“Randy! Help us!”
He ran around the camp, passing cabins and banging on doors. Nobody answered.
“Hello? There’s a goddamn hurt kid over here!”
He rounded a corner, and finally found a cabin with lights on inside. Shadows moved in the windows, and as Baxter ran toward it, the sound of voices and laughter became audible.
He burst through the door without knocking. “Someone’s in trouble! We need—”
The counselors. All of them. Naked.
They danced, laughed, sipped from plastic cups, smoked from glass pipes. They stopped their dance and watched Baxter enter the room.
“What the fuck you want, fat ass?” Kyle said from the corner. He stood and unveiled the female counselor that had been under him, her legs spread wide. Kyle’s glistening penis pointed at Baxter, bounced as Kyle walked toward him.
“One of the k-kids. He… he needs help. He’s bleeding badly.”
“Another bleeder. There’s always at least a couple of ‘em,” one of the other counselors said, then sucked on a pipe and blew the cloud of smoke toward Baxter.
Kyle stood in front of Baxter, grabbed the pipe from the other counselor, and put it to his lips. He blew the smoke directly into Baxter’s face, stinging his eyes and inducing a round of coughs. Kyle held the pipe out and offered it to Baxter. “Go ahead, lard ass. We won’t tell.”
They all laughed, continued their party as if all was well.
“Did you hear me? We need help!”
Kyle’s fist smashed into the middle of Baxter’s face.
Baxter felt his nose crack under the force of the knuckles, and his body hit the ground as his legs gave out from under him. Stars sparkled at the edge of his vision as blood rushed from his nostrils and into his mouth.
Bursts of laughter were barely audible behind the ringing in his ears. Kyle stood over him, his erection still at full salute. He raised his fist again, and Baxter covered his head with shaking arms.
“Leave him alone!”
Baxter recognized Randy’s voice. His spirits rose, hoping Randy would end this craziness and help him. Baxter sat up, wiped the blood from his face, and searched the room for the head counselor.
Randy stood at the opposite end of the room, also fully nude, his body covered in coarse black hair. He stared at Kyle with disgust on his face.
“He made his choice. You don’t touch him, you know the fucking rules.”
Kyle backed away to his corner where he hopped back on top of the girl. Within seconds, his hips were thrusting and the girl was moaning. Through all the pain in his face, Baxter’s pants began to tighten.
Randy stepped past the counselors and held his hairy hand out. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Baxter took his hand and stood. His nose throbbed and his mouth was coated with blood. Randy pulled Baxter toward the rear of the cabin, away from the front door.
“A boy needs help. We have to get him some help.”
Randy turned his head. “We can’t help him.”
“But he’s bleeding––”
“You need to see something, Baxter. You weren’t supposed to see it yet, but you have to see it now.”
His grip tightened around Baxter’s hand as they entered a room. As soon as they walked in, Baxter felt a sense of well-being, like nothing bad could ever happen to him. The room was dark except for multiple black lights hanging from the ceiling. A slurping sound came from somewhere.
“What is this?” Baxter said, unable to stop smiling.
“It’s our mother. She’s feeding.”
They walked toward the center of the room where a soft whimpering could be heard between the slurps.
A creature sat cross legged on the ground, tentacles writhing from its torso, its pebbled skin glowing blue under the black lights. A long straw protruded from its featureless head, the other end stuck into the stomach of a girl. The black girl who had stood behind him in line earlier that day.
“What’s happening to her?”
“Mother is relieving her. Taking away her burden. She is merely cattle, Baxter. You shouldn’t worry about her.”
The creature slurped mouthfuls of fat as its tentacles waved in the air with delight. As Baxter stared, he realized that Randy was right. A creature this beautiful, this magnificent, deserved it. The girl was nothing. The boy bleeding back at the cabin was nothing.
“She’s wonderful,” Baxter said.
“We want you to join us, Baxter.”
“Join you?”
“With a kiss and an embrace from Mother, you’ll live forever. We want you to join our family, Baxter.”
