Undertow

by Michael Buckley

  “He kissed me,” she whispers.

  “Oh, Bex. I’m so sorry,” I say.

  She laughs. “Not Russell! Shadow!”

  I flip on my bedside light, nearly falling off the mattress in the process. Her face has the biggest smile I have ever seen.

  “Oh my God!”

  “I don’t know what it means yet.”

  “Then you’re an idiot! Did you kiss him or did he kiss you?”

  “Sort of both at the same time. We were at the police station, and I think there was so much emotion and then . . . oops.”

  “Very romantic,” I say, though I immediately wish I could take it back. I don’t want to tease her into second-guessing what’s going on. I so badly want something good to happen right now. “So, Shadow and Bex,” I sigh. “Saw that coming a mile away.”

  “Slow down, cowboy.”

  “Wait, let me guess. You two didn’t talk about it after it happened?”

  “No, we just kept kissing and holding hands.”

  I laugh again. “You know he loves you.”

  “Well, duh!”

  “Don’t screw it up,” I say.

  “Why would I screw it up?”

  “You have to talk when you’re in a relationship. You have to share stuff.”

  She reaches over me to flip off the light, and we lie in the dark for a long time.

  “Now we have to find you a Shadow,” Bex says.

  My mind flashes on Fathom, but I don’t say a word, and long after Bex falls asleep, he is still running through my thoughts. He has moved into my mind, cluttering it with his hands and eyes and his ridiculous laugh, knocking down walls that should protect me from him. He’s built an addition inside my imagination, a closet like the one at school where we held each other. I can go there again and again, feel him, strong and sturdy, anchored to that spot like a statue commissioned just for me. But he is not mine, can’t be mine, and it makes me ache.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “We are going to binge-watch Netflix until it explodes,” Bex cheers when we wake up and find out school is closed for the foreseeable future.

  And we do, and I am more than happy—anything to take my mind off of Doyle, Fathom, Terrance, and how easy it is to buy a grenade in this country. Bex is a lovely distraction. We watch movies on the laptop and small-claims court shows on daytime TV. Shadow comes over and brings us another ten-dollar window fan so that we now have three roaring and whipping warm air in every direction. With a little duct tape he manages to rig one so that it hangs over the open freezer door, filling the kitchen with bursts of cold air. It’s totally redneck, but it works and it makes my mother laugh. It’s a welcome sound in the apartment, an echo of days long ago.

  Shadow is also very good for egg-roll runs and games of UNO, but he and Bex drift off every so often to kiss in the bathroom. I’m happy for them but also feeling like a loser. I pick up my phone and sort through the hate texts, hoping I missed something from Gabriel. I shouldn’t care. What he said about the Alpha was not cool, and the temper tantrum he’s been throwing at school has knocked him down a few points in my eyes, but I could use some male attention right now. Unfortunately, there isn’t so much as a keystroke from him among my messages. He’s either busy with some other girl or he’s still mad I sent him home to take a cold shower.

  A knock at the door brings everyone to the living room. None of us is expecting anyone.

  “Maybe it’s Mrs. Novakova?” I suggest.

  “Maybe it’s the prince,” Bex says.

  My father slides back the chain and answers it tentatively. Bonnie is on the other side.

  “Mr. Walker, I’m Specialist Bonnie Ralston, one of the soldiers assigned to protect Lyric,” she says. “I’m here to escort her to meet with Fathom.”

  My father turns to me, confused. I shrug because so am I.

  “Where do you think you’re taking her?”

  Bonnie frowns. “They didn’t call you, did they? Sir, your daughter agreed to meet with the Alpha prince each school day. I’m here to escort her to the camp.”

  “There is literally no chance that’s going to happen,” my father challenges.

  “I understand your reluctance, sir. Bringing him here today proved to be a logistical impossibility. It’s much safer to take her to him.”

  “You tell Doyle he’s lost his mind. She’s not going.”

  “Sir, you know I can’t tell him that.”

  “So, what now? Are you going to send up a platoon to arrest me?”

