The Sighting

by Christopher Coleman

  Tammy walked towards the water, her chin up, head slightly cocked to the side.

  “I think we should probably stay away from the shoreline, Tammy. You know, just in case I’m not a basket case.”

  “What is that noise?” Tammy asked. “Do you hear that? It’s like a buzzing noise or something.”

  “Really, Tammy?”

  “What?”

  “‘A buzzing noise?’ Like ‘zzzzz?’ That’s insects. They’re pretty common at the beach at night, in case you hadn’t noticed. The sound is from cicadas, I think?”

  “Cicadas buzz during the day. The night sounds you’re talking about are crickets and katydids.”

  Tammy had minored in Entomology at the University of Maryland, so Danny had little to come back at her with in terms of a rebuttal. “Fine. Crickets and crazydids then.”

  “Katydids. And that’s not the sound I’m talking about. It’s lower pitched than that. And not as constant. It comes and goes. You don’t hear it?”

  Tammy’s voice was coming from different places, and with dawn still a few minutes away, she had strayed beyond where Danny could see her. She now sounded like she was up toward the dunes. “I don’t know, maybe. Where are you?”

  “It almost sounds like a whale call.” Tammy was now to Danny’s left again, back down by the shoreline, trying to chase down the sound.

  “I thought those calls were like foghorns. Almost so low that people can’t even hear them.”

  “That’s true for the bigger whales—blue whales, humpbacks—but not all of them.”

  “What do you know about fish anyway? I thought you were a bug expert.”

  “First of all, I’m not an expert. Second, whales are mammals, and third, you have to take a lot of zoology classes when you study entomology, and you tend to remember a few things. Anyway, I’m not saying it is a whale, I’m just saying...”

  Sploosh!

  “What was that?” Tammy’s voice was whispery, filled with fascination.

  Danny could now see his wife standing with her toes in the water, the light of dawn breaking quickly now. “Tammy...” His voice was barely audible, even to himself, fear having choked the volume from his voice. He swallowed and focused. “Tammy!”

  The top arc of the sun had poked through the horizon, and the first of the sun’s rays draped across the ocean like yellow ice. Danny could see Tammy staring east toward the rise, simultaneously taking in the majesty of nature while searching for the source of the sound. “It probably is a whale, Danny!” Tammy replied. She was gleeful, dismissive of whatever alarm she may have detected in her husband’s voice. “I told you!”

  “Tammy! Now!” Danny paused, settling his emotions. “Let’s. Go.” He said the last two words slowly and sternly but without urgency, hoping that if his screams didn’t encourage his wife, a solemn command might.

  Tammy turned away from the water and Danny could see only the outlined silhouette of her. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, but he knew it was one of irritation.

  And then the expression became fear as she detected the creature rise up behind her.

  And then pain as it opened its mouth wide and bit down into the side of her neck.

  “TAMMY!”

  Danny’s feet slid out from beneath him as he tried to run toward his wife, and he fell flat to his chest, sand sticking to his lips and splashing into his eyes. He got up and tried to run again, but on this second attempt, as he lifted his right leg in preparation to dash toward the shoreline and his screaming wife, he felt a piercing pain as something sliced across his upper calf.

  Danny fell back again to the same prostrate position, the sand in his eyes now mixed with tears of pain and despair, forming a muddy, blurred vision of the scene in front of him.

  The creature, the one he’d seen less than a week ago and had grown to doubt its existence since then, had his wife’s head gripped between its hands. Its fingers were thick and long and covered Tammy’s ears and cheeks, holding her in a way as if about to crush her face. The bite it had taken removed the entire right side of her neck; had the creature simply released Tammy’s head now, it would have flopped over to her shoulder in a dead heap.

  Danny silently prayed she was dead, but he detected a look in her eyes, a look of disbelief that penetrated her paralysis, conveying agony and sorrow. She looks like she’s apologizing, Danny thought, but for what he couldn’t have described.

