The Kraken
Michael Kelly

The Kraken, scaly and oozing slime, was on the kitchen counter. It pulsed and moved across the Formica and eased itself onto the bottom of the food-encrusted stainless steel sink.

I stood on wobbly knees, staring down at the bulbous creature. Two round eyes swung up, stared at me with a keen alien intelligence, unblinking, waiting. I thought I recognized those sad eyes. Tentacles reached, feeling along the bottom of the sink. One slimy appendage found a bit of lasagna stuck to the wall of the sink, tugged it off and shoved it into its dark wet mouth.

My stomach roiled. My head spun. My legs buckled. I grabbed the end of the counter and held fast. I felt like a small ship tossed around in a violent sea.

My own fault, really. Can’t handle the booze like I once could. Christ, what a mistake. Kenny’s fault, too, I guess. Hadn’t seen the bastard in years and he calls me up, out of the blue, says he wants to get together, like old time’s sake. The two of us, tearing up the town. Like back in college.

Except we are not in college anymore and I’m not a kid anymore. And holy mother of fuck, I can’t remember the last time I drank that much beer.

But, yeah, Kenny was always able to talk me into almost anything. Like the time we set off a smoke bomb in biology class. Crazy-ass shit, you know. Always preceded by a few hits off the bong or hash pipe. It made Kenny all moon-eyed and mystical. Not the crazy-ass shit; the drugs. Turned him all gooey and sentimental.

Another time we snuck into the observatory, after hours, so Kenny could use the giant telescope, so he could peer up into the night sky. Bastard was always looking up at the stars, expectant. It wasn’t like he was watching for something, no, it was more like he was waiting for something. Him and his gooey eyes.

“There’s something out there,” Kenny said, wistful. “Something else.” And he turned to me, shaking, his voice all syrupy. “There has to be.”

Last time I saw the crazy fucker was when we went down to the marina in the dead of night and broke into the main clubhouse, took out that ring of keys and found that sleek boat, the Cat, and, yeah, took the damn thing out onto the lake, the water all dark and shiny, full of green mystery, and shards of moonlight sparkling of its surface. More crazy-ass shit. Kenny and me surging along the water, throttle thrown open, the spray rising up, soaking us, and us laughing, neither one of us ever having driven a boat before, you know, and it’s funny, really funny, because this is stupid, but we don’t care, because, yeah, we’re high or drunk or both. Pirates. That’s what we are. Fucking pirates. Adventurers on the high seas. And I tell Kenny that, I say, “We’re on the high seas. Get it?”

And Kenny, sweet doe-eyed Kenny, screws his face up, thinking. Thinking real hard. Then he gets it, you know, high seas, and cackles like, well, a peg-legged pirate with one good eye and a foul-mouthed parrot. Like any respectable pirate. A hearty chortle. Avast ye matesy!

We take turns at the wheel, shooting along like the madmen we are, turning circles, doubling back, jumping the wakes. Up, then thunk. Man, it’s some funny shit. Really. At least for a little while.

Soon we are so wet and stoned that it’s not fun any more. You know the feeling, right? You’re high, and pretty much anything seems like a good idea. Anything. But that feeling, like all feelings, dissipates, fritters away. So we stop the boat. And now we are floating on the lake, and the boat starts bobbing. And I’m reminded of when I was a kid and the one time my dad took me fishing, before he decided that a wife and kid were too much for one man and bailed on us. Dad got me to cast a line out, and attached to the line is a small red and white ball, called a bob, oddly enough, and I get a bite, and the bob starts, well, bobbing. Up, then down. And the boat, this slick little thing we’ve, um, borrowed, starts sort of going up and down, like that little red and white bob, you know? And my stomach is doing the same, rising, falling, and the bile in the back of my throat is like corrosive acid.

Kenny looks green. He jumps up, wobbles to the edge of the boat and leans over. He gags and a stream of yellow puke shoots from his mouth. He straightens, wipes his mouth, turns and grins at me. Puke-eating grin, all green and yellow and crusty. He’s a sight, yeah.

“How about another hit?” he asks, reaching into his wet pocket and retrieving a small foil pouch. And then this huge tentacle reaches up, all scaly and slimy and smelling of puke. I blink. Yup, there is it, rising up, a huge fucking tentacle, dripping fish guts, and it wraps around Kenny’s waist, yanks him off his feet, and his puke-eating grin vanishes, and his eyes bug out, fish eyes, and then, briefly, he’s smiling, eyes and mouth wide and I’ve never seen him so happy, so animated. Then whoosh, he’s gone, overboard, and all that is left is a small foil package on the boat’s floorboards, you know, and the smell of dead fish guts and vomit.

So, being the friend I am, I stand there and blink. I’m good at that. I blink again. Still no Kenny. Still gone. But I blink, shake my head, because, really, it’s the hash or shrooms or whatever the hell we ingested from that foil pouch. I probably should have asked Kenny what it was. But it didn’t matter. He always got good shit, and it hadn’t killed me yet.

Kenny doesn’t return. He’s gone. Vanished. Poof!

I stagger to the edge of the boat. My stomach clenches. I retch. Nothing comes up. The water below is still, gleaming darkly. No sign of Kenny and no sign of the Kraken.

