Shiver on the Sky

by David Haywood Young

Chapter Nineteen

  (Tuesday Evening—Owen)

  Owen was beginning to wish Martina would give up and go away. He’d parked so they had a good view of Andrea’s building across the street. Everything was going as planned—but the plan had turned out to be deeply flawed.

  Earlier in the afternoon he’d tried to call Viktor Bentley, but was told Bentley would be in meetings all day. If Owen didn’t want to leave a number, he should try again in the morning. So he’d tried to reach Danny, with the same result.

  Frustrated, unable to think of anything more constructive, he’d assembled what he thought he might need for the evening, driven downtown, and called Martina to ask if she could let Andrea leave the office early after all. At least that way he would have the illusion of activity.

  Andrea drove straight home. Nothing exciting happened on the way, but it still took an hour of Owen’s time. If he was going to get serious about doing this sort of thing for a living, maybe he should buy one of those tracking gadgets he’d read about. He could put it on her car, maybe in a wheel well, and see where she went without having to keep her in sight.

  But he didn’t like gadgets. They reminded him of his last job.

  The point was to watch what she did, anyway, in or out of the car. No electronic toy on the market would do that for him. Yet.

  He’d brought plenty of snacks. He had Cokes and a few beers (fringe benefits of self-employment) in a cooler. He sported jeans and a dark shirt, in case he had to follow her on foot at night. He’d even tossed a blanket on the back seat against the off chance he got cold…and there were other things under the seat, for emergencies. Such as the emergency he was developing now.

  Martina had shown up a couple of hours after he’d called, as promised, to let her know what was going on. He’d had to use the Laundromat’s payphone. Maybe a cell phone was another gadget he should buy—but he didn’t want one of those either. It might ring from time to time, and who needed that?

  She’d parked her car at the Laundromat and joined Owen in his, just about the time he’d finished his second beer. She kept wanting to talk about the sunset that was transpiring behind them while Owen watched the apartment.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy her company. But ever since he’d gone to the Laundromat to call her, he’d worried that Andrea might have left the apartment on foot while he hadn’t been watching. He didn’t want to get out of the car again. And one of the items under his seat was a plastic bottle he’d already filled a couple of times, and emptied out the window, before Martina arrived.

  He was about due to fill it again, but under the circumstances he tried to wait it out. Were the whites of his eyes turning yellow, as the fluid level rose? Maybe the beer hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

  He eventually made the painful (and by now it would be) decision to take a chance and walk to the Laundromat’s bathroom. He’d have to leave Martina watching the apartment.

  But then he saw the teenager who’d almost run into him on the stairs earlier. The kid parked a beat-up VW Bug in front of the apartment building. Red, rusted, with a blue fender and only one headlight.

  Owen made a note of the license plate and nudged Martina. “Know him?”

  She watched the kid park and get out of the car. “No. Why? Is that the kid you saw with the groceries?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at her. “You know, they’ve got two cars now. Andrea might recognize yours, but I’ll bet the kid wouldn’t. If they split up, you could follow him and I could stay on her.”

  She thought about it. “Good idea. But I should go get my car and bring it closer.” She peered around the area. “If I park it behind that trash bin, Andrea probably won’t notice anything if she comes out.”

  “Oh.” He tried to sound as if he hadn’t been planning to say the same thing. “Sure, that makes sense. If we get separated, I’ll call you at work around ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” He hesitated. “Uh, no, Shadow’s still at your place, so I’ll—”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she assured him. “He can stay there tonight, whether you make it or not. It’s a pretty big yard. He probably likes it a lot more than the hotel room.”

  Uh huh. He probably did. “Okay.”

  Owen was beginning to wonder if he was really qualified to take care of Shadow. Poor guy. Even their runs, when in the past he’d borrowed Shadow from Leon to help jump-start conversations with girls, must have been sheer torment for his big black victim. Sure, Shadow had rushed around barking, seeming to laugh at Owen as he puffed along, but inside—ah, inside the dog had been worried about the effect on his nails (and when was his last pedicure?) and would probably rather have sat down with a nice steak. But it was okay; Owen was learning.

