Samuel awoke with a start and he noticed that his hands and legs were tied and he was sitting on the ground. His eyes focused and he could just about make out that a man was sitting in front of him, dimly lit by a lantern propped up on a wooden keg.
The man looked very old, with a long gray beard and scraggly long gray hair covering his eyes. His face looked haggard, like a man who had seen a lot or been through a lot in his life. His jacket covered a dirty-looking blue and white striped jumper, and his wellies appeared to be yellow but covered in grime and God knows what else.
The man was sitting on what looked like an old beat up wooden crate and he was looking intently at a thick tome of a book. It wasn't easy to make out any title on the book, but its leather cover looked worn out and aged like the old man.
Confused at the sight of the man, Samuel looked around in a panic. He noticed now the stench of fish, the smell of the sea and felt the rocking of the ground beneath him. He was clearly on a boat, but how he got here was an utterly frightening mystery to him.
“Where am I? What’s going on here!” Samuel’s voice croaked as he tried to shout at the old man in front of him.
The old man grunted, and looked up. He slammed his book shut and threw it on top of the keg. He stood up and walked closer to Samuel. Samuel tried to back away without much success.
The fisherman (as that is what Samuel assumed him to be) looked down at Samuel for a moment and then walked past him.
“He...hey! Come back here!” cried out Samuel, straining against the ropes around his hands and legs.
Samuel couldn't remember anything about getting on this boat. The last thing he did remember was getting into his car after work but after that it was all a blur. He hadn’t really been paying attention to what was going on around him. It was late at night when he had finished, he had to cover for Maggie again and his bad mood probably had him distracted. His head hurt as he tried to remember more; he didn't even have any sense of anyone else in the car park outside his office.
As Samuel was panicking and trying to remember what happened, he felt the boat shudder and he lurched to his side. With his face on the rotten floor, he heard the engine sputter and turn off. The boat squeaked as it rocked side to side in the sea but otherwise there was silence.
Samuel heard steps come from behind him and felt two hands grab him by the shirt and lift him back up straight.
The old man sat down again in front of Samuel.
He reached into his coat pocket and Samuel closed his eyes assuming that the man was going to pull out a weapon and kill him right there. But no, it was just a pipe which the old man lit with a match pulled from some other pocket.
The old man took a pull of the pipe and looked up to the sky and grimaced. He looked back down and locked eyes with Samuel and blew the smoke into his face.
As Samuel coughed on the acrid smell of the smoke, the old man's face twisted into a terrible grin.
“Have you ever been fishing, lad?” He pointed the pipe towards Samuel. His voice was surprisingly clear and had a musical quality to it. Samuel had expected his kidnapper to sound more gruff.
Samuel shook his head nervously.
The old man shook his head. “No? Ah, it’s a feeling like no other, like fighting with an ancient force.”
“You can call me Joseph, just so we can talk in friendly terms of course.” he said while putting his hand out to shake Samuel’s hand. He laughed maniacally, knowing that Samuel’s hands were tied.
“Why am I here?” Samuel pleaded.
At this, Joseph stood up and walked to the front of the boat. “See that lighthouse over there?” Joseph pointed out towards the horizon and Samuel could just about make out a light flashing in the distance.
Joseph turned around and walked back towards Samuel. He knelt down in front of Samuel and pulled him close, the smell of his breath rancid from smoking the pipe.
“There is a man in that lighthouse. Now, this man is not an ordinary man. He can see things in the ocean that no one else can see.”
He poked Samuel in the chest with his pipe. “He told me there lived a great leviathan of a squid in these waters. But the only way to catch him was to bring someone into these waters to use as bait. That’s what you are lad, bait.”
Samuel’s eyes grew large and his mouth opened in shock.
“Surely, you can’t believe that?! That is madness!”
Joseph stood up and laughed. “Ah young ones these days, you don’t know anything about the old ways of the sea.”
He pointed back at the book sitting on the wooden keg.
“The man in the lighthouse gave me that book. It has all the instructions on where to wait in the sea, what kind of sacrifice is needed, all manner of things” Joseph said grinning at Samuel.
He lifted up the book and flicked through a few pages. “I don't know if you’re a virgin lad, you look like one if you don't mind me saying. But I think it’ll do anyway.”
Before Samuel had a chance to say anything, Joseph lifted up Samuel and lashed a rope around his waist.
“Wait, wait! I have money, I can give you anything you want if you bring me to shore!” Sam said as he struggled against the rough hands of Joseph.
The old man grunted as he tied him up. “Ha, money!”
Joseph dragged Samuel closer to the edge and put a life saver around his waist.
He drew out a cruel looking knife and stabbed Samuel in the leg.
With a sharp push, Samuel fell and hit the water. Samuel frantically looked for help but he could see nothing else for miles around except for the flashing of the lighthouse in the distance.
Samuel continued to shout and scream, but Joseph paid him no heed as he looked down cruelly at Samuel from the boat.
Hours seemed to pass by and Samuel could feel himself getting weaker and weaker as more blood came from his leg.
He became aware that Joseph was gone.
Samuel closed his eyes and then opened them again to see Joseph standing above the rope with his knife in one hand and the book in the other.
“Looks like I read this book wrong again lad, it's a lady the sea does be wanting, not a young fella like yourself.”
Horrified, all Samuel could do was watch while Joseph cut the rope.
Joseph pulled back the rope to the boat and shouted overboard to Samuel, “Best of luck lad, alas, back to shore to find more bait.”
Samuel closed his eyes as he heard the boat pull away. For a while he attempted to shout for help but he was so weak now that it came out in pitiful moans.
The last thing he noticed was that the lighthouse had stopped flashing in the distance and he closed his eyes as he felt something pull him under the waves.
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