by Kim Foster
"Yeah, his sister's in my science class…”
“Rasha," he said.
“Musa is gone. Bangkok took him….Or I-I-I took him. The police are looking for me right now.”
Emerald raced to the window and looked out. She saw squad cars, news vans converging on the street, and throngs of neighbors coming out their houses to see what was happening. A helicopter sat whirling in the air above her house. Then, she saw Rasha, the big hawk, unmissable in the crowd.
Emerald had not gotten a firm read on all the kids at school, but she wasn’t entirely sure she liked Rasha. Where Emerald liked her books, her maps, her adventures, the deep parts of the ocean, Rasha seemed like a slacker. Too , too eye-shadowed, her shorts just a little too short. She was their age, but already she hung out with an older crowd. Her friends were surfer dudes on the beach and skate kids at the park, like she was too cool to just have normal friends.
Rasha had all kinds of hard edges. Emerald was sure she had secrets. Probably ugly ones.
“I see Rasha,” Emerald said to Josie. He came to the window.
“Right there, with her dog.”
“She’s looking for him,” Josie said, watching Rasha whiz by on a skateboard past the Organic Food Shop, calling Musa’s name, Bacon at her heels.
“Little does she know, he’s right there.” Emerald said, her voice trailing off.
They heard the front door open and close.
“Emerald!”
It was her dad.
“Crap!” Josie whispered loudly.
“I gotta get outta here.”
“You home, honey?”
“Closet!” Emerald whisper-shouted.
“Just a sec, dad!”
Emerald stuffed Josie into her closet, so that he went flying backwards into it, which caused a box of shoes on the high shelf, to come raining down on top of him.
“Ow!”
“Shush!’
“Jeez, unpack a box, will ya?” Josie said, while Emerald pushed the door closed.
Emerald opened the bedroom door.
“Hey dad...Just trying to clean up,” but they both looked around the room and saw it for the mess it was.
“Nice job!” Howard said sarcastically.
He stepped into the room. He was holding a thick pile of papers and an iPad.
“Did you hear about the boy down the street?” Emerald asked.
“I did...you think the disappearances are related?” Howard asked over his glasses.
Emerald nodded and stood next to the closet as if her body was blocking it from view.
“Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said..." Howard started. He moved a pile of sweaters to one side, pushed a pile of dirty socks away, and set all his research out on the floor. He pushed the home button on his iPad.
Emerald took a seat next to him.
Thud.
Emerald threw an annoyed glance toward the closet door, but Howard didn’t seem to notice.
“Okay, look at this," Howard said, rolling out a big piece of paper with lines drawn into it, and tapping on the iPad screen.
“I think your Bangkok is a Kraken,” he said.
“A what?”
“A Kraken….” Howard said, cueing up a video on his laptop.
“See, for many years, sailors and fishermen believed that giant squid or maybe octopi could be found in the ocean. They were often so large they could be seen lying as still as a land mass on the water, like an island, and sometimes, when they were alive, they could rise up and sink boats and pull grown men into the water.”
“Check this out.” Howard said, and showed Emerald a wordless, soundless film of a giant squid, moving through water.
“This was taken by our documentary team at the bottom of the ocean. This cephalopod, a squid, is huge, and it’s the only one ever photographed. It’s maybe 100 feet, and with all kinds of power. It can easily kill humans, or just about any sea creature out there, even sperm whales.
“But aren’t Kraken a myth?”
Emerald got up and pulled the curtain back on her research board. She pointed to an old black and white pencil drawing on yellowed paper of a huge squid, its tentacles stretching out of the ocean and grasping two huge ships, tossing them this way and that, the waves tumultuous, huge, angry, evil black water and foam.
Emerald leaned in close and saw the little figures falling overboard, terrified, helpless humans, the monster rattling the ships like plastic toys. She thought of Bangkok, his tentacles coming at her through the Organic Food Shop windows. She shivered and rubbed her arms.
“We never knew,” Howard said, scratching his head.
“But scientists only understand about 5% of what goes on in the ocean. There could be thousands of different kinds of what could be perceived as ‘sea monsters’ down at the ocean floor. We just haven’t developed the technology to see them yet.”
“But Bangkok is-is….haunted. Weird things happen. Sculpin. Meat ghosts. It doesn’t have sea creature power. It has super-natural power.”
She explained everything that happened to her and Josie in the Organic Food Shop. After taking a moment to process what he heard, Howard said, “I think you’re right.”
“You do?” Emerald couldn’t help but be a little surprised he believed her story, even though Howard had always seemed to believe all her crazy stories and schemes.
But in the closet, Josie was not buying it. It seemed incomprehensible to him that any adult would take any kid seriously. That they would listen.
In his whole life, no adult, except maybe Grandpa Jack, had ever really listened to him, and he figured grandfathers didn’t count. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to imagine his parents working out theories about Bangkok, strategizing about how to clear his name and take down the monster. But he couldn’t because he knew his parents were out on the streets, searching for him, so they could turn him into the police. His parents never believed in him.
A small hurting stone formed in his belly.
Howard got up and went to Emerald’s board.
