A Six-Part 'Thrill-ogy'

Behold the Fathomless Reptile

'I beheld the dragon in the deep
Saw him floating in his sleep
Barnacle-encrusted jaw
'Neath his savage, toothy maw'

'Serpentine in undulation
Requisite illumination
Scaly armor shone as gold
Rarest wampum bought and sold'

Found a scale upon a beach
Three foot wide at shortest reach
Sat among the salt remains
Of sweet ambergris, sperm whale brains'

'Great King Neptune stay thy hand
Hold thy serpent from the land
Keep him from this frothy shore
That we shall see his kind no more'

Joseph John Racano

Dragon in the Deep, a Six-part Thrillogy
by Joseph John Racano

Table of Contents:
1……Dragon in the Deep
2……Secret of the Sea Dragon
3……It Came from the Midnight Zone
4……The Last Voyage
5……The Darker Darkness
6……All Roads Lead to the Sea

Cast of Characters (In order of appearance):
1. Lady Paleontologist/Captain of the Bathyscaphe
Extras: Ship’s crew
2. Lady Paleobotanist/Lead Scientist
The Ship’s Captain
Extras: Scientists, crew, Randy the Sea Lion
3. Professor Janet Crystobal
Extras: Sailor, Aide, 52-man submarine crew
4. Professor Janet Crystobal
Captain Mike Kincade
Extras: Stockholders
5. The Diver
The Professor
The Skipper
6. Leviathan
The Orcas
The Dolphins
The Researcher
©@JosephJohnRacano/08/30/2020

Dragon in the Deep

The greatest adventure by the human race
Was taken in the recesses of inner space
Where the sun never penetrates fathomless depths
And the pressure keeps secrets the ocean protects

A paleontologist had captured large grants
To find food for humans who were breeding like ants
Disdaining the usual farm methods she
Decided her best bet was deep in the sea

She used all the money, some billions I’m told
To build a new bathyscaphe better than old
This to descend into challenger deep
Best place on Earth for a secret to keep

When it was built -and it was built it’s true
Then she got busy assembling a crew
Experts at sonar and charts and the like
But one thing she felt most important was light

Down at such depths where King Neptune was cruel
Things were important but light was the tool
Powerful beacons and beams lined the craft
Colorful flashers on this bathyscaphe

Then came the day when they did disembark
Passing old pirate ships sunk in the dark
Like a great sperm whale they started to sound
Deeper and deeper and deeper they wound

They saw Architeuthis at 600 fathoms
Giant squid tentacles waving from chasms
He flashed his lights and she flashed him right back
Knowing unanswered the squid might attack

After a day of quite slowly descending
They finally hit bottom the trip seemed unending
Checked all the gauges secured all the gear
Then the alarm went off, something was here

The Bathyscaphe lifted up out of the trench
Spun a slow circle like turning a wrench
And there in the darkness beyond reach of light
Something enormous stayed just out of sight

Still as a mountain and big as a barge
No one had bargained for something this large
Then a strong current cleared sea silt away
And every jaw dropped and some started to pray

Into the room our crew started to funnel
Mouth was now being compared to a tunnel
Here swam a creature from out of the slime
Spawned in the dawn of primordial time

Many the teeth in its maw were swept back
No getting loose from the coming attack
Quick thinking captain knew time was of the essence
Suggested they talk using bioluminescence

She ordered the lights of the bathyscaphe flashed
One swipe of a flipper and they would be trashed
And that’s when the creature began flashing back!
They flashed again warding off an attack

The creature was beautiful once in the light
No one was ever prepared for the sight
Head of a serpent neck of an eel
A fearsome dragon unknown and unreal

Then it swam off into darkest of nights
Inky pitch blackness still flashing its lights
Captain and crew agreed that was enough
Smiling, she ordered the crew ‘take us up!’

