Fragility

10 In the Demonic Mountain

We traversed the dark slimy tunnel for what felt like hours. To save Jethro's lighter fluid, I built a makeshift torch using my trench coat cloth, some paper from my notepad and a damp piece of driftwood stick lying around the tunnel's dank floor. It was the early morning, and we both rested on the cold, wet stone floor for a few minutes, sharing another tinned can of Spanish Sardines after hiking through the dark tunnel all night. A few rays of golden morning sunlight came from small holes and cracks above ground that illuminated the other end of the tunnel we were heading for.

I ate quietly from the sardine can near my right hand. Yet, I looked at Jethro's face; it seemed the enjoyment of life was taken away from him. His eyes were cast down in deep contemplation as if looking past his hardly eaten sardines held in his fingers.

"This world will be doomed if we don close thar gate, Lancy!" Jethro finally spoke to me mournfully; he raised his head and looked directly at me.

Jethro's old sky-blue eyes, which once held a steely sailor's resolve, daring and cunning in the face of many dangers, now the windows where a shattered soul dwelled, glassed up with bitter tears shed by the loss he had suffered, that it now hit him hard. It is the first time I had ever seen him so distraught, so troubled by this coming apocalypse the Fishmen wish to bring about to our world.

"I don want more kids and our women ta be sacrificed to thar evil gods ta feast upon! Nor should others suffer the same fate as mi crew! I lost everythin to this accursed island! I have nothin left ta enjoy in this world than ta destroy this foul evil that seeks ta taint and pervert all that be good and righteous, made by the Almighty's Holy Hand!" Jethro spoke in a tone filled with troubling remorse.

"What can we do? Those things are billions of years older than us and far more advanced. We can't do anything; only wait for our coming death." I uttered in a defeatist tone. A depressing sigh of breath left my lips, as the images of Edgar, Calvin, Santos, the Hoffenburg Family, Eric, the many kids brutalized and slaughtered, the crew who couldn't escape the Sea Banshee, and Emma Lewis flashed before my troubled sight.

I remembered the images hanging on the walls of the Apophis Café and the hellish imagery Boston was painted in, feeling that it would be the fate of my home and the rest of the world. My mind struggled with this troubling fate that I try to accept, yet something wouldn't let me.

"We gotz ta do somethin fer our homes?" Jethro pondered.

"Ya still haz em dynamite bundles, Lancy?" Jethro asked as I go into my duffle bag, held behind my back.

And there I found the two bundles of dynamite sticks; both have a dozen tied together with a long fuse.

"What are you going to do with them?" I asked, handing them to Jethro.

"I haz an ider rattling in mi brainpan. Not sure if it's gonna work, but it will be a nice surprise fer thar god, that Yarno feller." I could see a glint of daring cunning in his squinted eyes; the Ol Captain Jethro I knew and admired was back!

"Ya still have em other drums fer the Tommy gun?" he asked again as I watched him place the dynamite bundles in both front pockets of his coat.

"Yea, they are still with me," I answered back.

"Give em all to me, Lancy," he ordered; as I took out the two drum magazines from the duffle bag, he loads a fresh drum into his Tommy gun, pulling the feeder as he attached the last one on a strap inside his coat.

"Let's get movin before evenin comes over again, Lancy!" Jethro ushered as I finished my sardines, tossing the empty can and limping along right behind the good Ol Captain.