mouth that reflect in the moon's light and rolled around freely, looking for more victims to snatch up. The thing beneath the black surface of the sea emitted an alien-like animalistic shriek, the likes I never heard of before. It rattled my bones and made me cringe in pain as I covered my ears from it. The thing's sound was a combination of a high-pitched shrieking wail, which at close proximity, would cause the eardrums to burst and render anyone deaf, followed by a low beastly gurgling grumble growl as it submerged its monstrous features.

"Row Faster Now!" Edgar shouted in panic. Calvin heaved and huffed, rowing as fast as he could at my back. My hands shook as I fumble to unlace the duffle bag to take out the Tommy gun.

I could see from where I sat that there were a few crew members, including Captain Jethro, who escaped the destruction of their ship and swam like Olympic athletes. But that thing sank beneath the black ripples and white foam, taking down the Sea Banshee. And one by one, Captain Jethro's crew members were pulled down by the unseen tentacles lurking beneath, plucking them from the surface into the black depths.

The rowboat finally reached the shore and beached itself, as both Calvin and Edgar high-tailed it to a high forested hill, hiding behind trees, leaving me behind. I stood by on the shore, near the rowboat, my whole body shaking with fear, my mouth and tongue gone dry in the heavy panted breaths as I looked to where the Sea Banshee once was but was no more. I saw two more crew members taken under by the tentacles of the beast that lurked beneath their feet. Captain Jethro and Santos made it to the shallows of the shore, sheer terror etched into their once stern faces and steely eyes.

They quickly ran towards me and the rowboat and then towards the forested hill. I didn't stay there any longer, took up the duffle bag, and ran on the black volcanic sand with them, but my gimp made it impossible to go as fast as them. I glanced to my back, hearing a loud bullwhipping sound as a tentacle shots out of the black surface of the water to the shore and latches itself onto the rowboat and pulled it with such force that the air whooshes as it flew. The small wooden vessel smashed and broke apart upon impact on the black surface of the seawater.

"Wh-Wh-What the hell was that thing?" Santos yelled in a raised, panicked voice, panting heavily for breath, and his whole body trembled out of fear.

"In all mi years of sailing the seas, I never thought ta have seen such a demon of the deep. I know thar wher giant squids and octopus, yet we caught and ate em, thar were no harmful than a kitten. But that thing, that thing is a mockery of all that is orderly and natural!" Captain Jethro shouted in terrified disbelief, looking towards where his prized ship used to be.

His horrified wide eyes struck with a heavy realization of what had just happened and where he is now.

"We're stuck here! It's hopeless!" Edgar cried out hysterically.

"Quit yar blubberin Ed! All hope is not lost, man! Get hold of yerself! This no good fer moral!" Jethro commanded his crewmate, grasping Edgar by his shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll, and giving a firm slap to his face.

Edgar quiets down and whimpers in a sob, caressing his blemished cheek.

Calvin said nothing; he hid behind a tree, his eyes fixated on the cove's beach. His whole body was clearly trembling from the monstrous encounter. I could hear water running from him; the poor bastard pissed himself.

"We'll have ta make it down south ta Saint Hildegard. Thar, the Leviathan docks at evenin, and we must commandeer that ship and sail back ta Maine." Jethro pondered as Santos, Calvin, and I look to him and nod in agreement.

"Lancy, give me yar Tommy gun! Since ya destroyed mi ship, it's only fair I take somethin from ya fer compensation." I couldn't argue with Jethro; I made him sail out here into this hell hole of an island.

Plus, if I didn't, it would be four against one. I could see Calvin from the corner of my eye glowering at me as he held onto the hilt of his bowie knife, sheathed in his waist. I swallow my pride and handed over my Tommy gun to Jethro.

"Beauty these machine pistols be. Sure wish we had em back in the war of northern aggression. Would have made good ground meat of them lousy Licolnites! Been meanin ta get mi crew a few of these led spittin beasts." Jethro held an admiring look at the Tommy gun and pulled the bullet feeder, loading the first round that he slung the strap on his right shoulder.

"I'll take forward point! The rest of ya follow me! Lancy ya got yer revolver?" Jethro asked as all peered at me.

"Yeah," I answered, drawing my revolver from my shoulder holster.

"Good, all things are in order. Cover our rear, Lancy and yelp fer help, and I'll spray em fer ya! Let's go, mates!" Jethro ordered as we hiked north of New Bremen Island.