#webfiction — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Ant and Fig knew they’d seen everything at least once before, even if it was always nailed, sealed, and hammered into a wooden crate. The two men had been employed at the piers together for six years. They knew a highway of treasure had passed beneath their fingertips and gloves as they lifted, twisted, pulled, pried, and wrenched boxes off the various boats. The two men lived in Largo, a large merchant town nestled against a green shore of velvet hills. All goods, items, relics, trinkets, ornaments, antiques, or objects being sent to the country first passed through this idyllic seaside town where wind chimes constantly played on patio windows. Both men were constantly busy. It was a good thing. Time passed quicker.

They hated their jobs.

Ant and Fig looked like each other. They were pale, greasy, and rough looking. Each wore a pair of overalls with rips in the knees. Each wore a red bandana to soak up sweat and keep the sea salt out of their eyes. Both smoked. If you watched them carefully, the claws of smoke creeping out of their lips and nose were identical as well. The only difference between the two of them was their size. Ant was shorter. Fig was taller. People always asked if they were brothers.

Neither cared enough to correct them.

Ant and Fig had been in Nibeah their entire lives. It was an elegant looking city with stone buildings and cobblestone streets. Windmills with bellies of gears turned between shadows and sunlight. Quiet bridges over canals and windows of stained glass echoed laughter and singing in the streets. There was money in the town thanks to the constant merchants running their wares across the water and sky. There was also an airship dock, so the winds were noisy with the groaning propellers of zeppelins and their whistles.

Ant and Fig were stuck working late on the northern docks. The night shift was difficult to work. The water was one long sheet of ink in the gloom, with just the boat and lights to serve as beacons for their eyes. It was the end of fall, where the air was slowly getting turned over by a frosty dial. The lines of wooden steps, planks, and pillars were iced in random spots. If you slipped and fell into the water, the night sky would make you think you’re caught between two oblivions.

Ant and Fig worked in a small shack on the edge of the pier poking out into the deep. It had been a quiet night. They were reading newspapers and letting a few cigarettes wither at their lips. They didn’t talk. They knew the same things. They thought the same things. What was the point in speaking? All that mattered was them hearing the foghorn of the lighthouse sound. They could find that siren’s song in their sleep if they had to.

It was close to 3:00 am when they finally got a ship crawling into the harbor on the still, dark waves. The sounds of the city were quiet. There were no blacksmiths hammering, gears twisting, or street performers summoning laughs and whistles on the boardwalks. The air smelt of cinnamon and yeast as the bakers made their first bout of delicacies in the few orange squares illuminated against a backdrop of black windows. A horn blew further up the docks. Ant and Fig opened the door of the dock house and walked onto the narrow pier, which jutted like a knife into the lapping water. A barge with a flat face and long wheelhouse was approaching them. A solitary lantern dangled from a post on its bow. The rest of the ship was empty of any light or movement. The ship looked abandoned.

“Is that a riverboat? What’s it doing here?” Ant said.

“Your guess is as good as mine. It’s an old one too, doesn’t even have railings along the hull,” Fig said. He pointed a large hand at the flat nose of the ship. It was no doubt a vessel for hauling sand or some piled material, but this ship was empty of any crumbled mountain. Ant turned and walked back to the dock house and lit a red lantern. It was a signal for the horse and wagon to make the trek down to them.

“Well, I hope they don’t have a ton of cargo, I mean it must all be inside the hull,” Ant said. Fig threw a pair of thick ropes onto the deck of the boat and jumped down. Something was rancid on the ship. The odor grew heavier the closer you got to the wheelhouse. Fig got a heavy whiff of it.

“You’re going to wake them up this time. I did it last time. I don’t like doing it,” Ant said, jumping aboard and lighting a smoke.

“Fine, let’s just wait for the horses to get here,” Fig said.

Eventually an older man with a long cloud for a beard walked towards them smoking a pipe beneath a black hat. His name was Rufus, and he was the stable master for the docks. He’d known Ant and Fig their entire lives.

“Horses won’t come down here for some reason, something’s got them spooked. They even tried to jump in the water,” Rufus said.

“Well, that’s bad, how are we going to get the goods off? We’ll have to wait until morning,” Ant said.

“Have you boys even talked to the captain yet? Maybe they don’t even have anything and just need to park,” Rufus said.

“It stinks. It stinks badly,” Fig replied.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve gotten stinky wares onto the docks. You boys better talk to someone onboard and get this straightened out,” Rufus said.

It took a few minutes for Fig to work up the courage to knock on the round door of the flat building stretched across the empty deck. It was cold and hollow against his rough hand. A scratching sound echoed inside the cabin. It made Fig jump back a second and steady his hand on the round doorknob, which was grimy brown from salt and rust.

“Hello? Anybody in there? You just reached Nibeah. You’re at the northern pier. Come on out so we can get you checked-in,” Fig said. A wave jostled the boat upwards. The ocean was trying to warn him.

“Hello? I’m going to come inside. I just work for the docks.” Fig turned the handle. It took some strength. Dust had frozen the bulkhead in place. Fig pushed on the door with his shoulder. After a few seconds it popped open. Fig fell into the room, banging his knee on the floor.

