Ghost Fleet

 Ghost Fleet

 

The Spanish galleon, Esmeralda was lost at sea in August of 1684. She was said to have carried a king’s ransom in gold and other treasures, and had set sail from Mexico, headed back to Spain. The hurricane hit nine days out and the galleon and all on board were presumed to have gone down somewhere in the west Atlantic.

 

 Centuries later, American treasure hunter, Luis Belenfante, the captain and owner of the ship, Tiamat, scoured the floor of the Bermuda Triangle where Esmeralda was calculated to have gone down. Belenfante had spent nearly a million dollars over the course of three years, hunting for the lost galleon. The calculated location had thus far covered over seven hundred square miles.  Belenfante’s sonar devices had picked up numerous wreckage sites, but none that even remotely resembled Esmeralda.

 

Finally, in the autumn of that third year, sonar devices picked up something promising. A deep water probe was sent down to scour the wreckage. Some gold and silver coins were found, as well as a few other trinkets and artillery, but much to Belenfante’s disappointment, this wreck was from the Revolutionary War era. There was more than enough treasure and artifacts recovered to recoup a nice return on  what he’d invested  so far. It was enough that it should have pleased him somewhat, but nothing would satisfy Belenfante until he’d found Esmeralda.

 

Some weeks after the disappointment of the last find, Belenfante was out again, searching just beyond the area they’d scoured before. After all he’d invested in money, time, and passion, he would not give up his search. He knew they were close. He could feel it.

 

 In the late afternoon of the third day of this excursion, crewmembers excitedly called the captain. Through the misty dusk, a ship had appeared, coming straight toward them. Attempts had been made to contact it, but it either would not, or could not respond.

 

Belenfante came up on deck to assess the situation. The dark ship came slowly toward them, and the details became more clearly visible. From the decrepit masts, hung tattered and ancient sails. The entire ship appeared black with age and decay. As it came closer, the smell of mildew and wet, rotting wood hung heavy in the air. With its musty stench came a terrible foreboding. A collective shudder passed through the crew of Tiamat. Most stood, frozen with fear, though few would admit it. Many tried to rationalize that it was only the mist in the approaching darkness and the ominous appearance of the dilapidated ship that chilled them.

 

 The dark ship creaked and groaned as it approached, and the musty stench grew stronger, as did the ominous chill, as though it were not a ship, but an iceberg that approached. Only the sounds of the sea, the waves sloshing against the ships, and the creaks and groans of the sinister vessel were heard in the fearful hush. The silent crew of Tiamat stood in awe and dread as the ancient galleon loomed nearer. Suddenly the hush was broken by the voice of one of the crewmembers.

 

“Esmeralda!” He cried.

 

The man stood near the stern of Tiamat, giving him a clearer view of the black ship as it bore down on them.

 

“Captain! It’s her!” He pointed, wide-eyed. “Esmeralda! We’ve found her!”

 

“It can’t be!” Belenfante exclaimed in utter astonishment. “Esmeralda! A ghost ship! After all these years? How could she still be afloat? It’s not possible!”

 

However, as the ship drew nearer, though worn and faded with age, the lettering on the side clearly read, “Esmeralda”. But could it really be her? The ship certainly looked old enough to be, but it seemed to defy all logic that she could still be afloat. Surely a ship that old would have deteriorated and sunk centuries ago.

 

The monumental coincidence was not lost on Captain Belenfante. All these years he’d searched, and now Esmeralda had come to him! The odds were astronomically remote that she would be in this exact location after centuries of drifting with the ocean currents. And yet, here she was. It was almost as if Esmeralda had been searching for him as well.  

 

Belenfante had been so mesmerized by the oncoming Esmeralda that he almost realized too late that they were actually on a collision course. Startled out of his trance, and amid the panicked cries of his crew, Belenfante ran to the wheel to steer Tiamat sideways in an attempt to deflect the impact. He was largely successful, though there was still an impact. The ships groaned loudly as their hulls scraped together but, remarkably, there appeared to be no significant damage to either ship.

 

 Now Esmeralda perfectly flanked Tiamat, and Belenfante ordered the crew to quickly secure the two ships together.  Once the ships were securely tethered, the crew stood aghast in the deepening haze- which almost seemed to emanate from Esmeralda herself. The black hollows of her doors and windows appeared to writhe with an almost liquid darkness which appeared to pour, as tendrils, out onto her deck before dissipating into the ambient haze. The effect was disturbingly unnatural. Surely it was a trick of the waning light of dusk in the mist.

 

As if the ghastly appearance weren’t enough, the very presence of the ship seemed to bring with it a palpable aura of fear. One might almost expect the Grim Reaper himself to appear on the deck of the ancient galleon.

 

Belenfante, blinded by his obsession, seemed oblivious to the air of horror about the ominous ship. He stepped over the railing and climbed up the decaying ladder onto Esmeralda’s deck. Even after he’d called by name several members of the crew, they stood, paralyzed with fear. Only after stern commands from their captain did they finally manage to unfasten their feet from the safety of Tiamat, to venture, with great reluctance, aboard the black and decaying Esmeralda. As they stood, trembling on her deck, a sinister chill seized them, creeping deep into the very marrow of their bones. The high-pitched shrieks from Esmeralda’s teetering masts and the rattling of her tattered sails mingled discordantly with the deep, bellowing groans that emanated from her hull as if it were the anguished and tortured voices of the ghosts of her long-dead crew.

 

 Flashlights were brought forth so that Belenfante and the others could explore the ancient galleon.  The captain ordered the crew to split up, but none would venture alone.  Two, by request, accompanied Belenfante, while the remaining five split into groups of two and three.

 

Belenfante led his two down, and the group of three followed, fearfully descending into the blackness of Esmeralda’s hull where they were to split up to explore.

