The Angry Monkey Challenge (a la secular.mosh.pit)

Professor_Zoom and I challenged each other to write a short story that both began with the sentence "The sea was filled with angry monkeys." and contained the phrase "hairy ocean fruit." We made this challenge on monday, it is now wednesday, so our time has been limited. We have also not read each others stories. I look forward to reading his.

________

The sea was filled with angry monkeys. At least, that’s what the captain called them. My stomach churned at the sight of the writhing, hairy, stinking mass that was the Machiellian Sea. One of the disgusting creatures broke free of the wriggling crowd and began to climb the side of the ship. I took a wild swing at it. To my surprise, my boathook connected with the beast’s purple head with a crack. It wailed in pain before violently returning to the company of its aquatic brethren. My victorious roar had barely escaped my lips when another one appeared on the railed not five feet from me. It was like no monkey I had ever seen. I got a good look at the mottled bluish skin, sunken yellow eyes, webbed fingers and devilish grin before it leapt at me. I tried to fend it off with my makeshift polearm, but it was too fast. It grabbed my face with its long, disgusting fingers and began forcefully applying my face to its forehead. According to the captain, this was the monkey’s main method of attack against large foes. They apparently had bone ridges in their foreheads that were capable doing quite a bit of damage. I did not doubt this fact as my nose and cheek repeatedly collided with the very noticeable ridge.
And then the pounding stopped. My face throbbed and I saw my own blood sliding across the swaying deck. I rolled onto my back to see Willie holding the monkey bye the head. He placed his pistol to its head and pulled the trigger. Purplish-grey brain matter showered the deck with a bang. Through hazy vision I saw him turn to me, pull me to my feet and ask me if I was alright. I responded in the affirmative as I shook my head, as if that could rid my psyche of the nightmarish images. Willie was average-sized man with a large grey beard and a peg leg. He the first mate and always wore a yellow rain jacket with a matching hat.
Without a further word, Willie turned and plugged another monkey, sending it somersaulting into the furry sea. I took a moment to collect myself, picked my boathook up off the bloody deck and ran to the edge to defend us from the brutal, aquatic monkeys.

***

I lay on my back, staring at the beautiful blue sky, festooned with fluffy clouds, letting the salty water left on the deck seep slowly through my shirt and into my skin. I watched the sea lazily drift in and out of my vision behind the edge of the deck as my chest heaved violently. The monkeys had receded nearly an hour ago, but I was still exhausted. We had struggled to keep them off Old Hope for nearly five hours. A few men had died, and many had been hurt. I was among the latter group. I had cuts on my head and my nose was broken. I was too tired to do anything about the throbbing pain that my entire face was experiencing. I watched a rubbery chunk of monkey brain slide by on the waterlogged deck. It was disgusting, but I didn’t care. I just watched the bit until my eyes could no longer follow it.
I heard someone sit up with a groan behind me, and then, after a few moments, stand up with much huffing and puffing. Then the captain informed us that we would be advised to get on our feet if we wanted to make it Port Abolla on time. With time constraints proving a poor motivator, the captain then informed us that he would shortly be using his whip as encouragement for activation. I heard more groans as people began to sit up. I followed suit, raising my torso with a loud exhalation. Blood rushed to my head, blotching out my vision with splotches of dark color. The monkey’s grinning face popped into my mind’s eye as I waited for my vision to clear. I stood up, trying again to shake the image out of my head. Of course it didn’t work.
I stumbled to the railing and looked out over the sea that had formerly been swarmed with monkeys. Most of them had survived to retreat to their homes in the deep ocean trenches, but several bloated and purple corpses bobbed cheerily in the glistening waves like hairy ocean fruit. I watched one drift past Old Hope below me. It was face-down with a significant chunk of the back of its skull missing, most likely by violent means. It was secreting an inky liquid that was sluggishly snaking its way out into the glittering azure water. I choked back vomit and turned away from the water. Of course, more water, along with more corpsified monkeys, could be seen on the other side of the boat, as we were surrounded by the stuff, but it felt less personal. I was still collecting myself when Captain Rockshadow was in face, politely requesting that I go belowdecks to get monkey carcasses and water back to where they belonged: the sea.
“Get your lazy fucking ass below decks and get that shit out of my hold!” was the exact wording of his request. He was a big, heavyset man with a round face and small mouth. He had salt and pepper stubble on his face most of the time. His common apparel was a worn black tricorn with dull golden tassles around the rim, large, faded blue coat that reached past his knees with similar golden trim, tan pants, and big black boots. He wasn’t as tough as he would like people to think and he paid well. Despite that, I bounced down to the hold to do his bidding.
As I pumped the bilge water out, occasionally extracting rubbery chunks of deceased monkey from the pump, I wondered what had made the monkeys so angry. I had never heard of so many of them spontaneously attacking a single ship. They had also attacked as soon as they got into their territory. It must have been something that happened before we got there. A depth charge or a battle or a scuba diver, perhaps. They clearly angered easily.