  Bonnie frowns. “Sir, I’d like to handle this without any—”

  “The camp is dangerous for a human being,” my mother interrupts. “Aside from the war games, the Alpha have very little experience with surface people. Some of them are really aggressive and hostile to outsiders.”

  Bonnie’s eyes open wide. “You know the camps.”

  I cringe, gearing up for Mom’s scales to come out now that she’s been put on the spot, but she stays calm. “They live less than a mile from my home, and my daughter meets with one every day. I have taken an interest,” she says.

  “Bonnie, Fathom told me he didn’t want to meet with me anymore,” I explain.

  She shrugs. “He changed his mind.”

  “Can I go too?” Shadow says.

  “If he goes, I’m going,” Bex says.

  “No one is going,” my father cries.

  “We have an armored car downstairs to make sure she gets there safely. She’ll have a military escort in the camp, and she only has to be there for an hour each day.”

  “I don’t care if you have Superman fly her there! It’s not going to—”

  “Mr. Walker, Mr. Doyle asked me to remind you that your daughter made a deal.”

  “What deal?” Bex asks.

  “I’ll get my shoes,” I say.

  “Lyric, I don’t—”

  I shake my head at him. We need my mother’s identification, and I’ll do anything to get it. “It’s fine. Fathom will make sure nothing happens to me.”

  “I’m going with you,” my father says, then turns to Bonnie. “It’s not open for debate.”

  Bonnie nods. “I can make that happen.”

  I haven’t been on the boardwalk since the Alpha arrived, and it’s clear no one is taking care of it. As the three of us walk up the wooden ramp that leads to the beach, I notice the planks are cracked and rotting and many sections have collapsed entirely. Some are covered in sheets of plywood and surrounded by orange cones. Others are wide open and ignored. Trash is piled in enormous heaps, and when a breeze sweeps through, it spins a hundred newspaper pages into a cyclone of filth.

  We walk past abandoned food stands that once had lines for miles. Now they are shuttered and forgotten, their faded paint still tempting with promises of fried clams, corn on the cob, burgers, pizza, chili dogs, and Italian ices. Most of the rides were trucked away and sold long ago, but a few are still standing. The Cyclone can’t be moved. They tried. It’s still in working condition because the city and the owners are hopeful that the park will someday reopen. Some of the rides couldn’t be sold: Wild River, the Freefall, the Sea Serpent, all of them rusty and suffering from the bullying pull of gravity and the sand in the wind. A bumper car lies on its side like a dead beetle. It’s such a sad, helpless thing. I spot an ancient flyer stapled to a post advertising the date for the now-canceled Mermaid Parade. They put a stop to that right away. It wasn’t silly fun anymore.

  Soldiers line up along the boardwalk’s five-mile stretch. Their guns are ready, but the men holding them are listless and bored. They were supposed to be weekend warriors in the National Guard. Now they’re full-time security guards watching a tall chainlink fence topped with coils of barbed wire. I guess after a while even the chaos on the other side gets dull. They don’t seem at all interested in the roars and cheers and the sounds of brutal battle. I don’t know how they can ignore the thrum.

  “Stay calm, Lyric,” my father says. He takes my hand and gives
it a squeeze. I squeeze back as we approach the makeshift entrance that separates the Alpha from us. We’re spotted by a beefy soldier who holds up his hands and demands we stop.

  “This is a restricted area,” he barks.

  “We’re delivering the tutor,” Bonnie says.

  “Doyle’s girl,” he says as he gives me a once-over. His name­tag reads foster. He’s got a doughy face and heavy lids that make him look sleepy. I can’t tell if he’s ogling, judging, or pitying me. Regardless, he gestures for us to approach, then puts up another hand when we’ve gotten as close as he’s comfortable with. “What’s your name, officer?”

  “I’m Leonard Walker. I work out of the Sixtieth Precinct. This is my daughter, Lyric Walker.”

  “If I were you, I’d keep an eye on your daughter, Leonard. His Majesty has some violent tendencies. He’s on that beach fighting a blood sport every night.”

  “She wouldn’t be doing it if she didn’t have to,” my father says.