Joseph John Racano
Another installment of the ‘Poetry of Dragons’ collection
https://www.facebook.com/reptilianscales
Art: Water Dragon by ConejoBlanco

Secret of the Sea Dragon

Part II of the Dragon in the Deep

With mapping of the sea floor nearing completion, a crew of scientists spent a lovely tropical evening watching their progress on glitchy monitors. The last of the scuba divers had broken the surface and waited their turns to climb a Jacob’s ladder and exit the clear bubbling water. ‘Shark’ someone yelled, and the divers scaled the bulkhead like they had Piranha at their heels. Laughter erupted from the crewman, all vying to help one lady diver aboard while ignoring the others.
‘Not funny’ she spat, removing her mask and gasping for breath.
The Captain made his entrance onto the fantail through a hatchway in the superstructure, scowling at these mostly unkempt sailors. All having been recruited from the nearby islands, they were pranksters -and borderline gangsters- to a man. But they knew their way around a deck and were well paid for their contributions to this expedition. The area was known for a large population of Sea Tigers, exceptionally dangerous because they always followed the charter boats from which they were fed by sport fishermen. As the ocean environment became more and more depleted of fish, the Sea Tigers grew ever bolder.
This time however, there were no sharks and the divers boarded, stripped down, and showered. Tanks were re-filled immediately and the smell of cooked grouper greeted every dilating nostril. The head scientist was a Paleobiologist who had graduated at the top of her class, but was now unfortunately more well known for having led an expedition to this very area several years ago, upon return claiming to have seen a monster. Although her crew stayed mum and left her high and dry, she was credited for having seen them through some unspecified ‘emergency’ and for having brought them all safely home.
The results were more easily gleaned the following morning, when the scientists crowded around the screens as the large research ship pitched and yawed with the swells. ‘Look at this,’ one remarked. ‘The seamount rises up from the trench to within thirty fathoms of the surface. We can reach that depth without mixed gasses.’
The head scientist knew what they would find already. A seamount is full of life, many times the only place on Earth certain species exist. But the mapping was showing caves and caverns in the sub strata beneath the seamount. She said, ‘plenty of room for something large to live inside the caves.’ Nobody dared answer.
‘Anybody seen Randy?’ asked the boatswain. Randy was a large male Sea Lion, and the ship mascot. It was unusual for him to miss his morning routine of fish flipping and gulping. ‘Maybe he’s below, sleeping.’ The crew readied the divers’ tanks and equipment for the day’s first dive, which would take one of them, the lead diver, to the seamount summit. Once there, he would place a marker, which amounted to an empty bottle of bleach tied with nylon rope and left bobbing at the surface where it would be just visible.
He sat on the rail spitting in his mask to keep it from fogging, and someone pushed him backward and into the sea. He broke the water and began his descent, struggling at first against the strong current, and finally breaking free at a depth of two fathoms. There, the haze opened up and he could see all the way to the seamount. It was unusually clear. But before he could get any deeper, the Sea Tigers arrived and in no time at all they had him encircled. Speargun at the ready, he chose instead to blast an underwater horn, which startled the large sharks and gave him time to get back aboard the ship. There was always tomorrow, he thought.
The crew waited all day in heavy seas for the sharks to move away, but they stayed near the vessel. That evening, the sea quieted down and the surface turned to glass. They had always known the sharks would be a problem, but the lead scientist knew in her heart the Sea Tigers were the least of their problems. When morning came on the next day, two sport fishing boats came by, one off port, the other to starboard. Their overloaded contingents stood cleaning and filleting the prior evening’s catch, and much bycatch, blood and fish guts were tossed overboard. Almost immediately, the sharks left us.
The captain decided to take advantage of such good fortune, and gave the ok for divers to enter the water. In ten minutes, we had one diver descending and two more ready to enter the water. ‘I’m at ten fathoms, looking good,’ came the lead diver’s communication.
‘Copy,’ answered the head scientist, ‘Any sign of Randy down there?’
‘Negative’ came the reply. ‘Fifteen fathoms now.’
