All this inspired his retreat. His friend Shawn Marine, who he’d worked with at Sharp Insurance, had a summer house on the coast of Maine in a little burg that was no more than a speck on the map. There seemed to be a real lack of anything resembling civilization anywhere near the town. The closest city was thirty miles south through a desolate, windy mountain road; most likely the same road he was now commandeering. It would be the perfect place to start anew. New surroundings would bring in fresh ideas.
He made the arrangements, packed his Plymouth and was off to Phillipsport, Maine within the week.
Rick looked out through the blurry passenger’s side window at the Atlantic Ocean. The turbulent, churning surface was a dark shade of gray. The sky looked almost ochre from the horizon to the heavens, expanding north and south, east and west. The clouds had moved inland fast with the blowing wind. Rick popped his headlights on. A shade more and it would be nightfall even though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon.
A sudden rupture in the sky spewed forth a dazzling forked bolt of lightning. Rick had to squint, blinded by the flash. He shook his head. A heavy KA-BOOM! hit, causing the air to vibrate. It felt like the earth had been jolted by a killer quake. The rumblings issued forth, creating an ominous feeling in conjunction with the already pelting rain and dark sky. A sharp green afterimage of the lightning was still etched on his optic nerve.
He took his foot off the gas pedal and let the car slow a bit. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and gently began blinking them back to normal vision. Better. His sight was slowly refocusing back to normal.
When the after-images from the lightning faded, he slowly eased his foot down on the gas. He wanted to make it to the house before the storm got worse. Traffic was sparse and he was hoping to make it in the next ten minutes.
He rubbed the condensation from the windshield and peered through the small misty hole of dampness to get a better view. It was getting worse outside.
A sign came into view: PHILLIPSPORT…2 MILES.
Great! He leaned forward over the steering wheel to see better and began keeping his eyes peeled for upcoming onramps.
Nothing.
Nothing but trees.
He grinned and cranked the stereo up a notch. Alice Cooper bellowed that he was No More Mister Nice Guy.
The mood the weather was putting him in was perfect; he’d always been a sucker for this type of climate. It was straight out of a Hammer Horror film. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and grinned. The spark was ignited. His mind coalesced into power mode. Creative energy. His fingers itched for the hard, plastic keys of his computer keyboard. The urge to create had hit him with an ugly stick.
He was so into his anticipation for getting into work, letting the mood of the storm take him, that he failed to notice the large crustacean in the road in front of him.
He caught just a glimpse before the car went over it. His mind snapped back as the tires thudded over something large and hard. His foot hit the brake, the wheels locking into a wet skid. He panicked as the car skidded, his hands fumbling at the wheel. Which way do I turn the wheel? Which way do I—
Another thud as the tire passed over the object again, this time coalescing in a hearty crunch. The rear of the car was buffeted slightly by what felt like a small explosion. It pushed the car into a tighter skid.
Rick gripped the wheel, fighting to gain control of the car. The huge pine trees off the side of the road sped into the windshield.
And everything went black.
Chapter Two
The buzzing inside Rick Sychek’s head slowly brought him out of his stunned shock.
Loud, yet unintelligible, just barely swimming to the surface of his consciousness.
“Eeeeeyyyyybbbbboooodddddyyyyy!”
Swimming farther up. Growing more alert.
“Eey Bbddyy!”
A tug. Then a painful shaking sensation. He snapped out of his daze as he broke the surface of the mental quagmire.
“Hey, buddy!”
Rick blinked. He was dimly aware of a warm wetness coating his forehead. His senses began working toward some coherent pattern that resembled normality. His head swelled with the beat of a throbbing headache. Fuck reality. He’d rather sink into the nothingness of unconsciousness and sleep this nightmare away.
He felt another tug on his shoulder. He slowly turned his stiff neck to see what was causing it.
A large, blurry dark shape came into view. It took
Rick a second to put the figure into a recognizable form. The figure boomed another thunderstorm of explosive decibels of noise that caused another wince of agony.