“When I was looking at your research, I realized that we had only been thinking of Kraken as a myth or an exaggeration of the real thing, something that was still a cephalopod.” Harold said, grabbing the long paper with the lines on it and tacking it up on Emerald’s board.
“But what if this particular Kraken, Bangkok, had his metabolic structure changed...”
“How?...a volcano, an earthquake...” Emerald said spitting out any natural disasters she could think of, until she realized what her father was thinking.
“A tsunami?
“That’s right.”
“Fukushima,” she said, clapping her hands together.
“Yes! That’s right.” Howard chimed in, feeling equally ecstatic that they were onto something.
“Here’s what I’m thinking….After the earthquakes in Fukushima, Japan in 2011, there was a seismic shift,” Howard ran his finger along a line on the paper that was straight and then jumped up and down in quick scribbles.
“Marine biologists saw lots of creatures from the deep coming to the surface. Fish and crustaceans that should have stayed in the dark, murky bottom were floating dead on the water in bays and shallow reefs.”
“Earthquakes change how sea creatures behave…”
“That’s right, so I think many sea animals were already traumatized, their metabolic systems compromised and then two important things happened…”
“The earthquake caused the tsunami,” Emerald chimed in.
“That’s right,” Howard said, “a series of huge walls of water, pounding the coast, put stress on sea life, and brought more deep sea creatures up to the surface and slammed them onto the coast and shallow waters…And then, the Tsunami collapsed the nuclear power plant at Fukushima…”
“Bangkok went nuclear.”
“Yes, I suppose you could say that…” Howard said, reaching for his iPad on the floor and punching the keys. There was something abou
t her comment, how blunt it was, that made him smile. It was something Arataki would’ve said.
Bangkok went nuclear.
Howard felt energized. His head was buzzing with ideas. Emerald felt the same way.
“Radioactive materials that flowed into the ocean have changed him,” Howard said, putting a pen to his lips, “It could’ve made him mutate with other creatures driven into the shallow water…
“...like moray eels.”
Howard couldn’t help but smile.
“Yes, like moray eels.”
They were finishing each other’s sentences, a team, just like Arataki and Howard used to be. Howard couldn’t help but enjoy it a little, the two of them, scribbling notes frantically, tacking up new ideas on the board, using one idea to generate another. It was the first time they had really been on the same page since Arataki died.
“Mutations….radiation....” Emerald grabbed a marker and started writing furious mathematical calculations on her white board.
“Dad, there are enough radioactive chemicals being dumped into the Pacific everyday to change the molecular structure of sea creatures exposed to it.”
Howard looked carefully at Emerald’s calculations.
“No wonder Bangkok is so powerful. He’s mutating, that’s why he can live on land, why he feeds on land and in the sea...And when he goes back out to sea, and immerses himself in the radioactive materials, he regenerates even more, becomes more powerful…
“And the other creatures that follow him? The Sculpin, the Meat Ghosts, and the things inside the creepy Food shop?” Emerald asked. “Dad, what are they?’
“Well, the Organic Food Shop is their den…” Howard said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “They...for lack of a better word, haunt it. They are disfigured by the radiation. It scrambles their brains. They are un-dead, like, well, zombies.”
Emerald’s head dropped into her hands. Zombies. Haunted, radiated super-creatures from the deep. She could barely wrap her mind around it all.
“So there’s nothing we can do?...They will just keep stealing kids and growing in power?”
Howard flipped a strand of hair across his head and worked a few buttons on the iPad.
Josie put his ear closer to the door to hear what he was about to say.
“Well, these big Kraken’s have a very soft inner belly....right here…” Howard pointed to a small pink area under the tentacles.
“That gets punctured by a Great White bite or harpoon...and well, it’s over for the Kraken.”
“I don’t think that helps us, dad. We’re fresh out of whale harpoons.”
Emerald sunk into herself. This was all looking hopeless. Trinket and Musa were as good as eaten and Josie was going to jail.
“Look, Em, when nuclear reactors melt down and Bangkok is so radiated the creatures follow him, like bugs following light, and they know what he’s thinking, do his bidding...they have mind-melted with the Kraken.”
“Like Josie?”
Josie heard his name and pressed himself tighter against the door to hear what was being said about him.
“My guess is that Josie is especially sensitive to radiation, “ Howard said, “Just being near the radioactive particles changes his thought process….” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
“So, do you think Josie hurt Trinket and Musa? Or is he just reading Bangkok’s thoughts??”
Josie pressed himself up hard against the door.
“I’m not sure, honey…” Howard said to Emerald and put an arm around her. Together, they stared up at the information on the white board.
“I bet Josie doesn’t know either.”
And that was when Josie fell, along with a loud jumble of boxes and bins, out of the closet and onto the floor of Emerald’s room.
✽✽✽
BANG!
Three large boxes filled with clothes, books, underpants, balled up socks and scuba diving equipment came tumbling and clattering out of the closet. And Josie came with it, falling to the floor under a storm of boxes and falling debris.
He looked up to find Emerald and Howard standing over him. A pair of pink underpants sat on his head.
