Elemental

by Steven Savile

  “Okay,” Michael said.

  Lizzie went with them to lunch. She said she was a chowder hound. Michael was glad she was still speaking to him after spending an afternoon with him.

  “Gotta have the slumgullion,” Lizzie said when a waitress named Dani had seated them at a picnic table by the window. All the tables at the Chowder House were picnic tables, with benches. They could seat at least twelve people. Often in the height of summer, strangers sat together, Lizzie said. She liked that part. She’d met people from Pittsburgh and Montreal and Florida. Maybe one of her hobbies was collecting out-of-towners, Michael thought.

  “What’s slumgullion?” Mom asked.

  “Chowder with a bunch of shrimp thrown in.”

  Michael ordered a cheeseburger and fries when Dani came back. Mom and Lizzie ordered slumgullion and garlic toast.

  “Come on, Michael, gotta taste it,” Lizzie said, holding out a spoonful of her chowder to him.

  “Michael doesn’t care for seafood,” said Mom.

  “Sure, has he ever tried it? Are you one of those guys who looks at something and says, ‘Never had it, don’t like it’?”

  He grinned at her because he knew he had said that.

  “Open your mouth.”

  His insides squirmed at the thought of sharing a spoon with her. On the other hand, she was a girl he liked, and maybe her willingness to share her spoon was a sign she liked him back. He opened his mouth and accepted the spoon.

  The dense white flavor burst across his tongue: cream and potato and melted butter, but more than that, the chewy, salty meat of the clams, the slightly squeaky texture of the shrimp, and something else, something primal that made him gasp after he had swallowed. He wanted more. He felt as though he had found the One True Food. He grabbed Lizzie’s bowl and drank from it, emptied it in rapid swallows, set it down, and licked the last of the chowder from his lips.

  “Michael!” Mom said. Lizzie stared at him, wide-eyed.

  The flavor opened something inside him, a pulsing feeling in his center that reached outward to his skin, a second heartbeat that pumped power through him. After a moment it subsided. He shook his head. “No,” he said. Then, “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Lizzie. You were right, I never had that before. I didn’t know how much I’d like it. I’m sorry. You want the rest of my burger?”

  “I can order more,” she said, her voice doubtful. “You want more?”

  “I don’t think I better.” It was too intense. Plus, what had that weird reaction been? A heart attack? The roaring appetite for more scared him. He had to ignore it, the way he ignored other things.

  He took a bite of cheeseburger to chase the chowder taste out of his mouth, and the world settled back to normal.

  Lizzie ordered another bowl of slumgullion but didn’t offer him any. He tried not to smell it from across the table. His stomach wasn’t hungry, but something in him was.

  They had reached the crumbs-and-cold-salty-ends-of-fries stage of their meal when Gracie slid onto the bench beside Mom. “Howdy, Caroline. How you doing?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” said Mom. “We were wondering about something.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “Do you get a lot of peeping Toms in this town? Liz warned us about this yesterday, but we weren’t sure. Someone came right up to Michael’s window last night and spoke to him.”

  Gracie and Lizzie flinched.

  “I thought peeping Toms were only interested in watching women,” Mom went on. “But Michael’s light was already out when this one approached the house. So watching doesn’t seem to be the motive. What did it say to you, Michael?”

  “It said my name, and that it was a friend.”

  “It left bare footprints in the flower bed, but when we went back to look this morning, they were gone. Is this a common occurrence around here?”

  “It spoke to you?” Gracie asked after a moment of uneasy silence.

  “Yeah,” said Michael.

  “They don’t usually talk.”

  “What do they usually do?” Mom asked.

  “They hiss until you run for a shotgun, and then they slip off. If you go outside to chase them, though …”

  “What?” asked Mom. “Michael and I are often alone in the house, and we need to know how to protect ourselves.”

  “Don’t ever leave the house at night,” Gracie said. “They can’t hurt you if you don’t go out to them.”

  “Who are they, Gracie?”

  “The Strangers.”

