Blood and Bone: A Smattering of Unease

by Noble, Shannon Rae

  “I think I know what those things are,” Tommy said, sounding hesitant.

  Troy eyed the younger man with a wary look. “Yeah? What?”

  “Have y’all ever heard of sirens?”

  Troy was silent for a moment, waiting for the translator inside his head to catch up. “You talking about the myth? Those mermaid things that hang out on treacherous rocks and lead sailors astray with their unearthly singing? You gotta be kidding. These things sound as hideous as they look.”

  “What if the myths, or legends, or whatever they are – what if they just got – you know – modified, as time went on? Romanticized?” He snorted a brief laugh and went on nervously, “What if the macho sailors didn’t want to admit that they’d been bested by a bunch of fugly mermaid men, so they made up stories about the things having these beautiful singing voices that entranced them into foundering on the rocks? Ah mean, a siren is really one of the worst noises in the world.”

  “What the hell? Sounds like you’re just talking to make yourself feel better.”

  “So maybe I am,” Tommy said weakly, and lapsed into silence.

  Troy felt a moment of pity for his unwanted guest, who was surely wishing he was anywhere else right now, regardless of his motivations for being here – if, indeed, he had any. Could Lily Mercy’s stepson really have washed up on Troy’s beach by accident?

  “Is there anything else we can do to get through this? Safely, I mean?” Tommy tried to make up for his earlier faux pas.

  “No. I think all that we can do is treat this the same as any severe tropical storm.” The old man looked Tommy in the eye. “We wait it out.”

  Tommy stared out at the fog, which had begun to shroud the house. He could barely see the dark water, and couldn’t tell whether it had reached the house’s foundation, because the deck blocked his view.

  Without asking, he pulled up one of Troy’s comfortable arm chairs and found a position just inside of the French door to the left.

  The mermonsters seemed an aggressive and foul-tempered species. They lunged and snapped at the others when they came too close, and their interactions seemed to consist mainly of fighting amongst each other. Periodically, the creatures’ voices would all rise together in a scream, always in answer to one who screamed first. The noise still emitted a painful frequency, but the ear plugs muffled the noise just enough to dull its debilitating effects.

  The water had risen about six feet – enough for them to swim.

  “You know,” said Troy, echoing Tommy’s thoughts, “If the water keeps rising, they’ll be able to swim onto the deck.”

  Tommy suddenly stood and stretched. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

  “Help yourself,” Troy said, watching. It didn’t really matter.

  “Don’t mind if ah do,” Tommy shot back. He twisted off the cap, took a long guzzle. “What else is there to do? What would y’all have done if this had been the storm y’all expected?”

  “Probably would have sat and waited. Definitely wouldn’t be drinking too much, just in case something happened.”

  “Like weird and scary sea monsters swimming out of the mysterious fog?”

  “Yeah, I guess that counts as something happening.”

  “Do y’all have any way of defending yourself at all? What if pirates landed here and found your house?”

  “They wouldn’t find anything worth taking,” Troy said.

  “Are y’all kidding? All of y’all robots and electronic whatsis? Not to mention a room full of all that art? Troy?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Tommy took a long slug of his beer. “Come on, your name isn’t ‘Steve’. Ah know y’all Troy Fairchild. You’re the guy that put my Mama away for attempted premeditated murder.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Troy said, as he thought, oh, shit.

  “Don’t lie, old man. I found your stupid picture in the bedside table draw. And when I saw the blank squares on the wall, the big empty spot on your bookshelf with all the dust around it . . . I figured y’all hid my Mama’s things so I wouldn’t find out who y’all were. That don’t matter, anyway, I’ve known y’all were here for a couple of years. This just isn’t how I planned it. My boat wrecked, leaving me floating for who knows how long.” He gestured with his beer bottle toward the French doors. “And now, those things, you know.”

  “Damn, I knew it was too weird to be coincidence. You’re choosing right now to air your grievances? Has it occurred to you that your timing is off? Don’t you think you should have said something earlier? Perhaps as dinner conversation? And you planned this?”

