RIP Tyde

by H. E. Goodhue

  A few years ago, Lenny reached a point where he felt there was nothing new in the world of science, no secrets left to discover. His logical mind could rationalize the folly of this belief, but he could not shake the feeling. It weighed upon him, pressed down and left him mentally crippled. He thought about quitting, maybe finding something else to do with his time.

  The incident on Sunset Island changed everything. There were still things left to discover, still mysteries for science to solve and dark corners to explore. Sunset Island had been nothing short of a revelation for Lenny.

  But there was no way the government was going to spend taxpayer dollars for Lenny to chase aquatic boogeymen. He had to lie, had to create some angle that would get the brass to sign off on the budget.

  Now, traveling deeper into the blue hole, Lenny’s thoughts of the government and how pissed they were going to be drifted away. He was going to discover something amazing. He would find something akin to the magnificent creature that rose from the depths near Sunset Island.

  Lenny could feel it. There was magic to be found in the blue holes. No, he corrected himself – magic did not exist. There was science to be found. And that was even better.

  -16-

  After close to a dozen cheap, local beers, things were beginning to feel like old times. Wendy laughed at Tyde’s stupid jokes and found herself sliding her bar stool closer to her husband. It was nice to feel like things had not changed, that they were still a couple, not just two people who were stuck living together. Maybe it was all the beer, maybe not? But did it really matter? All that mattered was that Tyde and Wendy were happy.

  Wendy waved to the bartender for two fresh beers.

  “Someone is on a mission tonight,” Tyde grinned. A beautiful haze had settled around the edges of his vision, blurring the neon signs scattered around the bar and giving Wendy a Technicolor aura. It was beautiful.

  “Well, if you don’t want the beer I guess I can find someone else who does,” Wendy laughed. “Maybe that guy.” She pointed to an old man drunkenly sleeping in one of the nearby booths. “Bet I could get into those pants.” Wendy elbowed Tyde in the ribs.

  “Looks like he peed those pants,” Tyde said. “Good luck with that one.”

  Wendy erupted into laughter and found her arm wrapped around Tyde’s waist. She pulled him closer. Things had been bad. Terrible, really, but this felt right. It felt good. Tyde was her husband and she was remembering why she had fallen in love with him in the first place.

  “This was a good idea,” Wendy whispered, her head on Tyde’s shoulder.

  “The beer?” Tyde asked.

  “The trip, you dumb ass,” Wendy laughed.

  “I know,” Tyde said. “I just wanted to hear you say it. I’ve missed you, Wendy. I’ve missed us.”

  “Me too,” Wendy answered, somewhat shocked by her honesty. She did miss them.

  Tyde opened his mouth to say something, but Wendy pulled him in for a kiss. There was nothing more that needed to be said. Words would ruin the special place they had rediscovered – their own personal island, afloat in a sea of beer.

  “They found a foot!” someone shouted. “On the beach in Turtle Cove! A foot! And I heard something had chewed on it!”

  “It had to be the Lusca!” someone else shouted from across the bar.

  The happy reggae music blasting through the tinny speakers for the tourists faded away. The locals began offering different theories on what could reduce a body to just a ragged stump of a foot. The tourists, uncomfortable and eager to return to their vacations silently slipped out the door. The alcohol-induced spell inside the bar was broken with the silencing of the steel drums.

  Tyde and Wendy pulled away from each other. They were thrust back into a world where horrible things could happen. A world they had tried to escape. A world that had followed them here and was all too real.

  “Come on,” Wendy sighed. “Let’s go back to the hotel.” She slid off the high stool.

  “But…” Tyde began to argue, but could see that moment was gone. He dropped off his stool and followed behind Wendy.

  -17-

  A foot. Just a foot.

  Normally a foot would be one of the lesser-noticed parts of the human body. It was just a foot. Besides fetishists, who noticed a foot?

  But a foot on its own is an entirely different story. Everyone noticed that, especially when it was sitting on the beach, slightly buried in the sand with a splintered shank of bone jutting from the raw stump to glow in the moonlight.