“Hey buddy! You okay?”
Stupid question. People always seemed to pop this one when they come upon someone who has just dismantled himself in some way. Rick blinked and stared at the figure. The man’s face was framed by a dark bundle of cloth. Rick lifted his hand and tried to rub the sticky wetness out of his eyes. His fingers ached and he felt weak.
He opened his eyes again, this time his vision zeroing in on normal 20/20. Comprehension set in.
The man standing over him was large, hawk nosed and lanky. He was wearing a yellow windbreaker with a hood pulled over his head, draping over a frame clothed in a brown shirt and brown slacks. His feet were encased in black, muddy work boots. His light brown hair was frosted with gray. His skin and facial features bore the appearance of a logger. The man looked at him again with concern. “Jesus, mister but you sure took a fall down this here incline. You hurt anywhere else?”
Rick felt a giggle rise to the surface. An explosion of pain in his muscles stopped it. “Hurt? Of course I’m hurt. Jesus…” He tried to rise to a sitting position. His back muscles groaned in agony.
The man reached out a hand to help him and Rick’s mind blossomed in warmth. It felt like a gallon of blood had been pumped into his head. He winced and rubbed his temples. He felt sticky blood in his matted hair.
The booming voice crashed into his ears again. “You gonna need a doctor?”
Rick turned to the man standing over him with a concerned look on his face. He didn’t look as weird now as he did before. His nose stuck out on his face like a potato.
Rick blinked at the man again. He noticed for the first time that his clothing was actually a uniform of a Highway Patrol officer. His windbreaker/raincoat was police-issued. His shirt collar was pulled up, framing angular features accented by an unshaven lantern jaw. His voice was rather high-pitched, almost effeminate for his position of authority. A shiny badge was pasted on his lapel. Officer of the Law.
Suddenly the memory of the accident slammed back into his brain. He blinked and quickly turned his head around to see where he was.
He was still resting in the Plymouth Satellite, securely buckled into his seat. It was still raining outside. He was still alive.
And the entire front end of his car was crushed into shit.
It was curled back like a pretzel, exposing bare, scraped metal and wiring. A headlight and part of the grill were now resting on what was left of the hood. The windshield had fragmented into a dozen wavy spiderwebs of cracked, silver lines. Steam rose from the hood in small curly bends like smoke from a dragon’s nostrils. The raindrops sizzled when they struck the engine. Still hot.
The object of impact loomed in front of the windshield, large and oppressive. The huge pine looked like it had weathered four hundred years of blizzards, loggers, and mankind, and it had absorbed the impact of the crash quite nicely. It had enveloped the entire front end of the Plymouth. Pieces of bark had splintered off, exposing raw pulp beneath. The tree looked like it was at least seven feet in diameter at the base. Pieces of it were lying on the mangled hood of the car.
His heart deflated in his chest at the damage. Looks like I’ll have to get a new car now.
The patrolman spoke again. “If you need medical help, I’ll have to take you into town. Ol’ Doc Jorgensen don’t have a radio or ambulance.”
&nb
sp; Rick nodded again and began to take slow inventory of his body. He moved his arms and legs. No bones appeared broken despite the pain he felt; there was a good possibility that he had wrenched his muscles pretty good. He ran a hand over his head and again encountered sticky blood. He looked at his hand and saw that it was streaked. He was cut somewhere. Shit.
The officer leaned his head in and looked at Rick’s head. He nodded with a slight smirk. “Looks a lot worse than it is. Scalp wounds bleed like a bugger, always look fatal. Even so, you might have a concussion. Better take you to town.”
Rick started to get out of the car when his legs were hit with a sudden slam of cramps. He went rigid, grimacing in pain. For a moment he thought he was paralyzed, that one wrong move had broken his back. His arms and legs were still moving but his body wouldn’t obey his commands to lift itself off his ass and skedaddle. Then he remembered the seatbelt. He fumbled at the buckle, snapped it open and slid out, feeling like an idiot.