  “Ah thought I had more time! Then those thangs showed up – and I have a really bad feeling that we haven’t seen they true ugliness yet – butI needed to say something before it gets worse. Y’all hurt my Mama, and y’all had her put away, and y’all took her away from me!” Tommy’s face was red with fury. “And if those things don’t kill y’all tonight, I will!”

  “Thomas, your mother hit me with her car! She crippled me for life, almost killed me! Yes, I had her put away!”

  “Y’all got the wrong lady! And even if it was her, who would blame her, after everything y’all did to her. You crazy old loser, you creepy old stalker! Y’all drove huh crazy and ruined huh lire, and she killed herself in prison because of y’all! Y’all killed her!”

  Troy thought for a moment that Tommy’s head was going to explode. In his agitation, his accent had gotten so thick that Troy could barely piece together what the unwelcome flotsam was saying.

  “She did it to herself!” Troy yelled at him. He surreptitiously reached down into the side pocket of his chair, feeling the heavy comfort of his Colt .47. “And you’d better watch it, or I’ll send you out to meet your – your sirens!”

  “Like y’all could, you stinking cripple!

  “Try me.” The old man looked at Tommy steadily, forcing Tommy to drop his eyes to the floor. “Your mother was disturbed. She hit me. With. Her car. And she wasn’t even your real mom. She was your stepmother.”

  “She was my real Mama! She loved me as her own son. Y’all stalked her and drove her insane! It’s fitting that y’all can’t walk anymore. The punishment fits the crime! But my Mama committed no crime! Y’all got the wrong damned lady.”

  Troy thought back. He remembered hearing about Lily’s suicide like it happened yesterday . . . and relived the guilt he had felt when he had learned that Lily had left a great portion of her estate to him. He had wondered for a long time why she would try to kill him when she had left him money, many of her paintings, first edition signed copies of her books . . . and had the royalties for their sales transferred to him upon her death. If she were going to try to kill him, why would she not have changed her will?

  He recalled the summer day as he was walking downtown in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was Lily’s car. He knew that, for sure: a cool blue Buick four-door sedan with her signature fox animal ornament dangling from the rear-view. The vehicle bore down on him and jumped the sidewalk. There was a sudden glare on the windshield from the bright afternoon sun, and he couldn’t see the driver well. But only Lily ever drove Lily’s car.

  The car didn’t stop. It swiped him as he turned to run, hitting him in the lower back. Then it kept going, just raced away down the empty street as he crumpled to the cement and lay there, helpless, beneath the summer Sunday sunshine.

  He looked up at Tommy. Something about his face . . . his angry expression . . .

  Red hot rage erupted suddenly from the pit of Troy’s stomach and coursed upward, infusing his brain. “You. It was you! You tried to kill me! It wasn’t her, at all!” His vision blurred as tears of anger and sadness filled his eyes. “You did it and let your mother take the fall. She killed herself out of shame for what you did!” A new realization dawned on him. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew I was a beneficiary. You wanted what she left to me. You selfish, soulless little–”

  “No!” To
mmy advanced on Troy, towering over him, his fist raised.

  Troy pulled the Colt .47 from the side pocket of his chair and held it in trembling, bony hands. He cocked it. “Because of you, I’ve been exiled to a life of misery. You destroyed the thread that made my life meaningful.” He put his finger on the trigger. Then he noticed that Tommy had stopped dead, his fist still raised, his mouth hanging wide open. He kept aim on Tommy as he slowly turned his head.

  Silence met him as he looked into the golden fish-eyes of the monster peering back at him through the glass door. “Oh, shit,” Troy said.

  While the men had argued, the water level had risen rapidly. Their shouting had attracted the sea monsters. Three of them simply rose with the water level – and now sat on Troy’s deck.

  Troy maneuvered his chair so that he was facing the door, and slowly reversed to a safer distance.

  “Okay,” Tommy said quietly. “So that happened. Still think they can’t get in?”

