We left the shed and I climbed the stairs to the porch and peered in the cabin windows while Chet started unloading the van. The interior of the cabin looked fine, if dusty. I fished out my keyring and found the key for the cabin and unlocked the door. I pushed it open with a squeal of protest from the hinges and inhaled the faintly musty air. Nothing a quick clean and a bit of air freshener wouldn’t fix. I propped the door open with a wedge of wood just as Chet came up the stairs with the first load of luggage.
By the time my luggage and the supplies from the store were inside, there was barely any room for us to move around. The cabin wasn’t very big. A living room with a fireplace, a small kitchen with a island and two bar stools, and a bathroom and two small bedrooms down the hall.
I dug in my purse for my wallet but Chet waved it away.
“Dad said he’d start a tab for you. You can pay it off when you leave.”
“Thanks, Chet. I’d offer you a beer, but it’s warm.” Chet’s shirt was drenched with sweat. Mine was too, for that matter.
“Don’t worry about it. I gotta get back to the store anyway. Give me a call if you want to go out sometime. We can go to Ollie’s. You can ask Courtney all about her encounter with the Fish-Man. Just tell her you’re writing a paper or something. She’d love to be able to tell people she was interviewed by a scientist.”
“Maybe I will,” I said, chuckling. “Give me a day or two to settle in and I’ll let you know.”
I followed Chet back outside and waved to him as he backed out of the lane. When he was out of sight, I took a deep breath, inhaling the salty sea air and the fresh, wet muck scent of the lagoon. It felt great to be home.
Chapter Two
I spent the rest of the day and the next unpacking and cleaning the cabin.
I’d forgotten how brutally muggy life was without air conditioning. Even with the rusty old fans rattling away on full blast I felt like I was working in a sauna. I’d planned on spending the following day in the lagoon, but it was raining so hard when I woke up on the third day of my vacation the water in the lagoon looked like it was boiling.
Resigning myself, I sat at the kitchen island, staring at the rain through the window, sipping my coffee. The bag of books leaning against the leg of the stool — books about changing coastal habitats, the impact of man on the environment, and breakthroughs in genetic engineering — sat untouched. They’d been piling up in my to-read list for months, but now that I finally had a chance to dig in, the thought of wading through dense pages of technical jargon, deciphering line graphs, and tracking down footnotes had lost its allure.
I decided to give Chet a call.
Chet picked up. “Dan’s.”
“Hey. I was wondering if you wanted to get together sometime?”
“Kate? Yeah, sounds great. How’s lunch sound?”
I checked the time on the stove clock. “Aren’t you at work?”
“Dad’s here, and it’s dead. He won’t mind if I take off for a couple of hours. I’ll come and pick you up.”
Half an hour later I was climbing into the Dan’s General Store van. Chet was on his phone talking to his wife. The back of the van was filled with potatoes and smelled like fresh dirt.
Chet hung up and we drove back into town in silence, listening to the squeak of wipers dragging rain across the windshield. Chet parked the van in front of Ollie’s Oyster Shack.
“Let’s see if Courtney’s working,” said Chet, jumping out of the van right into a puddle.
“I’m not going to ask her about the Fish-Man,” I said, slamming the door behind me. I pulled the hood of my windbreaker over my head. “I thought you were kidding.”
Chet laughed and ran for the front door of the restaurant.
I rushed after him, splashing through a puddle in front of the door as he held it open for me.
I was drenched. I wiped away the loose strands of hair clinging to my face and looked around. The diner was mostly empty. Just a couple of white-haired local gentlemen drinking coffee and a trucker hunched over a bowl of soup. It hadn’t changed at all since the last time I’d been there.
“Hey, Chet!”
A middle-aged woman in a blue cotton dress and white apron, with a thick bun of gray-streaked auburn hair, came around the corner of the counter. She was smiling and eying me inquisitively.
“Who’s your friend?”
“Uh, Kate. Kate, Gabby,” said Chet, introducing us.