A scuba mask plunked down on top him.
“Ow!” Josie screeched.
“Geez, Emerald, you should really unpack”
“I agree!” Howard said, extending his hand to help up Josie. “I’m Emerald’s dad, Howard.”
“Uh, hi,” Josie said, pulling himself up.
“You must be Josie.”
“Yeah, um, nice to meet you,” Josie said, rubbing his head where the scuba mask whacked him and shaking Howard’s hand with the other.
“I’m sorry dad,” Emerald said.
“Um, Sir, Mr. Phan, sir, I can explain about being in the….” he pointed to the open door.
But before he could explain anything or before Howard could ask him any questions, or find out the full story from Emerald, there was a loud pounding on the front door.
They froze.
Emerald went to the window and looked out. The police were going door to door, looking for Josie. She couldn’t see how many were at the door, but a couple were milling about her lawn, looking through bushes and behind trash cans.
“Police” she said.
“They’re looking for me,” Josie said to Howard. “They think I killed Trinket and now Musa….”
Howard looked at Emerald.
“We can’t harbor a fugitive.” Howard said firmly.
“Dad, he’s not a fugitive,” Emerald looked at Josie.
“He’s my friend.”
Josie looked at Emerald and saw that this was true. Even though he had tried to kill her, even though he might have taken both Trinket and Musa, even though he might have mind melted with Bangkok, she still believed in him. She was still his friend.
Bang! Bang! Bang!...
“Open up! Police!”
“Hide him!” Howard whisper-shouted, “And clean up the board and all the research. I’ll try to get rid of them.”
Howard rushed out of the bedroom and down the hall. He stopped just shy of the door, pressed his scant pieces of hair down on his head, and opened the door. The Barrel was standing there, his mustache jumped like a frog hiding under his nose
“We are searching for a missing boy...” The Barrel shoved a photo of Musa in his face. Howard noticed how short and fat his fingers were, like little sausages.
“And we’re looking for a fugitive. His name is Josie,” The Barrel said, thrusting another photo in his face.
Howard pretended to examine each of the photos intensely, pushing his glasses up and down in front of his eyes, as if seeing with them on, and also with them off, mattered.
“Nope...No...can’t help you,” Howard said, handing the photos back.
“I’ll be sure to keep an eye out and let you know if we see anything.” Howard said it politely but curtly. He started to close the door.
Then, the big fat hand stopped the door from swinging closed.
“I think I’ll need to look around a little,” The Barrel said, stepping into the doorway.
“I mean we are looking for a young boy who was taken…I’m sure you have nothing to hide, right?”
At that moment, Howard realized The Barrel was coming in whether he wanted him to or not. He also noticed how small he felt next to the large man, so big and round, under his bush hat.
The Barrel looked back and forth around the room, scanning walls and floors and counters and all their moving boxes. He looked at one particularly large one and as if he were trying to surprise whatever was inside, ripped the top open quickly.
There was nothing but bathroom cups and toothbrush holders inside.
“You can see there’s nothing here, but our moving boxes,” Howard said it a little too loudly, trying to warn Emerald.
“I see that,” The Barrel said. “You might want to get this cleaned up. You have a daughter, right?”
The Barrel took out hi
s notebook and scribbled something in it.
“Yes.”
“She’s fourteen?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm…” The Barrel scribbled more in his notebook.
“Are you alone today, Mr. Phan?”
Howard was figuring out how he would answer that - lie or tell the truth - when they both heard a loud THUD coming from the room down the hall. Emerald’s room.
The Barrel looked at Howard. His eyes twinkled with happiness. He loved catching people in a bad act.
“Will that be all, Detective?” Howard hoped The Barrel would simply leave, but he could see by his twitching mustache, and his eyes darting around the room that this wasn’t possible.
There was nothing nice about The Barrel. Years ago he had cared about justice and getting the bad guys. But his years of chasing nasty criminals had hardened him.
On his watch, two small children had disappeared in a matter of days and the Mayor’s office was leaning on him hard. He had been in meetings, heated high-pressure, people-screaming-at-each-other meetings. He needed Josie to pay for slipping out of his grasp, for making him look foolish, and he cared not a little bit about whether Josie had taken the children or whether he was guilty or innocent.
He was going to find him and make an example out of him.
“I think I’ll have a look around,” The Barrel said, eyeing the rooms at the end of the hallway and then walking there, all heavy-footed and angry.
“Detective, that’s my daughter’s room, she might be...sleeping.” Howard said a little too loudly, and walking fast, down the hall, behind The Barrel.
“You can’t just barge into a young girl’s room un-announced!” Howard shouted after him.
He wasn’t sure if Emerald had time to hide all their research, her board and hide Josie. He hoped Josie wasn’t in the closet, that would surely be the first place The Barrel would look.
The Barrel knocked quickly and opened the door. Howard was right behind him. His heart was beating wham, wham, wham, every breath hurt.
The door swung open and there was Emerald, wrapped in a towel, her hair spun up into a white turban on the very top of her head. She looked distracted like she was thinking of something completely different than what they were thinking about.