The creature slurped once more, then a tentacle reached up and pulled the straw from the girl’s body. Baxter saw that the straw was attached to Mother’s face, and she retracted it into her mouth where it disappeared behind thick, bulbous lips. The girl lay unconscious before Mother, a small giggle escaping her lips. The gaping wound in her belly dripped yellow and pink globs onto the floor.
“She’s ready for you, Baxter.”
The creature’s tentacles opened, as if welcoming Baxter for a hug, a soft cooing sound tickling his eardrums. He stripped off his clothes and climbed into Her warm embrace.
“I love you, Mother.”
* * *
“But we drove all this way, honey,” Mom said.
“I know, and I’m sorry, but I love it here. Can’t you see it’s working?” Baxter spun, showing his slimmer body to his parents.
“You look great, son,” Dad said. “I say we let him stay. It couldn’t hurt.”
Mom hesitated, then smiled, reached out to Baxter and ran her fingers through his messy hair. “Fine. I guess this is why we brought you here in the first place.”
“Exactly,” Baxter said.
“You like it that much?”
“It’s wonderful.” A toothy grin spread across his face. “I could stay here forever.”
Quarter Turn to Dawn
Sarah Read
Andrea drank, and savored the sweet toxins. The ocean is a toilet, she thought. A vast fucking toilet where a trillion creatures shit every day and Mother Nature flushes away her unwanted pets. Still. Can’t beat the view.
She pulled the crepe umbrella from her rum and stuck it in her hair, too drunk to remember she’d done that with the last few—a bright, boozy tiara pinned down her salt-stiffened brown curls.
The waiter, Santino, continued to bring drinks, on the house, crowding them onto the small table by her deck chair. He’s probably hoping I’ll black out before the police are done and the reporters move in. Maybe I won’t remember a thing in the morning. But his eyes were warm as he winked at her and grinned.
Rob’s voice carried from the lobby, a tight throaty tone to it that the police wouldn’t know meant back the fuck off. Another few minutes of questions and they’d learn the hard way, like she had. She rubbed at the sore lump under her hair.
The trip was supposed to fix everything—get away for a while, get to know each other again. It had been a bad idea. Better off not knowing. Still. Can’t beat the view.
She had let her glass sit too long. Fine black silt settled in it, clung to the tops of ice cube rafts, and stuck to her teeth so that they crunched when she clenched her jaw. Best to keep the glass tipped, let the ash fall on the bottom. The empties, their bases full of ice in various stages of melt, were fogged with ash.
The sunset over the sea, through the haze, cast a brilliant red glow over the beach. Coastal officers swarmed over the sand, hauled wreckage, and lined narrow black bags along the shore. The palm leaf-coated nylon awning, collapsed on one side, formed a lean-to over the deck that blocked her view of the street where flashing lights and sirens whizzed past. Footfalls crunched on broken glass behind her. Rob stepped through the frame where the glass door used to be.
She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the sting of the sharp grit collected in the corners, felt the horrible pull of his stare on the back of her he
ad.
Rob pulled a toppled deck chair back onto its legs, dragged it through the glass to her side, and dropped into it. A wooden slat from the back clattered to the deck.
“They’re leaving. I told them what you saw. I guess they’ll match it up with whatever they find down there,” he said, shaking his hand at the beach.
“You told them what I saw?”
“Well, yeah. I told them what you thought you saw. What you thought it looked like.”
“They were swimming.”
“Those wrecks are old. You’re not even supposed to swim close enough to see the bodies. Have some respect. And you’ve been drunk, like, all day.” He bounced his left leg on the ball of his foot, rapidly, shaking the dilapidated frame of the deck.
“I have not been drunk all day. And my O2 tank was full. When that boat moved—”
“The Fenix.”
“When it turned over and started coming up, there were people swimming out of it.”
“They were probably just sharks.”
“They had faces. Some had hair. Are you telling me sharks have hair, Rob?”
