“So what?” Lenny demanded, not intending for the words to sound as petulant as they did.
“So lucky for you, we are also interested in studying it,” Travis added.
“You wouldn’t even know the first thing to do with it,” Lenny growled. “This isn’t some creature that can be weaponized or put in a zoo. This is a miracle of nature, quite possibly a pliosaurus. Do you know what that means? Can you even begin to fathom the implications of a live Predator X specimen? You morons don’t know the first thing about –”
Travis’s hand closed around Lenny’s neck and squeezed, cutting short both his air and words. The calm smile never faltered.
“I know more about these things than you can even begin to imagine,” Travis said. He relaxed his grip. “Maybe not things like this dinosaur that you seem to have found, but make no mistake, Lenny, I have seen more than my share of monsters in this world and the last thing I am here to do is capture it. Are we clear?”
-38-
Something exploded. Black smoke billowed from somewhere down the thin dirt road that led to Dean’s Blue Hole. Tyde remembered driving down the road with some much hope. Wendy looked excited – she looked like she used to. Tyde swore this trip would save their marriage. Now it looked like all it was going to do was end their lives.
Wendy trembled as she watched the smoke climb higher into the sky. Moments before the explosion, she saw a handful of black helicopters descend from the sky like giant wasps. Men spilled from the insides and covered the beach.
“What is going on?” she whispered to Tyde.
“I have no idea,” Tyde answered honestly. “But I think if we have any chance of escaping, this is it.” Tyde slipped out of the bush and reached for Wendy. She hesitated, scared to emerge from the shrub. “Baby, come on,” Tyde said softly. “We can’t stay here. We need to go.” She took his hand.
“Don’t,” Wendy seethed. “Don’t start with all this ‘baby’ shit. This was your idea – just like last time.”
An invisible knife plunged into Tyde’s chest. Evidently, things had not changed much, or at all. Wendy was still angry, probably even more so and she blamed him.
“Fine. Wendy,” Tyde said, his words were flat and sharp. He noticed a flash of hurt go across his wife’s face. Was his reaction to blame? Did she really think being angry and mean was going to make him pull closer? It had in the past. Now, Tyde simply found himself feeling empty, tapped out. “Let’s go.”
Ducking behind and beneath the scrubby beach plants left Tyde and Wendy’s skin dotted with countless red droplets. The sharp thorns and scraggly branches pulled and dug into their exposed flesh. One time Wendy let up a sharp yelp, but stifled it with her hand. Tyde looked back. She nodded and kept moving.
A wide, shallow ditch ran along the side of the road, acting as some sort of crude drainage system. It could have been intentional or simply created by years or rain and erosion, but it was their best bet for escaping. More of the scrubby bushes had taken root in the ditch, creating a sort of spiky canopy overhead. Nearby, two men inspected the smoldering crater. A partially melted tire smoked in the middle of the road. The rest of the car lay in a heap in the ditch about fifty feet ahead.
“What do we do?” Wendy asked.
Tyde shrugged. He knew it was a poor response, barely any response at all, but he truly did not know what to do. They couldn’t turn around and the road was the only path leading away from Dean’s.
“Psst,” a voice hissed from off to the left. “Psst. Over here. Come on. Quick.”
Tyde turned to see Eddie, the man from the front desk of their hotel crouching in a nearby cluster of bushes. “Tyde, get over here.” Eddie waved. Two other men were with him. Both looked pretty banged up – one worse than the other.
Grabbing Wendy’s hand, Tyde crept towards Eddie and the other men. A strange sense of relief washed through him as he scrambled under the bushes and into the small natural room created in their interior.
“What are you doing here?” Tyde asked.
“We came looking for you and for my brother,” Eddie replied. “Wait, where is Jefferson?”
Silent tears rolled down Wendy’s cheeks, leaving jagged paths in the dirt that caked her face.
“Oh,” Eddie said. “He’s uh, oh man.”
“Sorry, Eddie,” Tyde said, not knowing what else to say.