  Martina glanced at the back seat. “Can I take one of those Cokes with me?”

  “Absolutely.” Owen twisted around to get at the cooler. Jesus, that hurt. “Here, take three.”

  “Thanks.” She got out of the car. She gave him a little wave as she walked away. He nodded back and watched until she turned the corner, out of sight.

  He reached for his bottle, but Andrea and the teenager came out of the apartment dressed in shorts and T-shirts. The teenager carried what looked like an empty gym bag. Andrea had a couple of large towels over one arm.

  The sun was nearly gone, so they couldn’t be planning to work on their tans. This was good. The great detective had a chance to follow them and watch them do laps in a pool somewhere. There were worse ways to spend time. Probably.

  They got in the VW and drove off, moving away from the Laundromat and Martina. Oh hell, he couldn’t just let them go. He eased out and followed them, staying several car lengths behind.

  He checked his rearview mirror before he followed them into their first turn. Martina was nowhere in sight. He grimaced and shifted painfully in his seat. Maybe she’d stopped off at the bathroom.

  How would she react when she discovered both he and the VW were gone? Would she stick around and wait to see if the teenager came out? Or go home and play with Shadow? Either way, he hoped she would forgive him eventually. Yeah, Detective Tremaine, maybe it was time to buy a cell phone. Though he didn’t think she had one either.

  The VW didn’t make many turns, so following it was easy. Owen took a chance when he realized they were probably heading for the ferry and moved up closer, leaving only one car between them. He didn’t want to risk having them lose him, either by taking a different boat or by getting off and driving away while he was still stuck in another lane on the ferry.

  He suddenly realized that if either the VW or the car behind it ended up the last in a lane, he would be forced to drive right past them, and sit in full view while the ferry chugged across. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  Up to four ferries ran at once, shuttling people and cars between Aransas Pass, on the mainland, and Port Aransas, on Mustang Island. Mustang Island was just north of Padre Island, both of them part of the chain of protective barrier islands shielding the Texas coast.

  Owen had always liked Port Aransas. It was a friendly little town almost wholly dependent on tourism. “Port A” was a place to avoid during Spring Break season every year, when thousands of high-school and college students descended on its beaches, but the rest of the year it sat quietly on its island. The “winter Texans,” or “snowbirds,” who had only begun to arrive in the last month or so, were essential to the local economy. But they kept mostly to themselves and stayed away from the actual water.

  Based on the locals he’d met, Owen suspected nobody ever decided to move to Port Aransas permanently without being in an altered state of consciousness. And most people would forget or rescind any such decision soon after making it—which made the few who stuck around very interesting indeed.

  There was no trouble with the ferry. He followed the VW into the leftmost lane and shut off his engine. About halfway to the island, he put the cap back on the bottle and relaxed for the first time in well over a
n hour. Outside, the teenager ignored warning signs and leaned over the side of the ferry, apparently watching porpoises and enjoying himself. Owen didn’t begrudge him the moment. He felt pretty good too.

  The ferry docked so gently Owen didn’t feel it connect. Their lane was the first to leave the boat. Owen gave the VW more of a lead than he had on the mainland. There weren’t many roads on the island, and speed limits were low.

  They drove down Cotter, past funky houses and the University of Texas’s Marine Science Institute, to the beach. The teenager parked against the South Jetty, one of a pair built in 1888 to stabilize the pass between Mustang Island and St. Joe’s, to the north.

  The jetty stretched out into the Gulf of Mexico almost farther than Owen could see in the darkness, with fishermen’s lights twinkling all along its length. Many of them would stay out on the granite-and-concrete jetty all night long, pulling in redfish, crabs, trout, flounder and anything else that wandered by. Sometimes they’d get a shark, which could be pretty interesting.

  Owen grabbed his flashlight and, resolute but slightly ill at ease, his Colt .45 in its leather Alessi holster. He’d qualified for a Texas concealed-carry permit months earlier, which almost any non-felon would have little trouble doing, but hadn’t carried a gun before tonight. He doubted he’d need it now either—but whatever was going on, at least two people had died already.

