Poseidon’s Children

by Michael West

  Peggy felt a change in the current as something swam up to tap her on the arm. It was dressed in Barbara’s clothing, a being of light; eyes like islands in a phosphorous pool, and a flat, paddle-like tale. Unlike the things in the hospital, this was truly beautiful to behold. Barbara undressed, allowing the garments to float away. Following Barbara’s lead, Peggy removed her hospital gown, and, together, they swam into the liquid night.

  •••

  Fueled by hate, Roger Hays made short work of the stairs. He was about to exit onto the first floor when a door swung closed below him.

  Why would you come down there? Why not escape through the lobby?

  Roger followed the noise down. He found two doors; both were closed, leaving no clue as to how he should proceed.

  Sounds of movement from the Laundry.

  Hays pressed against the doorframe; sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. Heat from the incinerator. He pushed the door open and leapt into the next room.

  The creatures were there. The animal with the face of a shark, his son’s murderer, climbed through an open drain in the floor. The second beast dove at Roger, the underbite of its huge mouth open and screeching, its webbed claws extended like knives, the same claws that had so easily taken David’s eye and marred his body.

  Hays squeezed the trigger. A bullet burrowed deep into the monster’s maroon flesh, propelled it backward. Roger fired again and hit the beast in the chest for a second time. He continued firing until the clip was emptied and the blaring sound of gunshots replaced by impotent clicks.

  Mortally wounded, the beast fell against one of the industrial dryers; fluid poured down the glass hatch, obscuring the tumbling linen within. As it slid to the floor, its shape changed wildly. It became a puzzle box of flesh, worked and reworked by phantom hands; at times, its anatomy twisted into that of a human being, a man.

  Roger lowered his smoking gun and gaped at the creature, mystified. This was no horror film, no comic book. This was the real world. Animals could not become...

  For a moment, the beast’s face grew wholly human and Hays recognized the man from Chief Canon’s office.

  Holy shit, one of the fucking deputies!

  A splash.

  Roger jerked his head in the direction of the open drain. The real prize had escaped into the sewer below. Frustrated, Hays returned his attention to the still-shifting form on the floor. He knelt beside it, stared into its eyes, one human, the other more like that of a fish. “What the hell are you?”

  Dark, arterial blood trickled from the corners of the creature’s misshapen mouth. “Charodon.”

  Roger had no time for gibberish. “Where’d the other one go?” The animal was silent except for its labored breathing, so Hays shook it violently. “Where did it go?”

  The monstrosity seemed to settle back into its original hideous incarnation. It actually smiled, its voice a raspy gargle as it spoke, “Colonial Bay.”

  “How many of you fucks are there?”

  “We are Colonial Bay,” it uttered proudly, then breathed its last.

  Roger rose to his feet, scanned its horrific topography.

  “My God.”

  The whole town? Was that possible? Shit, none of it was possible, but here it was lying dead at his feet. Colonial Bay was full of shape shifting killers.

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  Hays paced back and forth for a moment, tried to clear his head to make room for rational thought. He wanted to go after these monsters, but first things first. There was a body on the floor, and bullets from his gun were lodged in its chest. Roger wiped sweat from his upper lip. It was so hot that he couldn’t think of a proper —

  The incinerator.

  A canvas basket sat full of unwashed sheets; Roger ran to it, grabbed a sheet and spread the fabric across the cement floor. He slid his hands beneath the creature’s armpits, clasped them together over its bloodied chest, and dragged it onto the sheet. Hastily, he wrapped it, took hold of the fabric, hauled it across the basement floor, out the door, and into the incineration chamber.

  A large incinerator stood in the center of the room, firelight dancing through the metal grill across its opening. Hays pulled the shrouded beast over to the makeshift crematorium, burning his hands on the hot metal as he opened it up. Roger pushed the dead weight up the searing wall and into hungry flames. He stood there for a moment, sweat forging rivers down his face, watched as fire consumed his kill, wishing the animal were still alive to feel its skin char.

  Roger Hays burned his hands a second time as he closed the grate and backed out of the incinerator room. He saw a container of bleach on the shelf, poured some over his hands, and washed them thoroughly in a mop sink, removing any trace of blood.

  Hays stopped in mid step, wondered why he’d just gone to so much trouble, and could find no logical explanation. If the monster’s carcass had been discovered, he wouldn’t face prosecution; it was a rampaging animal, nothing more. The police, the National Guard, maybe even Homeland Security might have helped him with his vengeance, his justice. These murdering freaks had to be exterminated, and Hays couldn’t do it alone, not the whole town.

  He needed help.

  Roger made his way up the stairs and walked across the dim lobby, adjusting his tie and smoothing his hair. He had a phone call to make. When he reached the exit, realization flashed across his mind and he knew why he’d disposed of the body so quickly and completely.

  Habit.

  THIRTY

  Carol Miyagi found the room to be a sizable improvement over the cramped cabin she and Alan shared. It had everything; a king-sized bed, large oak dressers, even a brass make-up table with an oval mirror.

