“Spoils?” The word strikes me as odd. Like the spoils of war?
The man shrugs.
We eat our stew and the Owe Too rises and falls over a big wave and we both brace ourselves against the table, afraid that the squall has turned back in our direction. After a moment of relative stillness, it seems the wave was an aberration.
“You know, I may have seen your octopus,” the man says.
I drop my fork and the tines strike my bowl with a clang. “You have?”
“Not three days ago. Goldie and I were enjoying the sunset when off the starboard side there was a slick reflection that sparkled differently off the water than the last of the sun. I looked more closely and I swear I could see an eye watching us. The eye blinked once before Goldie caught a whiff of him and started barking. The thing swam closer, eyeing Goldie, and I grabbed her collar and held her close. The whole experience was over in a matter of seconds, but it was unnerving. As it approached our ship it sank beneath the surface and I never saw it come up again.”
The hairs stand up on the back of my neck and we both reach for our tipple. My gut was correct.
We are close.
I notice the man has a Magic 8 Ball on the shelf beside the table. The kind I had as a kid. I reach for it.
“Do you mind?”
The man nods his permission. I cup the black ball with two hands and ask my question aloud. “Will I ever catch up with the octopus?” I give the ball a good shake before turning it over.
Signs point to yes.
“There you have it,” the man says as he smiles a crooked smile. “The 8 Ball never lies.” He clears his dish and reaches for mine. “More?”
Before I can say yes, Lily starts to growl. I look up, afraid that her love of chicken and rice has emboldened Lily to challenge Goldie for the bigger dog’s share. But their dishes are empty, and Goldie is nowhere to be seen.
Lily is growling at the man.
“Lily! That’s not nice. He made you chicken and rice! Where’s Goldie? Say thank you to our hosts.”
GOLDIE! IS! A! FISH!
“What? What are you talking about? Goldie is a dog, like you.”
Her growling continues, low and guttural. It’s a noise I’ve only heard her make once before, when we were on a walk back home in Los Angeles one night and a coyote ambled across our path.
I’m becoming increasingly alarmed.
“Don’t worry,” the man says. “The storm has her on high alert. That’s a good dog you have there.” He sets the dishes near the sink. “Would be a shame if anything happened to her.”
His every word exacerbates the situation, and things escalate quickly. Lily is gnashing what teeth she has left in her old age, and she crouches low, ready to attack.
“Lily?” This time I don’t scold. This time I know better. This time I trust my dog.
I turn to the man. “How did you come to name the Owe Too?”
He answers without hesitation. “I owe too much on the title.”
Owe Too.
Lily’s barking is now out of control. Goldie is a fish? I look around for the retriever, but there is no sign of her. I can barely gather my thoughts over the racket, but I force myself to think fast.
Owe Too.
What do you see, Lily, that I do not?
Owe too.
Oh, to … Oh to what?
Oh two. It doesn’t mean anything!
O2?
Oxygen.
I can barely breathe and my heart beats fast. Think, goddammit. I can hardly hear my own thoughts over the yelp of Lily’s barking. I look down at my feet for bearings. Oxygen. Breath. Life.
And then it hits.
The atomic number of oxygen is eight. Oxygen is the eighth element on the periodic table of elements.
Eight.
The Magic 8 Ball.
I lift my head slowly and look up at our rescuer with growing scorn. His eyes are fixed on Lily.
“She has a hurricane inside of her.” The man winks at me slowly, deliberately. “Doesn’t she.”
Bile rises in my throat. Only three people know about the hurricane.
Myself.
Lily.
And the octopus.
The Hunt
I pivot quickly, positioning myself between Lily and the octopus. Reflexively, I grab the empty scotch bottle and whack it against the table. It doesn’t break. I whack it again—nothing. Why is it so easy to make a jagged weapon in movies and I can’t get this scotch bottle to so much as crack? The octopus stands between us and the exit and Goldie is still nowhere to be seen.
“It’s you, isn’t it.”
“Who?”