“You, you guys better get down here. Get down here now!” Fig screamed, crawling backwards like a crab onto the bow. Ant sprinted down the deck and lifted his friend up by the armpits. The door stared back at them. The lantern was turned on its side and threw some light into the cabin. Ant slowly approached the door and used his foot to steady the wobbling light. Ant lifted it up above his head with a gasp. The entire cabin was etched in dried blood. Benches, tables, ropes, fishing gear, bunks, bulkheads, the floor, even the candles locked into their fixtures were covered in this crimson smear. It was as if a giant vein had run the length of the building, then been split in one wild slash.

“What, what happened? Where is everyone?” Ant said.

Then it moved.

There was a hiss like a cat, but with more muscle and mass. It wasn’t until the form dashed between both men out the doorway that they could decipher any details. All they could see was some sort of fluid body with slimy skin. The shape’s arms were exaggerated and dragging on the floor, which was ripped apart thanks to the bits of gray bone spiking out of its shimmering flesh. Its head was that of an octopus. It had silver tentacles for hair, along with two red eyes with pulsating flaps. Its mouth looked human. A cloak, a satchel with a pair of books, and some legs with shredded pants hung off its rubbery body.

Before either man could turn to look at each other in amazement, the creature jumped off the deck and onto the dock in a few snarling bounds. Rufus, who was standing in the center of its path, could barely turn before the monster’s long arms slashed outwards splitting his torso from his legs like wire through clay. There was a wet plopping of tissue. His body thrashed around as his upper-half tried to attach to his lower-half. His howling scream made the nightstand still until shock got the better of him and he went eternally silent.

“Get back!” A voice said. It came from above the deck on the wheelhouse roof. There was a man standing there in the moonlight. He was tall, thin, with unblemished skin and sandy brown hair cut into a bowl. He was wearing some sort of priest’s outfit, with a white collar and dark raincoat with baggy sleeves and enormous hood. His entire outfit appeared to change colors in the rolling night. He didn’t want to be seen completely. In his right hand was an enormous silver gun with a wide barrel and gears poking out of its chambers. It had a pearl handle, which curled into the stranger’s sleeve.

He raised the weapon into the air and clicked the trigger. Light thrashed the darkness in bits of sparks and fire. A blue flare curled into the sky above the dock and burst above it like a dying star. The creature froze and snarled backwards. It was already halfway towards the shore.

“You stay put!” The man yelled.

He was off the roof and onto the line of wooden planks before Ant or Fig could speak. He moved as a piece of the night, like the creature did.

“Watch out! Stay back!” He yelled. He loaded a few golden bullets into his gun with his sleeve. There was another hiss. The fiend had turned back towards the man. It swung its shadowy tendril of an arm at him. At the end of it, the bones had formed into a crude hammer. The man spun his coat over his right shoulder and braced for the impact. The cloth suddenly hardened into a golden shield. The bone and magic collided, throwing metallic thunder into the air and tossing the sea into a one-second tempest.

Ant and Fig were both knocked off their feet.

“Come on! Come on!” The man yelled. He pulled his shield away from the living brick. The monster’s coil snapped back. The air cackled to it. The man fired twice from his pistol. The monster jumped, sending both shots into empty air. It twirled violently and severed its own arm throwing the organic flail through the air. The man once again threw his coat up and smashed into the missile. The impact shattered the dock. Shrapnel cut the air. Some of them hit Ant and Fig, who were frozen in awe.

It wasn’t every day that monsters and gods threw fire at each other.

The creature dashed further from the man. The attack was to distract him and slow him down. The man hunched over and coughed up some blood. It looked unreal in the dim and dark of the moon and torchlight. He shook his head and took to one knee. He leveled the gun at the shape. The monster was approaching the buildings at the end of the pier. A small crowd had gathered to watch the ruckus. The flare had woken them up.

“Goddammit!” The man said with a wheeze. He hit a red gear planted alongside the oblong chamber of his firearm. Fire cut the air in a perfect line. A beam of white light opened from the atoms around the barrel and engulfed the dock. It narrowed as it spread in a fine, sharp laser. It struck the abomination in the back of its head. The momentum from the blast tossed its body into the water and onto the dock in inky chunks.

“Got it,” the man said. He collapsed onto his stomach.

Ant and Fig didn’t move. Fig was holding Ant by the shoulders. They were practically hugging one another. They were about to speak when the man wheezed and slowly stood up. He pulled the hood over his young face and stretched out beneath his coat. A few bones and joints cackled. He’d been hurt before.

“What do you guys do?” he asked in an older voice. It was bold and rough. It didn’t match the softness of his youthful appearance.

“What, what?” Ant said.

“Did you not hear me? What do you guys do for a living?” He shook the gun free of the water that had sprayed during the fight.

“We, uh, work on the docks,” Ant said.

“I realize that. But what do you do? What does your job entail?”

A few people screamed at the other end of the dock. The monster’s rubbery parts were trying to reconnect. The man sighed. He would have to burn the leftovers.

“We move boxes. We unload them and load them. That’s it,” Fig said.

The man lifted his gun and looked down the square sight jutting out from the still steaming nozzle. He sighed and started walking towards the monster’s sour and ambitious remains.

“That sounds nice,” he said.

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