The Big Fella

The Big Fella is the character of the short horror story, Somebody Fell from Aloft.

Somebody Fell From Aloft
I had signed on as an ordinary seaman on the Falls of Ettick; a merchant ship bound for England. First time I saw that ship, I knew her right away: She was the old Gertrude Spurshoe. I sailed on her years before when she was painted brown and gold. Now she was painted black and had a new name, but it was the same ship for sure. We had a pretty good crew for that voyage, expect for one hard lookin' ticket named McLaren. He was a pretty good seaman, but there was something about him that I didn't trust. He was kinda secretive; kept mostly to himself. One day, somebody told him that I worked on the old Gertrude. For some reason, he got all a-tremble over that. then I caught him giving me all these ugly black looks as if he was itchin' to knife me in the back. I guessed it had something to do with the Gertrude, but I didn't know what. Well, this one day, we was tryin' to work our way through a dripping black fog. Ya scarcely know we had all the lights on. And it was dead calm, there wasn't a breath of fresh air. The ship just lay there wallowing in a trough, a-rollin' and a-rollin' goin' nowheres. I was standing my watch around the midships, and McLaren was doin' his trick at the wheel. The rest of the crew was scattered around one place or another, it was as quiet as can be. Then, all at once... WHACK-O! This... THING... hits the deck right in front of McLaren! He lets go a screech that turned my blood cold, and he falls down in a faint! The second mate starts yellin' that somebody has fallen from aloft. Layin' out there, just forward to the wheel, was someone or something dressed in oilskins with blood oozin' out from beneath. The captain ran to fetch a big light from his cabin so we could see who it was. They kinda straightened him out to get a good look at him. He was a big, ugly lookin' devil. Nobody knew who he was, or what he was doin' up there. At least nobody was sayin'. When McLaren came to from his faint, they tried to get something out of him. All he did was jabber away and keep rollin' those big wild lookin' eyes of his. Everybody was gettin' more and more excited. We all wanted to heave the body overboard as quickly as we could; there was... something weird about it, as if it wasn't real. But the captain wasn't so sure about getting rid of it that way. "Could it be a stowaway?" he asked. But the ship was so filled of lumber we were carrying there was no space where a living thing could hide for 3 weeks, which is how long we've been out. Even if it was a stowaway, what was it doing aloft on such a dirty day? There was no reason, for ANYBODY, to be up there; there was nothing to see. Finally, the captain gave up and told us to heave him overboard. Then, NOBODY would touch him. The mate ordered us to pick him up, but nobody made a move. Then he tried coaxin' but THAT didn't do any good. Suddenly, that loony McLaren starts yellin' "I handled him once, and I can handle him again." He picks up the body, and staggers over to the railing with it. He was just about to throw it overboard when IT wraps it's 2 big long arms around him, and over they go together! Then, on the way down, one of them started laughing in a horrible way. The mates are yellin' to launch a boat, but nobody would get on a boat. Not on a night like that. We threw a couple of life preservers after them, but everybody knew that wouldn't help, so that was that. Or... was it? The first chance I had to go home after that, I went right over to see old Captain Spurshoe who was captain when the Gertrude was around. "Well," he says, "One trip, these two outland-ish men shipped aboard the Gertrude. One was McLaren, and the other was a really big fella. The big one was always pickin' on McLaren and thumpin' him around, and McLaren was always talkin' about how he would get back at him. Well, this wet, dirty night the two of them were up there alone and the big one comes flyin' down. Killed himself, deader then a herring. McLaren said the foot rope they were usin' parted and how he almost fell himself. But everybody who saw that rope knew she didn't give away on her own; she had been cut through with a knife! After that, whenever we came into port, McLaren thought we was gonna get the police after him and he'd get pretty scared. But we couldn't prove anything, so we didn't try. In the end, I guess the big fella took care of things in his own way. If he was a ghost that came back, that's what he was... if there be things like ghosts.