The patrolman pretended not to notice Rick’s blushing face as he helped him out of his crushed vehicle. The rain drenched Rick instantly as a bolt of lightning flashed down. The low rumble of thunder vibrated the ground and Rick turned back to his car, his precious belongings still stowed away in the back seat. He looked at the patrolman. “My stuff…”
The patrolman nodded. “Once we get to the Doc’s, I’ll have someone come back and pick up your stuff. You oughta be happy you’re alive. Lucky you was wearing your seat belt. Most folks who run into Ol’ Little Feet there ain’t so lucky.”
“Little Feet?” Rick was curious.
The patrolman nodded toward the tree. “Nickname the locals christened this here tree. On account of she being so damned big.”
“Ahh.” Rick looked out at his car. He was glad he’d listened to all the public safety advice aimed toward seat-belts. He would have flown through the windshield and splattered against Ol’ Little Feet like a ripe tomato. Not a pretty sight.
The patrolman didn’t seem to notice the rain. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Deputy Russell Hanks of the Phillipsport Sheriff’s Department. Though most folks around here jus’ call me Rusty.” He smiled a wide, goofy smile and held out his hand. Rick shook it limply and tried to smile back.
“Rick Sychek.”
Recognition flitted through Rusty’s eyes. He leaned forward questionably. “Rick Sychek the writer?”
Rick almost jumped in surprise. He was used to the recognition at conventions and book signings, but here in the boonies the recognition was surprisingly refreshing. A real reader of his work. Rick grinned and nodded. “Yeah, Rick Sychek the writer. That’s me.”
Rusty’s hand pumped Rick’s again with heavy abandon. His face suddenly took on the look of a little kid meeting Santa Claus for the first time. His blue eyes glittered under his yellow hood. “Gee, that’s somethin’. Never met a real life writer before. I’ve read almost all your books. Shelby’s drug store stocks em.”
Rick smiled and looked back at his car, trying to reconstruct the accident in his mind. He walked around the car, peering under the chassis and inspecting the tires, trying to find an explanation to the mishap while Rusty tagged along behind him like a friendly puppy.
“You spendin’ time in Phillipsport, or…” Rusty’s
voice trailed into mumbo jumbo as Rick tuned it out. Now was not the time to deal with a star-struck fan. He checked under the front of the car as his mind backtracked to the accident, suddenly remembering the large, red crusty thing sitting in the middle of the road that he had swerved to avoid.
Rusty stopped the fandom banter and knelt down next to Rick, who was checking out the front tires. His expression took on a serious, professional look of the law. “You hit something in the road?”
Rick nodded, studying the smashed front end. He ran his hand down the front of the car, searching for fragments of what he’d hit. “Think so.”
“Tree branch brought down by the storm?”
“No, it wasn’t that. It was more like some kinda weird lookin’ animal.”
Rusty’s expression turned to idle confusion. As a deputy, he probably had that look from constantly dealing with the mundane, day-to-day small town stuff. He helped Rick inspect the front of the car. “Deer, maybe?”
Rick wiped the blood and water from his forehead with the back of his hand and rose. “No. The rain was so heavy that I only caught a glimpse of it. But it wasn’t a deer. It was smaller.” He held his hands out in front of him, forming a small shape. “It was shaped like…” He gestured vaguely, trying to describe the creature he saw. His eyes darted up the road, tracking the skid-marks back up along the wet road where he saw Rusty’s patrol car sitting with its red flashers rotating in the rain. The engine was still going and hot exhaust smoke billowed out in gray clouds into the cold mist. The car was sitting on the spot where Rick had begun to spin out.
Rick tried to describe the thing again. “It…it looked like a big crab.”
Rusty looked puzzled. “A crab?”
Rick looked at the deputy. “I think so. It looked like a big red, gargantuan crab.”
Rusty put a gloved hand on Rick’s shoulder and squeezed it softly. His blue eyes reflected concern. “I think we’d better get you out of this rain and off to see Doc Jorgensen.”
Rick wiped his forehead again and nodded. “Okay…” He looked back at the car. “What about my car?”
