Rakasa

By Kelly Warner

The pirate ship Nightwave was adrift and her crew was sick and dying. The doomed quest ends with fire, leaving only two survivors. Expecting to die of dehydration on their lifeboat, the two pirates are surprised when they reach a small island. The little piece of land in the middle of nowhere appears just like any other island... but upon further inspection, large holes are discovered in the brittle dirt, holes that travel deep beyond the sun's light. Unbeknownst to the pirates, their arrival has not gone unnoticed. Lurking in the dark beneath the island, creatures with voracious appetites have long awaited visitors. And now the time has come for the monsters below to rise above...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Warner
• Release date: Jun 24, 2020

Kelly Warner

Kelly Warner is the author of In the Shadow of Extinction: A Kaiju Epic, Rakasa, and other forthcoming works of dark genre fiction. Kelly is the editor at Scriptophobic, where she also co-hosts the Japanese horror film podcast One Missed Pod with writer Zack Long. Kelly imagines that she'd survive a kaiju attack because she'd be the first to recognize the signs that we're all doomed and that our giant reptilian overlords have come to reclaim the planet. She lives in Illinois. You can connect with her on Twitter at @OhHellKell

Book preview

Rakasa

a horror novella

Kelly Warner

Copyright © 2016 Kelly Warner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews. For information, please contact the author.

This is a work of complete fiction. All events are the creation of the author. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover art made possible with the stock art of Irene ‘ftourini’ Zeleskou (http://ftourini.deviantart.com/) and 1879 compass rose found at The Graphics Fairy (http://thegraphicsfairy.com/)

First Edition.

Telling Lies Ink.

Printed in the United States of America.

Smashwords Edition.

This one’s for Mom.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

1.

I might have killed the captain but the crew would agree that he had it coming.

Six weeks lost at sea. The man with the map is responsible and no other.

Aye, he might’ve blamed the unseasonable weather, the lack of stars in the sky, and the sickness in the ranks… but a man can live off of excuses for only so long.

I was supposed to meet up with Mary a month ago. We would have been married by now. Our honeymoon, if I could afford a honeymoon after this trip, would have been glorious.

Instead of spending time with my lady, I clean the decks as if we’re expecting company, as if we’re not lost at sea, as if…

As if the captain wasn’t dead.

We like to joke that the candle in his quarters is for his ghost while he reads over the maps that he could not comprehend in life. It’s not a joke, exactly—nobody’s laughing—but we’re all in on the imagining.

And meanwhile, down in the cargo hold, the animals starve and die. They smell worse every day. The doc thinks that’s what’s causing the sickness in the crew, but I don’t know much about medicine and science.

I’m a pirate.

Our ship, the Night Wave, was hired to transport rare animals to a French aristocrat named Boucher. The animals weren’t meant for Boucher himself, but rather the Frenchman’s spoiled children who demanded things that not even Kings and Queens could acquire.

And so we loaded the ship with animals from all corners of the globe and started our long journey across the Atlantic to deliver the beasts and receive our gold.

Should have known it was doomed for failure. This is just a miserable recreation of Noah’s last trip. And we never did find out what happened to that boat, did we?

The rhinoceros died first. Shelly, her name was. Sad beast. Looked half-dead when she first boarded back in port. I don’t remember the names of the tigers and I doubt anybody bothered to name the reptiles. The zebra is on the way out next, I suspect. Just as well. It cries a lot and it’s been affecting my sleep.

When I killed the captain nobody was surprised. I think they all considered doing it themselves but were too afraid to pick up the blade and put it to skin.

I think they loved me for a couple days while the blood on the knife dried out in the sun.

Their love did not last. The crew grew uneasy once it was clear that Jarvis Jenks, the new captain, was no better suited to directing the ship towards land than the last man in the chair.

Some approached me with the idea of taking over the ship. Problem is I don’t know the way home either. I look around and all I see is the malevolent ocean that means to kill us all.

Adrift. Never have I spoken or even thought that word while out at sea. It’s completely foreign to me.

Speaking of foreigners…

The Indonesian deckhand Ahmed has been telling ghost stories about lost ships. I barely understand him beneath that heavy accent, but the rest of the crew thinks he’s quite the storyteller. I don’t know. I’ve never been much of a fan of ghost stories unless they got naked ladies in them. And Ahmed’s stories aren’t like that.

Ahmed told this story about a crew dying in the middle of the night as a mist rolled over the sides of the ship. Said they got their blood drained out of their necks. I say that sounds like a vampire, but Ahmed shakes his head and the others shush me.

I don’t appreciate