“We’ve met,” I said.
The woman gave me a look.
“I used to come here every summer with my dad,” I said. “It’s been a few years.”
The older woman’s eyes brightened. “That’s right! I thought you looked familiar!” she said, picking up two menus from the counter. “Your dad’s really tall, isn’t he? With glasses. Always has pens in his shirt pocket.”
“That’s him. He died a few years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Gabby said, setting the menus down on the table closest to the counter. “I wondered where he’d got to. He was a good-looking man.”
“Is Courtney here?” said Chet, interrupting her as he slid into one of the padded vinyl benches.
“Why? You’re not going to harass her again, are you?” said Gabby, narrowing her eyes at him. “Leave the poor girl alone.”
Chet rolled his eyes, heaving a sigh. “Kate wants to hear about the Fish-Man.”
Gabby turned and gave me a puzzled look. I kicked Chet under the table.
“Professional interest,” Chet explained. “She’s a marine biologist.”
“Really?” said Gabby, sounding genuinely impressed. “Well, she’s supposed to be here,” she said. “But she hasn’t shown up, yet. She’s supposed to cover the lunch rush. I’m guessing she had some car trouble.”
Chet laughed.
Gabby gave him a curious look. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he said, giving me an amused look.
“My car broke down on the way into town,” I said. “Chet doesn’t have a very high opinion of women and cars.”
“I’m not surprised. Most of us don’t know the first thing about them,” said Gabby, unhelpfully. “My husband takes care of all that. He’ll build you an airplane if you give him the parts. Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure, that’d be great, Gabs,” Chet said, grinning.
The older woman walked around the counter and grabbed two cups.
Just then a young woman with shoulder-length lilac hair, wearing a blue waitress uniform, stomped through the door, shaking the rain off her coat. She had a circular barbell hanging from her nose.
“Is that Courtney?” I said, nudging Chet’s elbow. She looked like the type who might partake of recreational drugs. Kids did everything these days.
Chet turned and looked over his shoulder, nodding.
“Glad you could join us, Court,” he shouted across the restaurant.
Courtney gave Chet a middle finger and disappeared through a door marked “Employees Only”. The other patrons laughed at the exchange. It felt weird to be in a place where everyone knew each other.
Gabby set our cups down on the table in front of us. “I’ll let Courtney take your order,” she said. “It’ll give you a chance to talk. But don’t take up too much of her time,” she said, wagging her finger at Chet. “I’ve got a business to run.”
As if on cue, a couple walked through the front doors.
“Five minutes,” said Chet. “You won’t even know she’s gone.”
Gabby gave Chet a wry smile and left. I watched Chet as he loaded his coffee with cream and sugar. By the time he was done, I was sure it had the consistency of syrup.
A minute later, Courtney was standing at the end of the table, pad in hand, hair still dripping. Part of a tattoo peeked out from under the sleeve of her uniform and a bat ring adorned one of her fingers. She was looking at Chet with a sour expression.
“What do you want?” she said, tapping the pen against the pad
impatiently.
“What do you recommend?” Chet said in a drawl, antagonizing her with an impish grin.
“Piss off. You’re getting your usual.” Courtney spun on her heel to face me. “What about you?”
“I’ll take the veggie wrap. And the soup of the day.”
“Kate’s a scientist,” said Chet.
“Good for her,” said Courtney, writing down my order.
“She wants to hear all about your encounter with the magical Fish-Man.”
“Fuck off,” Courtney said loud enough for everyone to hear. She stomped away, shoes squishing on the tile floor.
I stared at Chet, taken aback both by his tone and her reaction.
“Well, that was nicely done. I’ll be amazed if she doesn’t spit in your food.”
Chet’s brows furrowed in consternation. Apparently the possibility hadn’t occurred to him.
“I probably should have thought that through,” he admitted.
“You think? Why are you giving her such a hard time?”
Chet shrugged. “I don’t know. It just pisses me off. She just wants attention.”
