Seagull Summer: A Novella

by Shawn Hopkins

  * * * *

  The moon is out, and my flip-flops are in-hand as I walk the cool sand. There’s something mysterious about the beach at night, as if it holds some primeval secret indecipherable to man. I don’t know. It’s just…grand. Elusive. Alive. My thoughts break apart from there, my mind all over the place, visiting ideas that can’t be expressed by words. Like I said, the beach at night is magic.

  By the time I resurface from the ethereal hole I’ve plummeted through, I have no idea how long I’ve been walking, or where I am in relation to street signs, but I know it’s going to take me a while to get back. I hope Samantha isn’t waiting for me—which is a reversal of how I felt before. No missed calls. Maybe she started another movie or fell asleep watching the last one. That’s okay with me. I’m somber now, and I enjoy the solitude while in this state.

  A squawk sounds in my ear as something flies overhead. I duck, but I’m struck in the head anyway. Swearing, my heart pounding, I look up and see the shape of a bird painted dark against the moonlight. But there’s an odd extremity dangling from its form, maybe a fish or an eel. But I don’t know if seagulls go for eel. I’ve never heard of it. It was big like an eel, though, whatever it was.

  The bird lands just as it was about to disappear against the horizon. I can just make it out in the silver glow. Then a whole flock of birds silently converges on the same spot.

  A terrifying and ungodly sound that doesn’t seem at all “birdlike” to me erupts through the night, replacing the soothing notes of lapping waves with a shrill savagery that makes my hair stand on end. I get closer, and indeed, there’s a dozen or so seagulls pecking away at something. Not sure what I’m thinking, I run toward them, waving my flips-flops and hollering like a lunatic. Rather than eating me, however, they take off, unhappy but submissive. I expect to see a fish or a crab, maybe some kid’s funnel cake or pizza, but as I kneel down the shape, my stomach lurches.

  It’s an arm—fingers to shoulder, it’s a human arm. The fingers look to have been chewed off, whatever phalanges remain have been stripped bare of flesh. It looks like a child’s arm. Maybe Doug’s age.

  I’m struck with the sudden urge to be back with my family, to make sure they’re okay. It’s an irrational feeling, but real nonetheless. I know severed arms found on the beach don’t necessarily mean that my wife and child are in some kind of danger, but still…

  I take out my phone and call Sam. She doesn’t answer, so I hang up and call 911 instead.

  6

  The police officer stands with one hand on his hip, lighting up the severed arm with a flashlight. It’s too dark to make out his features, but I think he’s younger than I am. His yellow shirt that says POLICE across the back seems tight on him. His bike is leaning against the boardwalk. More police are on the way, but for now the scene is his—as am I.

  “Shark attack?” I ask, thinking of that beginning scene in Jaws where Chief Brody is introduced to the mangled remains of the skinny dipper.

  “Don’t think so. Doesn’t look like it was in the water.”

  I grunt. CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI Nebraska (or whatever the latest spinoff is) aren’t my shows. “Where’s the rest of him?” I don’t know for certain that the arm belongs to a boy, and I hope I don’t give the cop reason to think I’m involved somehow.

  He waves the light down the beach. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Then he examines the shoulder area, again trying to guess what could have detached it. “You said a seagull was carrying it?”

  “Yeah. Smacked me in the head.” I realize too late how ridiculous it sounds, and I wonder if the cop is setting me up as the number one suspect.

  “Lot of weight for a gull to be flying around with.”

  I don’t say anything. He’s right.

  “Seagull’s have been goin’ a little crazy today.”

  I nod. “I know.” I tell him about Samantha and the conversation I overheard at the martini bar.

  “Dog was actually killed.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant a dog or if there was a person named “Dog.” “What?”

  “They went into a frenzy, poking and clawing. Bled to death before people could chase the birds away.”

  “The dog?”

  “Yup.”

  I’m slightly relieved that a guy named Dog wasn’t killed by seagulls. “They ever do that before?”

  “Not that I ever heard.”

  We stand in silence.

  “Mind if I go check up on my family,” I ask, still not able to shake the feeling—whatever it is.

  “I think we need to take a statement first.”

  “Here?”

  “At the station.”

  “How long’s that gonna take?”

  He shrugs. He doesn’t care.

  “Great.” I try dialing Samantha’s phone again. No answer.