  “That’s everyone’s story in the Zone.” Foster takes my tote and searches through the books I’ve brought for Fathom. He gives them back and then takes out his radio and clicks it on. “I’ve got the tutor here with her father for the prince.”

  A voice crackles back. “He’s in the arena.”

  “Can you go get him?”

  There’s a long pause and then, “Screw you.”

  Foster sighs. “Nice,” he says, then takes his gun off the strap around his shoulders. He cocks the chamber and gestures for us to follow him to a door in the chainlink fence. “I have to take you in. Stay close.”

  “You’ll be fine, Lyric,” Bonnie says as she watches us enter. “I’ll be here when you come out.”

  My father takes the brave first step through the door and onto the sand, and I follow. When Foster relocks the door, I look around at the seashore. There were summers I spent every day here, squeezing out a tiny place to lie on a blanket and read YA novels. Now it feels like a foreign country, a maze of huts, constructed from mud and sand, old sheets, and heavy pieces of driftwood pounded into the ground. Most of these little houses are no higher than my waist, and none of them has a roof. Alpha dwell within them and stare out at us, watching with suspicion as we walk past. Children of all shapes and sizes cling to their mothers when they see us. Old Nix shoot us the stink eye. A Sirena girl no more than nine stumbles back, startled by our presence. Her scales turn bright red just before she dashes away.

  “Not too many humans come into the camp,” Foster explains. “Not since those Marines got killed. The president came once, but that’s between you and me. Most of them have never gotten past the fence, so we’re still a novelty.”

  He makes a left and guides us past a row of metal barrels, all of which are burning newspapers and billowing smoke. We make another turn, and I realize that this sloppy collection of homes is actually a well-planned stretch of interlocking paths, not unlike the street grid of Manhattan. Every twenty yards or so, one path intersects with another, making “city blocks,” each dedicated to a different necessity. There are blocks for food preparation, trading, clothes mending, and one that looks like a school for young Alpha. An elderly Ceto stands before his students, growling in their language. Farther on, I find a mountain of scrap metal piled four stories high. This is what they scavenge when they run through our streets at night, and what a haul. Nearby is what looks like an old-timey blacksmith shop, where I watch the scrap superheated, melted, cooled, and pounded with hammers. They’re making weapons with what we throw away.

  But none of it is as surprising as the block set aside for a massive collection of stools, lined up like pews in an open-air church. Two Selkies place a bundle of fish on an altar, while the elderly priestess looks on.

  Foster puts his finger to his lips.

  “This is their wacky church. Don’t make a peep or they’ll lose their minds.”

  Out of respect, and embarrassment for gawking, I lower my eyes and move on.

  The crowd noise rises as we get closer to the shore. There’s loud applause filled with roaring and shouting, but I can’t tell why. Foster leads us down an alley, and we turn toward the ocean. There we find a sunken area the size and shape of a baseball field, carved right into the sand. It’s massive, with several levels of seating that go fifteen rows deep. It looks like Yankee Stadium on a smaller scale, and at the bottom I can see two people fighting. Both are wearing the armor made of bones and shells and claws.

  “How did they build this?” my father wonders.

  Foster shrugs. “These guys have their secrets. We put up cameras and they pull them down. We’ve got some satellite up in space spying on them, but we still haven’t figured it out. All I know is every night the water comes in and washes this away and every morning it’s back.”

  It’s nothing short of a miracle.

  “We’re going in, so be careful. Don’t brush up against one of them if you can help it. They’re prickly, literally, and they don’t like humans at all.”

  We weave through the crowd. Most of them are Selkies, and getting around their hulking frames is not easy. There are a lot of Nix, too, as well as Triton. I don’t see any Sirena or Ceto in the crowd, but I am also wildly distracted by the different kinds of Alpha I have never seen or heard about before. The one closest to me is tall and very lean. When he turns he scowls, but I’m too busy staring at the long, thick whiskers that poke out from beneath his nose on either side to notice. They’re easily six inches long, but what’s even odder is his mouth, a long, jagged line that reaches from one side of his face to the other like a catfish. My mother told me of the Rusalka, and she’s also talked about the Feige, who she once described as troubling. I have no idea which one I’m looking at or if he’s something completely different.