“The one we hunt.” There’s another bottle, a second bottle, on the counter. I grab this one instead and bring it down on the table with all my might and this bottle breaks and out comes my scribbled warning: I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE. He found the bottle. My bottle.
The octopus wipes a string of drool from his human mouth. “I wondered when you would recognize me.”
“Your ugly, fleshy head should have been a dead giveaway.” I’m mad at myself for being so easily seduced by the idea of companionship and food. I should have known. He wasn’t blue from the cold, he was purple from being a cephalopod. Twenty-four days at sea have weakened me, and I have failed at protecting Lily.
I lunge at the octopus with the jagged scotch bottle, but he grabs a single-flue harpoon that’s leaning in the corner. We’re both armed, him with a longer reach and with seven more limbs to take up arms should he decide to take octopus form again.
I grab a kerosene lantern hanging off the wall. “I swear I will burn this boat to the ground.”
“To the ocean,” he corrects. “Do it. Of the three of us, who is the strongest swimmer?” I’m keenly aware of Lily’s life jacket crumpled uselessly in the corner. He’s right, of course, as always. It’s the most maddening thing about him.
“Monkey,” I say calmly to Lily without breaking eye contact with the octopus. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her ears perk up. “Run!”
Lily bolts through his legs as he brings down the spear. I cringe, but my baby is fast and clears the sharp tip with hundredths of a second to spare. The harpoon buries itself in the cabin floor, and as he lunges to free it, I strike. I sink the toothy bottle in his shoulder with every one of my two hundred pounds. Immediately there is blood and I twist the bottle to extract even more.
“Go ahead and take my arm. I’ve got seven more.”
Yes, but where? I don’t understand how he looks like a man. I don’t understand the depths of his dishonesty. He punches me in the nose, and as I fly backward he rips the bottle from his flesh and smashes it into pieces on the ground.
I stumble, but I don’t fall. I can feel blood spill from my nose and the pain in my face is indescribable. I lower my center of gravity and go for the tackle. I’ve never been in a fight. Not like this. Not with a single-minded determination to cause catastrophic harm. To end life. To kill. Before I even know it’s happening, I’m charging at him with maximum speed.
We crash into a wall of shelving and both slump to the ground. One of the upright beams cracks, sending books and dust and nautical maps raining down upon us. I get in one good punch and I poke at his eyes with my thumbs, hoping to crush them. To blind him like he blinded Lily. Suddenly, I notice the whoosh of flames behind me. The lantern! I dropped it when I careened backward, and now the curtains are on fire. A small fishbowl falls from the shelf and lands on the octopus’s arm, spilling water and a single goldfish onto the floorboards. I look at the fish flopping helplessly, gasping. It immediately flops toward the safe space in the bow.
A flash of recognition. Lily warned me. Goldie is a fish.
“Goldie?” The golden retriever was a lure, a trick. One of the octopus’s fish companions taking dog form to lull Lily and me into a false sense of security. Everyone trusts a man with a dog. The octopus stomps his boot down on the goldfish, smearing its guts on the floor. I g
rimace. His first kill tonight.
Hopefully his last.
The octopus’s good arm, the one in the puddle of fishbowl water, starts to twitch and twinge and transform. Before I can even get off him, it’s the arm of an octopus, slimy and purple and long. It curls around me like a python, choking me, its suction cups sticking to my skin. Part man, part octopus, he squeezes so tightly it’s unbearable, and the cabin begins to darken. I claw and thrash at the sludgy, toadlike arm, but I can’t loosen his powerful grip, and as my vision starts to narrow and fade all I can think of is failure.
Lily appears through the smoke, charging forth with a rope in her mouth. At the end of it is tied a noose. Whether she has tied it, or it was waiting to hang us, I do not know. She shoves the rope in my hand, and as the octopus-man lifts his head, I reach behind me and slip it around his neck. Lily grabs the rope and pulls. She’s low to the ground, her back haunches raised slightly, her teeth exposed. I’ve seen her in this pose dozens of times as we’ve played with her rope chew. I know how strong she can be.
