by Неизвестный
“Mum, Dad, look! Crabs!” Richey stopped suddenly, his hand falling from his father’s as he ran to the tank.
Crabs… Sam’s smile froze. He thought back to the seafood stall outside, the small figure with the crab shell…
“Sam? Sam, what’s wrong? Do you need the toilet…” He shook his head, dropped Helen’s hand and walked over to Richey.
He looked at the information card first.
Ocypode cordimana - Ghost Crab. A new arrival from Australia, widely distributed from the northwest region to New South Wales as well as the oceans of the Indo-Pacific region…called ghost crab because of its ability to disappear from sight almost instantly…his eyes flicked over the rest of the information, settling on the picture.
A translucent, creamy coloured crustacean, tinged with pink. Ugly little thing, he thought. One of its claws was larger than the other, and its eyestalks didn’t have terminal tips, just huge black eyes that stared accusingly. Sam shuddered.
And then he caught the reflection of his son’s terrified face in the glass. At first he thought it was the interior lighting that had turned his son’s face so pale, but when he put a comforting hand on Richey’s shoulder and asked him what was wrong, what happened next hit him like a punch to the stomach.
“He says he’s from Lowestoft. Says he’s – he’s come back to play with you.”
At the mention of Lowestoft, Sam’s heart stood still. White-faced and trembling once more, he turned to face the tank.
Behind the reinforced glass a child floated gently, his Nike clad feet hovering a few inches above the shingle-covered base of the tank. Roughly the same age and height as Richey, he would have been quite thin if it hadn’t been for the gases within his decomposing body that had bloated his face and belly to grotesque, surreal proportions. The bright halogen display light, scattered by the constant flowing water, cast strange patterns of luminescence on the boy’s yellow skin and the tiny translucent creatures that scurried over his face.
Apart from that, the child looked exactly as Sam remembered from that night’s drive back from Lowestoft a year ago.
The child cocked his head to one side, fixing Sam with a glare that burned right through him, the eyes filled with a hatred – and a knowledge – that no nine year old should ever have experienced.
“What do you want?” Sam hissed, his words barely audible.
The child smiled grimly, and then vanished. As did the ghost crabs and the water that held them. Nothing remained but a few scattered pebbles coated in green slime and a laminated notice taped to the cracked viewing glass informing visitors that the crabs had been relocated to a tank further down the hall.
He and Richey were staring at a tank that had been empty for weeks.
***
… called ghost crab because of its ability to disappear from sight almost instantly…
Sam pushed the plate and its mocking reminder away from him. It fell off the bar top and smashed on the floor. A long, hard stare from the barman told Sam it was time to go.
He considered going upstairs, to the family room and bed, but he knew he couldn’t face his family and their questions. Not just yet.
Helen had ran after him from the Sea Life Centre, demanding to know what was wrong, why he’d run away. Richey had wanted to know more about the boy in the tank. He couldn’t tell them; how could he? He had shouted at them to leave him alone. Helen stormed off, taking Richey with her to the amusement arcade while he went back to the hotel and started to pack. After a while he gave up, knew that he needed a drink.
About six o’clock he saw Helen and Richey come back, entering through the bar entrance. As soon as she saw the empty drinks glasses, the redness in his cheeks that wasn’t sunburn and the disapproving look from the barman who looked like he was on the verge of throwing Sam out, she’d silently taken Richey’s hand and marched upstairs. She didn’t speak to him, but her eyes said you’ve got some questions to answer!
If he went upstairs he’d have to answer those questions. If she wasn’t awake he’d have to try to go to sleep as well…
No, he wouldn’t be able to sleep yet, in spite of the vodka. He wondered if he would ever be able to sleep again.
He left the bar and crossed the road, heading for the seafront. He tripped and stumbled, the vodka at least having a numbing effect on his body if not his tortured mind.
The sun had now vanished completely. Moonless night enshrouded the town, a few scattered clouds trying in vain to cover the multitude of stars that dropped diamonds of light onto the dark waters below. The triangular shaped green that sloped down to the seafront was unusually empty, as devoid of life as the seafront. Sam had never felt so utterly alone.
