by Weston Ochse
Abigail found a 45 caliber pistol and crawled onto the bed. She clawed for her husband's pillow which she'd kept in the bed ever since he'd passed and hugged it to her chest. Trudie followed and curled up in her lap. She eyed the door, her tail hugging her belly, too afraid to bark. Abigail was afraid to move.
And she'd stay that way a very long time.
Another hour of skulking through the heat found Natasha and Derrick at the opposite corner of the town from the restaurant. Veronica had had to run home, remembering that she'd promised to help her Auntie with cleaning. As much as she hated cleaning, she loved her Auntie more, so she'd bid the Olivers farewell and run home.
After Veronica had left, Natasha realized that she didn't know where the girl lived. How could she find her later if she had no idea where to start looking?
But that was the least of her worries. The heat was beating down, and she stood in the middle of the street, staring blankly in all directions. The prospect of looking for home seemed overwhelming. The heat sapped her energy to the point where putting one foot in front of the other was the best she could do.
"So what do you think?" she asked Derrick.
"I think we need to find an ice cream truck and take it home."
Derrick grinned. "What'd I give for a Bombpop."
"No kidding. Or a Creamsicle. Even a shaved ice would be great right about now."
Derrick looked up and down the street. "What are the odds that there'd be an ice cream truck around here?"
"Same odds there'd be a pizza delivery truck or a Chinese restaurant."
"Or a Burger King," Derrick chimed in.
"God, can you imagine if we had a joint that sold chicken wings? And with some serious hot sauce like Plasma Heat or Volcano Hot like back in Willow Grove at Tonelli's?"
Derrick sighed. "One can only dream."
"Hey, I haven't seen him before."
Natasha pointed to man in a golf cart zipping up the road. As he passed, he nodded, but didn't offer a wave, a word, or even a smile. He looked old, a Veterans of Foreign Wars hat perched on his head. The golf cart was painted in camouflage and had a large basket on the back to carry things, which was currently empty. They watched as he headed towards the entrance to the town.
"Did you see his hands?" Derrick asked.
Natasha shook her head. "What about them?"
"I swear he didn't have any."
Natasha made a face, dubious.
Derrick nodded vigorously. "I swear, sis. He didn't have hands at all. He had little hooks." Derrick made his fingers into the shape of hooks, mimicking driving.
"Derrick," Natasha hissed. "Don't make fun of him."
"I'm not. I thought it was cool is all."
Natasha started down the street, pushing one foot in front of the other, back the way they'd come.
"Wait up. Where you going?" Derrick asked.
"Back to the restuarant. It's too hot out here. The heat's frying your brain."
"My brain?"
"Or what's left of it."
Derrick mock-laughed then ran to catch up to his sister.
Natasha suddenly stopped, and Derrick almost knocked her down.
"What is it?"
"Over there." She pointed through a gap between two trailers.
"Looks like a statue."
"I swear to god it moved."
"Now whose brain is frying?"
"No, really." She began walking towards the statue, but Derrick grabbed her from behind. "Let me go!"
"What if it's one of those monsters?" he said, his voice like a spooky movie star.
Natasha laughed hoarsely. "Yeah. Like there are any monsters. That old drunk Kristov doesn't know what he's talking about." She tried to shrug off his grip.
"Oh shit!" Derrick whispered.
She turned back to the statue. The head seemed to be moving, as if it were looking for something. The statue took off, moving towards something behind the trailers. It ran spastically, lurching from side-to-side. Then it was gone, hidden by distance and trailers.
As hot as it was, goosebumps danced along Natasha's arms. That she had no idea what it was made it worse. It could be anything.
She laughed once, still staring at the place where the statue had stood.
Gertie let Maude know that although the rest of them had decided to leave the hundred degree heat and wait to see if the boy would turn up, Abel Beachy had refused to quit, even in the face of Sheriff Will's argument.
"If he was out here we would have found him by now," he'd said. "Chances are the print was a red herring and your boy is doing what all boys do, going through all these empty homes we got here in Bombay Beach, looking for something cool."
