"The Beast of Trash Island" is a horror/suspense novella by Steve Metcalf. "I keep a small journal on my desk at work," says Steve talking about this chapter. "I've filled up several of them over the years. I use them to make note of interesting things I've learned, weird facts, bits of dialogue or odd locations. One of these notes was about the Vile Vortex and I was happy to finally have a couple characters discussing it."
Chapter Two, Voyage
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" Ai asked walking toward the yacht, noticing an unexpected level of activity.
Two days after the lunchtime meeting on campus James and Ai each pushed a wheeled cart along the pier heading toward the Aqua Tom. They had to bribe a friend with a huge van to drive them from campus to China Basin. The yacht was moored in the middle of the dock.
Each of the two carts were full of bags and boxes that contained clothes, supplies, journals, laptops and research manuals. They had carefully planned and measured and weighed to ensure they had maximized their allowable payload.
What caught Ai’s attention, though, were the dozen or so beautiful people dancing and cavorting aboard the docked yacht.
James looked up and, for perhaps the first time, heard the loud music and laughter that seemed to boil over the gunwales of the huge boat.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” he said.
“Ahoy, the land,” Edmund called from the deck of the ship. There was a long gangplank leading from the deck to the dock. Micah came jogging down to help them onboard.
“Ahoy, the ship,” James called back with an obviously forced smile.
“Hey, hey,” Micah said, seeing Ai’s expression. “It’s just some friends. It’ll be fun.” He grabbed the handle of Ai’s push cart and started pulling it up the gangplank. “Allow me,” he said with a wink.
* *
On the bridge of the Aqua Tom, Captain Alexander Scott stood smoking his pipe. The seven men on his crew were running to and fro making final preparations for departure. On a yacht this size, there were six common configurations of a crew. For Captain Scott, this was configuration “D”—an eight-man crew designed to operate the ship in rotation: four on duty while the other four slept or rested.
Rinse and repeat.
It was designed to allow the ship continuous operation. Unfortunately, that meant that the crew had to be cross-trained. Since there wouldn’t be one designated cook, for example, several members—from each four-man team—had to know how to cook. And so on.
With 30 years at sea, Scott was the most senior man on the ship in both rank and experience. His second in command, the first mate, was Ben Andrews. They had worked together on the Aqua Tom for more than a decade. Right now, Ben, “Mr. Andrews,” was directing the crew around the boat.
For his part, the captain stood motionless—save for the pipe.
He was in the room designated as the bridge—where all of the piloting was done. The forward wall was a massive, wrap-around window that would provide a spectacular view of the ocean. Below the wall were banks and banks of high-tech equipment—an enormous control panel.
The captain stood staring at the rear, stern-side wall of the bridge. There was a huge dry-erase board with the gray outline of the Aqua Tom. They used this whiteboard to note things about the ship: who was assigned to what room, what cargo was stored where, any areas of interest.
The Aqua Tom was huge. At 70 meters long, nearly 220 feet, the boat fell into the mega-yacht category. There were three decks—bridge deck, main deck, below deck—stretching the length of the yacht. A fourth deck, the flying bridge, stood on the very top of the ship and was only about eight-meters square.
For this voyage, the captain and Mr. Andrews would share the huge aft stateroom while the owner’s son, Ed Shaw, would occupy the King Stateroom. There were eight more staterooms outside of the crew’s quarters and the Queen Stateroom. Mr. Andrews would compile the list of who was staying where. There were only 12 passengers, then, including Edmund. One of the rooms was dedicated to research equipment. Space shouldn’t be an issue.
Scott flipped the pipe from one side of his mouth to the other.
Bridge Party Deck. Main Party Deck. Saloon. Engine Room. Stowage. All of the rooms highlighted on the whiteboard had a small green checkmark and the initials of the crewmember who had inspected and signed off on the condition of the area. They were from this morning. For all intents and purposes, they were ready to go. Squared away—five-by-five.
The captain sighed.
They would shortly leave China Basin set to arrive at Trash Island in 40 hours.