With one last great effort, I swing completely around and jam my foot under the octopus’s chin, pushing his jaw in the direction opposite Lily’s pulling. The noose tightens further and his grip on my neck becomes tenuous.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I yell to Lily, wrestling the octopus arm from around my neck.
The noose now tight, Lily lets go of the rope long enough to chomp down on the wound from the bottle. She gets a mouthful of flesh and shakes her head violently until it tears. I’ve seen her do this, too, with stuffed toys—grip their bodies, shaking them savagely to snap their necks. It’s always a little unnerving, the instinct bred within her to kill. But now I cheer. The octopus lets go of me and swats her away and she flies across the room with a chunk of his still-human arm. I lunge for the rope and pull tightly again, and his face turns a deeper shade of purple. Both arms flail and strike at whatever they can, as the flames in the back of the cabin encroach.
Lily slides to a stop under the table, two of its legs already on fire. “Lily, look out!” Lily turns to see the flames and scrambles out from underneath the table just as it collapses on one end. Sparks fly, igniting some cushions. The cabin is choking us rapidly with smoke.
I pull the octopus by the rope around his neck. There are three steps up to the deck. He pulls at the rope with his octopus arm, slithering the tip underneath to give himself just enough slack to breathe. Lily chomps down on his Achilles tendon and he writhes with pain. I yank the rope hard up the stairs, me dragging the octopus-man, the octopus-man dragging Lily.
“Say goodbye to this world, you sonofabitch.”
“GLRZHKZZZT,” gargles the octopus, struggling for air.
There’s an ax strapped just underneath the gunwale, and before I can process the decision to free it I’m already wielding it in my hand. I wrap the noose around my left hand and bring the ax down with all my might, grunting a murderous yowl. The octopus rolls on his side and I bury the blade deep into the deck.
“Lily!” I need both hands to free the ax, so Lily takes up the slack. She pulls at the rope, wrapping it around a cleat bolted to the deck. I pull at the ax, wiggling it free of its vise. Lily runs back around the octopus and pulls at his pant leg, again tightening the noose. I raise the ax again, taking aim at his one octopus arm. This time the blade connects, severing the arm with a deafening squish.
The octopus screams in pain.
He kicks Lily, who sails into the bulwark. There is just enough slack in the rope for him to scramble to his feet as I struggle to free the ax from the deck. Lily, stunned, shakes herself upright. The octopus limps starboard and turns back to look at us one last time.
“Be seeing you, governor,” he says. Just as I free the ax, he calmly tosses himself off the side.
Lily barks and we both rush to the edge, expecting to see him hanging from his broken neck. Instead, he gasps and spits and chokes, hanging from the rope, his legs submerged in water below the knee. The ocean bubbles around him as he thrashes, and he’s engulfed in a cloud of purple smoke. We can just make out his two legs becoming four, then five, then six. His upper body loosens as he fully retakes octopus form, and the last thing we see is his look of spite and hatred as he again becomes an invertebrate, slipping out of his noose.
Drowning
Fuck!” I spin around, grasping for a plan. One of us will regroup first, and I’d rather it be us than him. C’mon, focus. Focus! We cannot be so close to victory just to stagger backward into defeat. But the octopus has the home field advantage. We need a miracle. I look at the spot that held the ax and something bright catches my eye. Farther down the ship’s side wall is an orange case. I race for it and pry it free. My knuckles are cold and achy. My fingers tremble in fear and anticipation. I struggle to open the case, but when I do we are rewarded. Inside are two flare guns.
Lily barks portside. The sea erupts and an octopus arm emerges over the side, jerking the boat counterclockwise. I’m alarmed at the sheer size of it, at this monster’s ability to grow. Lily charges fearlessly at the arm, retreating only when a second arm emerges to pierce the windows of the cabin and send flames shooting over the deck. I grab the guns and charge the octopus as he rips a hole in the side of the yacht and we start taking on water.
We have only one chance—to make it back to our boat, where we at least have the advantage of the trawls. Fishful Thinking floats calmly a good thirty feet away, safely out of reach of the fire. We can’t jump. We can’t traverse a plank. The only way to get to her is to swim. We have to enter the water, and to do so we must distract the octopus.