  Troy looked at the bottom of the French doors. There was easily two feet of water above the threshold, but so far it didn’t look like one drop had breached the seal. His floor was dry. He cleared his throat. “I’m willing to think positive.”

  “Do y’all have any other defenses in this place – besides that gun? Like a Robocop knockoff or something? And those thangs must weigh a ton each. Why the hell hasn’t your deck splintered?”

  “Yeah. K9 bots. But they’re kind of allergic to water. Never thought I would have to defend myself from a sea creature this high in the air. The deck has been fortified, just like the rest of my house. My place only blew into pieces twice . . .”

  “Just to let y’all know,” Tommy hissed, “I’m not after my Mama’s material possessions because I need her money. She left me comfortable, but I haven’t had to live off of her legacy. Ah make a successful living doing what I do. I’ve come to take back the things of hers y’all took because y’all are slime and y’all don’t deserve them, and to finish the job.”

  Troy held the eyes of the mermonster before him. He slowly raised his gun, still cocked, and aimed it steadily at the creature. “You did wrong, Tommy. You framed your mother. And you know that’s the reason she’s dead, now. And me? I never would have hurt her. I loved her. She loved me. Why would I do that?”

  “Good question. Because you’re sick?”

  The mermonster on the deck opened its gaping maw. The triple rows of lethally sharp teeth glinted a dull yellow in the floodlights. My entire head would fit inside that thing’s mouth, Troy thought.

  The thing shrieked.

  Its fellows shrieked in answer. The headphones and earplugs did very little to protect Troy’s ears at this close range. The pitch rose shrilly, higher and higher until it passed out of comprehension and Troy was ready to pass out.

  At first, he thought he pulled the trigger on his Colt .47, because a spot appeared in his shatter resistant glass. Then he found that he had lowered the weapon and it now rested safely in his lap.

  He reversed his chair as more spots appeared in the glass. Cracks broke free from the spots and ran like spider webs across the glass, which then splintered and fell like rain, too heavy to float on the water that now poured into the room.

  The biggest creature lunged, crashing through the bare frames of the French doors. The frames crumpled to the floor, taking the sixteen stainless steel sliding bolts with them.

  It screamed again, and Troy smelled its rancid breath, feeling the heat of it on his face. He thought his eardrums would burst.

  “AAAaaaaaahhhhhhh!” Tommy screamed, his hands to his ears. He rushed toward Troy. “Take him! Take him!” He grabbed the handles on the back of Troy’s chair and tried to push the old man toward the monsters, but Troy had his fingers on the “Reverse” button, fighting him. With his free hand, Troy cocked his gun again, and, aiming backward and upside down over his shoulder, he pulled the trigger. The kick from the discharge pushed Troy’s arm up and forward, and he dropped the weapon. He hit the “Brake” button on his remote, but that was a mistake. The sudden stop combined with the gun’s kick, as well as Tommy’s shoving, made the chair flip forward, dumping Troy into the ocean water that flooded his floor.

  He gasped at the sudden cold and splashed around, trying to keep his head above the quickly rising water. He dragged himself on his elbows to his chair and attempted to push it upright. Desperate tears streamed down his face as he fumbled around, attempting to get the chair to sit upright. He held himself up with one hand and wrangled the chair with the other until he somehow managed to push it at the right angle and it landed firmly on its wheels.

  He grabbed the armrests and started pulling himself up. As he did so, he glanced up and saw that he had missed his target. Tommy stood there, frozen in terror, staring into the face of the sea monster, who paid Troy no attention, but stared back at Tommy and screamed.

  Troy redoubled his efforts. He had just maneuvered himself into his seat when the beast lunged.

  Tommy screamed and threw his arms up protectively in front of his face. The monster grabbed at him with its claws.

  Troy made for his panic room, rolling through the rising water. It was already halfway up his shins. “Millie!” he called, suddenly thinking of his foul-tempered feline. An orange blur launched itself from the kitchen counter onto his lap. “Ah, there you are, my little baby!”