The bouncing leg sped up. “No, what I’m telling you is—” The chair joints creaked and unfolded, and dumped him onto the scattered shards of glass.
Andrea’s body shook with restrained laughter; a cloud of fine ash rose from her shoulders.
Rob pulled himself off the deck. His ash-smeared white linen Bermuda shorts were now speckled with blood. He plucked at shards, swearing, face as red as the smoke-cloaked sun.
Andrea snorted and choked on the grit in her throat.
“Fuck you,” he said, and flipped the small side table. Her collection of glasses flew into the awning. “And quit drinking. I’m not carrying your drunk ass to safety if there’s an aftershock, or if that mountain blows again.”
“What about the dead people?”
“Jesus Christ, what about them?” He pushed his hands through his hair, flashing the white line of scalp where the fake orange of the tanning lotion hadn’t reached.
“Will you carry my ass to safety from them?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Why did I even bring you here?” His flip-flops slapped at his heels as he stomped back into the hotel lobby.
“To fuck me,” she said, and took another drink.
Probably going to try and get his money back, she thought, as if it’s the hotel’s fault the country is trying to shake itself off the map.
She pushed herself out of the chair and stumbled down the sloping deck to the railing.
Fire trucks lined the beach and aimed their floodlights at the work crews. A hulk of rusty metal and twisted wood had been hauled up onto the sand, dragged from the shallows where it had resurfaced in the quake. Figures in reflective jackets swarmed the wreck, pulling apart old seams and draining pockets of brackish water.
The line of narrow, slick, black bags stretched beyond the reach of light.
Andrea shivered. The sun was gone—just a red glow left on the water. She turned, steadied herself on the railing, and climbed back into the hotel.
The whir of generators around the lobby drowned out the rising tide of commotion that washed up on the shore.
* * *
Rob slept facedown on the bed, above the covers, his blood-speckled butt bare to the room. If he’d shown any sign of humor, she’d have spanked him. Instead, she pulled a crepe umbrella from her hair and slipped it between his cheeks. He snorted.
The ice bucket full of water sloshed when Andrea set it on the floor. She pulled the sink plunger up and filled the basin from the bucket. The washcloth turned grey from the ash she scrubbed from her face. Salt crumbled from her swimsuit as she peeled it off and stepped into soft cotton shorts. She pulled on a tank top Rob had given her that said ‘BITCH’ across her tits. A ‘token of affection’. She wore it because he thought she wouldn’t.
Her fingers caught in the tangles of her hair as she tried to tame the curls. She pulled it back into a knot and a small red barb of coral tumbled from a curl. The coral’s sharp tine sunk into her thumb as she retrieved it from the floor.
The pain was slow to travel to her foggy brain. She pressed the cut to her lips, soothed it with her tongue, and tossed the barb in the toilet.
The room was already soaking up the equatorial warmth. She opened the balcony doors, and swung them to move some air.
The beach had gone dark. Only a few dim lights shone at the resorts lavish enough to have generators, the rest of the town pitched into darkness. The mountaintop glowed, reflecting its fire off the underside of ash clouds.
The clock flashed twelve; her fancy dive watch had failed in the deep water; her phone sat on her pillow back in New York—a condition of their retreat. He’s got a condition, all right. Or a disorder. She yawned.
Rob’s form sprawled across the whole bed. There was no space left for her—not unless she wanted to spoon up next to him. She didn’t. She slipped out onto the balcony, shut the door, and settled into the plush deck chair, her head spinning into sleep as she listened to the splash of the ocean two floors below.
* * *
A shrill screech shattered her dream and she flung her eyes open. Santino…?
A sepia morning glow had settled over the ocean. Sunlight filtered weakly through smoke, its peace cut through by the sound of something scraping at the glass behind her. She spun around in her chair.
Rob crouched on the floor inside the glass door. He clawed at the glass, his nails folded back to the raw quick. His jaw hung slack, saliva stringing from his lips.