He didn’t see the small dark figure leave the hotel through the main reception. It turned, looked in his direction and began to follow.
Sam stumbled along the empty seafront, walking over the ice-cream wrappers, drinks cans and other debris that litters a seaside town at the end of a busy day. Descending the stone steps that led to the beach he stared at the inky blackness of the sea, trying to lose his thoughts in its restless motions. The sea whispered darkly to itself, as if sharing a secret with a hidden companion.
The sea could hide almost everything. It had never given up the corpse of the Lowestoft boy, but it couldn’t hide his spirit. Or Sam’s guilt.
He had gone to Lowestoft exactly one year ago to meet a potential customer whose company was interested in the products and services offered by Sam’s office supplies company. It hadn’t been successful and Sam had left, dispirited and weary.
He knew he should have stayed overnight at the Travelodge; he’d been too tired to drive back to Norwich. The boy had come out of nowhere, tearing across the darkened country lane. An accident. A terrible accident.
But not a blameless one. Four vodka tonics Sam had drunk with his prospective client, and along with the weariness his response time had been slowed. Fatally.
Those four drinks would scream out GUILTY! on any breath test. He would go to prison, a child killer. As well as losing his job, licence and liberty, he would lose his family’s love. Not only would he be unable to provide for them, he would have to face their anguished gazes at visiting time, say to his son yes, Richey, I killed a child your age. Do you still feel safe with me? Still trust me, still love your old man?
These thoughts were screaming in his head as he climbed shakily out of the Mercedes and stared in horror at what he had done. And it was this fear that had made him pick up the child’s shattered body and place it, wrapped in a blanket, in the boot of his car, made him drive to a secluded cliff top to dispose of the corpse and then drive back home without informing anyone.
In that one short moment, fear of losing everything had overtaken his reason, his conscience. He had dumped the body, unable to watch as it repeatedly struck the cold stone on the way down, wet thumping sounds that hammered into his soul. As the tide ebbed and took the blood-soaked blanket and its contents - pathetically small from his vantage point - out to sea and beyond his vision he had hoped that that would be the end of it.
But it wasn’t. How could it be? Nightly the child had visited him in his dreams, the same look of terrified surprise permanently fixed on his face. The shriek of brakes, the sickening thud as he hit the front of the car and bounced off the bonnet. The dead weight in Sam’s arms, the black blood trickling through gaps in the blanket. The loud splash as the broken body, weighed down with rocks hastily gathered from the cliff top, hit the water and began its journey out to sea.
The dreams had come relentlessly, night after night, driving him to the verge of breakdown. The lack of sleep affected his concentration, severely impacted his business decisions. His relationship with Helen and Richey suffered as his drinking increased…and then suddenly, after a full three months, the dreams ceased.
Until they came to Hunstanton this week and the dream returned. But this time it was different. The child was no longer a dead body. Neither was h
e alive. Somewhere... in between.
Thursday night. He dreamt the boy was standing before him in the queue at the seafood stall on the seafront. The boy turned to him, chewing noisily on something he held in his hand. Sam looked closely at the hand, saw that it was the top half of a crab shell.
The boy leaned forwards and whispered: You should try the crabmeat, mister. It’s really good!
Not the meat inside them. I mean the meat they feed on…he then pulled his red T shirt up, over his chest, and plunged the crab shell into the rotting morass that was within his belly. Scooping out his insides, he raised the crab shell, offering the decomposing flesh to Sam.
The meat you turned me into!
The dream ended with the boy walking into the Sea Life Centre, beckoning to Sam, a mocking invitation.
Come on! We can play on the beach later. Bring your son…and then laughter. High-pitched, childish laughter, mocking him.
Nightmares, even as graphic and horrifying as these, he thought he could handle. Because you woke up and knew that they were nightmares. But to be visited in the day, when still awake…
He must have been walking for about thirty minutes when he heard something other than the soft sounds of the sea caressing the coastline. A small boy’s voice, calling out to him.