“Was it the Lusca?” Eddie asked.
“The Lusca?” Tyde repeated. “There are things down there, but we didn’t see an octopus. But that wasn’t it either. Someone, one of the guys from that camp, stabbed Jefferson. He was in bad shape, but we had almost gotten him out of the water when this…this fucking monster, dinosaur, I don’t know what, just snapped him up. I’m really sorry, Eddie. Man, I really am.”
“The Lusca is dead,” one of the other men groaned. He shifted himself up to sitting. The other man steadied him.
“Who cares about a damn octopus?” Wendy demanded. Her voice trembled as her body shook. Tyde thought about putting an arm around her, but the look on her face stopped him. “What do we do now? We can’t stay in this bush for the rest of our lives.”
“We’re not going to,” one man added. Tyde and Wendy noticed that he wore an officer’s uniform.
“You’re a cop?” Tyde asked. “Can’t you call for help?”
“I’m Stan,” he answered. “This is my brother, Milo. He was Jefferson’s business partner. And no, I can’t call for help because my car is trashed. Besides, I get the feeling these guys wouldn’t have too much respect for the local authorities.” Stan fished a cell phone from his pocket. No bars – the signal was being blocked. “We’re on our own until we can get back to town.”
“So what’s the plan?” Eddie asked. Tears streamed down his face, but he fought to keep his composure.
“Where did Jefferson park the jeep?” Milo asked.
“A little past the main camp,” Wendy answered. “Probably about two hundred yards that way.” She pointed back towards the beach.
“Then that’s where we’re going,” Milo struggled to a crouch and fished a set of keys out of his pocket. “Always had an extra set because Jefferson kept losing his.” A sad smile broke across Milo’s face.
“We wait until it’s dark and sneak back for the jeep,” Stan added. “That’s the plan. Now everyone rest until then.”
“Can’t we just keep moving down the road?” Tyde asked.
Stan looked at Tyde like he had just suggested they try to flap their arms and fly away. “Did you miss something? They had a damn rocket launcher. They’re monitoring the road. We can’t just walk out of here.”
“But we can drive?” Tyde snapped. “How’d that work out last time you tried?” Tyde nodded towards the twisted remains of Stan’s car. “Sneaking out is our best bet.”
“Fair enough,” Stan said. “But waiting until dark still ups our chances.”
“Agreed,” Tyde nodded.
“If you two are done trying to see who can pee the furthest, I’d like to get some rest before I have to try to outrun a rocket for the second time today,” Milo said and lowered himself to the sandy ground.
-39-
Cal watched the explosion blossom a few hundred feet down the dirt road. The men came back to camp, the spent tube of the rocket launcher cradled under one of their arms. They made no mention of the car they attacked moments before or the people who were most likely killed. Things had been bad with Lenny – he had definitely lost his mind and was now willing to use people as bait for the monstrous thing Cal had seen rise up from the blue hole. But these guys were worse.
These men in black suits, surely some division of the government funded through million dollar toilet seats, had just killed people for no reason beyond driving too close to camp. Cal struggled to find a rational explanation, but failed miserably and knew this was simply the government trying to clean up one mess by making another.
The one man, who had only moments before choked Lenny, stormed towa
rds the two men returning from the dirt road. Without a word, he curled his fist and smashed the nose of the man holding the rocket launcher. The other man held his hands up, but that did little to stop the aggressor from delivering a vicious shovel punch to his gut. Both men collapsed to the ground – one spitting vomit, the other hacking blood.
“What the fuck was that?” the man who loomed over them demanded. “That was a cop car.”
“Sir,” the one with the broken nose coughed, “we have orders to sanitize this mess and tie up any loose ends.”
“And you felt a rocket launcher was the best tool to accomplish those tasks?” The one in charge lunged forward to kick one of the men on the ground, but stopped himself and took a deep breath. “Turn in your weapons and make sure you are on the first thing smoking out of there and back to the mainland. If I see either of you in the morning, it’ll be because I’m shoveling sand into your grave. Understood?”
