When The Tik-Tik Sings

by Doug Lamoreux

  With no idea what Ben was talking about, Forester shrugged.

  “Never mind,” Ben continued. “What did you say was burning?”

  “Burned. Already a basement. A junk shop mostly, tourist trap selling Philippine trinkets. Doubt if anyone but the insurance company would even care if it weren't for the fatalities.”

  Ben lowered the towel from his hair, stared at Forester. “Fatalities?”

  “Yeah. Two women, one young, one old. They just hauled them out. No other details yet and won't be for a while. I had to dig like a terrier for that.”

  “Two women?” Ben felt as if the floor had dropped away beneath him. “The store, was it the Whatnot?”

  Forester nodded. “You don't know about Little Manila but you know the name of the shop? You psychic or something?” Stunned, Ben wandered back into the apartment. Forester followed. The reporter pointed to the liquor cabinet. “May I? It's been a night.”

  Ben waved absently. Forester helped himself to the whiskey, and between gulps and gasps, studied the firefighter. “How did you know which store?” Miles away, Ben offered no reply. “Doesn't matter,” Forester conceded. “I doubt this fire will help my career. My editor probably won't print the story. He isn't printing half of what I write. Other than angry shouts, he isn't even talking to me. He doesn't mind the blood and guts I've been turning in, and he loves the explosions, but the mystery crap is putting him off his lunch. Like it would harm him to stay off his lunch. He says I'm hurting tourism. That means the Business District, or the mayor, or both, have accused him of hurting tourism. Screw it. I'm not willing to ignore facts in favor of agenda. Yo, Ben. Should I save the rest of my sad story for whenever it is you're coming back? Because you ain't here, brother.”

  “I'm not interested in your sad story. I'm trying to digest this fire.”

  “Why?” Forester asked. “Something special about it? Is it connected? Is that what you're saying?”

  “I'm not saying anything. I'm not doing an interview!”

  “Do you see a notebook? I'm not asking for one. I'm asking a friend what's happening in our town. I'm asking what can I do to help?”

  What could Forester do? Hell, what could Ben do? What options did he have? Poni and Chesa were dead. But were they murdered, their shop burned to the ground, because they'd tried to help him? For giving him information? It made no sense. They'd told him fairy tales. So what? Even if they were true, how could the creature have found them out? What had the old lady said? 'It is best to not meet aswang. If you look for them, they will know and will come for you. If aswang wants you, run away and take your loved ones with you.' Was the killer Ruzicki's Vong? Was Vong Poni's aswang? Did any of this matter? As far as Poni and Chesa were concerned, nothing mattered now.

  Ben wondered if he should empty the bag for the reporter. He wandered the room, considering the question and wound up pouring himself a drink and staring out the apartment window. He looked into the port, saw the brightly-lit casino and its partially filled parking lot. Besides it, he saw the empty lot of the darkened water park. Further down, the river museum and the solid black mass of the William T. Greene, the dredger permanently moored on the museum side of the harbor.

  Ben stopped. There it was again, as he'd seen it days before, when Nestor and Angelina had dropped in – someone walking the deck of the old steamboat. The security guard, Ben thought, out for a smoke? A trick of shadow? It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Where to, Ben wondered, below deck or back into the realm of fractured light from which his tired mind had conjured it?

  Lost in thought, Ben didn't hear the bell. Forester did and opened the door. “Detective Vanderjagt. Don't just stand there looking surprised. C'mon in.”

  “Is Ben… Is Ben Court here?”

  “Certainly,” the reporter said, closing the door. “He's daydreaming, so I came to your rescue.”

  Erin's face showed little appreciation. She had no clue what was going on here, but knew she didn't like it. News gatherers, while not necessarily enemies, required careful watching. On the rare occasions they were useful, still they were not often helpful. Ben had spent a lot of time with Forester lately; more than he'd spent with her. Much of that was her fault, the requirements of her job. Still they'd been together a lot, bellied up to the bar in The Well. Now, on another rotten day, with another fire and two more deaths added to the epidemic roaring through Duncan, with the maddening discovery she'd just made in her own office, she found Forester at Ben's apartment. And Forester had found her at Ben's apartment. She didn't like it.