Back on the surface, the squawk box started squawking. Amid hissing and garbled transmissions, the crew could make out a mayday call, sounding like it was originating from one or both of the sport fishing boats that had passed by earlier that morning. ‘Did you hear that, asked the scientist? Sounded like screams.’ The captain couldn’t order the diver up any time soon. He was still descending and would have to decompress in order to surface. Those boats, whatever trouble they were in, were on their own. ‘Aren’t we going to help them?’ a crew member asked.
The captain frowned and said with furrowed brow, ‘Love to, but we can’t leave a diver in the water.’
Try as the captain might, he was unable to raise a mayday using ship to shore radio, due to storm conditions between the research vessel and the facilities onshore. ‘God help them’ he said.
From below, the diver was now complaining the fish had all suddenly vanished. ‘Come on back topside,’ he was ordered. ‘Begin your decompression and ascent.’ The captain was then alerted to another bad sign. One of the crewmen had recovered a large Sea Lion carcass floating in the water. Everyone was certain it was a shark attack- until they found a tooth, serrated edges and over a foot long. The scientists spent the rest of their day matching the tooth with what images they could find in their paleontology books. ‘Looks like a Mosasaur. Maybe Megalodon. Can’t be right,’ she said.
By the time the lead diver made it back aboard, it was 3pm in the afternoon. The captain gave the order to weigh anchor and the ships powerful engines roared to life. Within an hour, they came across a large debris field, traces of two boats, floatation devices, and an oil slick. But there was no sign of survivors. They salvaged enough debris to show evidence of the identity of the boats and headed back to the seamount. There was a large storm sitting between the research ship and the shore of any of the local islands. They were back at the seamount in another hour and with no sign of sharks, sent the next team of divers back down to place the marker.
Darkness began closing in, but at 30 fathoms that didn’t matter at all. The divers stood three across holding hands for a photograph together on the summit. They set the marker, let it rise to the surface on nylon rope, and followed suit themselves. The next morning, they were woken by the intercom. ‘Reveille, all hands on deck.’
They staggered topside and found a scene of excited scientists shouting and chattering. ‘Look at this- look at the photograph you took down on the seamount!’ one of them said. They put the photo up on the large monitor, and saw the three of themselves held fast to the summit by weight belts, all holding hands. ‘So what?’ they asked.
‘Look in the background! See this?’ He pointed out what looked to be an enormous amber eye, large as a garbage can cover. ‘That can’t be real.’ They agreed. Dear doctor, this is your monster! You were right!’
None of them wanted to go back down except the lead diver, who had had proper time to rest and decompress. In a half hour, he was in the water hoping to recover some shred of physical evidence. True, they had the tooth but the authorities would want more, he knew. Much more. He touched down on the seamount and found himself surrounded by fish. Then the sharks moved in. These were the biggest Sea Tigers he had ever seen, none of them under 18 feet long. Some over 25. Where had all these giants been? Then he thought of it- the caverns below his feet! No sooner did the thought cross his mind, than every shark, fish, ray, and anything else alive suddenly vanished. ‘What the…’ he said to himself, turning to see a gigantic shadow being cast over the whole seamount!
He held his breath so as not to produce bubbles. He was happy he was using a rebreather. There before him was the she-scientists monster- a real life true living underwater dragon! He wanted badly to send a communication to the surface, but he dared not risk it. He stood still as a statue until after the eel-like creature passed by. Then he watched it enter the seamount through a cavernous hole, like a two-hundred-foot Moray. And perhaps it was.
Time dragged by slowly as he went through the process of life-saving decompression. In his mind, he worked it out on the way up. By the time he got to the surface, they all agreed- these were an unknown and ancient species living in the submarine tunnels within the seamount, and like the sharks, they were being attracted by the sport fishing boats constantly chumming the area.
The lady scientist was quite relieved at finally having been proved sane. Then they all agreed that what happened to the Steller Sea Cow should not happen to these magnificent relics from another age. The sea cow had been hunted to extinction and wiped off the face of the Earth a mere 30 years after being discovered.
And so it was agreed. A pact was made between the captain, his good crew, and all the scientists on board that none of them would ever reveal to the world the Secret of the Sea Dragon.