  “Oh man,” Jefferson gagged, a trembling hand covering his mouth. “That’s a foot. Like. A. Human. Foot.”

  “How observant of you,” Stan said. “I’m so glad you slipped out of the back of my car to lend your uncanny detective abilities to my investigation.”

  Stan pushed past the other officers who were keeping the onlookers at bay. Jefferson and Milo followed close behind.

  “Well, detective dick, since you’re such a pro, why don’t you tell me who that foot belongs to?” Jefferson said.

  “It’s a fucking foot you moron,” Stan said, almost shouting. “What the hell do you want me to do? Interview it?”

  “Or read the medical ID,” Milo said pointing to the severed limb. He peered closer. The details spoke of nothing but pain and horrible death. Strips of skin hung like the rubber of a popped balloon. Raw bits of red meat were coated with sand, filling Milo’s head with uncomfortable memories of his mother breading chicken in the kitchen. But Milo forced his eye to look past these horrid details and focus on the small silver chain that wrapped around the ankle of the foot and slightly buried in the sand.

  “Who would wear a medical ID on their ankle?” Jefferson asked. “Aren’t those supposed to be like, I don’t know, visible? My grandpa rocks one of those on his wrist because of his diabetes.”

  “Good question,” Stan said. He pulled a pen from his pants pocket and poked at the chain, gently lifting it and turning the plate to face him.

  “More like easy question,” Milo added.

  “Really now?” Stan asked.

  “Yeah, but not one I’d expect you to be able to answer, Momma’s Boy,” Milo said. “Dude, it’s a kid. That’s who would try and hide a medical ID. He or she wouldn’t want people to rag on them for wearing it, but also wouldn’t want to deal with their mother’s nagging.”

  “A kid?” Jefferson asked.

  “He’s right,” Stan said. He stood and almost put the pen back into his pocket, but stopped. He looked at the writing tool, considering whether or not to return it to his pocket. Bits of sand and gore clung to the tip. The idea of littering was evidently more unsavory. With a noticeable shudder, Stan slipped the pen back into his pocket. “It’s Wally Crain.”

  “Or at least Wally Crain’s foot,” Jefferson clarified.

  “Someone needs to call his mother,” Stan barked at the nearby officers. “She was worried about him earlier. Get her down to the station.”

  The other officers hesitated, looking over their shoulders towards the road.

  “We can’t, sir,” one of the younger officers answered.

  “Why the hell not?” Stan asked.

  “Because she is already here,” the young officer replied.

  A banshee’s wail carried across the beach, mixing with the crashing waves and uncomfortable murmurs of the crowd.

  “Is this just another accident, too?” Milo asked. “Still don’t think it’s the Lusca?”

  “Milo, shut the hell up,” Stan snapped.

  “Why?” Milo pressed. “Because you still don’t believe me?”

  “No,” Stan answered, watching Wally’s grieving mother get closer to the ragged remains of her child. “Because I’m starting to.”

  -18-

  “So how’s this thing work?” one of the interns asked Cal. Lenny could barely stomach looking at them, let alone speaking to them. As it turned out, Cal had some uses and mildly redeeming qualities.

  Lenny emerged from
Dean’s Blue Hole completely exhausted – the physical toll of the experimental diving equipment was a minor annoyance, but paled in comparison to the benefits.

  “It’s a stabilized form of liquefied oxygen,” Cal answered. He shook one of the tanks Lenny had just dropped to the sand. A strange sound sloshed inside the twin air tanks. “Basically, you eat it.”

  “Eat it?” the intern asked. “Why the heck would you eat oxygen?”

  “Dr. Borges came up the idea,” Cal said. “The human body can only go so deep underwater before the pressure starts to collapse the lungs. Even if you could pull from the tank, your lungs wouldn’t be able to expand enough to take the air in. And even if you could do it, the carbon dioxide would build up in your blood and eventually kill you.”

  “So this prevents all of that?” the intern asked as she kicked the tank. “Is it safe? I thought liquid oxygen was dangerous to organic material.”

