by Michael West
“Ayuh, boy never got over it. You heard he moved out to that old fishin’ shack —”
“Been meetin’ with a bunch o’ kids out there. Barbara DeParle says —”
“Some kind o’ cult he’s formin’ out there. Don’t like it. Don’t much like it at all —”
“— what he’s doin’ with the DeParles’ little girl. She’s gone missin’, you know. Right before those kids got attacked on the beach. Horrible mess that was...”
Karl walked on at a steady clip, a smile spreading across his face. Let them talk. It was flattering to be the subject of so much gossip and heated debate. A week ago, he’d been the crazy Tellstrom boy, on his way to oblivion. Today, his message was ringing in much more receptive ears, ears that now understood what he’d known his whole life: The people of Colonial Bay were meant to be something far better than what they had become.
He reached his destination and stopped, watched as a woman locked the door to The Shirt Shack. Sue O’Conner. On her T-shirt, the town’s tiresome motto was printed in big, bold lettering: COLONIAL BAY: AMERICA’S HOME BY THE SEA. Tellstrom had the sudden urge to voice his disdain of those words, but instead he smiled.
“I don’t understand you,” he said, his voice mild.
Sue jumped; she dropped her keys onto the hot pavement. Karl bent down to pick them up, held them out for her. “I know what some people are saying about me.”
“Never been one to listen to gossip.” Her gaze alternated between his tanned face and her keys. “I ain’t scared o’ you, you know.”
Tellstrom smiled; the ocean breeze moved through his short-cropped raven hair. “Of course not. Why should you be?”
After a tense moment, she took back her keys. “Anyway, what’s not to understand?”
Streetlights bathed the storefront in their orange glow. Sounds of swooping gulls and crashing waves provided subtle background. And Karl could feel that his time was coming like the evening tide. Destiny, long kept at bay by his father, was now free to call to him, but he knew the change that he sought would not happen overnight. Karl would now awaken Sue to the calling within her own veins, the call that would, he hoped, lead him to greatness and her to follow him.
“Every day,” he began, “you open up your store, listen to men and women bitch at you, and sweat to death over your hot presses.”
Her mouth opened to speak, but instead she lowered her eyes and stared at her sandal straps.
“Look at me, Sue.”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered, still focused on her feet.
Karl felt the urge to grab her by the chin and force her to look into his dark eyes.
Hey, his mind called out. Don’t get carried away now. Not when you’re so close. Look at all you’ve been able to do already...
Easier thought than done. Karl’s temper had a habit of...getting away from him sometimes.
But not tonight, he vowed. Not tonight.
Karl took a breath. He had to keep his anger in check now. This was too important. If he could make Sue, a pillar of the community, understand him, could make her join him, then others from her clan would follow.
“Sue...I promise I won’t bite...unless you ask me to.”
She snickered in spite of herself and turned her eyes up to meet his.
“Do you like who you are?” he asked.
“Karl, it’s gettin’ late and I’d like to get a swim in —”
“While it’s dark?”
She nodded her head.
“Answer my question,” he whispered.
“I’m makin’ good money.”
“But you’re not happy, are you? You can’t be happy pressing shirts for Landers. You can’t like being the lapdog of rich shits from the Hamptons who think you owe them something. You feel trapped, don’t you? You feel you were made for something more, something bigger and better than this.”
Sue said nothing but her eyes spoke volumes.
He went on, “You say to yourself: ‘If only I could cast away this lie and live like my ancestors, then...then I’d be happy.’”
She shook her head. “Fantasy.”
“Your fantasy. Have you read the Bible, Sue? — I mean, really read it?”
She shrugged. “I’ve read it, talked about it with the Teacher.”
Karl’s smile faltered a bit. “Mrs. DeParle?”
“Yeah. She says Jesus appeared as a man to make human beings understand the Word.”
“And they killed Him,” Karl told her. “They nailed Him to a tree because the Pharisees thought He was a threat to their power. DeParle is just like them. She wants to be the one who gives the message. Anyone who preaches something different is speaking nonsense, a heretic. But if it’s the truth, how can it be blasphemy?”
