Mr. Crackle looked closely at Julia, and she saw that the disease had progressed to his face, hardening the flesh and recreating it in the image of something other.
Last month, Julia had seen a man looking out on the dock with the eyes of a fish. She had wanted to talk to him. She had wondered what he saw through those strange eyes. But the Government had taken him away before she had a chance to ask.
“Well, take care, Mr. Crackle. I enjoyed your song.”
“And you got it for free,” he laughed. “Come back again soon, Julia.”
“I will.”
Julia knew all of the men on the dock. She used to come here with her father. The men, in their various states of transformation, sat on the edge of the dock, their souvenirs laid out in front of them, shells and driftwood, the flotsam of the sea.
Julia watched the gazing gaping tourists. Every now and again a tourist would let out a cry when they saw a particularly strange twist of flesh. The men of the dock were usually old, with their faces ravaged by years of sea spray, washing away, to produce the hard crags of their faces, as if the flesh of their faces had turned to rock. Then, on top of this change came the new corruption, the disease.
“Here’s a pretty shell for a pretty lady.” A new voice called along the dock, a young voice. The voice surprised her. Julia caught sight of the shell waved in her direction; it was an iridescent gift.
“Hello,” said Julia, staring like a tourist. This man was young. His face had not yet succumbed to the inevitable petrifaction of the sea, and the scales of his face gleamed in the air. He was quite beautiful. This is what the diseases looked like, then, when it caught the scent of youth.
She did know him. It was Michael Kenwood. He was a couple of years older than her. She’d seen him at school – before they’d closed it down a year ago.
“Michael, hi.”
Julia was surprised she thought that all the young men had left Shipsdown.
Don’t go near the fish men. Her mother had warned her time and time again. “They harbour all types of dangers for someone like you.” Julia had never understood the warnings – until now.
“Hello,” he said. Michael was sitting on a square of tarpaulin, he moved his body to reach up to her, and in that movement, she saw the flashing of a shoal of fish.
Julia wondered what had kept him in Shipsdown. A girlfriend, perhaps? She looked at his face. No — it must be his old mother, keeping him here. He had stayed behind to care for her.
“Will you buy a shell?”
“What?”
Michael’s voice had broken the day-dreams that were sweeping over her. “How much?” she remembered to say.
“One pound for you, but I wish I could give it away.”
“It’s all right. I know you people don’t have much money.” A wave of embarrassment coursed over her. Why did she say that? It was her mother. Her mother’s prejudices were lettered irrevocably through Julia, no matter how much she tried to escape them. Her mother’s constant teachings had cast a net over her daughter’s thoughts.
But Michael appeared not to notice and only held out the shell, patient as the sea.
“You’ve carved it, how lovely. Please, wait a minute.”
Julia stopped to pull on her gloves. She wished she didn’t have to. It seemed so rude. But she’d promised her mother that she’d never touch a man without protection. She wished she’d thought to put them on before she came out.
“It’s all right,” said Michael seeing her hesitate. “It’s only sensible. Who knows? You might be infected, you might be protecting me.”
They laughed together at this small joke, as if she could be infected; she was so clean and silky, smooth; she was a woman.
Julia took the shell and passed him over the pound coin. She turned the shell carefully, examining the carvings. “Oh, it’s a Jenny Haniver. We sell these to the tourists.”
“It’s a sea dreamer.”
“I’ve never heard them called that before.”
The small carving was delicate, delineating an image that was both grotesque and beautiful, rendered deeply into the surface of the shell.
“She sings in my dreams. I saw her, once, when I was out fishing. She rose out of the sea and called to me. Listen to her song:
“Sails of silk, and ropes of sandal,
Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
And the answer from the shore.”
It was the song that Mr. Crackle had sung an hour ago.
“It’s a beautiful song. Did Mr. Crackle teach it to you?”
“It’s the song she always sings, although she doesn’t sing in words, of course. This is just our poor interpretation.”
His belief was so insistent; his confidence was so strong, that she found herself slipping into his shell of certainty.
“Did you want to join her?” asked Julia.
“I did, but I had strong ties to the land, then. But now, now, I think there’s not much to hold me here.”
“I’m sorry.” Julia found herself staring at his face, at the silvered scales that circled his eyes. She wondered how much of his body was covered in the gleaming flesh. “Where have you been? I’ve not seen you for a long time – since they closed the school.”
“I’ve been staying in Starmouth — not too far away. I’ve had the sea dreamer’s touch for nigh on six months, but she calls us all here. This will be her place of resurrection, I reckon.”
For a moment longer he held Julia in the spell of his story, but then she smiled. She knew that the men liked to weave tales, explaining their disease.
“I’m not a tourist, you know.”
“Listen to the shell.”
“Will I hear the sea dreamer?”
“I think you will. A shell carved with the sea dreamer will speak to you. She comes from before, before we poisoned the sea. I have the memory of her. Listen to the sea dreamer, Julia.”
Michael was becoming agitated. The pleasant encounter, the shared magic of the tale was turning to something else.