  “In its normal form it’s deadly, but this has been put through a few more steps to make it safe. It won’t cause any harm to organic material. Basically, Doc Borges found a way to almost trick your body into thinking its water,” Cal said, “and please don’t kick the tank. The way that Doc Borges liquefies the oxygen makes it pretty unstable. That’s why we have to transport the tanks in those giant yellow boxes.”

  “So highly explosive liquefied oxygen is answer to everything,” the intern joked.

  “It’s a little more than just that,” Cal grinned. “Through ingestion, the liquefied oxygen floods the bloodstream and organs, keeping them supplied with oxygen, while keeping carbon dioxide in check and balancing out the pressure. All you do is swallow it and then blow out. We’ve even found that trace amounts stay in your system for a few hours and allow the user to stay underwater longer than usual, even without tanks – something to do with lessening the body’s demand for oxygen. It’s pretty amazing.”

  Hearing Cal oversimplifying his work made Lenny furious, but he knew Cal was not doing it out of disrespect or ignorance. No, Cal was just trying to score a few brownie points with a young intern. This was a dance Lenny had watched more than a few times.

  Lenny’s head spun and his stomach roiled with acidic waves. A thick viscous stream of vomit erupted from Lenny’s mouth and splashed across the sand. Small pools of icy blue liquid sparkled in the moonlight. Small tendrils of red wound through the liquid.

  “Granted, there is a downside to ingesting the liquefied oxygen.” Cal used his toe to push some sand over the nearest puddle of vomit.

  “Are the side effects serious?” the intern asked.

  “Seriously suck,” Cal smirked. “But no, other than being uncomfortable, it doesn’t do any real damage. The body has to readjust and the pressure change forces you to purge the liquefied oxygen.” Lenny continued to vomit. “Violently,” Cal added.

  Lenny hacked the last of the liquid oxygen onto the sandy ground and pulled himself to his feet.

  Someone was shouting back in the main part of the camp. It started as one voice that rose and fell like a pebble into a pond, each ripple growing and gathering more voices until the majority of the camp was shrieking. The four plainclothes soldiers stood by and looked on with disdain.

  Lenny turned to look. Cal and the intern were already heading towards the commotion. Cal motioned for Lenny to follow. His legs were rubbery and protested, but he pushed them into action.

  As Lenny stumbled into the main dining tent, all he could make out in between the shouting was the occasional use of the word ‘foot.’

  “What are they going on about?” Lenny demanded.

  One of the soldiers leaned over. He still had a look of disgust written across his face.

  “Some local came through a few minutes ago,” the soldier shrugged. “Yelling some nonsense about a foot washing up on the shore of a nearby beach.”

  “A foot?” Lenny asked. “I’m sure worse things have shown up on these beaches.”

  “It was chewed on, sir,” the soldier added.

  “Sea life will do that,” Lenny said. “A body that stays in the water for a few days will look awful. Forget about what it will look like after a week or two.”

  “It was from a kid,” the soldier said. “He had only been missing for a few hours.”

  “Oh,” Lenny. He felt his gut tighten and the urge to vomit nearly brought him to his knees.

  “The liquid oxygen, sir?” the soldier asked.

  “Yeah,” Lenny lied. “That’s all it is. Thank you.”

  -19-

  Craig could barely believe that he was about to see a submarine. Sure, he had seen an old one in dry dock at some naval boat show, but this one looked huge. This was going to be awesome, something straight out of the Cold War Era.

  As the shadow neared, waves rocked the seaplane. Craig stumbled and flailed his arms, trying to grab something, but finding nothing.

  The water was cold and the current pulled him away from his plane, but this is not what bothered Craig. Cold clothes dried. First impressions lasted forever and he was about to make one hell of one on his new employers. Wet and stupid were surely not two traits they held in high esteem. Craig began swimming back towards his plane. Maybe he could play this off? Pretend he did it on purpose or something?

  The nose of the submarine rose from the water and glistened in the glare of Craig’s spotlight. A shining mass of blue molted with white rose from the water.

  The fact that this was a weird shape for a submarine and an even weirder color flashed through Craig’s mind before a line split the rounded shape in two, revealing a wicked nest of tangled teeth.