She leaped from her chair and reached for the door handle. Is he hurt? She flinched back. He banged on the glass, but the shrieks continued behind her. His breath did not fog the glass.
What’s wrong with him, Jesus, what’s going on?
She backed away from the door, reached behind, and grasped the balcony railing. Her eyes slid to the side, over the low wall.
Below, the ground seethed with bodies. Men in reflective jackets fled coral-crusted skeletons that dragged their slick black bags behind them. Tourists ran as shuffling, grey-skinned creatures leapt at them. Blood sprayed from tan flesh that squirmed as the grey figures fell on them and ripped them with rows of serrated fangs.
Andrea puked sweet and sour rum over the rail. She fought for breath against the tide of nausea and the tightness in her throat.
There was a bang against the balcony door and Andrea spun to face Rob again.
A web of cracks spread across the glass door. Rob’s mouth pressed against the center of the spiral fissure, gnawing. A tooth dropped to the carpet trailing pink froth behind it, and a bloody fang burst through the gum in its place, spraying the door in a fine mist of blood.
Andrea screamed and pressed her back to the low cement barrier at the balcony’s edge. There was a privacy wall separating their balcony from the one adjacent and she sidled along and leaned around it. She planted one foot firmly in the corner of the balcony and hugged the dividing wall. She reached her other leg over the edge—over the bloody chaos below—then swung it around into the neighboring balcony.
Rob’s hand burst through the door in a coruscating shower of glass and her stomach churned at thought of the drop to the pavement below.
Oh god. Now, Andrea. Now!
Jump.
Andrea threw herself over the wall and slammed into a deck chair with a crash that sent her sprawling. As she scrambled to her feet, Rob’s bloody arm reached around the dividing wall, tattered, bloody fingers grasping at the air.
“Not today, asshole! Or ever again.”
She picked up a wooden deck chair, and threw it through the glass door. Fragments of glass fell around her as she leapt through the jagged hole.
She crouched—waiting, listening. The room was silent. Bathroom empty. Fresh sheets folded on top of a bare mattress. She should be safe for a minute.
Andrea sat on the bed. Rob flailed and grunted wetly but made no progress. What the hell had happened to h
im?
There was a loud thud in the hallway and Andrea ran to the door and pressed her ear against the crack.
A door slammed in the distance. A scream.
The hinge on the bar bolt screeched as she rammed it in place. I’ve got to find help; I’ve got to get out.
She grabbed the phone receiver from the nightstand and pressed it to her ear. The line was silent, but for a slow buzz of static. She pressed the button for the desk, and held her breath. It rang.
A voice burst through the line, a staccato of rapid Spanish.
“Hello? Santino, is that you?” Andrea said.
“Mrs. Renato! You’re alive!” Santino’s grin slid through the phone, the way it had slid up her legs the first night she stretched out on the beach. The way his fingers slid over hers when he handed her a drink.
“I am not Mrs. Renato. Santino, what’s happened? What’s going on out there?”
“You were right, Miss Andrea. They just walked right up out of the sea.” He laughed.
“Santino, are you drunk?”
“Yes, I am, señorita. Locked myself in the store room behind the bar.”
“How do we get out of here? Rob is… I climbed over the balcony to the next room…”
“Stay where you are. Get drunk if you can! One got me last night, but I’m still myself. Not like the others. I think it’s the tequila!” He cackled and hung up the phone.
The line clicked back to static. Andrea slammed the receiver down. So much for her knight in shining armor. The cut on her thumb itched.
Rob’s arms still waved around the partition, his throaty moans floating in through the broken door.
She sat on the bed. Her stomach growled. The screams outside grew distant.
She raided the mini-fridge, and washed down a tube of peanuts with a fist-sized bottle of scotch. A tiny wheel of shortbread was her dessert.
She stepped out onto the balcony, and hugged the wall away from Rob’s bloody reach. His movements grew more erratic in her presence, his moans frantic. She stepped within a few inches of his fingertips, watched him grow rabid as he clawed the air for her.
Suspended In Dusk Page 23