He halted in his tracks and looked behind him, but he could see no-one. Hunstanton’s seafront was far behind him, its few remaining neon lights making little impact on the black night that enveloped him. To his right the cliffs rose upwards, red white and brown colourings of the chalk and sandstone layers looking more like layers of rotting, decaying meat in the faint starlight. The lapping of salt water on his trainers told him that night was not the only thing that surrounded him. The tide was coming in.
He realised where he was. He had wandered onto the sands of Holme-next-the-sea, a stretch of land where the tide came in on a sudden curve, cutting you off from shore and pulling you out to sea before you knew what was happening.
His mind reeled. Wasn’t this the place where a couple of kids had died recently, swept out to the hungry sea so quickly that their parents hadn’t realised what was happening until it was too late?
Was this his fate, then? To die by the same black waters that had taken the lives of children? As the cold water rose to his thighs, sucking the warmth from his body, he was suddenly aware that he was no longer on his own.
Someone – a small figure, a child – was standing behind him. Arms clutched at his body as he tried to move away, gripping tightly, fingernails sinking into the flesh of his belly like crab pincers.
Sam shrieked and pushed them away, kicking out at the child. As he did so he lost his footing on the treacherous, shifting sands and went under, the child going with him. As cold saltwater filled his lungs Sam was filled with rage. He found the neck and began to squeeze, trying to extinguish whatever monstrous life-force controlled this creature before he himself died.
He regained consciousness on the beach, the strong hands of the paramedic pushing down on his chest, forcing out the seawater that filled his lungs and stomach. He coughed, vomited violently, the deathly fluid rushing from his mouth and drenching the black sand. He was forced over onto his front, the paramedic pushing him into the recovery position. This enabled him to see the small, black body bag strapped to a stretcher beside him.
A torch flashed in his face. The paramedic’s words were faint, the seawater in Sam’s ear canals blocking sound.
“Didn’t you know he was there? He tried to save you – to save your life – and lost his by trying!”
Sam flicked eyes to the cold, hard gaze of the paramedic. He tried to speak, but could only manage a hoarse croak, spilling more water. He shook his head.
“You sure?” The tone was blunt, accusing. “The guy who put the call through said this boy was calling out to you. You ignored him so he ran into the sea, rushing to stop you.
“Did you think he was attacking you? Is that why you strangled him?”
The paramedic reached over and pulled the zipper of the body bag down, shone the torch to show Sam what he had done to his own son.
Richey’s open eyes stared lifelessly into his father’s.
A small crab, sickly pale and translucent, hauled itself over the thick wet mop of Richey’s blonde hair, its claws clicking softly. Its black eyes glinted in the torchlight and then it vanished.
Disappearing from sight almost instantly...
It might have been the last remnants of salt water rushing though his ears, but the last thing Sam Brookes heard before he blacked out was the sound of a small boy’s high-pitched, mocking laughter.
Lucy’s Wolf
By Simon Addams
June 23rd
I met him in a bar. He told me his name was Stewart. In the bustle and fog of the smoky pub, he was a beacon, a stillness in the hubbub. A presence both urbane and animal, confident and at ease, but aware of everything. His eyes were perfectly black and they sent shivers through me.
We drank standing next to each other, gradually leaning together until we were touching. His body was lean and hard. Even in the warmth of the pub, I could feel the heat from him. I decided to love him, so I took him home.
August 5th
I lie awake as he sleeps, my head on his chest, his arms about me. He loves me, loves me for my soul, for my scars and imperfections. His lips traverse me, lingering at each ridge and pucker, pausing here and there as if to take in the being of me. He even kisses my belly, which he says is soft and hot and beautiful. When we make love he is tender, then ardent. He loves me in a way that feels right, that makes it feel right for me to love him. And love him I do. When I tell him this he doesn’t flinch or bark out the automatic response of “I love you too”. He simply lowers his head before running his gaze back up to my eyes. He moves his head a little closer to me and inhales as if he is drinking in the very soul of me. This is how I know he loves me. It feels more honest, more real, than any simple words could be. It is an animal bond, a link between two creatures who are perfect for each other. He wants to take me away, to a cabin he keeps in the woods. He says he wants to share something with me, something he’s never shown to another living soul. We leave in the morning. I can’t wait.