Both men nodded and struggled to their feet.
Noticing Cal for the first time, the man in the black suit turned towards him and extended his hand. “You’re the assistant. Cal, right?”
Cal nodded, unsure of what to do. For lack of a better option, he kept nodding as he shook the man’s hand.
“I’m agent Travis Howard,” the man said. “Come with me.”
“Why?” Cal muttered. “What did I do?” Seeing the burst of violence Agent Howard has unleashed upon his own men did not inspire Cal to trust him.
“Nothing,” Agent Howard answered. “It’s what Doctor Borges has done that concerns me.”
-40-
Night fell slowly. Tyde didn’t look forward to sneaking past government nut jobs and whoever else was floating around that camp, but darkness was their best shot at getting away. He had come to Long Island to save his marriage and now just needed to focus on saving Wendy’s life.
“How have things gotten so bad?” Tyde mumbled under his breath as he watched the road. Milo and the others were preparing to slip into a nearby group of bushes. Stan had agreed to lead the way back to town. It was a few miles back to town and would take hours on foot, but there was no other way.
“A dinosaur, for one,” Wendy said, answering her husband’s rhetorical question. “And the last few years for another. I don’t know which is worse.”
“I’m glad to hear that life with me ranks equal to or lower than a flesh-hungry reptilian monster,” Tyde sneered. He wanted to feel angry. Wanted to be bitter and biting. All he felt was sad.
“Let’s go,” Wendy said, ignoring his jab. She slipped out of the bush and made her way over to Eddie and the others. Tyde followed close behind.
The path leading alongside the dirt road was little more than a shallow eroded gully, but it provided a straight shot back to the main road. Stan crouched down and led the line of hunched over people.
Lights swept back and forth across the camp. A few bounced along the road, but for whatever reason, the government suits had stopped patrolling. Stan checked over his shoulder, everyone was there. Even in the dark he could almost see the fear stretched across their faces like a death mask. He figured his wasn’t much better.
Less than a day ago, Stan had reluctantly given in to his brother’s crackpot theory and accepted that a giant octopus swam through the waters surrounding his home. Not only was the Lusca real and eating people, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Moments after Stan confirmed the existence of the beast, he watched it get eaten by something far more terrifying. And to top it all off, his island had evidently been invaded by strange men in suits who found it entertaining to shoot at police cruisers with rocket launchers.
All and all it was really shaping up to be a shit week. Stan let out a dry laugh.
“What?” Milo asked.
Stan shook his head and kept moving.
Gravel crunched on the road. A car slowly rolled down the middle of the dirt road. Stan stopped. Everyone crouched down and watched the vehicle roll to a stop nearby. Two men got out.
“Out of the ditch,” one man commanded. He wore a tailored black suit and had a strange pair of goggles strapped to his head. He pushed them back on his head. A gun was in his hand.
The other man wore a pair of board shorts and a tacky floral print Hawaiian shirt. He held no weapon. Nervous energy poured from him. Every glance down the road seemed to anticipate danger.
Stan motioned for the others to stay still. Something heavy dropped to the ground by Milo’s feet. Stan slipped out from behind scrubby vegetation, his hands raised.
“Take it easy,” Stan said. “I’m an officer of the RBDF. There’s been some kind of misunderstanding. Just relax.”
“Keep coming towards the car,” the man with the gun said. He pointed his weapon at Stan, but there didn’t appear to be any intent to use it.
“Ok, you got it,” Stan walked past the nervous man and leaned against the hood of the car.
“Tell the others to come out,” the suited man demanded. “Hurry up. We can’t stand around here all night.”
“There are no others,” Stan lied.
The other man groaned and tapped the goggles on his head.
“Come out,” Stan said.
Milo led the line of people out of the dusty ditch and into the road.
“Everyone get in,” the suited man motioned towards the car.
“We’re not all going to fit in there,” Eddie protested. “That’s a damn sedan, not a van.”