“Julia!” It was her mother’s voice coming along the dock. “What are you doing here?” Her mother grabbed her arm. “I’ve told you not to talk to these people, it’s not safe.”
Quickly Julia pushed the shell into her pocket.
“I’m sorry,” she apologised. She reached into her purse and took out a five pound note, and held it out for him.
“I don’t take charity,” he said.
“It’s for your mother.”
He looked bemused.
“Quickly take it.”
But he didn’t, and her mother pulled her away.
Her mother was so angry. She walked away from the dock, pulling Julia behind her. Julia began to cry.
But something was strange – all over the dock she could hear that same song rising, and the tourist women were pushing off their protective hoods and holding something to their ears. Julia wanted to stay but her mother’s hold on her was relentless.
“It’s bad enough that we have to stay here. I need you to help me, Julia. This is a bad time for me” said her mother. “You’ve let me down badly.”
“I’m sorry, Mum. I need to be on my own sometimes.”
“Not down there. You weren’t alone, down there. You were making a fine show for them all. They were all looking at you, especially that young one. Did you touch him?”
“No.”
“Did he touch you? Tell me the truth.”
“No.”
“They’re freaks. Stay away from them; they’ll corrupt you.”
“They’re not freaks,” shouted Julia. “They’re like Dad. Was Dad a freak?”
“Yes, yes, he was. He used to touch me with his scaled hand, and I couldn’t bear it. I was glad when they took him away.”
Her mother gave Julia a look full of hatred. It was a curious expression to see on the face of your mother.
Her mother had left, gone upstairs to lie down.
>
Julia took out the shell Michael had given her. It wasn’t quite empty. There was a touch of silver substance in the peak of the spiral. She held it up to her ear, and she shuddered as she felt a needle-thin tongue of pain.
Everything changed.
Julia felt the tiny Hanivers invading her flesh. The sea dreamer had found a way to answer the call of the men. The Hanivers swam in Julia’s blood, and they sang out.
Julia sat in the shop – listening to the Hanivers calling her out of this life and into somewhere strange and ancient.
An aspect of the old Julia said, “You’re not real.”
The Hanivers answered, “We are real now. We are ocean and land.”
“I don’t want it.” Fainter now, the old Julia, the real Julia was slipping, slipping away.
“But you do want it, Julia. That is why you listened to the shell.”
This was what it felt like to be infected, with the strange new disease that had crossed over from the sea creatures to man and, finally, to woman. The salt in her blood sang.
Like the constant moving sea, the sea dreamer had changed. She couldn’t touch the bodies of the women, so she touched their minds instead. The molecules of the dreamer were coursing through the sea of Julia’s blood, and swimming in her mind.
Outside the shop Julia could see the men walking. They had left the docks and their voices rose in the old song.
“Sails of silk, and ropes of sandal,
Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
And the answer from the shore.”
Soon the men would come for Julia, they would touch her skin with their scaled hands, but, first, she must make herself beautiful for them.
Julia took out her boning knife and began to cut her face, making it as beautiful as a mermaid. The tiny Jenny Hanivers ran down in her salt, blood-red tears.
Julia would be the most beautiful of all, because she knew how the cuts would look when they dried and changed. Julia cut her face, not only with the knowledge of what is but, what will be.
Soon, she would be dried and complete.
“HARMLESS”
Uncle Don
Jan pulled up to the rundown house in the middle of the last block before the road dead ended at the railroad tracks. The squeal of her brakes echoed on the silent street. Aside from the cold breeze, there was no movement—no sign of life—among the empty cars lining the sidewalk. Some were missing windows. One had a club affixed to the steering wheel but was missing all its tires and stereo.
This wasn’t what she’d expected when she took this job. Fossil Lake, Illinois was just a college town, a sleepy little place where nothing much happened, so she assumed she’d be delivering pizzas to frat boys and sorority girls. They were her crowd. She’d graduated high school last year and was planning to apply to Fossil Lake College as soon as she saved up enough money for tuition. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be partying with those frat boys, and pizza delivery would be a distant memory.
But, two weeks into her job, it was Winter Break, and the town was practically deserted. It was eleven already, and this was only the second delivery she’d made all night. If anyone else had been available, she would have refused to make a delivery to this part of town. It was one of those neighborhoods on the outskirts that everyone tries to pretend don’t exist. The college was miles away, and students weren’t welcome here.
The customer’s address was a two-story frame house that looked just about like every other house on the block—run-down with peeling white paint on wood so rotten she imagined the front steps would snap under her weight. The wood flexed with her first step onto the bottom stair, so she leaned onto the handrail to steady herself. Bad idea. It broke and fell off into the bushes beside it.
The planks groaned as she crossed the porch. When the doorbell didn’t work, she knocked on the door. Her knock was answered by the sound of deadbolts unlocking from the other side. Then the door opened just enough for a gust of hot stench to burn her nostrils, making her gag. That was just the beginning. By the time the door was fully open the smell was enough to make her throw up a little bit in her mouth.