  A thunderous crack echoed across the water, followed by the whine and screech of metal. The seaplane’s two pontoons bobbed in the waves. A slick sheen of oil reflected the moonlight. The seaplane was gone. Craig’s mind spun, fitting together pieces of information, but failing to create a picture that made sense. What could have done that? It was bigger than any whale Craig had ever seen and no whale had ever been known to eat a damn seaplane.

  Craig felt the water shift and move around him. Figuring out what was going on suddenly became far less important than surviving it.

  Climbing onto the nearest pontoon seemed liked a good idea. Well, not exactly a good one, but it was an idea and sure as hell a lot better of one than trying to swim for it.

  The slap of waves against the hollow pontoon sounded like a dinner bell. Craig tried to fight it, but felt the warm sting of urine as it trickled down his leg.

  This was not how things were supposed to work out. Not at all. Craig was supposed to get money, change his life and start living the one he had always known he deserved. Right about now he would have traded anything for a chance to return to his life of shuttling tourists around and scraping vomit off the floor of his seaplane. Even that would have been wonderful.

  The shadow circled around again. With one vicious snap, the other pontoon disappeared beneath the dark water. A salty spray of foam hissed and hit Craig in the face as the pontoon was dragged down.

  He screamed. He shouted for help. Help from anyone. He pleaded for a nearby boat to hear him. He begged for someone to save him from what he knew was coming. With nothing left to lose, Craig prayed. The words felt awkward and out of practice. Snot and tears streamed down his face.

  “Please…” Craig cried weakly. “Please.”

  The water beneath the remaining pontoon shifted and dipped downward. Craig rode the pontoon into the dark absence that loomed where the seawater had once been. Rows of teeth as long as Craig’s forearm rose from the turbulent water. More urine trickled down Craig’s leg, but he no longer cared. He hoped that it would make him taste awful, that it would make whatever this creature was, gag.

  The moon shone, glistening on the black surface of the ocean like liquid silver. Craig had once thought it was beautiful, had felt something when he looked at it. Now all he could feel was fear.

  A deafening crack filled Craig’s ears, rattling his brain and echoing through
his guts.

  Then there was nothing.

  -20-

  Fire. Yup, fire was definitely the best answer. Some days setting things on fire seemed like the best idea. Tyde was low on matches and high on self-pity.

  Things had really seemed like they were turning around last night. Wendy had seemed like she was going to finally shake off the old ghosts, no ghost, that haunted her. It was only one. There was one specter ruining two lives.

  After they left the bar, Tyde tried to keep the momentum moving forward, but once they got back to the hotel room, he tried to kiss Wendy and she pushed away. Whatever had started in the bar was over.

  Wendy was still asleep. She had never really been much of a drinker and the number of beers she downed last night was surely going to put her through hell once she woke up. Tyde slipped out of the room to go find coffee and something for breakfast. They were supposed to have that included in their stay, but breakfast at two in the afternoon seemed like a long shot.

  The lobby of the hotel was empty, except for the painfully cheery clerk behind the counter.

  “Good afternoon, sir!” he waved from across the lobby. His voice echoed off of the marble floor and felt like tiny daggers plunging into Tyde’s beer-soaked brain. “Or should I say good morning?” He laughed at his own joke.

  “Either one,” Tyde mumbled, “so long as you point me towards coffee.”

  “Breakfast is over by eleven,” the clerk said. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Man,” Tyde groaned, holding the side of his head. “You don’t need to do all that sir crap with me. My name is Tyde, that’s good enough.”

  “Tyde?” the clerk asked. “I like that.”

  “I like coffee,” Tyde said.

  The clerk cast a quick glance around the lobby, ensuring that no other guests were within earshot.

  “Look,” the clerk said, the fake cheeriness vanishing from his voice. “I have a fresh pot of coffee in the employees’ lounge and the left over pastries from breakfast. Hangovers suck, brother, so come on, I’ll get you set up with some caffeine and sugar.” He pushed open the swinging door to allow Tyde behind the desk. A door led into the employees’ lounge.