Joseph John Racano
Another installment of the ‘poetry of Dragons’ collection
Art: Stephanie Shimerdla
https://www.facebook.com/reptilianscales
©@JosephJohnRacano/06/24/2020

It Came From the Midnight Zone

Part III of the ‘Dragon in the Deep’ Thrillogy

The red phone rang at a quarter past four
The knocking already on the old wood door
‘Professor Janet Crystobal, I hate to ruin your sleep
But I’ve been sent by NOAA- they found something in the deep!’

‘Please come back tomorrow, I just got off of work
Who would wake me at this hour- someone who’s a jerk’
‘Please, Professor,’ said the man, I only follow orders-
and no one else knows half as much as you do of these waters’

Lap top table flipped it up and there upon the screen
NOAA sent an image from a deep-sea submarine
Moments later right outside pulled up a motorcade
Something big was going on, according to this aide

Through the open gates they sped and onto base Point Loma
Janet held her aching head which still felt in a coma
They whisked her in a conference room and started with the briefing
But what they were telling her was way beyond believing

One of their submersibles exploring in the depths
Had found a giant skeleton, a cousin of T-Rex
But this was not a fossil, all the bones still glossy white
There might be a live one down in that forever night

‘Our request is simple- take a ship down to confirm
Identify for us if it’s a dragon or a worm’
They handed her a suitcase with a million dollars cash
‘Bring us back the proof and if it’s possible to catch’

Janet took the money, a Professor earns her due
A submarine, a lot of green and 52-man crew
Soon they dove beneath the waves the water growing dark
Forever night fought off their light illuminating sharks

‘Professor, we just got a pretty large return on sonar
Several thousand feet, I think it has to be a sand bar’
‘Can we get a visual,’ Professor thought to ask?
‘Put it on the screen,’ the sailor answered right on task

And there, before the very eyes of god and Jane and crew
The sand bar rose and turned around to meet them right on cue
Its head was like a horse but wearing mammoth tusks of ivory
It’s size was like Mount Rushmore but the eyes were much more lively

Professor ordered one torpedo fired with a tracker
‘Turn this craft around, let’s go report back to our backer’
They left this giant relic to its’ camo-sandbar ways
Knowing that they would return again in coming days

Joseph John Racano
©@JosephJohnRacano/08/28/2020
Another installment in the ‘Poetry of Dragons’ collection, and part III of the ‘Dragon in the Deep’ Trilogy
Artwork by: Yuyidraws, (‘Titano Espades’/King of the Depths) at Deviant Art

The Last Voyage

Part IV of the ‘Dragon in the Deep’ Thrillogy

The room was buzzing, seats were filled
This past voyage none were killed
Stockholders joined at the hips
Here at the request of Scripps

‘Welcome to this special meeting
Just like you, our hearts are beating
We’ve got something in the works
Guaranteeing many perks’

‘On behalf of Scripps and Seaworld
Help me welcome former whiz-girl
Professor now and all grown up
Everybody raise your cup”

When applause had all died down
Janet pulled the screen around
Ballroom lights were brought down low
All were ready for the show

‘What you are about to see
Has thus far been seen by me
Me, and by my loyal crew
Numbering some fifty-two’

‘Please turn off your hand-held phones
Do not speak of this at home
And now if you would, director
Please turn on the old projector’

As the old projector ticked
Some thought they were being tricked
For on the screen they all could see
The thousand-foot anomaly

‘Gentleman, believe your eyes
With analog there are no lies
The creature that you now behold
A species likely very old’

That’s when she laid out their plan
To bring this creature back to land
To find it, tag it, drug it, drag it
Make a trillion bucks and bag it

Nervous laughter filled the room
Surely this would lead to doom
Catching something this gigantic
Would take a bowl to fit Titanic

‘Nonetheless, that is our plan
Dominion over Earth by man
Preparations have been made
And now, for Captain Mike Kincade’

As the captain spoke his piece
Professor Jane packed her valise
Soon the lights and crowd were gone
The Expedition leaves at dawn

©@JosephJohnRacano/08/29/2020

The Darker Darkness

Part V of the Dragon in the Deep Thrillogy

Darker than a moonless night, deeper than a dream
Close enough to feel his bite, too far down to scream
From the sub they sent me down, clinging to a cable
Bioluminescence did betray the beast of fable

Forsaking all torpedoes, eschewing use of nets
None would work because this is as big as a creature gets
The skipper thought me crazy, professor thought me daft
I said, ‘I have a good idea, just lower me back aft’

