But the television was off, and as he moved back down the hall of the small beach house, the sound quickly fell silent.
Danny stood motionless in the kitchen now, trying to position himself centrally in his house, hoping to find the best angle at which to locate the sound. But there was only silence now.
He slipped on his flipflops and moved to the porch door, and as he was one step out the entrance, his aim toward the beach, the phone rang. It sounded like a fire alarm in Danny’s ears; if he were twenty years older, he thought, he would have had a coronary.
He held the screen door open and looked off to the sand, an ear to the wind, listening for the continuation of the screams. It was still too dark on the beach to see any detail from that distance, but he thought he could just make out the figure of someone walking on the sand, away from his house, south down the beach. It was unusual for anyone to be out at that hour, in this stretch of the beach especially, but it wasn’t impossible.
Still though, had he picked the wrong morning to skip his surveillance? Was this the morning the sea god would show himself once again, basking in the sand in all its grandeur?
He let the door fall and then reached inside for the phone.
“Hello,” he said, a ping of irritation in his voice.
“Don’t sound so happy to hear from me,” the voice chirped on the other end.
“Hi, Tracy. You’re up early.”
Tracy was unemployed, and as for long as Danny had known her often slept until well past noon. Must be nice not to have to make the rent like every other person in the world, Danny thought. He also knew that was going to be an uncomfortable conversation, the one where he had to tell Tracy their arrangement would soon be ending. He could make the payments for a few more months, maybe even a year if he stretched his money in other places. After that, though, he would have to sell. But that was a conversation for another day.
“Yeah, I’m trying something new,” Tracy replied.
“What’s that? Daytime?”
“Very funny.”
Danny thought so.
“Listen, Danny, the reason I’m calling is one, to see how you are, and two, because I found something...I don’t know, weird, I guess. Something I thought you might be interested in.”
Danny knew instantly it had to do with the creature, though he couldn’t have said how he knew. He continued to stare out at the beach as he talked, watching the sun coming up over the water, searching for the figure that was there only moments ago. “What is it?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know, really. But I was going through some old stuff in Aunt Lynn’s attic and I found something.”
Danny had a faint notion to correct Tracy and inform her that it was, in fact, his attic now. Instead he listened.
“It’s a book, like a journal, and it’s really old looking. Like, really old. It was in a Ziploc bag and buried in one of her chests, but the pages are really faded and falling apart.”
“A book? What is it called? What is it about?” Danny knew Tracy well enough that she wouldn’t have brought up this find if she didn’t think it was significant.
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to take it out of the bag, but...”
“But what?”
“I don’t know, I just think it has to do with...the thing. It must, right?”
Danny felt the familiar tightening of his chest at the thought of the creature, and his face quickly flooded white with fear and eagerness. Tracy had made a connection between the book and the creature without even looking inside, and that was all Danny needed to hear. “I’ll come for it,” Danny blurted. “I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Okay, settle down, Danny. I don’t know if it is about Lynn’s sea creature or not, it’s just a guess.”
“Of course it is, Tracy. You know it is.”
Tracy was quiet for a moment. “Yes, I think so too.”
“Then I’ll come for it.”
“Actually, if it’s okay with you, I was thinking I needed to get away from here for a while. I need a new start or something. And that was the last thing I was calling about. Would you mind if I came to stay with you for a few days? Maybe even a week?”
A ‘new start’ didn’t sound like ‘a few days’ to Danny, but he kind of liked the idea of Tracy coming to visit. And he wanted to see the book. She knew about the creature, of course, and she knew the reasons why Danny had left Rove Beach. What she didn’t know, however, was how close she had come to being a victim of the god.
Danny calmed his breathing and put a smile on his face, grateful that Tracy was still alive and that he hadn’t become the murderer he had set out to be two years ago. And maybe if she visited, during her time there, he could find an opening to confess this part of their past. It was a catharsis he needed in his life.
“Do you think you’re close to finding it?” Tracy asked.
Danny was caught off guard. “Why did you ask that? What made you think to ask that?”
“I don’t know. I just kind of got that feeling. Something in your voice sounds different today. But why aren’t you out at the beach? Isn’t this your time of the day to be down on the ocean with your Meineke whales?”
“Minke. And yeah, well, I had kind of a long day yesterday, so I took the morning off.”
There was a pause on the other end, and then, “So, can I come stay with you for a few days? I promise I’ll bring the book.”
Danny closed his eyes and sighed. “Sure, Tracy, whenever you want. I’ll email you the address. It’s no palace, but there’s plenty of room. And you can stay as long as you want.”
“Thanks Danny, I really appreciate it. I’ll see you soon. And stay careful.”
Danny hung up the phone and stepped out to the porch, placing his belly against the railing as he peered down to the coast. The beach was caped in a purple shadow, and the dark blue water of the tide was easing back and forth from the shore, in no hurry either way.