“Isn’t that what you’re giving her?”
Chet leaned back in his seat, mulling it over.
Ten minutes later, Courtney slammed Chet’s plate down on the table, spilling a handful of fries onto the paper place mat. She set my bowl and plate down with marginally less force, spilling a couple of drops of soup.
Chet grabbed her arm.
“Hey Court, I promise not to tease you anymore about the Fish-Man if you tell my friend Kate about it. She really is interested.” He gave me a wink.
Courtney gave him a death glare and jerked her arm free and stomped back toward the kitchen.
Well, that’s that, I thought with relief. The last thing I wanted to do was stir up trouble in the only diner in town. I planned on eating at Ollie’s a fair bit. I took a sip of my soup; piping hot clam chowder. Courtney came back a few minutes later with the coffee pot.
“Are you really a scientist?” she asked, sniffing. She refilled my cup, pointedly ignoring Chet.
I nodded. “I’m a marine biologist.”
Courtney glanced around the diner and then slid onto the bench beside me, pushing me over. “Then you know about this kind of stuff, right?” Her eyes had a feverish gleam to them, like she hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep. I could see the dark bags under her eyes right through the concealer.
“What kind of stuff?” I said warily.
“About the Fish-Man. You must know what it is.”
“They have a whole tank of them back at the university,” Chet quipped. “They grow them like Sea-Monkeys.”
Courtney grabbed a creamer from the table and threw it at him. It bounced off his forehead and landed on his plate in a puddle of ketchup.
“Shut up. We’re trying to talk.”
Chet grunted and dug the creamer out of his ketchup.
Courtney grabbed me by the shoulder, digging her lavender nails into my skin.
“So what is it?” she said. “How come no one believes us?”
“Us?” Chet interrupted.
“Yes, us, Chet. The people who’ve seen it,” she hissed.
“I don’t know,” I said, hedging. If she was lying she was doing a damn good job. She seemed genuinely distressed. For a second I wanted to believe her, then I remembered how insane it all was. The girl was clearly suffering from some sort of mental disorder. “I’m not sure what it is,” I said carefully. “That’s why I’m here.” It was probably easier to go along with Chet’s story than to try to explain why I thought she was crazy. I looked at Chet for help but he was smirking, amused by the exchange.
Courtney looked crushed, as if she’d believed that I really could help her.
“You don’t know what it is, either?”
“I’m going to do what I can to figure it out,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
Courtney looked over her shoulder. The trucker two tables behind us was reading a book now, and the pair of old men — hunters by the look of them — were sitting at the far end of the diner talking loudly. Gabby was talking and laughing with the new couple as she took their order.
“I was walking home after my shift,” said Courtney. “It was about twelve-thirty in the morning. I usually walk to work because it’s only a twenty minute walk and I’m trying to reduce my ecological footprint.”
Chet grunted and took a bite out of his burger. Courtney shot him a look and then continued.
“Anyways, I was just on the other side of the bridge when I saw this shadow in the bushes. At first I thought I was just imagining it, because I was pretty tired, but it kept following me. I stopped to take a look at it, and it stopped, too. I was afraid that maybe it was a black bear — it was hard to see through the trees — but then it started coming closer so I ran.
“I got about twenty feet and then all of a sudden it was right in front of me.” Courtney’s lip was trembling, and her eyes were wide and black as pitch. “It was horrible,” she said, voice shaking. “It looked like that creature from that old movie, you know, the one from the black lagoon, only it was even scarier. It was like seven feet all, all scaly, and it had gills on the side of its neck that were moving up and down. I remember that part clearly because it was so weird. But the worst part about it was its eyes. They were just like a fish’s eyes, big and black, with a little bit of white around them, and they didn’t blink at all.”
I felt a chill run down my spine. If she wasn’t telling the truth, she was either a damn good actress or certifiably insane.
“That sounds horrible,” I said. And I meant it.
“It was.”
