by Ty Burson
“Do you think it will be warm enough, yet?” Justin asked. He was not, by nature, a fan of cold water. He wasn’t a fan of any water, really.
Joy dipped a hand into the shallows. “It’s not that bad. Come on Steve, let’s show him it’s not too cold.”
Justin nodded at the temporary reprieve. Both Steve and Joy smiled because they knew once Justin got dunked a couple of times, he’d loosen up and have fun. Normal kid fun, of course, not Justin fun—which consisted of internet searches for strange bugs and exploring the woods to find them. The kid had dozens of glass mason jars with tiny bug habitats decorating his bedroom. And, somehow, he kept most of the weird little critters alive.
Steve often wondered about Justin, especially at times like this. His brother Larry, for example, was one of the premier surfers on the North Coast. In fact, Justin’s entire house was like a tribute to aquatic activities. The garage was full of Larry’s old boards, a couple of wave runners, water skis, and his parents’ scuba gear. If Justin hadn’t looked exactly like the rest of his beach combing clan, Steve would have sworn he was adopted. But Justin had the long and lean build, topped off with the same curly blond hair as the rest. He simply wasn’t as tan because he spent less time outside.
He really did look like his brother, come to think of it. Probably more so, actually, because Justin’s mom bought the same clothes for Justin as she had for Larry; if you didn’t know any better, you would think Justin was the biggest surf punk around instead of a total computer geek, not to mention a socially inept bookworm with certain personality quirks. Steve always thought it was funny when a new girl showed up at school because she immediately went all goo-goo-eyed over Justin—until she actually talked to him, and then he’d begin to talk about his bug collection or say something completely inappropriate, and the crush would pretty much be over before it began.
“Hang on,” Steve called to Joy, “let me get my ankles numb first.”
“Yeah,” Justin whined, “why don’t we go exploring first.”
Steve knew he had to go in or he would never get Justin in the water at all. “Come on Justin, we can explore later when we want to dry off.” And with that, he tossed off his shirt and took a couple of baby steps into the water. Yow! He sucked in a big gulp of air as the shock of the cold water hit his feet, but he played it off so Justin wouldn’t notice and would follow Steve in, which he did.
“Cold, cold, cold; it’s freezing!” Justin yelled.
“Q-q-quit b-b-being a b-b-baby, Justin. It’s n-n-not that bad,” Steve replied through chattering teeth.
Justin scowled back, “Not that bad? Are you kidding? I bet it’s not even 60 or 70 degrees.”
Joy chimed in, “Thought you said it was freezing?”
“It never really freezes,” Justin began, “it’s too close to the ocean, but 60-70 degrees will still give you hypothermia. Since our body temperature is 98, even 70 is super cold.”
Steve grinned at Joy. Boy, she could be smart, he admitted. Luring Justin into the water by getting him to explain something so he would forget the cold—very clever. For all her bravado, though, she’d hit a sticking point, and had only taken a few more steps into the frigid river. Steve maneuvered nonchalantly around his friends, swirling his hands on the surface of the water like he was acclimating them to the chill. When he had his friends right where he wanted, he splashed them both.
Justin screamed like he was on fire, and Joy called Steve a turd. Now that she was already wet, though, she seemed less worried about cold; she took a couple of running steps and dove right in. She emerged seconds later, “See, it’s not too bad.”
The boys could only stare in awe at her fearlessness, and then she smiled at them. Justin and Steve began to back out; she would be ruthless now until she had thoroughly dunked both of them. Steve, who was a bit quicker, got away, while Justin got snatched up by a long arm around his middle and was quickly plunged into the river. He shot back up, spitting water, “Hey, you freak, you made me hit a rock. Not cool, Joy.”
“That’s what you get,” replied Joy.
“What are you talking about?” Justin complained, “I didn’t get you; Steve did.”
“Yeah, well umm, only because he thought of it first.” But her attention had been drawn to the real culprit. “Come on in, Steve, you’re next,” Joy taunted.