Patrick had overheard Gertie tell Maude that the leader of the Amish clan had shaken his head and taken off down the beach, searching for any sign of his son.
Sheriff Will had left, responding to an accident between a station wagon and a combine on Highway 111. He'd said he'd be back and and that he felt certain that the boy would turn up before dinner time.
Patrick continued drinking throughout the afternoon, even when Auntie Lin made a comment about it. He told her about the pacifier and what it stood for, which kept her from saying anything else. So while he sat beside Frank getting the sit-down-drunk's-tour of the town, Auntie Lin, Natasha and Derrick were shown the ins and outs of the restaurant business.
Patrick learned about the town locals as each one came in for something to eat or read. The Amish family stayed out, but Andy the Scientist and Jose the Laborer spent considerable time that afternoon sitting at a table by the front window, drinking iced teas through straws. Patrick learned about the Duvall Brothers - Jose Mara and Rico - who'd come from Miami to harvest salt to sell to the Chinese. They were the town's largest employer, sometimes hiring a staggering five or six people. He met Kim Johnson, a laid-back woman with tattoos covering her body, who had moved here from the mountains of Montana to save souls and return them to Christ's embrace. He met Carrie Loughnane, a voluptuous woman with flaming red hair. She'd once been a cheerleader from Costa Mesa but an upwardly mobile crack salesman had turned her onto his product, gotten her hooked, and now she had seven children all by different fathers, health problems, and ran the town's only Laundromat. Her favorite comment when asked why she'd reopened the old Laundromat was that "Even in Hell people deserve to have clean clothes."
His kids came in wanting to lay down and rest awhile. He'd tossed them the keys, with orders to unpack the car and get things situated in their new home.
About three in the afternoon, Kristov Constantinescu, the Romanian Frank had told him about, came in dressed in clothes like a neon lounge singer. He had puffed-up black hair and sideburns like Elvis. He'd brought an empty hand truck with him, and when he left it was stacked with eight cases of National Bohemian Beer. Patrick thought that strange, especially since he knew it was one of the local beers his cousin in southern Maryland loved to drink. How Kristov got it all the way out here was a mystery. Patrick tried to catch Kristov's attention as he was headed out the door so he could ask him, but all he got was a hasty "Thankyouverymuch."
At about three thirty in the afternoon Patrick realized he was sauced. He managed to get Maude's attention, but when he opened his mouth it wouldn't work properly. She worked out what he wanted and began making him a plate of fried fish and fries.
Patrick saw Auntie Lin shaking her head at him out of the corner of his eye. He knew he was going to hear about it when he sobered. He turned his attention back to his glass. Who cared what they thought anyway?
When the food arrived it was sizzling hot. He heaped malt vinegar and ketchup over the top and stuffed it down as fast as he could. Then he chased it with a glass of water, hoping to dilute the beer already in his system. But it had no effect other than to make him even thirstier.
Auntie Lin reminded him that he'd wanted to tour his father's trailer. Patrick wanted to go, but he knew he wasn't ready for it. He needed some time to get us
ed to the idea that he'd be living there before he actually moved in. He was pretty sure that the first time he went in, he wanted to do it alone. So he said as much to Auntie Lin, and, of course, she didn't understand, figuring that he wanted to drink cheap beer instead of viewing the place his father had called home. She couldn't be more wrong.
When she finally left him alone he ordered another beer, then thought better of it and ordered one for Frank, Jose and Andy as well. If he was going to be miserable, he might as well have company.
Auntie Lin came back about two hours later to tell Patrick that she and the kids had unpacked the car. The kids filed in after her to get something to eat.
He tried to thank her, but Patrick's mouth had stopped working long ago.
"I drink you handled that well," Frank said.
Patrick circled his head.
"What's gonna be the encore?"
Patrick opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was "futh," a lowly cousin to the curse word that he'd tried to say.