  He tried to rise again, but the muscles in the lower part of his right leg were no longer responding to his brain’s commands. He stayed focused on Tammy, not allowing himself to think yet about what had caused his own injury. Using what strength remained in his upper body, Danny pushed himself up so that he was standing on his left leg, and he began to hop toward the shore line and the massacre unfolding there. With every small leap he got closer to the creature, and as its looming body approached, so too did the smell of death and rot.

  Danny knew he was as dead as his wife now, there was no question in his mind about that, but he would keep moving forward. There would be no attempt to flee without at least trying to bring peace to his dying wife.

  He was less than five feet from the scene now, having made his way to the tip of the tide’s reach and the ground beneath the monster. The muscles in his left leg were exhausted of energy and Danny collapsed to the wet sand; he was now sitting with his legs splayed out before him, as if enjoying the soft feel of the waves as they broke quietly on the shore. He looked up and saw the blood spewing from between his wife’s shoulders, and the bits of flesh and hair hanging from the creature’s mouth. Its eyes were menacing, crazed, but its only focus was on the flesh it was eating. The sun was halfway over the horizon now, but the animal was still too dark for Danny to make out any real distinguishing characteristics.

  Except for its teeth, which rose up and down, machine-like, destroying any bone or skin or muscle that passed between them.

  Danny vomited twice and then got to his knees, the blood on the back of his leg warm and stinging, now caked with salt and sand. For the first time, he looked away from his wife, and considered now what had caused the wound to his leg. He turned and looked behind him and saw her, a woman walking slowly, cautiously, never once looking at Danny, all the time gawking at the scene playing out behind him.

  It was the woman he’d seen on the dunes, and yesterday in the car, the woman he’d decided was Lynn Shields. And she was laughing, crazed in her fits, all the while tears streaming her face. In her hands she gripped a long wooden pole, the top of which was adorned with a large blade that rose above her shoulders, its shape thin and curved like the head of a vulture. She was the perfect manifestation of Death, Danny thought, carrying the literal weapon of the Grim Reaper himself.

  Danny turned his head back to the shoreline and the creature. It had now torn one of Tammy’s arms from her torso, and his wife looked almost doll-like in appearance, as there wasn’t much more blood for her to lose. She was gone, dead, her suffering finally ended. It was Danny’s turn to sacrifice himself now, and he bowed his head in some type of honor gesture, waiting for the inevitable.

  But the inevitable never came, and as he knelt there with his head bowed for what must have been at least two minutes, he thought about the moments of his life that had brought him to this place.

  Danny lifted his head finally and stared back at the creature. It had turned away from him, east toward the sea, beginning its walk back into the surf.

  Danny thought again of that morning only days ago, when he had watched it make the same watery march. This time, however, one of its hands was gripping the exposed spine of Tammy Lynch, dragging what remained of her torso behind it.

  Danny watched in a combination of terror and disbelief, first feeling the need to scream, and then, more practically, to try to get to his feet and make his way back to the road for help. Danny wasn’t sure about the extent of his injury, so running may have been impossible anyway, but he wouldn’t have run if he could. He was u
nable to look away from the creature, mesmerized by its power and ferocity. Did anything on earth come close to it?

  Danny heard movement behind him and turned back to see the woman with the scythe. She was less than five feet from him now. She stood tall and rigid, her focus still locked on the creature as it descended back to the ocean. She was sobbing now, holding her hands out wide, embracing the world, the scythe in one hand like a wizard with a staff attempting to conjure the gods.

  Still on his knees, Danny turned back to the water again and watched the last of the creature enter the water, its black head sinking like a tree stump beneath the now-blue ocean. He covered his face with his hands and leaned forward into the sand and began to sob.

  “No!” Danny screamed, but his mouth was dry and hoarse, and the sound was swallowed by the wind that began whipping across the beach. There was no fear left in Danny; the terror was now completely replaced by loss and awe.

  He turned back to the woman again, and this time felt the butt end of the scythe land squarely between his eyes.