 

The remaining two, Benjamin Israel, and Jose Perez, were to follow, but Perez spotted something strange at the helm. He seized Israel by the arm, pointing toward the strange form.

 

“Look!” He said. “It looks like there’s someone at the helm!”

 

Israel and Perez cautiously mounted the decaying stairs to investigate, and were shocked to see an emaciated figure standing at the wheel. As the men moved in for a closer look, they were horrified to find at the ship’s helm, the mummified remains of what had once been the captain of the galleon. What was left of tattered clothing hung in fragile shreds over the startlingly well-preserved corpse. Crepey skin clung to the skeletal face. Beneath the shriveled eyelids, the empty eye sockets stared vacantly out to sea.  The desiccated lips were pulled back in a ghastly effect of what could have been either a scream or maniacal laughter, which effect was amplified by the galleon’s discordant and impeccably timed shrieks and groans which just then seemed suddenly louder.

 

The two men instinctively huddled together as they backed away in revulsion. Perez muttered a prayer, crossing himself, while Israel uttered a blasphemous oath.

 

Just then, Israel spotted a large form approaching on the sea, followed by another, and another. Before he could say anything, a cry went out from Tiamat, alerting all hands to the approaching fleet.

 

 Yet another ship, and then another, and another approached in the dusky haze, each in various stages of decay, but none quite as ancient as Esmeralda- their flagship.

 

Just then, from Esmeralda’s hull, came the terrified cries of the men below.

 

From the deck of Tiamat, Jesus Solomon, Belenfante’s second in command, ordered a half-dozen or so crewmembers to follow him aboard Esmeralda to assist the distressed men and their captain. Flashlight in hand, the fearless Solomon vaulted over the railings and up the ladder onto the ancient ship, and bolted across the deck and down into the black hull, followed reluctantly by the other hands.

 

Already too terrified to even consider venturing after Solomon and the others, Israel and Perez, fumbled their way back to Tiamat.

 

Soon, more cries were heard from below Esmeralda’s deck. First of terror, and then of agony, followed by terrible silence. The few who remained of Tiamat’s crew stood petrified, unable to even speak, much less consider coming to the aid of their shipmates.

 

Finally, dark figures began to emerge from Esmeralda’s hull and onto her deck. A few of Tiamat’s crew stepped forward to meet their emerging crewmates, but then realized that the emaciated silhouettes approaching were not their own crewmates, but the mummified crew of the ancient galleon! The hollow black eyes seemed fixed on the living crew as the dead boarded Tiamat. The skeletal mouths opened and the groans and shrieks of the dilapidated galleon seemed to emanate from them- or perhaps all along it had been their voices and not the galleon at all.

 

Since the ships were bound together, there seemed no escape as the desiccated corpses lumbered forward.  Their gait was strange, inhuman. Their movements were eerily slow, measured and unnatural. Their joints produced a dry grinding noise and their desiccated skin crackled softly like old parchment. The smell of death grew suddenly strong in the air, though the corpses were ancient and should not have produced any such stink. The dark mist emanating from Esmeralda grew thicker, bringing with it the growing stench of death and decay.

 

In a desperate move, one crewmember took a swing at an approaching corpse, but with unnatural strength, the corpse seized hold of him. The man struggled for a moment and then cried out in agony as he began to wither away. His cries faded and morphed from a human voice to something very similar to the shrieks and groans of the decaying galleon and its dead crew. As Tiamat’s crewmembers watched, backing away in horror, the corpse drained the life from the man, who soon fell to the deck, a mummified husk, his face withered and hideously contorted in his final moments of agony and terror.

 

The remaining men withdrew in fear, but the dead defied all natural laws. They seemed unbound by time or space, taking a single step and appearing suddenly several yards ahead, standing before one crewmember or another. Esmeralda’s corpse crew seized one man after another, and drained the life from them, leaving each as a withered and contorted corpse, just like the first.

 

Nearly out of their minds with terror, Israel and Perez managed to find their way to Tiamat’s starboard side, away from Esmeralda and the unfolding horror, to a lifeboat, quickly lowering it into the undulating sea. Once free from Tiamat, the men desperately rowed away. In the darkness and mist, Tiamat and Esmeralda were soon lost from view. The shrieks and groans of Esmeralda, and the agonized and terrified cries of the remaining crewmates remained all too audible until finally, all that the two men could hear were the shrieks and groans of Esmeralda (or her dead), and the sounds of the sea. The men continued to row furiously until their bodies were exhausted and they could push themselves no further.

 

 Finally free from the dark mist, the men could see the half moon, and the stars above them, which gave them some direction, and a bit of comfort after the nightmare they’d just escaped. Neither man slept that night, and neither could speak. For the duration of their trial at sea, neither man dared say a word about the terrible events they’d witnessed.

 

Miraculously, just three days later, the men were rescued by a U.S. Naval aircraft carrier. Later, at a hospital, the men were treated for exposure and severe dehydration. The story they told was dismissed as a shared delusion.

 

Ships and aircraft were sent out to search for Tiamat, but after nearly a month, the formal search was called off and Tiamat and her crew were declared lost at sea.

 

Seven years later, a cruise ship was headed toward Puerto Rico. Through a telescope, one of the crewmembers spotted in the distance, a dark ship approaching in the mist. Attempts to contact the ship were unsuccessful. As it drew nearer, the name on the side of the ancient black galleon became legible: “Esmeralda”.

 

Esmeralda was followed by another ship, and then another, and another, each in varying degrees of age and disrepair, but none as old as Esmeralda. At the rear of the fleet, followed one, more modern, though worn, weather-beaten, and streaked with rust. The name on the side of that ship read “Tiamat”.

 

As the ghost fleet approached, the cruise ship was engulfed in a shroud of mist which reeked of death and decay.