Ingvar, a young sailor, and his ambitious friends decide to go out onto the water in a small skiff at night, to see if they can catch a glimpse of a kelpie.

Ingvar and Duncan grab the oars while Aladair stands by the breasthook, watching for rocks, while Aengus kneels by the quarter knee, to watch for the kelpie. Ingvar and Duncan row out, the waves pulling them back to shore as a warning not to go out tonight. Dark things roam over the foam-crested waves on dark and windy nights like this. But Ingvar and his companions have worked a hard life for years and are stronger. They bend their backs to the rows, thrusting themselves away from the shore with every swipe.

The boat is pushed by the oars out into the open. They are heading to an island that is mostly rock, where the old man of the village had claimed to see the kelpies shaping into humans from the black horse form they so very often take.

The waves grow strangely wild, although the air is stifling and still. The young sailor immediately knows something is wrong. But when Ingvar tells the others, they look at him wild-eyed and say nothing, but continue to row. He feels something terrible coming on. His comrades' eyes seem dead in their faces and they continue as if under hypnotized control.

A terrible howl out in the ocean sounds, shaking his bones and making his heart pump quickly. Ingvar looks at the waves, that threatens to turn over the skiff. Beads of perspiration coat his forehead and a chilling fear shoot up his spine. From what--he does not quite know. Perhaps a presence unseen? Eyes in the shadows? A foul smell on the wind? He cannot tell. The others continue to go on as if they did not hear or see anything unusual. Or as if they heard and saw nothing at all...

Ingvar feels a lump rise in his throat, that howl...he had heard stories--stories of the Draugen--the spirit of a captain who had died at sea. The Draugen was at the yard of his ship; his ship that had been dashed against rocks. He came and sounded his howl, condemning the nearest sailors to death. His crew was that of dead men--men without faces and long thin hands that reached out to sailors and pulled them aboard.

Ingvar shivers, there was no way out of this now. "Duncan! Aladair! Aengus! Come on! Wake up!" he shrieks, grabbing Duncan's shoulder and shaking him roughly. Duncan ignores him and rows all the harder. Out to the wild black sea. A giant wave rises up, at the crest of it half of a ship rose, a man in black, dripping with seaweed and saltwater, drove it straight towards them.

He howled again, his face was gray and eyeless, but staring straight at them. Ingvar is petrified. He can hardly move. The wave crashed down on top of them and water fills their lungs. His last thoughts were, what sort of monsters could be in deep dark water like this?

Don't look behind you...

(I know that this one is less scary than the first one, but I couldn't figure out what else to do with the Draugen, though it's fairly scary if you live next to the coastline, or are on a cruise ship in a storm...or whatever).