He let his eyes drift up the beach and noticed the tide had brought a lone piece of driftwood in from the sea and had placed it neatly in the middle of the sand, about halfway from the dunes to the water. The log was only a silhouette to Danny, but he was struck by the unique angle of it, as well as its distance from the shore.
“What is that?”
He pulled the binoculars from beside him and lifted them to his eyes, immediately finding the object in the lenses. It was no log, that was for certain, and if he was seeing things correctly, he was pretty sure the thing was an arm. A left arm to be exact.
“Jesus!”
Danny dropped the binoculars to the porch, where they bounced once on the wooden planks before diving out through the bottom opening in the railing. He rushed back inside and grabbed the phone again, dialing the ‘9’ and then stopping before pressing the first ‘1’.
He was already a pretty bright blip on the radar of the Wickard Beach Police Department, and calling in another incident on the beach—one directly in front of his house, no less—was probably not the first step he should take. At least not as it concerned his own preservation. Besides, the thing in the sand looked like an arm, but it could have been a fake, the arm of a mannequin perhaps.
But if it was a human arm, he needed to get to it first. The beachcombers would be down soon, and the shrieks from the first woman who saw it would mean the police would be arriving at Danny’s door within minutes.
The screams from his dream.
They were real, and Danny could only assume they had come from the mouth of whomever the arm belonged to.
And who had he seen walking away?
Danny descended the steps and within moments was standing next to the severed limb of a man, which he concluded based on the thick fingers and abundance of hair on the hand and forearm. The arm was torn off just above the elbow, in the middle of the bicep, and the bone of the victim’s humerus shone brightly amongst the deep red strings of flesh and muscle that surrounded it. Sand caked most of the site, in some way adding to the
gruesomeness of the scene.
There was nothing to do now; Danny had to call it in. He reached for his cell phone, but his pocket was empty. In his rush to reach the beach, he’d forgotten to grab his phone first. “Dammit,” he whispered and dipped his head, turning toward the water as he put his hands over his face in a show of shame and exhaustion. Another person was dead now, and unlike the previous ‘drowning’ victims he had read about before he came here, there was little doubt in Danny’s mind that it was his former god that was to blame for this one.
But what about Danny? Was he also to blame? Should he have tried harder to convince Calazzo and Benitez of his theories, told them that he suspected the creature, who they believed was a myth, was responsible for the string of deaths on their beaches? Maybe they would have laughed him off, or even threatened to lock Danny up, but still, he would have been doing his due diligence.
Danny steadied his thoughts, leaving the possibility that the arm lying at his feet had nothing to do with the beast. He slid his hands to his chin and opened his eyes, and immediately saw the trail of enormous footprints leading to the water. They were well up from where he was standing, and the high tide was lapping over them, but there was no doubt about what he was seeing.
Danny walked to the shore, his eyes locked on the sand now so that he wouldn’t lose the fading outlines of the prints, and in seconds, he could see the remnants of two prints that were facing the other direction, leading from the ocean to the arm.
There was the proof. There was no longer any doubt.
He stopped at the edge of the tide line and then, as it ebbed, he stooped to get a better measure of the print, studying the foot size of the beast for the first time. He needed to get a photo of it, but, again, his phone was sitting on the bar in his kitchen.
“You okay, buddy?”
The words sounded as if they were only a foot or two away, and Danny turned to see the approaching figures of two men. The sun was risen now, and Danny could see the men were probably in their mid-seventies, fit and alert. Probably took this walk quite often, he thought, though Danny didn’t recognize them. By this time of the morning, he was already back inside skimming the papers for the latest evidence.
“Yeah, sure,” Danny replied, rising to his feet. “How you doing?”
“Just saw you stooped there, thought you was hurt or something.”
“Nope, just studying something.” Really, Danny? he thought. He knew better than to throw out such a vague line, especially to men of a certain age. They almost never took into account that privacy was implied with those types of statements.
“Studying? Whatcha got there?”
Danny snickered and shook his head, letting the gentleman know it wasn’t anything they would find too interesting.
“Just a—”
“What is that over there?”
One of the men began walking toward the arm, and Danny felt the blood rush to his head, his heart now in his chest. “I don’t—”
“Holy shit, Ralph. Come look at this!”
Within moments Ralph and the other man were standing over the arm, staring down at it. Danny noted how unafraid they were, and speculated they were either military men or physicians—perhaps both—and not prone to squeamishness.
Danny walked up on them and stood beside them. “I saw it from my porch this morning. Was going to call the police but I forgot my phone, and then...” He paused.
“Then what?” Ralph asked, intrigued.
“I saw some prints and—”
“Prints?” the other man asked. “Show us.”
Danny and the two men walked back to the shoreline, and as they did, Ralph dialed 911.
And when they reached the place where Danny had been stooping, the prints had become shallow indentations, indistinguishable as footprints.
“I don’t see it, son,” the man not named Ralph said. “You see it, Ralph?”
Ralph held the phone to his ear and shook his head, and then said, “I need the police. Got a situation out on the beach. Maybe a murder.”