  Chapter 9

  Sarah looked at her list of unread emails, and when she saw the paper clip attachment symbol next to the first one in her inbox, she nearly deleted it on the spot. She was no sucker, and she wasn’t about to expose herself to the latest boutique virus that had been pitched out to the unsuspecting world.

  But then she made the connection. dlynchmob70@gmail.com.

  dlynch. That was Danny, and the time stamp on the email showed it was sent the previous night at 12:04 am. Sarah opened the email and read:

  Hi Sarah—

  Thanks for meeting me the other day. I wasn’t sharing everything with you, you know that, but I wanted to meet you first before I showed my hand. So here it is: I had a sighting. I saw something that I don’t think is known to exist in this world—at least not by anyone outside of this town. Look at the pictures that I’ve attached and tell me what you think. Feel free to share them, but I’ll tell you now, the picture doesn’t do justice to what I saw. If, after looking at it, you want to hear more from me, I’d love to tell you the whole story.

  Also, I think what I saw has to do with the Lyle Bradford drowning. Call me. 221-483-3387.

  —Danny

  Sarah swallowed hard and looked at the attachments at the bottom of the screen, and then clicked on the first one and downloaded it to her computer. The image sprung forward, and she knew almost instantly that Danny was right. The thing in the water—and she admitted to herself she had no idea what it was—had something to do with the drowning of Lyle Bradford. She recognized the perspective immediately, and thought back to the day she’d come up behind Lynn Shields on the beach, at just about the point where Danny’s ‘sighting’ was in the water.

  Sarah opened the other four attachments and looked at them, and then printed them out on her color printer, not that the color was going to make much of a difference in deciphering what the thing was. She felt a familiar tingle in her belly, and imagined it was time to start writing again. To start reporting again.

  Sarah dialed Danny’s number and got his voice mail. “I saw the pictures,” she said, “and I’m in, Danny. I want to know all about what you saw. Call me back.”

  She then dialed the direct line of Tom Strap, managing editor at The Rover.

  One ring. “Strap speaking.”

  “I’ve got a potential story for you, Tom.”

  “Nice to hear from you Sarah.”

  Sarah was both impressed and flattered that Tom recognized her voice instantly. “Remember Lyle Bradford?”

  Tom laughed.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Give me a day or two, but I might have a story like you’ve never seen.”

  Chapter 10

  “How much longer are we going to do this, Lynn? Really, I like that you want to spend so much time together, and get all this exercise, but why does it have to be so early?”

  “It’s been five days, Lyle. Jesus Christ, fucking forget it then.”

  “Hey, hey! Where’s all this coming from? I’d just like to sleep in once in a while.”

  “Fine. I heard you. I said forget it. I’ll go alone.”

  Lynn was taking a gamble with this strategy, but she had always known there was a chance it could come this, her playing the role of the distraught girlfriend who just wants to be loved by her boyfriend, the jerk refusing to reciprocate.

  “What’s going on, Lynn?” Lyle was serious now, the concern in his voice obvious. This somber, adult state was a rare one for him to be in. “You’ve been as edgy as I’ve ever seen you. And I feel like these walks are making it worse. Ever since we started, you’ve been agitated all day.”

  This was all true. There was still a week left in the cycle, maybe ten days by Lynn’s calculations. It was plenty of time, and she could feel that it would be coming any day now, but what if it didn’t? What if she hadn’t missed it last year at all? What if it just hadn’t come and was never coming again? At some point it was going to die, just like every other creature on Earth. Lynn began to sweat, and she felt herself on the verge of hyperventilating as these thoughts fired like missiles in her brain.

  “I’m just going to go.”

  Lynn walked up the dunes and past the radio, which was shrouded in sea grass and darkness. It was 5:03 am, and the recording of the minke whales had been playing on a loop for a little over two hours now. On top of the stress that always accompanied these few weeks every fourteen months, there was also the fact that Lynn got almost no sleep.

  She walked out to the beach and then down to the north pier, a distance of about a mile and a quarter, where she turned around and started back toward home. There was no point in the walks without Lyle, but she had to follow through with her bluff. If she simply stopped and crawled back in bed, she would miss it. Her chance at seeing it this cycle would be lost. No, she had to see it through, play out the role to the best of her ability.