  Make-up? Oh, Lord, when was the last time I put on make-up?

  They’d spent forty-five minutes explaining everything to Officer Preston. Everything; the temple they’d discovered, the trident symbol etched into its stone, even Roger Hays’ sculpture and its twin on the ocean floor. Then Preston asked how they were connected to Hays, and, apparently satisfied, allowed them to go their merry way.

  When they reached the island town of Colonial Bay, however, they found it to be almost as deserted as the Maggie May. Many of the shops were closed, as if it were October or April rather than the busy summer vacation season. Unfortunately, the inns told a different story and they were lucky to find a vacancy here at the Sea Mist.

  Beveled glass doors opened onto a balcony; Alan Everson stood at its railing and admired the view. Carol removed her hairclip, let the dark locks cascade over her shoulders, and walked out to stand beside him.

  He stared out at the sea. It covered more than two thirds of the Earth, an alien empire on their own planet, teeming with exotic life and the secrets of dead civilizations. And yet, in the moonlight, it seemed for a moment that there was no Atlantis, no mysterious statues and symbols, no Coast Guard officers waving guns, no one else in the world. Carol put her arms around Alan, rested her head comfortably against his chest.

  “Thank you,” she told him.

  “For what?”

  “For being here with me. It almost feels like a vacation.”

  He snickered at that. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never taken a vacation.”

  “Vacations are for people who want to get away from their lives and the people they see every day. I don’t.”

  Alan kissed the nape of her neck, and she wondered if this might not be the perfect moment for her to say that she loved him. “We should go inside,” she told him instead.

  “That’s a good idea.” His breath caused the fine hairs of her neck to stand on end. “The bed will probably be hard as a rock, though.”

  Carol grinned. “Compared to that bunk we’ve been rolling on, I think we’ll be just fine. Now...” her voice lowered to a sensual whisper, “...hamete chodai. Fukaku hamekonde chodai.”

  Alan hated to hear her Japanese when they fought, but he loved it during sex. He lifted her in his arms and she laughed as he
rushed her back into the room.

  It turned out the bed was quite comfortable.

  THIRTY ONE

  Dr. Kyle Brahm tried to get hold of himself, to allow rational thought a swift return to its nest and let logic sort through the night’s happenings, but, so far, reason was still running scared.

  Larry Neuhaus sprinted across the parking lot.

  Brahm dove at the man, pressed him flat against a rusted Volkswagon van. “What the hell?”

  “I don’t know much more than you right now.” Larry pushed him away. “They came for Peggy and I need to get to Colonial Bay.”

  “There aren’t any more ferries tonight.”

  Neuhaus rubbed his hands through his hair in frustration. “Do you own a boat?”

  Brahm blinked, then frowned. “I live on a boat.”

  “If you want answers,” Larry told him, “I need your help.”

  •••

  Black Harbor’s sheriff had never liked hospitals; stepping into a building that housed so many diseases, you couldn’t help but catch something.

  The Sheriff walked through a fury of activity; investigators scurried from body to body, collecting stray fragments of corpse, swabbing each splatter of gore, photographing and numbering everything in between. There were so many pictures being taken that the entire corridor looked as though it were in the clutches of a furious electrical storm.

  Judas Priest on a fucking crutch.

  In all his years in law enforcement, he’d never seen such savagery. It never ceased to amaze him just how many ways there were to mutilate the human form. As soon as he thought he’d seen every possible desecration, someone came along and found a new one to add to the catalog.

  The sheriff turned to two of his officers, Bowker and Eads. “Where’s your witness?”

  They led him to a door marked LOUNGE. It was no more than a glorified locker room; in the corner, a microwave sat atop a small refrigerator, and, in the center, folding chairs surrounded a card table. At the far end of this table, a woman in a nurse’s uniform sat crying. The door swung closed, cutting them off from the symphony of discussions and movement in the outer hall.

  Eads handed him a notebook that had two words written on the factory-lined page.

  Emily Hunter.

  “Morning, Ms. Hunter,” the sheriff told her. He always used the term “Ms.” when questioning a woman, unless he knew for a fact she was married. It saved him a shitload of lectures from the Femi-Nazis. “I’m Sheriff MacIsaac. I’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened here tonight.”

  “I didn’t see anybody get killed,” she burst out. “I didn’t even know anyone was dead until one of the other nurses told me.”

  “But you did see something.”

  Emily looked at her hands, which were folded neatly on the table before her. “Can I please call my husband? If this makes the morning news, he’ll be worried out of his mind.”

  “I’m sure we can arrange that, but first I’d like you to tell me what you saw.”

  She hesitated. “I was at the nurses’ station when this group of people came running down the hallway. I noticed that one of ’em was waving a gun.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  Nurse Emily shrugged. “A big one?”

  MacIsaac nodded patiently. “Go on.”

  “This other man ran up and told me to call the police, said there was an animal loose in the hospital.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere. “And did you?”

  She nodded. “I picked up the phone straight away, dialed 911.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then the fish-men came into the hall.”