  Ben was still in the living room, still staring out the window. “What are you looking at?” Erin asked.

  “Hey,” Ben exclaimed. “Hello.”

  “Hello. What were you looking at?”

  “Oh. That eh, that shadow on the dredger. I mentioned it before. I saw it again, someone on the deck. The one I… Well, you know.”

  Erin stole a look out the window and saw what she expected, darkness falling over the Port District, lights blinking on in an attempt to fight back, and nothing else. “There are lots of shadows in the port at night. What's so compelling about this one?”

  “I don't know. Just catches my attention once in a while.” He tried to laugh it off. “Probably the security guard out for a smoke.”

  “I've known Walter Dunn for years,” Erin said, humorlessly. “He doesn't smoke.”

  “Okay. I'm paranoid.” Ben attempted a smile, but failed. Erin had come in with claws extended and he didn't like it. Besides, he was being pushed to believe real darkness moved in the shadows. Despite his shaky convictions, Ben was starting to feel it and more. The shadows, he feared, whatever they were, were watching back.

  “Ben!”

  Hell, he'd been daydreaming again. He found Erin and Forester both staring at him as he came out of it. The reporter looked confused. Erin looked mad. “Can I speak to you?” she demanded.

  They disappeared into the kitchen leaving Forester to wonder what was going on.

  “What's going on?” Erin asked. Her tone made it a demand.

  Ben didn't feel like meeting any demands. “Are you on duty?”

  “As you may have noticed, I'm always on duty nowadays.”

  “I've noticed. I wasn't sure whether or not that was by choice.”

  Both were feeling it, a clash of emotions, love and anger, magnetism and repulsion, a desire to unload and a sudden alien distrust. It was crushing. But neither could push the weight away.

  “I don't feel like I have choices,” Erin said.

  “So you didn't choose to come here?”

  “I need to talk to you. And I don't want to do it with a reporter on hand. Just seeing me here, he's learned plenty.”

  Forester didn't take it well, being asked to leave. But he couldn't tell Ben and Erin to go to Hell when he was standing in Ben's apartment. He'd thought Ben was on the verge of a revelation when the lady cop arrived. He hadn't complained. He'd even been nice and not asked any embarrassing questions. For his trouble, he was being shown the door. To Hell with it. To Hell with them both.

  “He wasn't happy,” Erin said as Ben returned from seeing the reporter out.

  “Did you expect he would be? What's up, Erin?”

  “That's my question for you. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  “You know where. I've been looking into these… odd events. Nestor believes some creature from Philippine mythology, something the world does not understand, is responsible for these killings, including those of his family, and I agreed to look into it for him.”

  “So,” she said, bristling. “You listened to a campfire story, then you and the reporter spent a week pouring alcohol on it, and now you're ready to present your findings? A Philippine monster?”

  “Erin,” Ben said. “I know it sounds crazy—”

  She put up a hand. “I wouldn't have a problem with crazy, Ben. You're a firefighter. Crazy is your strongest attribute. What I can't take is stupid, childish, and
drunk. Those wear thin quickly. I have a question for you. When I came, I was merely going to ask as a matter of routine. Now I not only don't want to ask but I'm afraid of the answer. More than anything, I really hope you won't lie to me.”

  “I can guarantee that, Erin. I'll never lie to you.”

  She nodded. Then she braced herself. “There's evidence from the Garfield Street arson fire missing from my office. One of the hand grenades was taken from its box. Did you take it?”

  “After not seeing you as a friend or lover for a week, you stopped by to fill out a theft report?”

  “There won't be a theft report because the mayor refuses to allow us to admit the munitions exist. But they do exist, and they are deadly, and one has been stolen from my office. You did something the other day that you have never done before; you came to my office. Damn it, Ben, did you take it?”

  “Before you get angry at me all over again for refusing to answer, please note, I kept my promise that I would never lie to you.”

  “I have two new bodies to start reports on,” she said, making a beeline for the door. “I need to get to work.” A half-dozen pithy exit lines flashed through her mind. Erin ignored them as each, regardless of how much of Ben's blood they drew, would have cut her too. She had no clue if he was trying to prove some bizarre point, or was drunk, or was crazy. She didn't know why the man she loved was trying to hurt her. But she wasn't going to reward him with tears. Erin left, without bothering to close the door. For a long while, Ben stared after her, feeling as empty as the dark hallway.