  Paying no heed to whatever was behind him, he punched in the key to the panic room lock and rolled in, slamming the door, locking and sealing it behind him. He had opened and closed the door quickly enough that not a lot of water had rushed in with him; still, he rolled around the room, picking Lily’s paintings up off the floor, finding higher places upon which to set them: on top of extra shelves already bursting with old belongings, balancing them on top of overflowing boxes. He found high places for her books, as well.

  Altogether, she had left him eleven paintings and nine books. She had shared the royalties for six of those books with him. He still received checks.

  Soon, a loud pounding ensued upon the panic room door. Troy didn’t care. If the monsters got him, they got him. He sat and gazed at his favorite painting. It was a painting of Lily and himself, together; her head on his chest, staring softly and sleepily at the artist. In the painting, Troy was wide awake. Lily had painted it from imagination, but it looked as though the painting could have been done from a photograph of the two of them.

  Tears ran unchecked down the old man’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Lily . . . I didn’t know.” He sobbed until the pounding ceased and all was quiet. A faint breezed brushed his damp forehead in the windowless room.

  He fell asleep in his sodden clothing, but it didn’t matter. The room was like a sauna. Miss McGillicutty slept comfortably on his lap.

  The panic room door, though marred with huge dents, had held firm.

  When he woke, Troy rolled through his living room, squelching across his sodden throw rugs to assess the damage of another, different kind of storm.

  Of Thomas Quinn, there was no sign. The ocean had receded to its proper place, and the monsters had gone. The rising sun turned the page of another heavenly South Pacific morning.

  The Least of Us

  “Mommy, Mommy, look what I found!”

  Darce O’Neil turned from the sink she was filling with hot, soapy water for the dishes. “Chelsea! Where have you been? Look at you!” Grimy dirt covered Chelsea’s face and clothes. Her blonde hair, festooned with cobwebs, looked gray.

  “I was playing in the attic, Mommy. Look what I found!”

  “Chelsea! You know you aren’t supposed to be playing up there! It’s dirty and dangerous. Who knows what – what is that?”

  “It’s a doll, Mommy! Look at her!”

  Gingerly, Darce reached out and took the thing. It was, indeed, a doll. It wore a dingy bonnet and jumper that may have been white, once upon a time. Beneath the jumper were an equally dingy blue shirt and two or three layers of petticoats. A darkish- colored cloak covered
the doll’s shoulders and draped its back.

  She brushed the dirt from the doll’s face. Its facial features were unremarkable. Wide-set gray eyes, pale complexion, straight nose; thin lips, parted slightly.

  Darce turned it upside down, looking for a tag or other marking that would indicate where it was made. She found nothing except grimy underskirts.

  The doll seemed completely ordinary. Still, there was something about it that Darce didn’t like.

  “Can I keep her?”

  “I don’t know, Chelsea. She looks really old. And she’s really, really dirty.”

  “But it’ll wash off! I’ll clean her up! We can wash her clothes, or I can make new ones. Can I keep her, please, please, please?”

  Darce looked at Chelsea’s upturned, pleading face. “Honey, you have lots of dolls –”

  “But this one’s different! She’s special! Pleeeaaasse?”

  Darce hesitated a moment longer. Maybe it’s just the dirt that makes it seem unappealing, she thought.

  She sighed. “Get her clothes off; I’ll see what I can do with them. Wash her up with lots of soap and water.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, Mommy! I love you!”

  Chelsea grabbed her mother around the waist and stretched to kiss her cheek. Darce bent down to receive Chelsea’s kiss; then the little girl turned and skipped away.

  “Whoa, whoa, young lady!” Darce called after her. “Run yourself the bath and just take her in with you! You’re as dirty as she is!”

  As she looked after her daughter, the doll’s gray eyes caught hers.

  She could have sworn it was looking right at her.

  * * *

  Chelsea adored Jane, but Darce couldn’t help feeling an aversion to her. Whenever Jane was in the room with her, Darce felt that the doll was staring at her.

  She tried to shrug it off. Of course, she thought, it’s just an optical illusion . . . the same way the eyes of people in photographs follow you, or the eyes of statues and figurines.