  “The fish...men.” His face tightened. Stories of sea monsters in the area were as old as New Hampshire itself, if not more ancient. His own grandfather used to warn him, “If you don’t wait half an hour after you eat before swimming, the sea monsters will get you.” MacIsaac’s grandfather had been a real piece of work.

  “The two women, and the guy that told me to call, they ran off, but the man in the suit —”

  “It was a guy in a fish suit?”

  “No, a regular suit. He was the one with the gun. He stood there in the hallway and just started shooting at ’em.”

  “At the...at the fish-men.”

  The nurse nodded.

  “And did he kill ’em?” MacIsaac wanted to know.

  She shook her head. “No. One of ’em came at him, and he dived over the counter. Nearly landed square on top of me.”

  “So you were still behind the desk at this point?”

  Emily nodded. “I ducked down on the floor. Between the sound of the gun going off and the horrible sounds of those...those things...it’s a wonder I’m not deaf.”

  Bowker motioned for the note pad and MacIsaac gave it to him. He scribbled something on it, then handed it back. The sheriff read what he’d written. It said, “Head Case”. MacIsaac tossed the pad back to his officer, biting his own lip. Clearly this woman was terrified and the sheriff was not going to make light of it. “So the things just ran away then?”

  Emily nodded, still studying her hands.

  “And the man with the gun?”

  “Ran after ’em. He seemed real angry with ’em.”

  Of course, who wouldn’t be angry with the fish-men. “Well, thank you very much for all your help, Mrs. Hunter.”

  “I hope you catch those things.”

  MacIssac backed toward the door. “I’m sure we will. You just take a minute to compose yourself, then go ahead and make that call to your husband.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

  MacIsaac nodded and exited the room, his two officers right behind him. When the door was safely closed, Bowker and Eads began to laugh.

  “People are dead here,” the sheriff was quick to remind them. “This ain’t a fuckin’ joke.”

  The men forced themselves to stop their laughter.

  “And parts of what she said make some sense. I want you guys to have the Crime Lab check all the hair samples they find and see if some belong to an animal.” MacIsaac pointed to a camera mounted on the upper wall. “Then I want you to check the security tapes and see if we can find a usable shot of it, or at least the guy who was gun happy.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  As MacIsaac walked away, he felt the urge to sneeze into his handkerchief. He removed the cloth from his nostrils, checked its contents, and thought, Great. This shithole’s given me the damn swine flu.

  •••

  Brahm’s boat was not the yacht Larry had expected, with a wet bar and a hot tub on board for good measure, no, this...this was an oversized sailboat. “You live on this thing?”

  The physician nodded. “I’ve got an apartment in town that I sublet for the summer.”

  As he climbed aboard, Larry stared at the sail wrapped neatly around its boom, then at the night sky. “Not very windy.”

  Brahm untied the moorings and pointed aft. “She’s got a motor...if it works.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means, I rarely have time to take her out anymore.” Brahm moved to the cockpit. “It means she hasn’t been serviced in over a year.” He turned the key. “It means I hope you brought your chewing gum, just in case.” He pressed the button that ignited the engine and the diesel fuel caught.

  Larry gave a sigh of relief at the motor’s enthusiastic humming.

  Brahm placed his hands on the spoke of the wheel, guided the ship away from the dock. “Next stop, Colonial Bay.”

  And Peggy.

  THIRTY TWO

  Night dives were like walking in space; the feeling of near weightlessness, surrounded in all directions by cold darkness. The only way humans could visit this environment was either dressed in protective suits, or in the confines of specially built craft, bringing their own bottled atmosphere with them. Peggy Hern had been on night dives before, but her swim to Colonial Bay was an entirely different expe
rience.

  Tiny fish swam by them in rivers of confetti. They approached the reef separating the island from open water, and it was like flying over the surface of another world; coral stems grew as candy-colored grass, forming a living mound of activity. Next, Peggy saw huge tree trunks standing in her path and climbed them with her eyes, discovering that they were actually stilts, a foundation for the town’s boat docks. She could clearly see the undersides of ships made shadow by the moon above.

  Barbara led her through this forest of posts toward a rock wall. At first, Peggy didn’t understand where the old woman was taking her, but then she saw an opening. They entered the fissure, swam through the tunnel beyond, and surfaced in a large cavern.

  For a moment, Peggy could not breathe, then gills instinctively passed the baton of respiration to her lungs, allowing her to inhale and exhale normally. She didn’t know if the lungs had suddenly reformed, or if they sat dormant within her chest while she swam. It didn’t really matter.

  Upon closer inspection, Peggy realized this was not a natural cavern, but a crafted one. The walls were covered in odd hieroglyphics, and candles sat on perches in the rock. At the center of the cove stood a huge statue, a stone monster; it resembled the creatures that hunted her, but this one wore a toga.

  “Where are we?” Peggy asked, not recognizing her own gurgling voice.

  “The temple of Varuna.” Barbara lifted her arms as if to embrace the idol. “Below the church.”

  Peggy nodded, looked at her hands and feet; they were still webbed. “How long can I stay...like this?”