  There are some with hands like flippers and a few with bare chests covered in suction cups. There’s a small group of men with jet-black hair and greenish-white skin. Their teeth are sharp and they have pink slits at the base of their jaws. I’m so entranced, I walk into someone and fall to the sand. He’s a man. I mean, I think he’s a man. He is obese, is dressed in ratty sweatpants, and has a belly that flops down well below his waistband. His skin is as dark as fireplace cinders, highlighted with ashy white freckles, and his eyes are on the sides of his head. He reels on me, howls with indignation, and then inflates like a balloon. He swells to three times his size, and sharp spikes pop out of his skin. They’re as long as nails and inch dangerously close to my face.

  Foster steps between us.

  “Back off, Nathan!” he demands.

  Nathan stomps his feet and kicks sand at me like an angry toddler.

  “Nathan, we go through this all the time,” Foster shouts. “It was an accident, you big baby.”

  Nathan growls.

  “Yes, yes, I know all about Alpha honor,” Foster says. “So you really think you’re entitled to challenge a young girl to combat because she accidentally touched you? Doesn’t sound like honor to me. Sounds like what a bully does.”

  Nathan roars louder, but then his spikes sink back into his skin and his body deflates to its normal size. He stares at me and growls threateningly one last time before turning back to the show.

  “Let’s go before he changes his mind,” Foster says.

  “You’re learning the language?” my father asks.

  “Not really. I mean, I’ve picked up a few words, but these guys still struggle with it, and they made it up. It’s meant for speaking underwater, something about the bubbles and the vibrations, I guess. Truth is, they only talk about three or four things—honor, how humans are disgusting, their trippy religion, and war. It’s easy to guess, and when I get it wrong they are all too eager to correct me. They all speak a little English even if they like to pretend that it’s beneath them.”

  We circle until we find stairs leading to the lower levels, then make our way to the bottom. There I see what all the cheering is about. A full-grown Selkie, maybe the biggest one I’ve ever s
een, is fighting Fathom. He stands nearly eight feet tall with a jagged white scar running from the top of his head down the center of his right eye, leaving it milky and dead. He’s much older than Fathom—possibly sixty years of age, with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and deep lines in his forehead—but his movements defy the ticking clock. Each swing of his crescent-shaped sword is like a lightning strike, eliciting a rousing cheer from the crowd. They are clearly rooting for the big man over their prince.

  Fathom stands in the Selkie’s immense shadow, looking exhausted. The Selkie’s attacks are relentless, and Fathom seems barely able to defend himself. The shoulder I helped pop back into place has not had time to heal. Every time he moves his right arm, he winces.

  “He’s going to get killed!” I cry.

  “It happens,” Foster says, as if it’s as unavoidable as insects splattering against a car window.

  My father gapes. “You don’t interfere?”

  “My orders are to let them do what they want as long as it doesn’t spill into the streets.”

  The Selkie punches Fathom in the face, sending him reeling to the ground. More blood erupts from a gash below his left eye and paints the lower half of his face in red.

  I have to stop this. I can’t let him die. My feet take over and I rush forward, but Foster grabs my arm and pulls me back.

  “Whoa, kid! Don’t get involved in this. If you do anything to stop this fight, his old man will lose it,” he says, pointing across the arena. There stands a Triton with long, golden hair. He wears a crown made from sea glass and, like his son, a suit of armor. Next to him is his wife. Both clap wildly whenever the Selkie hits Fathom.

  “He’s cheering for the other guy?” my father cries.

  Foster shrugs. “I guess it’s supposed to toughen him up.”

  “It’s disgusting,” I say. “They should be stopping this, not cheering it.”

  Another punch from the Selkie, and Fathom is rattled. He falls to one knee, and the audience boos. They want more fighting. Even his father and stepmother shake their heads in shame. The Selkie throws up his arms in triumph to a smattering of applause. Then he raises his sword directly over Fathom’s neck.