Steve contemplated his options: run, and Joy would catch him, back out, and Joy would catch him, tackle her, and, well, that was just stupid. Choosing the only option that might avoid the wrath of Joy, he ran right by her and dove in. “C-c-cold!” he sputtered as he broke the surface. “It’s s-s-supposed to be wa-wa-warmer than that. It’s J-J-July!” But Joy’s revenge was not to be denied, and she was already positioning herself to dump him back into the water. Under most circumstances, he might have been embarrassed to get dunked over and over again by a girl, but Joy wasn’t like most girls—she was the best athlete in the whole school, and every boy knew it.
Later, after a few games of tag and several races, they draped their towels on the few yards of dried river mud that weren’t littered with rocks, lay back, and let the sun bake their blue-tinged skin. “Hey Justin, doesn’t your brother and his friends surf near here?” Joy asked.
Justin groaned. He wasn’t a big fan of his brother, but he answered the question anyway. “Five miles upriver, where it empties into the ocean, longer by car. And he’s not allowed to surf there anymore. Not since Ricky got chewed up last year.”
“Oh, I remember that!” Joy exclaimed. “Didn’t he get attacked by a great white?”
“Yeah, but he got lucky and the shark got more board than Ricky. Too bad Larry, oh, sorry, he likes to be called T-man now, wasn’t with him.”
“You don’t mean that,” Joy prompted.
Justin did not answer right away. “I guess not. Okay, I wouldn’t want T-, Larry completely chewed up. But you know, maybe if he had a few hundred stitches like Ricky, then he wouldn’t be such a butt.”
Steve leaned up on his elbows and tried to see where a shark might be hiding, even though they were a long way from where the river dumped into the ocean. They were only a few feet from the water and his imagination conjured of a set of massive, surfer-eating jaws of razor-sharp teeth lurking beneath the surface. He scooted back a little. Ridiculous, he thought, to assure himself, the water was way too shallow here. Out in the middle, though, it was plenty deep.
From off in the distance, he heard the wave runner they saw earlier. The water cycles were usually everywhere on the river. What would happen if one of those ran right into a 20-foot great white? Could a great white swallow one?
“Why would anyone surf there anyways?” Joy asked.
This gave Justin the opportunity to lecture about something, and he took it gladly, even if it did involve talking about Larry. He sat up Indian-style and grabbed a stick to illustrate in the dirt. “Larry says the waves are perfect right here,” indicating the line on the ground. “That’s where the Smith River runs into the Pacific. Unfortunately, that’s where the salmon return on their way upriver to spawn. And guess what eats salmon?”
“Sharks?” Steve offered.
“Nope, not high enough on the food chain. The seals eat the salmon. And that means…” He let the thought hang in the air for suspense. “That’s where the great whites are.”
“And surfers are dessert,” Steve added.
“No,” Justin corrected, “not really. Sharks don’t really like people.”
“Maybe they like surfboards,” Joy teased.
Justin frowned at her. “I seriously doubt that.”
“You ever see one?” Steve asked either of his friends.
“I did. They have one in an aquarium down in Monterey. They had a live one when we went on vacation a couple of years ago,” Justin answered. “It was in its own tank. I suppose they didn’t want it to mix with the other fish.”
“No. I mean a wild one, out there,” Steve pointed to the coast.
“
Not in the river,” Justin answered.
“The ocean then.”
“Not there either, but my parents have. Work hazard.”
“Not sure that’s a job I’d want,” Steve said.
About that time, a skier being towed by the same wave runner they saw earlier made a nice cut right in front of them which sent a beautiful arc of water at the three kids. The water soaked them and, more importantly, their towels, which were now all muddy. They all got up yelling and screaming, but the villains were too far away to hear the insults. “J-J-Jerks!” Steve stammered.
Chapter 7
After Steve calmed down, he said, “I did hear from one of the guys at the marina that they caught one in the bay right by a bunch of water skiers.”
“Cool,” Justin answered.
“Yeah, cool. Especially, if the skiers were high schoolers,” Joy said.
“And they all got eaten,” Steve suggested with an affirmative nod.
