The Sighting

by Christopher Coleman

  Danny stayed quiet, staring at the woman. “The God?”

  The woman ignored the clarifying question from Danny and continued. “So that was when I figured it out. It wasn’t coming because it enjoyed the sounds. The God was coming for more than that.”

  “It was looking for food.”

  Lynn smiled and nodded, impressed by the quick understanding of her prisoner. “That’s right. It was looking for food. And it then became my obligation to supply it with some. And from that night on, every fourteen months, that’s what I’ve done.”

  Danny almost became sick to his stomach at this last phrase, but he was determined to keep the meager rations of the granola bar and almonds inside of him. “People?” It was all he could manage to say, but the message was received.

  Lynn Shields stared at Danny for several seconds, silently studying his face. Finally, she said, “Do you think I’m that deranged? Do you!?” She screamed this second sentence, the flame from the fire flickering in her wide, dilated pupils. “Of course I experimented with dogs and cats, but they weren’t enough.”

  Danny looked away, not wanting to give her the satisfaction that he believed her explanations were rational.

  “It needs more than simple pets can offer. And I don’t mean just their size.”

  Danny had no idea what the woman was implying with this last part.

  “And after it fed on the first...person, it only wanted them from that point on. But I’ve used vagrants mostly. Older people and the homeless.

  “And that somehow makes it better?”

  “I’m sure it would have made it better had I used them this time!” the woman was in Danny’s face now, screaming. “Instead of your wife! Or you!” She lowered her voice again. “It would have been someone nobody would have missed.”

  Danny suddenly thought about not being missed, and he wondered how long it would be until someone noticed that he and Tammy were gone. They had no family nearby, and the few members they had at all they spoke with maybe once or twice a month. And as far as friends were concerned, the truth was they had no real friends to speak of, and certainly none locally. The few they’d left when he and Tammy moved had families and obligations of their own. There might be one or two unreturned phone calls or emails, but that wouldn’t raise any real suspicion. And since he and Tammy had no real jobs, there wouldn’t be any employer to inquire about them when they didn’t show up for work. Damn, Danny thought, his life was actually kind of sad.

  “But it’s been done for this cycle. It won’t be coming back for more than a year.”

  “Why? Why only...one?”

  “I’ve never known that part exactly. For years I would offer more men, one after the other, night after night, but it never mattered. It never came back until the next cycle. Even now, sporadically, I’ll lure someone to the beach after six months or so, just to see...” Lynn frowned a genuine one of sadness, despair almost. “But it’s always...”

  “Fourteen months.”

  The woman smiled sadly now, calming herself, sitting back against the far wall of the cave across from Danny. “Exactly, fourteen months. Which means, unfortunately for you, I’ve no real reason to keep you alive? I’d like to, of course, seeing as you were the intended all along. But I couldn’t sustain you for that long. Until the next time.”

  The woman took a deep breath and stood, looking around the cave as if with fresh, clear eyes, a satisfied smirk on her lips.

  “But thank you for listening. It’s been very cathartic to finally talk about it. You can’t imagine the difficulty that comes with keeping this kind of secret. I’ve had no one to talk to about all of this for so many years.”

  “Not even to Tracy?”

  “What?”

  “Tracy. I believe she said you were her aunt. She told me you talked about these things all the time when she was younger.”

  How do you...When..?”

  “She told me all about you, Lynn Shields, about the stories you used to tell her. Scary monster stories about sea creatures and such.”

  “I didn’t tell her...those were just stories...as far as she knew anyway. Stories kids like to hear. She knew those weren’t to be taken seriously.” The look on Lynn’s face was drawn tight now, struggling to hold on to control.

  “Did she think that what happened to Lyle was to be taken seriously?” Danny asked. He had nothing to lose now, so he was going to play this hand to its end, laying all of his cards down on the table.

  “What did you say?” Lynn Shields approached Danny, lifting the scythe as she did, shining the beam of the flashlight into his face.

  “Lyle Bradford. I know all about him too. Does the name Sarah Needler ring a bell?”

  Chapter 12

  The story hit the Rove Beach Rover on Saturday morning, just over a week after Sarah’s initial meeting with Danny Lynch. She’d not gotten him to tell his full story that afternoon in the bar, but something about her had made him trust her enough to send the pictures that now lay scattered about her desk.

  The story had barely made the A section, one page from the back, and had been pared from 1,200 words to about 250, with several editorial additions that made the story sound like some kind of hoax, an April Fool’s Day joke to be laughed at. Strap had included the photo, but it was especially grainy looking on the black-and-white paper, and the size was reduced to that of a thumbnail, so small it was almost useless as an addendum.