“I’ll raise Carl’s garage on the radio and have him send a man to tow your car in. You can pick up your stuff there.”
“I should at least get my computer gear,” Rick said. He moved toward the car, now dreading what he was going to find in the back seat. He had completely forgotten about his laptop and portable laser printer until now and the thought of facing smashed equipment was something that he didn’t want to have to deal with. He opened the passenger side door of the Satellite and leaned inside. His luggage, which he had stowed in the trunk, could wait. He’d put the laptop and printer on the backseat to specifically keep it from being bumped and jostled in the trunk with his luggage. The dome light on the car’s ceiling went on as he opened the door and he sighed in relief: the printer, the laptop and the case containing disks and other equipment were fine. They were on the seats where they should be. He picked up the laptop and unzipped the case he had stored it in. He brought it out and opened it up. It was fine. It might have been jostled a little bit, but it didn’t appear broken.
He brought the equipment over to the patrol car. Rusty opened the rear door and helped him store it in the back. His luggage could stay in the trunk; clothes could be easily replaced. Computers couldn’t.
He felt better already; everything was being taken care of. With the exception of the scalp wound that had stopped bleeding, he seemed to have escaped further injury. Doc Jorgensen would make the final verdict on that, though.
Once the equipment was in Rusty’s car he cast one last look at his own smashed vehicle lying at the base of the tree when a flash of red caught his eye. He stopped and retreated back to the front end of his car. Rusty followed him.
“Anything wrong?” Rusty called out.
Rick knelt down beside the deflated front right tire, peering intently at the rubber. Something was sticking out of the shredded black tire. Something with the color of dark rust.
Deputy Rusty joined Rick at the side of the car and peered down. “What is it? See anything?”
Rick ignored him and pulled out his Swiss army knife from his back pocket and flicked it open. He inserted the blade into the tear the dark object protruded from and began digging around it. After a moment the object came free. Rick grabbed it and turned it over in his palms, studying it intently. Rusty peered over his shoulder and drew a sharp intake of breath. “Jesus Christ I’ll be damned!” Rusty breathed.
It was a claw. A very large crab claw.
The deep red pincer had been torn off at the joint. Pale strips of flesh hung from the end. It dripped a milky yellow substance onto the wet ground.
Rick had never seen a claw this big before. It was twice the size of the largest lobster he had even seen. God only knew what the rest of it looked like, much less how big the fucker was. The pincer was tinted various shades of red and magenta. A delicate crisscross pattern of color accenting various shades of red melting beautifully together that ended with the pointed tips blending into a thick shade of black. As an instrument of death, it was quite beautiful.
Rick grabbed the pincer by its claws and gently pried it open. Strong muscle sinew still constricted under the shell, frozen in death. He pried the jaws apart gently. When fully open, the pincer was about eighteen inches from tip to tip. The serrated teeth lining the jaws were razor sharp and inlaid in multiple rows, like a shark’s jaws. The hard, crusty shell of the pincers themselves were tough enamel. And heavy. This thing could probably snap off a man’s head.
He prodded at the soft tissue at the joint as the claw suddenly snapped shut with a loud clack.
He gasped and dropped the claw into the mud.
Jesus!
His heart did a quick pitter-patter in his chest and slowed down. He grinned and leaned forward and retrieved the wet claw from the muddy puddle at his feet. He brushed it off and slipped it into the pocket of his coat. Rusty was already shining his flashlight under the car for more signs of the beast. Rick joined him but the only thing he saw was a large puddle of thick oil pooling under the engine block.
He brushed aside a smattering of mud and grass and lowered his head so he could search for the rest of the crab. Rusty retreated to the car and came loping back unfolding a long, black umbrella.
“Carl said he’d have a tow truck here in about fifteen minutes,” Rusty said. He must have put in a call on the CB in his excursion to retrieve the umbrella. “Had the dispatcher relay to Doc Jorgensen that I was bringing you in. He’s waiting for us at his office.”
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