  Ignoring a suspicion that he was behaving like an especially juvenile idiot, he hooked the flashlight on his belt and clipped the holstered gun under his pants. It made his jeans uncomfortably tight. Maybe if this got to be a habit he’d have to buy a larger size. Or go running more often. Which he should do anyway, for Shadow’s sake. Unless, of course, Shadow recruited someone else to do it. Owen’s connection to the dog seemed to be hanging by a thread all of a sudden.

  Only a few people were out on the beach, so Owen hung back as far as he could, keeping Andrea and the teenager just barely in sight. The hum of RV generators and the chirping noises of shouting children faded behind him.

  They probably weren’t going to meet Shawna on the beach. But he had nothing else to do, and he didn’t think he’d be able to sit still.

  Besides, maybe Shawna would be waiting up ahead. Or something else interesting might happen. Anyway, it would be stupid to quit after coming this far.

  Seaweed washed ashore regularly, and the last few days must have dumped more than usual. It would get cleaned up, with bulldozers if necessary, but that didn’t help the footing tonight. Sharp-edged shells, driftwood, little clots of oil, jellyfish, and an occasional piece of glass from a broken bottle were mixed in with the seaweed. Owen picked his way carefully through the mess.

  After fifteen minutes or so, they approached the Horace Caldwell pier. It was run by Nueces County, and stretched nearly a quarter-mile into the Gulf.

  Usually a number of people would be out fishing, even on a cloudy night like this was turning out to be. It only cost a dollar to go out there. A shop sold food, drink, bait, tackle and assorted tourist junk.

  But the county had shut down the pier for repairs. The lights that normally provided a dim illumination had been shut off. Fortunately for Owen, the Corpus Christi city lights reflected from the low-hanging clouds and held off true darkness.

  Andrea and the teenager continued toward the pier, sometimes walking, sometimes trotting, occasionally running through the surf or kicking saltwater at each other. Owen trudged along behind, glad he’d worn his running shoes.

  They stopped under the section of the pier that was over dry sand. They slipped off their outer clothing and put it in the gym bag. Clad now in only swimsuits and water shoes, they moved slowly out into the surf. Their course paralleled the pier, and they took the bag with them. Their earlier high spirits had degenerated into some sort of argument, but Owen couldn’t tell what it was about.

  What were they doing? A late-night swim might be fun at some other time, but with the seaweed washing up, not to mention all the jellyfish and Portuguese men-o’-war he’d spotted, the water struck Owen as foul. The surf was unusually high tonight, too, though it wouldn’t be too dangerous if they were careful.

  Maybe there was something hidden under the pier? Or were they leaving something? Either way, he wanted to see what it was. He took a chance and ran through the sand to the entrance of the pier while they were looking the other way.

  Gaping holes and chunks of concrete created an obstacle course in the near-darkness. But the chain-link fence with a sign reading “Closed for Repairs” wouldn’t stop anybody who wanted out there.

  Owen climbed the fence and worked his way down the pier. He crept to the edge when he estimated he’d caught up to Andrea and the teenager. But they had moved faster than he’d expected, or he’d misjudged the distance. They were farther out still, stumbling in the surf.

  Owen worked his way along the pier, staying as close behind them as he dared. At one point the teenager was nearly knocked against the sharp-edged barnacles on one of the pier’s concrete pilings. But he twisted away from danger with an agility Owen had forgotten was possible. Owen shook his head, momentarily envious. It wasn’t so long since he’d been a teenager himself. Maybe he should sign up for a gymnastics or martial arts class? Or just find the Fountain of Youth. It was supposed to be in Florida somewhere, wasn’t it?

  He lost sight of them briefly as they went beneath a large sling that seemed to be there to catch concrete chunks falling from the pier. He considered jumping down to it, but they came out on the far side and he didn’t get the sense they’d completed their mission. Whatever it was.

  They turned abruptly, heading toward the pier almost directly beneath where Owen crouched. He held his breath, hoping they wouldn’t spot him against the glowing clouds. But they were still arguing, and never looked up.