  There was, of course, always the chance that the God could emerge now, while she was alone, in which case she wasn’t sure exactly what would happen. She could scream for Lyle, she supposed, and then use the blade on him as he ran towards her.

  Lynn turned and headed back toward home, and as she did she felt for the handle of the knife behind her, sighing deeply at the feel of the hard rubber handle, knowing that the steel, business end of the weapon was sheathed comfortably below it. The knife in this form was not her typical weapon of choice. The one she had constructed to shepherd the offerings over the years was much more cumbersome, the long, bladed pole a bit unwieldy at first touch. But that weapon gave her the luxury of distance, and, with practice, she had grown quite adept with it. She’d had to use it only a few times in actual practice, of course, as most of the men she’d lured had been unconscious when the God arrived and her assistance would have been redundant.

  Lyle would be different though. Harder in more ways than one.

  Lynn looked up and saw the silhouette of her house and headed towards it.

  “Lynn.” Lyle was standing in Lynn’s path, the darkness still making him invisible from ten feet away.

  Lynn caught a scream in her throat and stopped walking. “Lyle, what the fuck?” she said, still acting out the scorned woman act.

  “Sorry. I was going to catch up with you if you had just waited, but then I didn’t know which direction you went. So I just waited here.”

  “Waited here for what?”

  Lyle walked forward so that Lynn could now see him, and grabbed her arm gently, leading her with him down to the water’s edge.

  “What is going on, Lyle?”

  Lyle reached his left hand into the pocket of his khaki shorts and pulled out a small rounded object, and then dropped to one knee, opening the clamshell case as he brought it up to the height of Lynn’s waist.

  Lynn swallowed; the tears that had welled were already falling to the sand at her feet. She was unable to speak.

  “I love you, Lynnie,” Lyle began, his voice as unsteady
as the hand holding the ring case. “And I want to spend every day with you for the rest of my life. So...if you feel the same way, will you marry me?”

  Lynn put her hands to her mouth and began sobbing, the shame that was the true source of her weeping disguised by the overwhelming emotion that was known to accompany such events as a proposal of marriage.

  “Lynn?” Lyle giggled at her reaction. “It’s okay, baby.” He stood now, facing his assumed bride to be. “It’s okay. I love you and I...”

  The sound of the splash was immense, and this time Lynn screamed.

  “What the hell made that?” Lyle asked, staring out toward the water.

  Lynn began moving backward toward the dunes. “Come on, Lyle. Now! Come on!”

  “Hold on, baby. I bet it’s some kind of whale or something. Did you hear that splash?”

  “No! Lyle! Come on.”

  “Lynn!” Lyle shouted. He lowered his voice and said sternly, “Stop.”

  Lynn did stop, and she watched eagerly as Lyle walked alone into the surf, moving his head back and forth, surveying the water for the source of the sound.

  She didn’t see the first strike against the man who, had she been given another few seconds, would have been Lynn’s fiancé. It was still too dark and Lyle had moved too far from the shore. She pulled the flashlight from her fanny pack and moved in on the sounds being made by her dying lover. She shone it straight in the creatures face, its black eyes dilating, making the hideous beast look even more amazing.

  Lynn kept the beam straight and sat down slowly in the sand, her eyes wide, a long smile draped across her face, taking in the sight that had been her addiction for a decade now.

  The creature.

  She’d missed it last year, but not again. Not ever again.

  “Lynn! Help me! Jesus Christ!”

  Lynn Shields felt the sting of tears again, but cleared them quickly, angry that they were attempting to rob her of even one second of this miracle. She felt grief for Lyle, and at her life that was destined to be consumed by this addiction, alone in the sand, every fourteen months, waiting for a creature to emerge and destroy, and then descend back to the depths of the ocean. The whole thing—from the first splash to its descent back to the ocean—lasted less than six minutes. And she was already longing for the next cycle.