A Romantic Ghost Story

Chapter 3

One Year LaterSunrise Beach, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

In the sleepy seaside resort town of Sunrise Beach (population 1247), five miles north of Tofino, nothing much ever really happened. Life was always the same old, same old. Same old people in the tavern, same old gossipy housewives and same old waves rolling back and forth on the beach.

That's why it was such a shock when something actually did start to happen. Something big, something mysterious, something shocking.

On the morning of October 6, 2011, the headline of the Sunrise Beach Daily Journal read: Young man, age 20, drowned in ocean, Authorities still investigating.

The next day, the headline was: Another drowning, this time, two teenage boys.

The next day: Three drownings in Sunrise Beach, all middle-aged men.

The townspeople knew that something was up, so the local RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) detachment assigned a special detective to investigate. A few days later, he declared all the drownings to be accidental.

But the townspeople weren't so sure. In Moe's Tavern, people were talking.

"You think it's the Ocean King?" asked Moe the bartender, a fat middle-aged guy.

"It's possible," said a young barfly named Larry. "I think we haven't sacrificed enough for him. We should have hunted for a whale this season. Maybe then he'd be full and wouldn't need to feed on humans."

"That's a bunch of hogwash," said a lady in jeans. "People drown. It happens. I can't believe you believe in that kind of crap. It's almost heresy." Bowing her head, she made the sign of the cross.

"But we haven't had this many accidental drownings in over 20 years," countered the bartender. "The last one was in 1976. And we know that young man drowned accidentally."

"Yeah," said the barfly. He took a swig of beer and scratched his head. "That's because they made a sacrifice to the Ocean King that year. My grandpa remembers it really well. They fed him a live dolphin. That year, our bounty from the ocean was the largest up to that point. Fish, shrimp, lobster, crab, prawns – you name it."

The lady scoffed. "Baloney."

The barfly placed his glass of beer down. "You won't think it's baloney if you've actually seen the Ocean King. I was a young boy back then, but I remember seeing him rise in the ocean, like a giant tidal wave. He had these terrible yellow eyes. He told me that if the town kept him full by serving him big fish, then he wouldn't feed on humans. But we stopped in the last couple of years because we've been fishing the ocean dry."

19 year-old Ryan had been listening to the conversation the entire time. He had first arrived in Sunset Beach the day after the third drowning was reported. He was a drifter, or as he preferred to be called, a musician, looking for any kind of work to pay his bills. Yes, he was that kind of artist. The poor starving kind who never had any gainful or steady employment, the kind that wandered from place to place, always in search of an audience to appreciate his music. His trusty guitar in hand (his only possession), he had fled Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland when he heard that there was money to be made in fishing, at least enough to pay for food and lodging. Unfortunately, the owner of the largest fleets of fishing vessels in Sunrise Beach had refused to hire him, citing that he had already hired enough staff.

Ryan had spent all his money on the ferry ride across the Strait of Georgia, and so, he was trying to make enough money in town to pay a ticket back home.