  When they disappeared beneath him, Owen lay down and peered under the pier as best he could. He couldn’t see them. Should he try to lower himself further, or wait where he was?

  But they came back out, directly beneath him. He grunted in surprise, then laughed softly. They no longer carried the gym bag, but they also no longer wore their swimsuits.

  Had he misunderstood their relationship? He’d thought they looked like brother and sister, but maybe he’d had it wrong. Or could this be some sort of religious experience? Shawna had described Wiccan rituals that were sometimes performed naked, though she’d insisted on the term “skyclad.” Maybe this was “seaclad”?

  And…what was he doing here, anyway?

  They were still arguing. He might as well go back to the car and wait, leave them to whatever they were doing down there.

  Andrea suddenly lunged toward a piling and cut her arm. Owen hadn’t seen a wave, but maybe she’d been caught by the undertow or stepped into a hole at the wrong moment. She made no sound, but he could see the blood, dark against her skin.

  She thrashed wildly, more than the cut on her arm could justify. What else was wrong? The teenager backed up and watched her, apparently calm and actually grinning a little. Was she in some sort of religious or drug-induced frenzy, or was she seriously hurt?

  Andrea’s thrashing took her underneath the pier again. Owen leaned out farther, but couldn’t see her. He pulled himself back up and kicked off his shoes.

  She threw herself out from beneath the pier, covered in a dark fluid that looked like blood. But how could there be so much of it? She windmilled her arms, but…they moved strangely. Had she dislocated her shoulders? How? The kid still watched, bobbing silently in the surf. Owen was mesmerized, unsure how to respond.

  She screamed, briefly, and fell face-down into the water. Owen came back to himself and jumped from the pier. The water twenty feet below broke some of his fall, but he still hit hard. Saltwater rushed up his nose as he went under, burning its way to the top of his head.

  He came up sputtering and spun around wildly in the gloom, one eye partly blocked with seaweed. The kid stared at him, not ten feet away, but Owen couldn�
�t see Andrea anywhere.

  Suddenly the water swirled strangely behind the kid. Owen grabbed the flashlight from his belt and shone it past him. Andrea’s head surfaced, screaming.

  A huge dark tail rose out of the water behind her. She noticed Owen for the first time and quit screaming, a bewildered expression on her face. She looked as if she might be about to say something. Then her body jerked downward, and she was gone. Owen plunged toward where she’d been.

  A few moments later, a dorsal fin cut the black water in the trough between two waves, moving away from the pier. Owen grabbed his gun, not sure he dared to shoot without knowing where Andrea was, but ready to use it if he had to.

  The kid seemed upset for the first time. He raised his arms and threw himself back. “Don’t shoot!”

  His leap had taken him between Owen and the fin. “Get out of the way!” Owen yelled, but the kid was jumping up and down, waving his arms and spoiling Owen’s shot. The fin disappeared under a breaking wave, and Owen didn’t see it come back up.

  He looked desperately for Andrea, but saw no sign of her. “Where is she?” he yelled.

  “She’s gone!” the teenager yelled back. “Leave us alone!”

  Owen plunged past him, searching for any sign of Andrea. The kid scrambled back toward the pier and the gym bag, which Owen could now see hung on one of the pilings under the pier.

  “Kid!” Owen yelled. He fired a shot into the dark, away from the beach.

  The teenager turned back, raising his hands again.

  “Put your damned hands down,” Owen said as he came closer. “You’re obviously not carrying any weapons.” He wondered if the kid was in any shape to help him search, but he hadn’t been acting like it. “I was just trying to get your attention. Look, we need to find her. I’ll go out away from the pier. You just stand there. Don’t do anything. And sing out if you see her!”

  “Go to hell! She’s gone! What are you, nuts? Shoot me if you want, but you can’t hurt her now! And I’m not gonna help you!”

  Owen stopped moving and stared at him. What the hell was the kid talking about? He’d been calm through it all, until Owen pulled the gun out. Now he’d come all over angry. He wasn’t grieving, or looking for Andrea, or doing anything but glaring at Owen. In shock, maybe? Better get him out of the water and talk to him—but Andrea had to come first.