Sue nodded.
Good.
“In the Bible,” Karl went on, his smile returning, “Jesus goes to the Sea of Galilee and tells the people, ‘The right time has come. Turn away from your life of sin and believe the Good News.’”
And then Tellstrom reached into the pocket of his Hawaiian shorts. He didn’t want to wear them, but saw no way around it if he was to be seen on the street. It would not do him any good if Joe Tourist saw a naked man walking through town. Karl produced a folded sheet of newsprint and spread it open so that the headline was clear: LOST CITY FOUND NEAR AZORES.
Sue’s eyes widened, and she took the paper from his grasp hesitantly, as if it might not be real. “Is this...?”
“Poseidon,” he said with a grin. “This USA Today calls it Atlantis, but yes...it is.”
The look of astonishment on her face gave way to an ecstatic glee.
Karl Tellstrom placed his hand on her shoulder and she did not shrink from his touch. In fact, she raised her hand to his and squeezed his fingers as if to show her gratitude. “Come with me,” he told her, still quoting scripture, “and I will make you fishers of men.”
ELEVEN
Larry bolted into the night surf, clad only in his robe. A powerful wave slapped him across the face, nearly knocked him off his feet. The salt water burned his eyes, and, for a moment, he could not breathe, but he had to keep going.
Someone was drowning out here, a girl; she needed him.
A hand shot up from the tide, waved for help. Larry took it, pulled, and a familiar face broke the surface. Natalie. What the fuck was she doing here?
Then she threw her arms around his neck, brought her face closer to his, and he saw that he’d been mistaken. This wasn’t Natalie.
This was a corpse.
As Larry stared into the dead girl’s filmy eyes, his hands ran up the length of her back, his fingers skidding over the jagged vertebrae of a naked spine. He shoved the thing away, looked through a gaping hole in its right cheek — a window to the glistening jawbone within. Its torso was just as ragged, with whole sections of flesh torn away. An eel slithered out from between two exposed ribs, fell back into the tide, and swam away.
The dead thing spoke; water cascaded over bloated, wrinkled lips with every word. “You tried to help me, Larry. Now I need to help you.”
Larry whirled around, moved back toward the deserted shore, and the horror followed.
It held out its hands as if to embrace him. “Larry, stop! Listen!”
He scanned the beach in every direction, searching for the Sea Mist Inn, and was met instead by the rocky face of tall cliffs. Concrete steps; they snaked their way up the side of the rock wall. Larry stumbled through loose sand, wrapped his hand around a cold metal guardrail, and climbed.
When he glanced back over his shoulder, he found the dead girl still in pursuit.
“You’re in danger,” she called after him.
Oh, yes. Of that much, he was certain.
Light swept the top of the stairs, and Larry saw Colonial Bay’s lighthouse silhouetted against moonlit clouds. A small yellow bulb glowed above the door. He slipped, regained his footing, and, when he chanced another downward glance, he saw that the dead woman had g
ained on him.
Larry bolted for the entrance; the knob turned easily in his grasp, and he pushed his way inside. He slammed the door closed, slid the heavy metal deadbolt into place, then hunched over, hands on his knees as he panted and tried to catch his breath.
“The flesh is the clay of the gods,” came from behind him.
Larry spun around.
The dead girl sat on a spiral staircase at the center of the cylindrical room, her pale eyes shimmering in the dimness. “Only the chosen can be sculptors.”
He backed up against the curved wall; his outstretched hand knocked an old-fashioned lantern off a nearby shelf and it shattered against the concrete floor.
Light bled down through metal grates, bathing the revenant in bands of light and shadow, revealing far more than Larry cared to see. She turned her head away and coughed, spilling seawater. Through the opening in her cheek, Larry spied movement. A small crab; it scurried from her mouth, moved down her neck to perch on her moldering left breast. She brushed it away, and the crustacean landed on its back near the smashed lantern, its tiny legs writhing madly as it tried to right itself.