Kraken? What the fuck is a Kraken, I think. And where the hell did that come from? Then I remember: Me and Kenny used to listen to this Scandinavian death metal, you know. And one of the bands was The Kraken. All the cover art on their CDs had this beast, a big huge mother-fucking Octopus that lives in the deep sea and attacks ships. Pirate ships. Avast mateys!

But there can’t be a Kraken, can’t be a beast. No. It’s the drugs, baby, the hallucinogens. Kenny has fallen over. And he’s probably dead now because I’m here thinking about Norwegian death metal when I should be saving my friend.

So, I jump overboard, into the lake—and it’s a lake for goddamn sakes, not a fucking sea, so there can’t be a Kraken—and it is cold, you know. Cold. And I sober up real fast, and swim about, but I can’t see when I’m under, it’s too dark. And it is so cold I’m beginning to tighten up, my arms and legs like lead, or some sort of heavy metal, or Scandinavian death metal, dig? And I’m chuckling because it’s funny and scary and fucked up. And I guess I’m not all that sober because I’m making self-referential jokes while Kenny is drowning. But I’m sinking too. So I struggle over to the side of the boat and manage to pull my wet, skinny-ass body back onboard.

No sign of Kenny. Nothing. The lake is calm, motionless, a thing at rest.

And that was the last time I saw Kenny. Until last night.

When he called, I didn’t recognize his voice. It was garbled. Bad cell phone connection.

But it was him all right. We chatted about old times, as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed, his voice warbling in and out as if there was some sort of interference on the line. I told him I thought he was dead and he laughed. Laughed like a madman, like a drunken pirate.

See, I didn’t report anything. I was scared, you know. Who wouldn’t be? Fucking crazy-ass shit. Kind of surreal. Almost convinced myself none of it happened. And I guess it didn’t, because here was Kenny on the other end of the line and he sure as hell wasn’t dead. You know?

Yeah, I was a fucking coward. Selfish bastard.

Here’s his story: He fell overboard. Fuck, surprised we both didn’t, truth be told. That was some mighty fine mushrooms we’d consumed. He told me he went under and that he could see things really clearly, like a new world opening up to him, and he swam around for a while, like he was born to water, you know. After a bit, he surfaced, but I was gone. Or he couldn’t find the boat. (Whatever, you know? I wasn’t going to tell him that I panicked, bolted, ran the boat up onto the shore and scuttled off into the night. That I was abandoning my friend, like my old man abandoned me.) So he swam to shore. It wasn’t that difficult. It was easy, he said. The most natural thing in the world. But, he laid low. Because he’d changed. Something deep inside him broke open. Something new and wondrous and alien. And he knew the world wasn’t ready for it, for him. This was his chance to start fresh. So he moved around, changed his life. He wasn’t the same old person. Not even close. This was his second chance.

Some story, eh?

So we arranged to meet up at this pub down by the docks to catch some music, some Norwegian black/death metal thing. It wasn’t quite my bag anymore—I’m no kid, you see—but, fuck, it’d be great to see Kenny. Great to hear his voice.

The place was loud, dark, smoky, and smelled of the sea. Smelled of dead fish guts and puke. A three piece band was on the tiny stage, pounding out some vaguely familiar speed thrash.

Kenny was in a corner. He waved, a long arm beckoning. I sauntered over, took a seat. He couldn’t have picked a darker corner of the bar. I couldn’t see Kenny at all, he was a hazy shape, shifting. Then he leaned forward and I saw his eyes, only his eyes, those same sad doe eyes.

I flagged down a server, ordered some pitchers of beer. It was too damn loud to talk, so I drank and listened to the band. Kenny didn’t touch his beer. I drank enough for the two of us. Eventually, the band took a break, and I turned to Kenny, raised my glass. “Cheers,” I said. An arm snaked out, and we clinked glasses.

I gulped down half a beer, wiped an arm across my mouth like a thirsty pirate. “Man, I’m glad to see you,” I said. “I really thought you were dead.”

Kenny’s dark shadow stirred. I could smell seaweed. He spoke, and his voice vacillated between a watery tremble and a sonorous rumble. A voice of deep seas and even deeper night skies.

“I’ve never been so alive,” he said. “Before, I never quite fit in. I was different. I don’t think I ever really belonged here. And I was right. There was something else out there. Something for me.” He gestured, and through the smoky darkness I caught a faint glimmer of an arm waving upward. “But it wasn’t up there,” he said. “It was the sea.” I imagined I heard a watery chuckle. “I’m a pirate, of sorts.”

Then Kenny leaned in, across the table, and I saw him for what he’d become, for what he really was. “But even pirates get lonely,” he said.

And I thought about what it means to be a friend, to be there for someone. Thought about what I was, what I’d become. Kenny was proof that people change. That I could change.

So I took Kenny home.

Kenny the Kraken smiled, wide. His mouth was large and deep and black. Dead things swam in its depths. His eyes were bulbous fish eyes, and they regarded me with sad, alien innocence.

I reached over, plugged the sink, turned on the tap. Kenny lolled in the water. I plucked a can of sardines from the refrigerator and began to feed them to Kenny. It was the least I could do for my friend.