August 6th
He showed me. He showed me the thing he had kept secret. I still can’t believe it. It is too strange, too weird. I can’t write it down because I simply cannot believe that it really happened. But it did happen. It did happen.
August 7th
I don’t know where to start, so I’ll start it at the beginning.
Our new home is beautiful and quiet. The forest around it serves as a screen and as a blanket, smothering sounds and preserving the stillness of the place. Knowing what I know now, I can see how it is perfect for him.
When we arrived he carried me through the front door and into the kitchen. He sat down, holding me on his lap, his mouth nuzzling into my neck. I stopped him with a finger to his lips and gave him my imperious look. “So?” I asked.
“Later,” he said. He stood, still holding me in his arms and carried me upstairs. In the bedroom we made love, him behind me, his hands on my breasts and his teeth nipping at my neck. Him filling me and carrying me over.
I woke later, to a sense of longing and an empty bed. Wrapping a blanket about myself, I ventured downstairs. I found him in the kitchen, naked but for a towel, devouring the chicken we had bought earlier. Sex always made him hungry. He smiled at me as I entered and nodded to the empty chair next to his. I sat down and he pushed the chicken towards me so we could share it. Picking at the carcass, I asked him again. “So?”
He stopped eating and licked his fingers thoughtfully. He shrugged. “Why not?” He said. He stood and came round behind me. Placing his hands on my shoulders, he lowered his mouth to my ear. “Don’t forget I love you. I will never hurt you,” he said.
As he released my shoulders and stepped back, time suddenly seemed to stand still. Alone with the man I lov
ed and trusted, I was filled with an inexplicable dread. Somehow, even down to my very bones, I knew something was terribly wrong. Afraid of him now, I had to force myself to look.
He stood naked, having discarded the towel. “I won’t hurt you,” he said again. And then he changed.
He fell onto all fours as his flesh rippled, as his muscles bunched and shifted. Fur sprouted from his skin as joints twisted and stretched. Finally, in some gruesome symmetry, his face lengthened into a snout as a tail sprouted from his hindquarters. I was transfixed, my mind stupidly repeating just one word. Wolf. Wolf. Wolf. It only took a few seconds, a few seconds to change his shape, a few seconds to utterly change my world.
I slid off the chair as the fear took over me. Failing to stand, I could only push myself feebly into the corner of the room, a terrified animal confronted by a predator. The wolf watched me struggle. When I felt my back against the wall, I stopped trying to flee and just stared at him. Powerful shoulders. Jaws full of knives. But those eyes, those perfect black eyes. As the wolf padded towards me, as I fainted away from the horror of the situation, I looked into those eyes and I knew it was him. I knew it was him.
August 14th
Over the next few days he tended to me gently and nursed me through the shock. At first, I flinched away from him when he entered the room and would have run away if I’d had the strength. He accepted this with patience and understanding. Of course, he realised that such a seismic shift in my understanding of the world would have an effect on me. He just hadn’t realised that it would be so debilitating, so devastating. “I should have prepared you better,” was his apology.
After four days I let him sit on the edge of the bed as I ate the soup he had made for me. After six days, I awoke to find him lying asleep beside me. I watched him as he slept. His face, still gentle despite what lived beneath it. His hands, crossed in front of him, still soft despite what they could become. The monster beside me. My monster. My beautiful monster. He is what he is, a creature of nature with a wild but gentle soul. I ran a finger across the curve of his cheekbone. His eyes drifted open and he nestled closer to me. Knowing he was forgiven, he sank back into sleep. I stroked his hair as he slept, content in the warmth of us.