  “The Strangers,” Mom repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “People disappear every year,” Gracie said. She glanced around, as if looking for listeners. “We blame the tide. It’s usually the newcomers who vanish. We try to warn everybody, but most don’t take us serious.”

  “What are the Strangers?” asked Mom.

  “Don’t rightly know,” said Gracie. “Anybody who really knows is gone. Been a plague on the town for ages. One came to my window when I was a girl. Thought it was my boyfriend, and almost went outside, but glory be, my mother stopped me. They haven’t come by my house in twenty years. They always know when someone new moves in, though.”

  “So you have this conversation a lot?”

  “Try to,” said Gracie.

  “Does anybody ever do anything about these Strangers?”

  “Not anymore. Had a sheriff back in the seventies who tried to ambush ’em. Set up traps, with guns and dogs and floodlights. They never came, no matter where he set up. Always knew somehow. Minute he moved the trap away from a newly occupied house, they’d show up and hiss at people if they left a window open, even a crack.”

  “As long as we stay in the house, we’re safe?”

  “Far as I know,” Gracie said.

  “How about yard lights?” Michael asked. “Motion detectors?”

  Gracie shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. But nobody I’ve ever talked to has caught a clear sight of them, even with good lights. They move like shadows.”

  “Nobody knows what they are? Nobody? And you just go on living here?” Mom asked.

  Gracie shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do? We know how to deal. So there are Strangers around and they hiss at you. Occasionally a chihuahua or a cat disappears. We still got the beach and the tourist trade and the balmy weather. And the threat of the Strangers cuts way down on petty crimes; burglars don’t go out at night around here. Now you know, and you can be safe here, too. All right?”

  Mom beat her fingers in a gallop on the tabletop, staring at the bucket of saltines on the table. Her mouth firmed. “I guess,” she said. “But we’re getting those lights anyway.”

  “Don’t sleep with the windows open,” Lizzie told Michael.

  It wasn’t a hiss, he thought, but he didn’t say anything.

  At the hardware store, he bought some plaster of Paris and threepenny nails. Together he and his mother bought fancy new yard lights with motion detectors to turn them on. They picked up an inflatable bed and a foot pump, too. Lizzie showed them where the baseball bats were, and Mom bought a nice heavy aluminum one so Michael would be armed too. “But you won’t be able to hit them,” Lizzie said. “Nobody ever has.”

  “What do they want?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “Just treat it like bad weather you won’t go out in. Shadow weather. That’s all. We have the day, and that’s enough.”

  Back home, Michael and Mom rigged the lights and the motion detectors. They inflated the new bed, and Michael lay on it, bounced on it, wondered if he could sleep on it. Better than the floor, anyway.

  Michael took his bag of supplies, went into his room, and threw the window all the way open. It was still afternoon; he was safe enough. Cool salty air blew in, ruffling the curtains and fluttering the edges of the comic books on his desk. Outside, sunlight shone, bright and cold. A bird he didn’t recognize called a sharp sweep of notes.

  Lizzie had followed him into his room.

  “It spoke to you?” she muttered. “Nev
er heard of that before.”

  He set the jar of nails on the windowsill and went to get the hammer. Maybe if he nailed the window so it couldn’t open more than an inch—sound could travel in and out of his room, but the thing couldn’t come in after him.

  “It said it was a friend?” Lizzie asked.

  “I thought maybe it was you.”

  “That’s crazy. I don’t go out after dark.”

  He slid the window almost shut and positioned the nails on the sill above it. He wasn’t ready to make the change yet, though. It was still broad daylight. He put the nails back in the jar. “Except on Halloween.”

  “Right.”

  “But they never go in houses.”

  Lizzie came and stared at the small dimples he had pressed into the paint of the windowsill with the tips of the nails, marking the places he planned to hammer them into later. “It’s better if the window’s closed all the way.”

  “I want to hear what it has to say.”

  “You don’t.”

  “How do you know, if they’ve never talked to people before?”