  Twenty – Six

  Two hours laying in silence, thinking about what he intended to do, had been undiluted hell. Ben had run the emotional gamut – doubt, guilt, anger, pity, resolve, determination, right back to doubt in a circular argument. But events left him committed. He was also stifled, stiff, and his left hand had gone to sleep. He couldn't take another second. Groaning despite fear of discovery, he squeezed out from under the seats, sat up, gulped a badly needed breath, and peered around the darkened theater.

  Two hours earlier, he'd walked into the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium looking, he hoped, like any tourist. A volunteer took his ten dollars and returned a ticket stub and an apology. He'd arrived too late to see the whole museum; they would be closing soon. Ben said he'd do his best, threw a studious-looking backpack over his shoulder, and moved through the exhibits without seeing them. He wasn't a tourist; he was a man on a mission.

  Ben skirted around Catfish Planet with its one hundred species including, Electric Catfish, Glass Catfish, Walking Catfish, and a Catfish that ate wood. He denied himself a walk through a twenty-two-foot long catfish with interactive innards. He passed up Native American artifacts. He passed the National Rivers Hall of Fame, where the stories of Mark Twain and early explorers could be heard while you practiced your captain's skills in the Towboat Pilot Simulator. He passed glass doors looking out on a boardwalk, where visitors could 'explore the river's natural habitat at living history outposts' and see an authentic Native American wikiup in a recreated wetland, a fur trader's cabin, and stations for demonstrations of fishing, clamming, refuge management, and pioneer boat building. In sunlight, one might see turtles sunning on logs, or a great blue heron, or a bald eagle perched aloft. But night was here and Ben moved on without a glance at the blue moonlight.

  He rounded a corner and entered the main display room. There, on the far side of the expansive floor, beneath the wide stairs, surrounded by awe-struck children, stood a massive round feeding tank; a 200,000-gallon aquarium that could have held a whale. A banner circling the top of the tank read: AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Scattered posters proclaimed the glories of the Gulf of Mexico on the river's southernmost border. In the massive tank, an incredible variety of sea life swam, flipped, and fanned out, over sand and rock, through and around undulating flora and fauna. Apparently all well fed, for there were as many small fish as there were big, each going about its business with no sign of distress. Ben searched the busy water. A big turtle paddled by and there – he swallowed hard – cruised a four-foot shark. They're well fed, Ben told himself again, and started through the crowd.

  “Manta. Manta,” he muttered, his head bobbing, his eyes bouncing from creature to creature in the tank. He finally spotted it, a black swimming kite with a disappointingly short tail. Ben's expectations collapsed. While certainly odd, Ben was forced to admit the manta wasn't that impressive.

  “That's not the manta,” a small voice said, jolting him.

  Ben looked down at an angelic blonde boy with deadly blue eyes, watching him watch the fish.

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you're looking for the manta,” the child said. “You're looking at the wrong fish. The manta is bigger and, unlike other mobulids, its mouth is in the terminal location, not the inferior.”

  “You don't say?”

  The kid scanned the depths and pointed. “That's the manta ray.”

  The stingray they'd been watching swooped to the bottom as a huge shadow covered it in gloom. Ben followed the kid's finger to the source, a giant underwater bat, an alien flying saucer, an undulating monster from a fifties' B movie. It was twelve feet wide, if it was an inch, with dark blotches marring the vast white underside of its disc body. Then, with a graceful flap of its pectoral fins, the creature dived, showing a top so blue it looked black. For a second time, Ben swallowed hard.

  His eyes fell from the monster to a placard bearing its picture. It featured a list of names from the obvious; manta ray, Atlantic manta, Pacific manta, to the odd; Prince Alfred's ray, eagle ray, blanket fish, skeete, to the intimidating; giant devil ray, devil fish, giant manta, and sea devil. It reported the creature had eighteen rows of teeth on the center of the lower jaw, with twelve rows on either side; a fact that hit home as he reached the Latin at the bottom: Cephalopterus vampyrus.