I whistle for Lily and slap my hand against my thigh. She immediately comes running and I crouch, catching her as she leaps into my arms; she hasn’t moved this nimbly in years. I set the gun case down just long enough to untether Fishful Thinking from the sinking, burning yacht. Then I grasp Lily tight, grab one of the guns, and shout in the most pathetic and terrified voice I can muster. “Hey, octopus! I give up. You want her? You can have her. I don’t want to drown!”
The octopus has spent enough time with us now to wonder if, when truly pressed, I’m not just this selfish. He raises his eye into view to see if my offer is true. Instead of seeing Lily outstretched in offering, he’s staring down the barrel of my flare gun.
“Fuck you, you piece of shit.” I pull the trigger.
The octopus is already retreating into the water as the flare strikes him like a lightning bolt on the top of his head. He makes a sound like a pile of hissing, screaming snakes as he sinks below the surface. Flames shatter another window in the cabin and broken glass explodes against the deck.
“We have to go. Now!” I drop the gun and hug Lily tight and we dive off the starboard side toward Fishful Thinking. I kick hard and try to cover as much of the distance underwater as I can. When we surface, I paddle furiously with one arm as Lily kicks with her short little legs. We have maybe ten feet to go. Behind us there’s an explosion aboard the Owe Too, the flames having finally reached the engines.
The rope the octopus had tossed earlier inviting us aboard hangs off the side of our fishing boat. I give it a good tug. It’s still secured tightly to the cleat. I grab on and lift us as high as I can out of the water before boosting Lily the rest of the way. She scrambles over our boat’s wall just as the octopus wraps a tentacle around my neck.
“Li—lheeee,” I manage before he cuts off my airway. It’s enough for Lily to recognize her name and she ducks just out of the octopus’s reach as a second arm strikes Fishful Thinking’s deck.
Just as my fingers turn white and I can no longer hold on to the boat, Lily reappears brandishing the jagged filleting knife from our set in the deckhouse. She stabs it into the tentacle around my neck, severing just through to my skin; I can feel the knife’s craggy point at my jaw. The octopus lets go, giving me enough time to clamber aboard.
I run straight for the deckhouse to flip the trawler winches, and mercifully the squall
has not robbed them of power. The side trawler whirs to life and I lower the net on the port side. The boom swings wide, and I worry about hitting Lily. I yell for her to stay low and close and she sidles up beside me. Instinctively, I turn on the echo sounder and watch breathlessly for any sign of life. After about thirty seconds, the octopus moves.
Blip.
“There!”
I turn over the engine.
Blip. Blip.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon …”
The engine sputters and coughs.
“Come on!”
Blip. Blip. Blip.
The octopus is upon us.
I pound my fists on the engine control panel and suddenly the engine wheezes to life. I pull the wheel hard to the left and Fishful Thinking starts her tight turn.
Blip. Blip.
We pass over the octopus, but the net sensors give no sign of a catch. Lily grabs the strap of our harpoon gun in her teeth and heads for the stern. She sets it down and stands with her hind legs on the transom.
Blip.
The octopus is getting farther away.
Silence.
Fishful Thinking completes her turn and we head into the surf. I scan the ocean in front of us, wiping the windows with my sleeve to clear the deckhouse of steam. The silence is thick and eerie.
I race for the stern and fasten the harpoon gun to the mount so it takes aim at the waters behind us. Lily can swivel the gun with her nose, and I show her how to do so. I tell her the few secrets I know about firing a gun—to put the butt square in her shoulder and weld her cheek to the stock—and how to hit a moving target, tips I’ve learned from my mother’s husband, who is himself an impressive shot. She listens and nods with determination.
Blip. Blip.
The echo sounder picks up something off the stern. I run back to the deckhouse and call to Lily. “He’s behind us! Headed right for you!” I see her place one paw on the harpoon gun’s trigger. The octopus is forty feet away. Thirty. Twenty. “Steady! Steady! Get ready to fire on my command!”
Lily takes careful aim.
Lily and the Octopus Page 18