  “What if they have? What if they talked to the people who went outside at night and never came home? What if that happens to you? I don’t want that to happen to you.” She paced around the room, picked up one of the superhero comics from his desk, put it down. “See,” she said, “I want you to be my neighbor. The last people who lived here were awful. I was so glad when they moved away. Then when I saw you guys moving in yesterday—I thought …” She paced between the door, the desk, and the bed, avoiding the stacks of boxes. She kept her gaze directed at the rag rug on the floor. “Okay, you know, the other kids think I’m weird. You know?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because I am weird. I like school. I read more than they do. I hate video games. I don’t like shopping. I don’t wear makeup. I don’t have a cell phone. I like to dissect weird, smelly things I find on the beach.” She paused, watched him, anxious. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  Some of the tension left her shoulders. “See. That’s what I was hoping for. You’re a little peculiar yourself, so I thought maybe we could get along. But if you start obsessing about the Strangers—I might lose you before I even find you.” She turned her back on him. “God. I’m sorry to be so lame.”

  “What’s lame about that?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to talk about anything substantial until we’ve known each other for weeks and weeks.”

  “It’s all right.” Michael opened a box marked “Electronics” and rooted through stray electric cords and adapters and various small devices, some of them broken, until he came up with his handheld, voice-activated cassette recorder. There was a cassette in it already. He rewound it a little and listened, realized the last thing he had taped was an anime theme song from TV, and it was fuzzy and tinny. But the batteries were still good, and there was still half the tape to go. “I want to find out what it wants. I’ll try to tape it tonight. It might not leave footprints, but maybe I can catch its voice.”

  “Okay,” Lizzie said, her voice shaking a little. “If you can be scientific about it. But don’t let it—hypnotize you.”

  He stared down at the tape recorder. “I want proof that it was even here.” He dug the sack of plaster of Paris out of the hardware store bag and turned it to read the instructions. “If there is a footprint after it leaves, I want to make a cast before it comes back to wipe it away.”

  “Don’t. You’d have to go outside at night to do it. Don’t go outside like a walking all-you-can-eat buffet.”

  “Do you really think they’re eating people? Did anybody ever find body parts left over?”

  “No!” she cried. Then, “No,” a little less certainly. “I don’t know,” she said at last. She paced faster, then glanced at him. “When I was eight, my best friend was this girl, Beth, who used to live in this house. That was before the horrible neighbors came. Her family wasn’t local. We told them about the Strangers right after they moved here, but I could tell they didn’t believe us. But nothing happened for a couple years, except Beth was my friend.”

  He watched her jitter across the room. She said, “She was just the greatest girl. Fearless. She ran everywhere. It was hard to keep up with her. She was excited about everything. When I was with her, I’d get all excited, too. She loved the beach. We went every day when the tide was out. She had books about sea life, and she taught me the names of things in tidepools. And then—well, she wanted to go to the beach at night, to see the phosphorescence she read about, where you stamp sand and it lights up. I kept telling her not to. But she didn’t believe me.”

  Lizzie stopped, placed her hands flat on the window glass, her brows deeply furrowed. “I’m going to be a scientist. Then I’ll figure out how to catch a Stranger. I’ll study it and find out … what really happened to Beth.”

  Mom knocked on the open door. “Hey. Another batch of cookies is ready. I need some tasters to make sure they’re safe. Any volunteers?”

  Michael set the tape recorder on the windowsill and followed Lizzie to the kitchen.

  There was just enough daylight left to take the plates of cookies around to the neighbors’ houses. Lizzie went with them, another new experience for Michael, already knowing someone who lived here. Mom and Michael met Lizzie’s parents: Lizzie’s mother was short and wide, with the same frizzy brown hair and tawny brown eyes Lizzie had, and her father was tall, wispy, and washed-out looking, with pale blue eyes and thin, blond-gray hair.

  Lizzie’s mother smiled up at Michael. “Oh my,” she said, her low, pleasant voice flavored with the honey tones of the south. “Now I see why Lizzie’s been gone so much.”