“But not all at once; one at a time to increase the terror,” Justin added.
“Uh, Yeah,” Joy added with an uncertain shrug.
“Maybe we could convince them that the best wave running is right at the mouth of the river, next to the seals,” Justin offered.
“That would be cool,” Joy nodded.
“Yeah, it would be,” Steve agreed.
Now that they were drenched again, they decided to warm up by doing some exploring. They hung their towels from the tree to dry and so no one would take their spot, then wandered down the road. It was then that Steve remembered about all the weird stuff that had happened in the last couple of days. “O-O-Oh, my God, I almost f-f-forgot to tell you guys!”
Joy grabbed a tree branch too high for either of the boys, hooked a leg around it, and pulled herself up to a sitting position. “Forgot what?”
Steve began telling them first about the birds, and then about hiding in his dad’s truck.
Justin was busy ducking Joy’s legs as she kicked at him. “And you just now told us about all this?” he said.
“I meant to earlier, but I sort of f-f-forgot,” Steve explained.
“Stop kicking me!” Justin yelled.
“Sh-h-h, let him finish telling his story,” Joy instructed.
“I was, but you were kicking me.”
“Well, I’m not kicking you now. Go ahead Steve.”
“Right. Like I said, my dad was in some kind of trance and there was this nasty smelling fog and the ground was breathing—”
“What do you mean breathing?” Justin asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe not breathing, but it felt like it was breathing, or at least kind of moving,” Steve answered.
“What do you think it was?” Joy asked.
Steve shrugged.
“And you think your dad does this all the time?” Justin asked.
“Not all the time, but maybe once every couple of weeks, or months, maybe. I mean, maybe he doesn’t turn into a zombie all the time, but he definitely leaves the house super early and goes somewhere,” Steve answered.
“That’s too weird,” Joy commented.
“I’m not making it up. It’s not, y-y-you know, like my normal making stuff up,” Steve asserted.
Joy looked at him, “I believe you.”
“Yeah, me too,” Justin nodded. “Maybe there’s a good explanation. Did you ask your dad?
“How can I? He’d know I sneaked along.”
“Snuck,” Justin corrected.
“Huh? Oh, okay snuck. Geez, quit interrupting.”
“You know,” Justin mused, squinching up his forehead like he always did when he was in deep thought, “I think your dad was most likely feeding something.”
Steve had already thought about that too, but hadn’t mentioned it because the story was already so strange, and he didn’t want to look like a complete freak. So, he nodded and said, “Yeah, you think so?”
Joy suddenly dropped back and let her legs flip her all the way over so she landed upright. “You should still ask your dad about it.”
“Didn’t you listen?” Justin proclaimed, “He was spying; he can’t say anything about it.”
Joy poked him with a stick she had picked up. “He should ask anyway.”
“Maybe,” Steve mused. “Hey, there are some people at our spot.”
They ran back to where they had left their towels only to find that four high school boys had made themselves comfortable. The lower lifeforms were sitting on their Coleman coolers, drinking Mountain Dew. The wave runner that had splashed Steve and his friends was grounded on the shore nearby. Joy was the one who spoke first, “This is our spot.”
A really tall, bone-thin teen looked their way, “No one was here when we got here.”
Joy pointed to where the intruders had flung their towels back onto the ground in a scrunched up pile near the water’s edge. “We left those so we could walk around.”
The tall skeleton boy answered again, “I don’t see any towels.” His friends giggled.
This time Justin interjected, “Those,” he pointed to the wad of dirty towels. “Those are our towels right there.”
One of the other guys stood up and opened his cooler and produced a Pepsi, “Hey, you guys want one?” He wasn’t talking to them, though. Steve noticed he was leering in a real stupid way, so when he started shaking up the can, Steve knew exactly what was coming next.
Steve shoved his friends aside and got sprayed with a sticky brown mist. He lost his temper and his composure and, unfortunately, his command of the English language. “Y-y-you j-j-jerk!” he stammered out.
The skinny one roared with laughter. “W-w-what d-d-did y-y-you s-s-ay?” he mocked, and his buddies laughed even harder.