“So what happened? Is that when the truck came?” I asked.
“Not quite. We actually just stood there staring at each other for a long time. It was probably only like ten seconds, but it felt a lot longer. I kept thinking: ‘You should run, Courtney. You should try to get away.’ But I was too scared. And that’s when the truck came. I think the bright lights scared it.”
“What about the driver?”
“What driver?”
“The guy driving the truck?”
“Oh, I don’t think he saw anything,” she said. “He didn’t stop or anything, and by the time the truck was over the bridge the Fish-Man was gone.”
Chet put the remains of his burger down in disgust. “Okay, I’ve heard enough of this. I’m going to the john.”
Courtney watched him leave. I could tell she was hiding something. Something she hadn’t told Chet. Something she maybe hadn’t told anyone.
“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?” I said, pursuing my hunch.
Courtney bit her lower lip and looked away. “You’re going to think it’s weird.”
“You just told me a story about a Fish-Man,” I said. “How much weirder can it get?”
Courtney looked at me nervously and then leaned in close. “I think it was going to ... you know.” She made a jabbing motion with her finger.
“Going to what?” I looked at her finger in confusion.
“I think it was going to...” She stopped again, perplexed. “You have to promise not to tell Chet.”
“I promise. Go ahead. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I think it wanted to have sex with me,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
I stared at her, aghast. “What makes you think that?”
“It had its winkie out.”
Chapter Three
By the time we left Ollie’s Oyster Shack, the downpour had slowed to a steady drizzle. We climbed into the van and slammed the doors against the wet and chill.
“What did I tell you?” said Chet, jamming the key in the ignition. “Is she batshit crazy or what?”
I hesitated, trying to decide how I felt about Courtney’s story. Chet was staring at me in disbelief.
“Don’t tell me you believe her?” said Chet, slamming
his foot on the gas as if he were angry at it. The truck lurched to a start, the bags in the back thumping as they shifted and settled.
“I never said I believed her,” I said, taken aback by the intensity of his reaction.
“You don’t have to. I can tell by your expression. You were hanging on every word. Jesus Christ, Kate, I thought a scientist — someone like you — would have found that story completely ridiculous. I expected you to be making fun of her or something.”
“I don’t believe there’s a Fish-Man, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I said, somewhat defensively. “But I do believe something happened to her. She seemed really upset.”
Chet sniffed. “She’s always upset about something. Half of everything she says she says to get attention.”
I kept my mouth shut. Courtney hadn’t seemed like she was only trying to get attention, though that might have been part of it, but Chet did know her a lot better than I did. And I’d certainly made enough of a fool of myself believing Henry’s lies all those months he’d been cheating on me. Maybe I was a bad judge of character? Maybe I was too gullible?
Now that Chet had gotten his disgust off his chest, he was back to his old cheerful self and the rest of the drive went smoothly. We talked about the times we went fishing when we were kids, the trips up the river in the canoe, and the BBQ cookouts the Bartletts used to put on every summer. Before I knew it, we were pulling into the laneway leading to the lagoon.
Chet stopped the truck and gave me a contented, wistful look. “I miss having these talks, Kate. I’m glad you decided to come up for a while.”
I looked at his pleasant, good-natured face and for a moment I regretted what might have been.
“Me, too,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for taking me out. We’ll do it again soon, I promise.” I grabbed the door handle and popped open the door.
“Just give me a call. I might have to bring the missus next time, just so she doesn’t think we’re up to something,” Chet said with a chuckle.
“I’ll call you,” I said, getting out of the van with a splash.
I slammed the door behind me and looked down. The lane to the cabin had turned into a squishy mud flat. I pulled my feet out of the muck with a wet, sucking sound and made my way to the cabin. Halfway to the porch, I came across an unusual footprint. It was almost a foot across, and the toes were pointed. There were four toes, and they were oddly joined, like they were webbed or something. It looked like a dinosaur print.
Tamed by the Creature from the Lagoon Page 2