  “That's the manta,” the brat said again.

  “Great.” Ben sighed heavily. “Just great.”

  Indigenous to the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, the sign read, with a migratory range from San Diego to the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea (around the Philippines) to the temperate waters of the Gulf south of Louisiana and the Mississippi River. The average manta was twenty-two feet wide and weighed several thousand pounds. At twelve feet, this one was just a kid. Then he found the target, the manta's spineless tail, easily as long as its body; a formidable whip indeed.

  His plan, little more than a plot element from a cheap thriller, was to hide until all had left. Alone in the closed museum, he'd have hours to accomplish his goal. He'd need them. Watching the glorious creature swim past, Ben knew, he'd need to convince himself all over again of the necessity.

  He took the stairs to the second floor, entered the small theater on the balcony, and slipped into a seat in the back row. The featured attraction, attended by a scant few, was an adventure film called Mississippi Journey, an educational boat trip down the famed river. With his backpack beside him, Ben settled in to watch. The picture played out and the room cleared, except for Ben. New theatergoers filtered in, and on the half-hour, the film started again for a final showing. As it ended, Ben slipped to the floor with his backpack, and tucked in under the seats against the back wall. There he lay until the theater emptied, the lights went out, and the museum went quiet.

  Now, stiff and cold, Ben got to his feet.

  He sneaked from the theater to the museum's first floor and to the feeding tank. This time, he went out of his way to avoid seeing the shark or face the monstrous manta ray. He stripped to the trunks he already wore beneath his clothes, pulled a mask, snorkel, and Bowie knife from his backpack, and gulped a breath. Hating himself, but convinced he had no option, Ben climbed atop the tank and crawled to the feeder's hatchway. The lady who fed the fish did so in full scuba gear. Partly, Ben imagined, because it took so long and partly because it looked good for the tourists. Ben could use a tank and regulator, of course, but getting them into th
e museum would have been a trial. He didn't plan to be in the water that long.

  He dunked his lens, donned his mask, and lowered himself through the hatch. Like the engine on his old Impala, Ben gasped out his snorkel exhaust. Tropical or not, the water was freezing. To continue the jalopy metaphor, his headlights came on and his stick shift shrank as the creatures of the Gulf darted in excitement. The manta swam slow vertical loops around him. Ben saw none of it. He'd closed his eyes to hold off seeing the abhorrent work ahead. Something brushed him in passing. And again. And again. It suddenly occurred what a disappointment he must be. Used to a human presence that signaled food, the fish must have been wondering where the grub was. He felt an impressive nudge and opened his eyes to find the shark circling. Ben panicked, dropped his knife and surfaced. The poor shark, probably thinking he was nuts, juked and went by showing no more interest.

  The foot of air at the top of the tank was stale and warm, but it was air. Ben refilled his lungs, found his courage, and dove to reclaim his knife from the bottom. Weapon in hand, his mind back on his mission, Ben scanned the depths for the monster ray. He felt a sharp pinch at his hip and turned to see the turtle making off with a piece of his trunks. It occurred to him, if he wanted to escape alive, he'd better finish and go. He found the manta, and battling a new wave of guilt, swam after it. There was no choice but to maim this beautiful sea creature. Countless human lives depended on it. But, goddammit, how could he? The devil fish swam by, trailing nearly twelve feet of tail. Ben tightened his grip on the knife and stretched his free hand.

  Across the museum floor, Walter Dunn watched in terror.

  The old guard had entered the hall, as he had a thousand times before, on his rounds. But this time, Jumping Jupiter, was anything but routine. There was a diver in the feeding tank. A man with a knife going after the fish! With trembling hands Walter pulled his flashlight… and his gun.

  In the tank, knife in one hand, manta's tail in the other, Ben was suddenly and inexplicably blinded by light. He heard a shout, unintelligible through the water and beneath the hum of the aerators, but a shout all the same. He let go of the manta, and again, dropped the knife into the waving flora below. Through his mask, through the Plexiglas wall of the tank, the startled paramedic glared out into the museum at the museum's security guard, staring back at him. The old man dropped his flashlight and Ben saw terror in his eyes. He saw his shaking gun. Then Ben saw a brilliant flash as the old man fired.