As if by reflex, she backed up a step from the occupant, a short, round troll of a man with greasy black hair clinging to an old Chicago Bears sweatshirt caked with food particles and stains.
“Frank’s Pizza,” she said.
The troll’s voice was a high pitched sort of snarl. Whatever he said was barely comprehensible, so she answered what she thought he might have said.
“Pepperoni and anchovies?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” he said. Or at least that’s what she assumed he said.
“That’ll be seventeen fifty.”
“[Incoherent mumbling]”
When he thrust a wad of cash into her face, she reached into her back pocket for her money clip. The shift in weight made the wood crack under her, and her left foot broke through the porch. Her ankle popped, followed by a flood of expletives. She was stuck up to her knee, and the troll hadn’t even bothered to help her. In fact, he wasn’t even in sight anymore.
“Somebody fuckin’ help me, dammit! Isn’t anybody gonna help me?”
Just then, the troll reappeared in the doorway with a strange grin on his face and a roll of duct tape in his hand.
“Could you give me a hand, sir? I think I broke my ankle.”
His response was another incomprehensible muttering and the loud rip of duct tape being pulled off the roll.
“What are you doing? Hey, what are—“
He wrapped some tape over her mouth and around her head. Then he started rolling it around her neck and shoulders while she swung her fists at him, landing a blow to his side or gut about half as often as hitting the air. The tape pulled her arms close to her body. He giggled as he encircled her with layer after layer of silver. Unable to scream or fight back, her only option was to swing her head in hopes of hitting him. She lost her balance and fell on her back. The troll yanked her by the shoulders to dislodge her from the hole.
If he could extract her, she believed she could kick him in the head or face and run, or at least hobble, out of there before he could recover from the blow. Her ankle was throbbing even before he pulled it out, snapping it in another direction. She would have screamed if she could.
She went limp and waited. Pretending to be unconscious, she opened one eye just a sliver—just enough to see him start wrapping her feet at the ankles. She waited for his face to get in range. Then she kicked. She channeled all her terror and all her agony into landing a foot to that fat troll’s nose. And it sent him reeling.
Rolling sideways to the edge of the porch, she kept the presence of mind to turn her body enough to slide off onto her good foot, and she hopped to her car. Her arms were immobile, but she could reach into her pocket for her keys. She clicked the keyless entry button before slamming into the car and trying to slide her finger under the handle to open the door. She got it open just enough to slip her hand into the opening and—he slammed it shut on her fingers. She felt—not just heard, but felt—the crunch of metacarpals. She accidentally touched the ground with her injured foot, but it wouldn’t hold her weight. Jan hit the ground with a thud. Before she knew it, he’d wrapped her feet, ankles, and legs.
The troll dragged her by the broken ankle up the front steps and into his house. The pavement scraped the skin off her back, and the loose nails and splinters on the porch tore into her flesh. The pain was so intense she couldn’t think or try to escape. Her head bounced off every step on the way onto the porch, over the threshold, and down the basement stairs. At the bottom, the back of her head slammed onto concrete, and she passed out.
Maybe she was out for a minute. Maybe it was an hour or a day. She came to her senses lying on a couch. Everything but her eyes and nostrils was rolled up in duct tape.
She heard a distant knock and footsteps walking across the floor above her.
The troll answered the doo
r. “Hey. Can I help you?”
“We’re following up on a missing person case. There’s a missing girl. Have you seen her?”
The troll paused. Maybe he was looking at a picture being shown to him by a police officer. “No…no I haven’t seen her.”
“Well, we found her car parked on the street outside your house.”
“Oh? I ain’t seen her.”
“That’s funny. You see, it turns out she was delivering pizza the night she disappeared. Do you like pizza, Mr. Campbell?”
“No. I like pasta.”
“Really? It turns out she was scheduled to make a delivery here that night. Are you sure you haven’t seen her? Maybe you can take another look.”
“No. I’ve never seen her.”
Jan knew the cop had caught the troll in a lie. In a few seconds they would storm the house and find her. They would throw him in prison where he’d spend the rest of his life.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, man.”
“Okay. Thanks for your time. Here’s my card in case you happen to see her.”
She felt sick to her stomach when she heard the cop leaving. The door closed. The troll crossed the floor and opened the basement door.
In the front yard, the cop told another officer, “He hasn’t seen her.”
“Are you sure? She must have been here. Her car’s—”
“He’s just the town crazy…never leaves the house. He just trolls the internet all day. We’ve gotten a few complaints about him harassing people online and calling in bomb threats to schools in New Jersey, but he’s harmless. He doesn’t even own a gun.”
RETIREMENT HOME
K.H. Koehler
Ron called Victor into his office just as he was going off shift. Victor knew it was bad. He felt it. He hovered uncertainly in front of Ron’s ginormous executive desk, playing with a paper cafeteria napkin he had stored in the pocket of his lab coat, rolling it round and round, while Ron finished up with one of his always important phone calls. “I want it ten minutes ago!” Ron demanded just before hanging up. He sucked down the last of his smoke and indicated a chair.
Fossil Lake II: The Refossiling Page 19