Steve was angry and embarrassed and no amount of speech therapy was going to help him now. While his frustration led to tears and more stammering, the teenagers rolled with laughter. They even started dancing around like a bunch of twisted puppets, all the while speaking gibberish. Thankfully, Joy, who seemed to have kept a level head, dragged Steve away before he did something he might regret.
“Over here,” Justin waved from the next inlet over. As Joy continued to struggle with Steve, Justin ran back to help. “There’s some people over here. Maybe they can help.”
There was a young couple unloading inner tubes from their new pick up, but they hadn’t seen what was going on. Steve and his friends started their way, but from out of nowhere, a huge, black, monstrous dog—maybe some kind of mastiff or part St. Bernard—appeared. The man, who practically yelped when he saw the dog, retreated to the other side of his truck before yelling at the dog to go away.
The dog ignored him completely, choosing instead to sniff at the tires. Justin, who had been the first to notice the dog, whispered to his friends, “Hey guys.” But Joy, who was still grappling with Steve as he angrily babbled away in ancient Sumerian, or perhaps some other dead language, didn’t catch what Justin said. In fact, she was about to wrestle Steve to the ground when the dog gave up on its tire inspection and trotted over. Justin tried again to get his friend’s attention, reaching out to tap Joy’s shoulder, “Dog, big dog!” Then ducked behind the nearest tree.
The dog came right up to Joy and Steve and barked once, as if to say, “Knock it off.” It worked. Steve quit fighting Joy and stopped his babbling, though his mouth hung open. He and the dog stared right at each other. Steve knew he should have been afraid of the huge dog, but his, possibly her, tail was wagging, and it wasn’t baring its teeth or anything.
“Back away slowly,” Joy advised.
“N-n-no, I t-t-think he’s friendly,” Steve said.
As if to answer, the dog barked again—not an “I’m going to eat you” bark, but more of “scratch my belly” bark.
“S-S-See? Friendly,” Steve announced.
Then it turned its massive neck toward the teenagers. Its shoulders hunched suddenly, the fur between them rose as if charged by electricity, and from deep inside its barreled chest it pr
oduced a low growl. Suddenly, it leapt after the hooligans, bounding toward them with frightening speed. The bullies didn’t even notice until the dog was right on top of them, but even they had enough sense to scramble away as fast as they could, falling over themselves in the process.
The beast snapped his jaws and flung dog spittle everywhere. Every time one of the teens moved, it spun and bared its fangs. The skinny kid started to pick up a rock, but the dog barked at him and he fled, yanking his wave runner free and pulling it with him into the water in a desperate attempt to escape. One by one, the rest of the teenagers slunk back toward the river. When they ran out of land, the dog lunged and the last two fell backwards into the water.
With the water to protect them, though, some of their bravado returned, “Hey, kid, call off your dog!”
“Yeah,” another hollered, “you better get rid of it or it’ll get hurt!” The dog seemed to disagree; its threatening barks continued. When it was obvious that the dog was not going to let the boys back on dry land, they gave up and followed after the boy with the wave runner, who was already a good ten yards out.
Joy and Steve, who had watched the whole thing, forgot about being scared and approached the dog. Justin hung back. “He might have rabies!”
The teenagers massaged their wounded pride by continuing to yell as they swam away, but Steve knew the cowards weren’t coming back. With the dog acting as sentry, Steve grabbed their cooler and pitched it as hard as he could out into the river, where it bobbed and floated for a moment. And then, because it was open, it sunk. Good, Steve thought, that’s what you get.
Suddenly, now that the boys were so far away that they’d become tiny specks in the distance, the dog stopped barking. It simply turned, tilted its head as if it were considering something important, and then sauntered off. Steve watched it trot past Justin—who was currently trying, unsuccessfully, to climb a tree—and return to those seemingly irresistible tires. The truck owner managed to shoo the dog away, but not before it raised one leg and fired off a parting shot at the rubber tread. Oh, so it was a boy after all, Steve thought, cheerfully.