* *
Eight hours later and it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Ai, James and Micah had set up their equipment and were prepping different aspects of their own personal voyages. Edmund, for his part, was taking an after-lunch soak in the hot tub with three ladies from the Stanford Women’s Gymnastics team.
“Looking good, Billy Ray,” Micah called over his shoulder.
“Feeling good, Louis,” Edmund answered, quoting the movie Trading Places. He was smiling and raising a bottle of Sam Adams brand beer in a toast.
Micah turned back to his cameras. He was checking the charges on various batteries...charging those that needed it.
“What is it you hope to accomplish here?” Ai asked without looking up from the charts she had spread out on the small table in front of her.
Micah looked up.
“Me? I want to document the swirling mass of plastic that’s threatening the ecosystem of the Pacific Ocean.”
Ai raised her eyes and shot him a look that seemed to say, really?
“Really?” she said it aloud. “Because it seems like you guys just wanted an excuse for a week-long vacation on the ocean with the university’s athletic and fashion-elite.”
Micah laughed.
“That’s why you’re mad? Look, Ai, you sound like you want it to be just us four sailing half-way across the Pacific, holding hands and singing campfire songs. There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun. Life’s tough enough on its own without us placing ridiculous restrictions on ourselves.”
Ai looked as if she was about to reply when a young man wearing only a plaid speedo walked past and dropped an ice-cold can of beer into Micah’s hand.
“Bro,” Speedo said.
“Bro,” Micah said, and then turned back to Ai and James. “In any event, my heart is as pure as the driven snow. I want to document this trash island and you two will help me with the metrics—while you also further your own research.”
Ai looked dubious, but James seemed sold.
“Good enough for me,” he said, turning to Ai. “Look. I expected a small group also, but it’s Ed’s boat. If he wants to bring along a party, who are we to question his decision? We have a free trip out into the middle of the North Pacific and a chance to put together some real data on this phenomenon.” He paused and shrugged. “I didn’t have anything better to do this week, anyway.”
Ai sighed.
“Yeah,” she said. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s just try to stick to the task at hand.”
James and Micah nodded.
“I made printouts of all the known data about the garbage vortex,” James said. “A lot of it is inconclusive or just plain wrong.” He leaned forward and handed a binder to each Ai and Micah. “But at least it gives us a starting point.”
* *
“You ever heard of the vile vortices?”
James and Edmund found themselves sharing a drink on the aft section of the Aqua Tom. They were on the main deck, in a section referred to as the “party deck.” It was lined with benches and tables, with a hot tub in the forward area. It was ten o’clock at night and the ship had settled down considerably. Most of the partiers had been at it non-stop since six in the morning.
“No,” Edmund said, thinking for an extra moment. “No, I haven’t. Kind of a creepy band name. From Sweden?”
James took a sip of his drink.
“Guy named Ivan Sanderson went through all of these historical texts and started plotting unexplained disappearances on a map of the surface of the earth. This ship disappeared. This plane went down for no reason. Stuff like that.”
“Okay,” Edmund said, turning, slightly interested.
“Well,” James continued. “Sanderson found that these weird phenomena kept happening in the same spots. Nearly all of the disasters he noted could be sectioned within ten grid squares spread out across the globe.”
“Ten.”
“Well, there are actually twelve vile vortices,” James added. “There are the ten spots that Sanderson noted and the two magnetic poles. Twelve spots in total.”
He paused for a moment.
“The Bermuda Triangle is a vile—not meaning evil, but meaning strong—vortex of gravitational forces and electro-magnetic aberrations. So are the Loyalty Islands and the Algerian Megaliths.”
“You know, that’s kind of amazing,” Edmund said.
“Yeah,” James said, finishing off his drink and putting the empty glass down on a small table. “What’s more amazing is we’re heading to a spot that seems to be equidistant between two of them. Devil’s Island and Hamakulia Volcano. God bless the Pacific Ocean.”
“Here, here,” Edmund said and drained his can of soda.
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