  Owen turned slowly, shining the flashlight in all directions, but could find no sign of her in the surf. Or of her body, which seemed more likely. Whatever the shark had done to her, with all that blood it was probably fatal. Especially if she hadn’t popped back up yet. He turned off the flashlight, hoping his eyes would adjust and let him spot any disturbances in the water beyond the area its beam could reach.

  Owen glanced back to check on the kid. He was breathing hard, but what Owen could see of his face was no longer twisted with rage.

  “Kid?” he asked. “What’s your name?”

  “Aaron. Why? Are you surprised I have a name?”

  Jesus Christ, kid had come unhinged—assuming he’d ever been sane. Owen flipped the flashlight back on and turned it to Aaron’s face. The kid’s chin came up, and he looked as if he might be thinking of jumping Owen if he got the chance.

  “Hell, Aaron,” he said, trying to sound calm and friendly. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  Aaron looked surprised. He squinted into the light, trying to see Owen more clearly. Owen shone the beam on his own face, realizing as he did so that it probably wasn’t going to help. “Look. I’m putting the gun away.” That might make a difference. If the kid’s mind connected to reality at all.

  Aaron’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He came closer and stared at Owen speculatively. “Holy shit. You’re that Owen dude. You didn’t know what was gonna happen, did you?”

  Owen blinked. He opened his mouth, but found he had no answer. Surf crashed over his head, and he choked for a moment.

  The kid actually smiled. Owen hated him briefly.

  “Okay,” Aaron said. “It was a misunderstanding, I guess. My sister says you’re okay, and she knows about stuff like that.” He hesitated. “Uh…mind if I put on some clothes?”

  Owen stood dumbly for a moment longer, then shook his head and waved in the direction of the gym bag. “No, go ahead.” Damn, now the kid thought everything was fine? “Hey, Aaron?”

  Aaron looked back. “What? Please don’t tell me you think I’ve got a nice ass.”

  “No.” Owen decided this had passed surreal a while back, but he thought he might actually be finding his balance on the far side. “Too scrawny. But…we need to talk. Back on the beach.”

  The kid nodded, and slogged back toward the gym bag. Owen turned again, scanning the waves, trying to believe in his newfound calm but fully aware the waves might wash it away at any moment.

  He didn’t have much hope left of finding Andrea in the dark and the surf. She was gone. He remembered the hug she’d given him yesterday, and his chest ached.

  Also…now that he had time to notice. . . under the chilly water, amorphous terror tickled at the soles of his feet. The attack on Andrea—along with the memory of the hammerhead that had tried for his hand the weekend before, and Leon’s bloody death (though why would he remember that now?)—had his teeth chattering. He’d always thought that was a myth.

  He wanted to levitate right out of the water, and it seemed nearly possible. But should he get out and search from the pier above, go for help, or tend to Aaron? He didn’t think he could trust the kid to help with either of the other choices.

  He scanned the waves one last time. He would get Aaron out of the water and see what the kid was capable of doing to help.

  Aaron called to him. “Hey, mister? Owen?”

  Owen turned around. Aaron stood by the piling where Andrea had cut her arm. He hadn’t put on his swimsuit. “Dude, I’ve gotta go, there are people expecting me. But don’t worry, everything’s fine. And don’t shoot. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  Aaron’s mental state would probably turn out to be his first priority after all.

  Aaron waved, then leaned backward and threw his arm at the piling, lacerating himself badly. He plunged his arm into the water and grinned at Owen. “It’s okay, man!” Pain twisted his face and belied his words.

  Owen ran toward him through the waist-high water between waves. Aaron’s blood was dispersing in water where a shark had recently attacked.

  But the kid began to thrash and change in front of him. His skin split and reformed continuously, covering his body with a dripping, near-gelatinous sheen of blood. Through the gaps, Owen saw bones and internal organs rearrange themselves. Aaron threw his head back and screamed, his mouth stretching and elongating in mid-cry, sharp teeth cutting their way out to scythe through the night air, then half-dove and half-fell under a wave.

  Owen felt the rush of a powerful body moving past him, shouldering him to one side, and Aaron was gone.

  ***