The pressure it was crushing, but safe inside the bell
The cable nearly long enough to dip me into hell
In the darkness I could see a glow above his eyes
Something bright he dangled when he gave his prey surprise

There back in the shadow realm I saw the toothy grin
If I’m never seen again, know that’s where I went in
Soon I saw a sneaky shark come nosing to the light
Fourteen feet in length, but with a single gulp, goodnight

The Mesozoic creature must have swallowed him down whole
When the dust cloud settled, on the bottom lay his soul
Then his eye looked up at me, and I perceived a threat
Time to implement my plan, I wasn’t fish food yet

Hanging on a belt I used for weight and such utility
I had a light and aimed it to the best of my ability
I flicked it on and off and on the sea floor started walking
Then he flashed right back at me, the serpent’s way of talking!

Into the transmitter, my voice bubbled with excitement
Called the crew to lift the cable, I kept up the lighting
Slowly I ascended ‘till the sub took me inside
Giant serpent keeping up exactly, what a ride

We flashed him and he flashed us, the sub light pulsed and dimming
Leviathan the puppy dog was right behind us, swimming
The captain used his ship-to-shore to warn away the crowds
Got him to the surface, dropped the sedative from clouds

On the now deserted beach a serpents rhythmic breathing
Told us all was now in reach, we rolled him in tarp sheeting
Thirty seven helicopters rushed him to the pool
Sixty-billion gallons filled with sharks enough to school

Now the time had come, tomorrow morning was the day
All the world would come and see Leviathan at play
Tickets were a thousand bucks, his feeder-fish brought in by trucks
But no one saw his raging eyes, a tell-tale sign that someone dies

©@JosephJohnRacano/08/29/2020

All Roads Lead to the Sea

Part VI of the ‘Dragon in the Deep’ Thrillogy

The front page of the Union Tribune
Promised quite a show and then some
And there on my desk, one I found in a chest
Had said the same dam thing about Tilikum

Balloons, they went up and the jets they flew past
They’re about out of seats with the last going fast
The loudspeaker echoed off cavernous walls
They called in the orcas with sad orca calls

But the orcas today were in no mood to play
For some reason no one was jumping
In ten yards of water all still and quiet
Above the loud music was pumping

‘Now may I have your attention please
We’ve brought entertainment from deep water seas
Dinner guests, please do not take home your hyacinth
Now, introducing- the Mighty Leviathan!’

Silence fell over the chattering crowd
Suddenly droplets of water got loud
Up from the bottom of a thousand-foot tube
Leviathan rose like a cobra renewed

The management had grossly underestimated
What it would take to keep this creature gated
Leviathan’s serpentine neck kept on rising
His scales iridescent their beauty surprising

Folks started to scream like it was a bad dream
Then the show switched to its musical theme
Of all the shortcomings, the worst of its flaws
Was probably choosing the theme song from ‘Jaws’

Leviathan then used his great size to capture
An orca he lifted as if in the rapture
Placing it softly down out on the highway
One then another and dolphins the same way

Turning his giant Silurian head
He started to spit something gooey and red
Cars started crashing and everyone cried
All seated in the aquarium died

Leviathan breached himself over the wall
Was out on the highway in no time at all
Which he then covered in slime to the sea
And shortly thereafter, the orcas were free

The poor first responders who were to be honored
Found themselves treating the going and goners
All the aquarium holding pens breached
Every last captive rode slime to the beach

Leviathan shot all the jets from the sky
No helicopter was spared to get by
Tanks were destroyed just as soon as arrived
Unlike the orcas, Leviathan thrived

After the Ocean Theme Park was destroyed
Thousands of missiles were sent and deployed
Alas but too late- great Leviathan’s free
He and his minions gone home to the sea

epilogue-

There in the night did a researcher float
Using a light to attract to the boat
God of marine mammal captives and slaves
Mighty Leviathan King of the Waves

The End

©@JosephJohnRacano/08/30/2020
Art (Deep Fascination with the Unknown) by: Lidiash

                                                                                                 The Author and 'Mango'