“On a lap or in the truck,” the man shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me, I’m going to be driving.”
“Maybe not,” Milo pulled Stan’s gun his waistband and pressed it against the man’s temple.
“Chill out,” the nervous one said. He waved his hands, as if trying to force the tension downward. “Everyone be cool.” He turned and looked at Tyde and Wendy. “Remember me? Of course you do. Come on, I helped you before. Why would I want to hurt you now? Just be cool. Everyone put their damn guns away.”
“He did help us,” Tyde said. “He kept us hidden from that insane scientist and one of the soldiers. Still, I don’t know.”
“What’s your name?” he asked. “I’m Cal. I am, I mean…I guess…I was Doctor Borges’ assistant. But not anymore. That is Agent Howard. He likes to be called Travis. He’s here to help.”
“Sure seems it,” Milo said, tensing his arm and pushing the gun against Travis’ head.
“Please point that weapon somewhere other than at my head,” Travis said.
“Not gonna happen,” Milo answered.
Travis’ body moved in a blur – the black fabric of his suit melting into the sooty light of the moonless night. Milo let out a sharp yelp as the handle of Travis’ gun smashed into his hand. Stan’s gun fell to the ground. Travis kicked it away from Milo, but directed it to Stan’s feet.
“Officer, please holster your weapon and listen to what I have to say,” Travis said. He slipped his own gun into a holster hidden beneath his jacket. “But we can’t talk here. Please get in the car so we can go somewhere safe.”
Stan stooped to pick up his gun. Thoughts of shooting Travis bounced through his head, but he pushed them aside. If Travis meant them harm, he could have opened fire on them long before he asked them to come out of the ditch. Stan slipped his gun into his holster.
“Let’s go,” Stan said to the others. “But I’m not riding on anyone’s lap.”
-41-
Lenny sat on the beach watching the silky undulations of the ocean melt into the into the night sky. If you stared out far enough, the division between the two ceased to exist. Lenny was never one for meditation or any of that other hippie nonsense, but he did find a certain degree of peace watching the world’s boundaries merge.
There had been a time when men viewed the earth and sky as separate, even believing that they were two distinct deities. Man had always struggled to force the natural world to fit his understanding. Things that weren’t understood were personified and trivialized to make them less frightening
. But this sort of folklore simplification never even began to peel away the layers of the mystery that cloaked the natural world. Because the truth of that matter, what Lenny now fully understood, was that there were no boundaries. The world did not include neat divisional lines separating man’s understanding from those shadowy nightmares that dwelled just beyond his mental capabilities. Men were never intended to comprehend the world. Nature triumphed over science. It was that simple. Lenny understood that now.
Pushing himself up from the sand, Lenny cast one more glance across the glassy surface of Dean’s. It shone like polished obsidian and somewhere beneath, a magnificent creature glided through.
A ripple and break in the water drew Lenny’s attention. He hoped that he might be fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of what waited in Dean’s Blue Hole. He envied the one soldier who returned. The man had been stabbed, but still had been closer to the creature than Lenny ever had. A jagged series of points rose from the water. Lenny estimated the depth to be about ten feet. The points continued to rise like small mountains erupting from the sea floor.
A curved shape rose above the gentle waves like a dark moon. Lenny stood stunned, silently hoping, though not praying, that he might see what lay hidden only a few hundred feet from where he slept. The form continued to grow and draw closer to the shore.
The first of eight jointed appendages lifted itself out of the water and dug into sand. The other legs flexed and stretched as they lifted the creature from beneath the dark water. The shell covering the monster was dotted with clumps of barnacles and tangled knots of seaweed. Whatever this thing was, Lenny could see it had waited a long time before coming on land.
A set of massive claws flexed and clacked. Two black beady eyes extended from cavernous sockets. The claws gnashed together, quite literally, snapping Lenny from the confusing swirl of thoughts bouncing around in his skull.
RIP Tyde Page 10