Danny swallowed at the sound of the word murder.
“Not sure the mile marker,” the man continued, “but it’s right in front of the house where that new fellow moved in.”
Chapter 16
Samuel slipped into the door of his home with the stealth of a prairie mouse, holding his breath and tiptoeing through the tiny kitchen until he reached the threshold of his bedroom. From there, he could see into his mother’s room. She was asleep on her side with her back facing the opening of her door, in the same position she was when Samuel left. Thankfully, his mother had always been a heavy sleeper; it was one reason among many that this night had been possible.
Samuel eased himself into his bed, feeling a desire for sleep that was almost painful. He was hungry and nauseous, and his feet and thighs burned with exhaustion. But despite the encroaching morning—only an hour or so away, he estimated—and the grueling, sleepless day that lie ahead of him, Samuel couldn’t fall under just yet. He had too much to reflect on, too many recent memories to relive.
After a few minutes though, the draw of sleep was too strong, and Samuel closed his eyes, accepting the inevitable. He could only pray the images in his dreams were as beautiful as those he’d seen in the bake of the moonlight.
But the promise of his dreams would have to wait for another night. Samuel had barely a moment to embrace unconsciousness when the first sounds of anxiety began drifting in from the outside. The words were foreign, distant, but he knew they were to do with Kitchi.
Samuel opened his eyes and listened, shifting his eyes, searching for meaning in the low tones of the Algonquin language. He hadn’t been asleep long enough to feel groggy, and a new energy was flowing through him, activated by the milling from outside. He got up slowly and stepped tepidly from his room into the front of the house, stopping before he reached the opening of the main room window. He then dropped to his hands and knees, and then crawled over until he was positioned beneath the bottom frame of the window, listening. Slowly, he raised his head until his eyes were just above the jamb, and he peered into the village square where the new day’s sunlight shone on a group of five Algonquin, Nootau’s parents among them. They were huddled no more than twenty paces from the longhouse where Kitchi slept, not far from the center of the square. The postures and movements of the group were agitated, signaling concern, and Samuel could hear Nootau’s mother crying.
“What is it, Samuel?”
Samuel ducked beneath the window and placed his back against the wall, scrunching in his shoulders tight, as if the words were arrows that had started flying in from the square. But they had come from behind him, and he turned to see his mother standing just inside the kitchen, her arms folded, a look of weary confusion across her forehead.
Samuel’s eyes were wide and crazed, searching for the lie that would explain this scene. “I...nothing. There is some conversation from the Indians. They...they woke me up.”
Elyoner Cook said nothing for several beats, and instead studied her son with a look that contained both suspicion and sadness. She could see the change occurring in him, Samuel was sure of it. She couldn’t have known the source or impetus for the change, though he suspected she thought it had to do with Nootau’s death. That was true, of course, but not in the way she would have suspected.
But there was more to his mother’s look than just concern and sadness. Samuel had noted it during their meeting with Nootau’s parents. Beyond the fear and anger that his actions had caused her, they had triggered a new emotion: Dread. And she seemed to sense that whatever terrible thing was headed toward them, it was somehow caused by her son.
“Well, you’re up at least,” she said finally. “And dressed, I see. So, let’s get breakfast started. We’ve a long day ahead of us and a lot to do.”
Samuel stood now, in the full view of the outside, and as he did, the faces from the village square all turned in unison toward him. He couldn’t see their e
yes from his position, but he could feel the distrust in them as clearly as if he’d been standing on their feet.
Kitchi was missing, and Samuel knew it wouldn’t be long before he was asked about it. After all, he had stopped to talk to Kitchi in front of their wigwam yesterday, an encounter that had been witnessed by two of the colony’s women. There hadn’t been anything unusual about it on the surface—they hadn’t been engaged in any sharp-tongued debate at the time—but still, it was an unusual pairing.
But Samuel had spent time on this problem on his journey back from the sound. The disappearance of Kitchi was an inevitable issue that he would have to face, and he had talked through a solution. Nootau had died, and though Samuel had spoken with his friend’s parents, Kitchi, himself, had not been part of the conversation. Samuel would simply tell whoever asked that Kitchi had stopped him on his way home, asking for any other details that he may have forgotten to tell earlier. That story was reasonable, particularly since it was fairly close to the truth.
The mystery would deepen with the missing wheelbarrow; that detail would not go unnoticed, since there weren’t more than three or four in the village. Samuel had considered bringing it back with him from the beach, but time had become an issue, and so, instead, he had dumped the tool into the waters of the sound before rowing back across to the island. Someone was likely to discover the wheelbarrow’s tracks leading from the longhouse into the woods, but at that point, they would disappear, forever lost in the leaf litter of the dry forest floor.
Elyoner walked across the room and stood next to her son, and both looked out to the huddle of Indians in the distance. It was a standoff of stares, as the natives continued their surveillance of the house, and the Cooks measured their reluctant hosts.
The Origin (The Sighting #2) Page 10