Larry groaned.
“Leave Colonial Bay,” the corpse warned. “If you don’t, Chief Canon will be dragging the bottom for you.” And then it stood; its bloated fingers made a sickening squish as they grabbed the cast-iron stair rail. “Natalie was wrong about you, Larry. You’re not a murderer, at least...not yet.”
Before he could ask her what she meant by that, the dead girl climbed up toward the light. Larry pursued her, stunned, emerging in a glass-walled chamber at the top of the lighthouse. Huge warning lamps spun in the center of the room, blinding him.
Larry lowered his head, blinked, and, when he looked up again, he found the girl. She stood on the metal ledge that encircled the turret. From the base of her neck to the small of her back, not one inch of flesh remained. Her spine had been washed clean by the tide; the polished bone gleamed in the spotlight.
Larry stepped through an open doorway and felt the chill of the ocean breeze. “Who are you?”
She turned to face him, her bloated lips curved into a grotesque smile. “Susan Rogers.”
“How do you know Natalie?”
She raised one distended leg, straddled the guardrail. When she spoke, there was compassion in her voice, “There wasn’t anything you could’ve done for her, or for me. It was fate. It was what the gods had intended.”
Larry wanted to moan. Instead, he found himself asking, “What’s my fate?”
The dead girl’s smile widened. “That’s up to you.”
With that, she let go of the guardrail and fell over the side.
Larry sprinted to the railing. He looked over the edge, but saw nothing. Her body wasn’t smashed on the rocks below, nor was it lying in a heap on the sands of the beach. She’d vanished.
He sat up in bed, panting, covered in sweat. The clock on the side table said three in the morning. Beside him, Peggy was a comfortable-looking contour beneath the lace blanket, facing him as she slept. Larry could not help but stare into her gaping mouth, the vision of the corpse still fresh his mind.
He shivered.
Larry threw the covers aside and slid from their bed. He needed a drink. Without even bothering to switch on the bathroom light, he removed the cellophane wrapper from a plastic cup and filled it with tap water. He put the cup to his lips, gulped it. His reflection studied him from the gloom of the darkened — unbroken, thank God — mirror.
Crazy fuckin’ dream.
On his way back to bed, Larry brushed against something wet. He turned on the light and stared at the bathroom door. There, his Sea Mist Inn robe hung from a small hook. He reached out and felt the terrycloth fabric.
It was soaked, drenched up to the waist.
TWELVE
The thunder of waves smacking rocks filled the air. Barbara DeParle cherished the taste of salt on her lips, the smell of the night surf on the wind, the squawking of gulls that shattered the silence of these early morning hours. She loved the sea. It was the only place she felt truly at home.
She slipped into her heavy blue robe, then gazed at the withered flesh of her hands. They were covered in misshapen splotches; blue veins, once invisible, could now be seen clearly, and her arteries stood out like thick ropes beneath tissue-paper skin. She sighed, then turned her attention seaward, wishing that she could dive into the water once more and knowing there was no time for it.
A paranoid feeling prompted her to scan the beach in all directions. How long have they been there? she wondered. What have they seen?
Ed’s voice rose above the surf. “Thought I’d find you here.”
Her ex-husband walked toward her from the shadow of the rocks. Part of her still wanted to see Ed as he once was, as the man who proposed to her the night of their high school graduation, but that was sixty years ago. That man was long gone. There was no going back. His eyes were now dull and submissive, like those of a puppy begging for forgiveness, forgiveness that Barbara was unwilling to offer.
“The Inn’s been quiet since Chrissy left,” he told her. “Even full o’ tourists, it seems empty. Today I go to her door and start knockin’. I says, ‘You gonna sleep the whole day away?’ It didn’t hit me that she was gone until I opened the door and saw her bed was made. She never made her bed. I told her to, but she never did.”
Barbara tightened the belt on her robe. “She’s lost to us.”
“You don’t believe that.” Ed reached out, but she pulled away. He’d been unwilling to be her husband; she was not about to let him be her solace.