He turned to look at Frank and they both cracked up.
Suddenly the night was split by the sound of a shotgun going off -
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Patrick tried to jump to his feet but fell off his chair instead. He pulled himself to a sitting position and, from his spot on the floor, watched Natasha and Derrick and a host of locals run outside to see what was going on. He should have joined them.
Another blast hammered the night.
Patrick examined his useless legs. He suddenly wished that he'd never started drinking. He gazed towards the open door, silently slipped the pacifier into his mouth and began to suck on it.
Natasha sprinted out the door even before she knew what was going on. It never occurred to her to be afraid until she heard the fourth shot, which made her jump and scream. She found she'd grabbed Derrick, who was also holding her. They separated, briefly embarrassed.
"I think it came from over there," Jose shouted, pointing down the street.
The air had cooled somewhat, a relief from the staggering heat of the day. A million stars lit a cloudless sky, reminding Natasha that she wasn't in Philadelphia anymore. Only a few of the streetlights still worked, casting intermittent halos of sickly yellow light.
A dark figure rushed across the street two blocks down.
"There!" Derrick pointed.
"Did you see who it was?" Carrie asked.
Gertie shook her head. "Can't be Abel. That was too small."
Derrick turned to Natasha. "Maybe it was Obediah?"
"Could be, but why would he run?" Gertie shouted back towards the restaurant. "Maude, you make sure you call Will and tell him we have shots fired."
Shots fired. Natasha had never heard those words said outside of television.
Suddenly another figure, this one much larger, ran into the middle of the street, raised a shotgun, and fired in the direction the other person had gone.
"Abel, is that you?" Gertie called.
"Ms. Gertrude." Abel's voice was an octave higher than it usually was from the excitement and exertion. "I saw one of them things. I think it got my boy."
"Things? We have things?" Frank asked.
"Just leave it be, Abel Beachy. You're going to kill someone with that shotgun." Gertie shouted.
Even from two blocks away, Natasha could see the whites of the man's teeth as he grinned and said: "That's the point, is it not?" He patted the gun, then took off.
"What the hell?" Andy came out and peered down the street. "What's all the shooting?"
"Abel had one of them things in his sights." Gertie glanced at Natasha and Derrick.
"He did?" Andy's eyes widened and he took a step back. Then he turned and ran, staggering a little as he went, back towards his house.
"What do you mean by things?" Natasha asked, remembering the thing she saw running between trailers earlier in the day.
"Bad things," Frank replied, then giggled.
Gertie stared at him for a moment, then shook her head in disgust. "Go back inside and keep these kids' father company. He can't even walk and we surely don't need him outside with Abel Beachy acting like it's an invasion of the Body Snatchers. We don't need no -" She glanced quickly at Natasha and Derrick "- new comer getting lost or hurt in these houses."
Natasha smiled grimly, but beneath it she knew what Gertie meant to say was that they didn't need no drunk. As if to prove it, Gertie patted Natasha on the shoulder and told her everything was going to be okay. Then Gertie ordered her and Derrick to come with her and split the others who'd come outside to watch into three parties of three. Before they separated, Maude brought out flashlights for each group.
Soon Natasha and Derrick were following Gertie, who strode into the darkness like a gunslinger. Her fearlessness was what kept the kids going, because as soon as they left the neon-lit front of the restaurant, all the bogeymen of their nightmares began to play across the possibilities of who they might meet, and what the thing was that had gotten the Beachy kid.
Natasha wanted to press the issue. What were the things everyone was talking about? But she didn't want to do it in the dark.
They entered a burned out hulk of a trailer through the space where the sliding glass door used to be. Most of the furniture had burned to unrecognizable black shapes. A single blue marble stood stark against the soot-stained floor.
"Jessica Sullivan used to live here," Gertie said. "She collected those tiny stuffed animals. This must have been one of their eyes."
"What happened to her?" Derrick asked.
"Her son packed her up and sent her to an old fogies' home."