  “Mo-om,” said Lizzie in the same tone of voice Michael had used on his mother the day before.

  “Aw, honey.” Lizzie’s mother patted Lizzie’s shoulder. Michael couldn’t help smiling back at her, feeling a strange confusion inside at what she seemed to be saying: Lizzie was interested in him, and Lizzie’s mother didn’t mind.

  “I’m Caroline, and this is my son, Michael,” Mom said. “I’m afraid my husband Dan is away. He travels a lot on business.”

  “I’m Rosie, and this is Wagner. Welcome to the neighborhood. Don’t let Lizzie make a nuisance of herself. Send her on home if she’s irritating you.”

  “On the contrary,” said Mom. “She’s terrific. It’s like having a native guide.”

  “Mama, look, Caroline made cookies for you. They’re great.”

  “You’re a baker!” said Rosie. “Something we have in common! Well, Caroline, I’m so glad you and Michael are here now.” Rosie peeled the HandiWrap off the plate of cookies, offered them to Wagner, who took one, bit it, and grinned. “What a sweet way to say hello. I see you have other deliveries to make, though, so don’t let us keep you. Stop by afterward for tea if you like.”

  “Or tomorrow,” said Wagner. “Dark’s coming on.”

  “Or tomorrow,” Rosie repeated. “Lizzie will give you our phone number. Let’s make a date.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  They trooped round to every house on their block. Lizzie already knew everyone, and introduced them, but rushed them, too. They lingered only at Mrs. Plank’s house, where Lizzie broached the subject of the piano almost before the introductions.

  Mrs. Plank, gray-haired and stern-looking, pursed her lips and studied Michael. She nodded decisively. “Come in and give it a whirl, boy,” she said, gesturing him in, then leading them all to the front parlor, a room with comfortable-looking couches, tall lamps over the armchairs, a futuristic fifties coffee table in aluminum and glass, and a baby grand piano painted white.

  Michael checked with her again, and she nodded. He sat down on the piano bench and lifted the key cover, rested his fingers on the keys. “It’s been two years,” he said.

  “I won’t expect virtuosity, then.”

  He stared into her gray eyes, then look
ed down and let his fingers go. Chopin emerged, startling him: a waltz. He didn’t remember practicing it, but there it was, in his hands’ memory if not his mind’s; he played through to the end without stumbling, took a deep breath, let it out, and met Mrs. Plank’s gaze again.

  She nodded. “Come by between three and four on weekday afternoons if you’re so inclined.”

  He stood up. “Thank you.”

  “That’s all right. Couldn’t have stood it if you were a rank beginner, but I can put up with a lot of Chopin.”

  By the time they’d reached the final house across the street, the sun was streaking the clouds with rose and amber. The young couple greeted them, grabbed the cookies, and slammed the door almost in their faces.

  “Yeah,” Lizzie said, “better get home.”

  She separated from them in the street and dashed to her front door. Michael and Mom, infected by everyone’s urgency, rushed home and locked themselves into the house.

  A breeze was coming from Michael’s room; he’d left the window wide. He went in and shut it almost all the way, then hammered the big nails into the sill so the window wouldn’t open more than an inch, but he only tapped them in a half an inch so he could pry them out again tomorrow. He grabbed the cassette recorder, said, “Test. It’s the night of August 26 in Random, and I’m maybe expecting company tonight. Anything further will be the voice of a Stranger, with any luck.” He tossed the recorder on his bed and met Mom in the kitchen, where they put together dinner and verbally dissected their new neighbors.

  “Despite the weird night stuff,” Mom said, “I feel like this is the best neighborhood we’ve lived in for a long time.”

  “Me, too.”

  They spent the evening unpacking boxes in the living room and setting up the bookshelves in the hall. Mom made up the inflated bed on the floor in the master bedroom. “Brush your teeth and check the locks,” she said. “I’m going to turn the lights out in about half an hour.”

  Another thing he didn’t like about sharing a room. In his own room, he could read himself into exhausted sleep. “Can you leave a night light on for me? I have something to do first,” he said.