“I do believe it.” Barbara’s face twisted in disgust. “She’s with him now.”
The innkeeper looked away again, as if ashamed of what he was about to ask. “Barb, this awful business with the Hays boy and that girl, it was just a shark attack, wasn’t it? I mean, you don’t think Chrissy had nothin’ to do with it, do you?”
She shook her head, unwilling to even consider the possibility. “I thought I might read about the attack in the Herald.” She paused to look at Ed, reading his face. “But there wasn’t a paper today.”
Erik and Melody Jones were the editors of Colonial Bay’s newspaper. They hadn’t missed a day of work in five years.
Barbara went on, “Mike Richards didn’t open his bait shop on the docks, neither.”
“Really? Maybe they went on vacation.”
His tone further goaded her. Their world was falling down around them, and Ed damn well knew it. “Maybe they did. Maybe the whole damn town will just up an’ go on vacation.” She stared out at the waves. “I remember teachin’ the Tellstrom boy the Book after church on Sundays. I taught him right from wrong. I taught him...I...” A lump rose to block her throat. She swallowed, and the pain of it brought tears to her eyes, tears she was too old to hide.
“Hey, none o’ that now.” Ed reached out to comfort her. “Don’t think about it, Barb. If you keep thinkin’ about it, you’ll crack up. An’ you’re much too pretty to fall all to pieces.”
She shrank from him, wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “Tellstrom’s right, you know. This town is like a prison.”
“Don’t talk like that, hear? This town’s our home, our sanctuary.”
“There’s a whole world out there, Ed. A whole world we’ve never even seen.”
“The only world I wanna see is right here.”
Barbara’s eyes narrowed, her face as red as her hair had once been. “And that’s all you ever want to see.”
She walked past him and down the beach without looking back, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks.
Ed remained there on the shore, gazing out at the tide without seeing it.
•••
Unseen eyes watched Barbara and Ed as they stood talking on the deserted strand. Their daughter, Christine, stood behind a rocky outcropping, water dripping from her naked body onto the beach like rain, creating pits in the sand where it landed. She watche
d and waited, muttering silent prayers for her parents to leave.
Karl was expecting her.
Christine’s back began to itch and she reached her arm around to scratch it. Her tattoo. She could not feel the drawing, of course, but she knew it was there. The mark itself was nothing special, just a plain black figure, no more than an inch in length, but what it symbolized was far more dramatic.
Her mother had put the brand there after the bloody show of her first period. She’d asked for neither, but she had no voice in it. The gods, and her parents, had decided her fate long ago.
She hated them.
Time passed like a meandering slug. How long had it been? Ten minutes? An hour? To Christine, it seemed an eternity. Her eyes climbed the side of the escarpment, saw the lighthouse lamps ignite clouds overhead.
Karl.
Karl waited for her.
At last, her mother walked away. Her father stayed behind, looking out at the sea, but after a minute or so, he too left. Christine gave a sigh of relief, and, when she thought it was safe, she moved from her hiding place.
The lighthouse rose like a flaming dagger into the heart of the night sky. My love is there, Christine thought, taking concrete steps two at a time. He’s waiting for me. She ran to the small wooden entrance and pushed it open.
“Karl?”
No answer.
“Karl, you here?”
Silence.
Christine ran for the spiral staircase and pain stabbed through her left foot. She screamed, her cry echoing up the spire, and when she looked down, she saw a smashed lantern, glass shards littering her path like a thousand crystal knives.
“Karl?” Tears of agony welled in her eyes. She hobbled up the stairs, her lacerated foot leaving blood on every step. When she reached the glass-walled room at the summit, she could not see him, but she knew he was there. “Karl?”
“Over here.” His voice was faint, almost lost to the whistle of the wind. She turned to find him standing naked at the guardrail, looking down on Colonial Bay the way a king might survey his kingdom from atop the highest minaret of his castle. His jet-black hair tossed in the ocean breeze and the searchlamps struck his face at an angle, giving it an unearthly glow.