"But he left her stuffed animals." Natasha pointed to where the blue eye rested.
"Didn't matter to him. He just wanted her out of his hair." Gertie picked it up and put it in her pocket.
"So what happened to the trailer?"
"Vandals burned it like they burned most of the others."
The three of them moved from one trailer to the other. Occasionally they'd come to one that was occupied. Sometimes Gertie would peer in the window, and sometimes she'd knock and have a few soft words with the occupants, but they never went inside.
Down the street they saw the Romanian's trailer. As they drew near, Gertie held up her hand for them to stop. Holding the light as steady as she could, she continued towards the fence. Even from where Natasha stood, she could see a body lying atop the sea of beer cans. She ignored Gertie's command to wait and followed, Derrick pressing right against her, his hands on her back as they edged closer to the body.
She heard a droning sound, something like a remote control airplane.
"What is that noise?" Derrick asked. Gertie walked to the fence and shone the light on the body. It was the Romanian for sure. His pants had fallen down revealing white buttocks the color of dead fish bellies, as if he'd passed out in mid-moon. The sound was coming from him, not an airplane - snoring.
"Kristov's passed out." Gertie scoffed. "Lot of good those will do him," she said, pointing at the beer cans. She leaned over the fence and shouted, "Can't hear them if you're passed out!" He never stirred.
They were on their seventh or eighth house when they heard a rustling behind one of the trailers, followed by a groan. A figure separated from the shadows and lurched in their direction.
Gertie brought her bat around as she shone her light into the shadows.
"There you are." Auntie Lin stepped into the beam of the trembling flashlight. "What got into you, going out when there's a madman with a gun blasting at everything that moves?"
"That madman is Abel Beachy," Gertie said.
"It doesn't make it any safer if you know his name. Anyone firing like that with houses all around is still a madman." Auntie Lin grabbed Natasha's and Derrick's arms and pulled them toward the street. "Come on. We're going back to the restaurant. You haven't eaten yet."
"But -" Derrick began.
"Don't 'But' me. I'm sure we'll see what happens before it's all over. Now
let's go." She turned to Gertie. "And you should never have brought kids outside when it was so dangerous. What were you thinking?"
Although Natasha allowed herself to be tugged away, she shot a resigned look at Gertie. Gertie receded into the darkness as she went. Part of Natasha was happy to be going back inside. But another part of her, one she really hadn't known existed, suddenly wanted to know the unknowable. She wanted to be a part of the adventure and the events that were transpiring in the darkness, where Abel Beachy ran with a shotgun firing at God knew what.
Strange how a little change of scenery could alter your attitude, she considered.
Gertie silently bid young Natasha goodbye. That one had an inquisitive streak in her that reminded Gertie of herself. Still, in some places knowing too much could hurt you and she was glad that the girl and her brother had been taken under the protective wing of their Auntie Lin.
What the old Chinese woman had said had hurt, but the she was right. What had Gertie been thinking? Lazlo's family seemed a nice sort and Gertie was happy that she hadn't told them the totality of what she knew about Bombay Beach. Not that she had any hard evidence or facts, but running the restaurant she'd heard so much that even if a tenth of them were true they cast a deadly shadow across the community... especially the things that came from the water.
Gertie trembled slightly in the darkness. Now alone with the rumors, she could finally see if they were true. If she'd seen what she'd thought she'd seen Abel Beachy chasing, then she had no business continuing. Then again, she wasn't about to be chased out of the darkness like some weak-kneed Catholic. Her father had been a bouncer and her mother had been a truck driver, and she had the best and worst traits of both of them; primarily the same bull-headedness that had caused them to separate and get back together a dozen times. So she continued on. She held her bat in one hand and her flashlight in the other. If she saw anything, she'd use both as weapons.
Her search took her to the sea shore. Seaweed lay lank and rotting on the water's edge. Dead fish, beer cans, red plastic cups and all manner of trash floated in the tide.
Gertie played her light back and forth, acutely aware of the sounds around her.