  And there had been no mention of Lyle Bradford, despite Sarah detailing the facts of his drowning and the events that followed it—including the peculiar acts of his girlfriend on the beach the next day. She knew it was a long shot for the piece to make it into the paper at all, let alone with an implied accusation about a citizen of Rove Beach, one who also happened to still be living there. But Lynn Shields’ role was crucial to make the piece work, despite the tabloid nature of the story and the Loch-Ness-Monster-style photograph,

  Sarah tossed the paper on her dining room table and picked up the phone to call Tom Strap, but then placed it back in its cradle, knowing her protests would only be met with retorts about libel and lawsuits, and how she should be happy the story was there at all. Besides, he would say, it’s already printed. There’s nothing I can do about it now. And if she kept badgering, he would remind her that all she’d offered him as proof was the undeterminable shape in the photo; she had not a single quote from the source who had supposedly seen the thing up close.

  Danny.

  He had fallen off the face of the Earth. She’d called him relentlessly for two days after the photos arrived, left at least a dozen messages on his voice mail, and drove by his home on three separate occasions. She’d knocked on his door, but despite the car in the driveway (and likely one in the garage), there was no answer.

  It was possible that he’d taken a vacation—and since she and Danny were hardly friends, he was under no obligation to keep her abreast of his travels—but this didn’t sound right. He wouldn’t have sent her those pictures and then disappeared. At least not willingly.

  Sarah was going to give him one more day. If he didn’t surface by this evening, she was going to start following some leads.

  Chapter 13

  Lynn Shields almost vomited at the picture on page A-8 of the Rove Beach Rover. It was her God, captured on camera and published for the world to see. It was only the top of him, barely capturing the bulky rise of his shoulders, but she would have recognized it even without the caption and three-paragraph story that followed. It was a story that, if it caught the attention of any publication outside of her own sleepy town, could end up drawing monster hunters from all over the world.

  “Is There Something Lurking in the Waters Off Rove Beach?”

  Does Rove Beach have its own version of the Loch Ness Monster, living just off the coast near mile marker 3?

  A local resident recently reported a sighting that he claims is of a creature unknown to the modern world. Daniel Lynch witnessed and photographed the creature
as it was submerging into the Atlantic the Thursday before last. He claims...

  Lynn didn’t finish the article, and instead, with a mind of ire and fury, began constructing plans about how she would stage her niece for next year’s feeding.

  Tracy.

  The thought of her niece flipping off to some stranger about who her aunt was and the stories she used to tell was almost too much for her mind to process. Why did the subject even come up in the first place? Did Tracy know about the God as well? Was that the impetus behind her constant calls, asking if she could use the house for the weekend?

  Or did the runner tell her?

  Lynn hadn’t known the name of the man in her grotto—she hadn’t cared, frankly—but now she had no doubts that it was the ‘Daniel Lynch’ from the article. He’d known about it all along. He knew of her God prior to the other morning. Prior to his wife’s killing. For how long exactly, she couldn’t be sure, but, despite the weakness of his photograph—which she knew would be scoffed at by the vast majority of people who read the article—he had seen it with his own eyes. It was the reason he hadn’t come to the beach alone, and instead brought his wife. He meant to show it off.

  Or perhaps he’d even intended her as a sacrifice, just as Lynn had done with her lover a decade ago.

  There wasn’t any real evidence to support this second theory, and based on his reaction at the sight of her dismemberment, as well as her earlier conversation with the man, she quite doubted it. But it was possible. He had obviously been deliberate about keeping his knowledge of the creature a secret from her, and, if he had offered his wife to the beast, his reaction could still have been genuine. She had felt the same pain watching Lyle being torn apart ten years ago.

  Her concern now, though, was Tracy. That her niece had even casually mentioned Lynn’s God, and as lately as only a few days ago, was enough to raise Lynn’s suspicions about what the girl knew. Add in the fact that the mention was to the man whose photo had just appeared in the local paper, well, that was simply too coincidental.

  Lynn was slightly paranoid, she recognized that in her thinking, but the plan brewing in her mind would be carried out nevertheless. She would invite her niece—and Mark, of course—for a little summer festival next year, consummated, perhaps, with a sunrise picnic, just before the equinox, which was roughly when her calculations predicted the God would return. If possible, and if all the plans fell in just the right way, she could hone the plan to allow an offering of them both to the creature. She’d never seen it take more than one at a time—and even with this last feeding, it seemed disinterested in pursuing the runner—but she could up the stakes with Tracy and Mark and see if it could be done.

  But her niece would be the main target. Her punishment would be served.

  A thought swiftly planted in Lynn’s head. Had she ever used a woman before? Other than the wife of the runner, who was not the original offering but was taken as a result of wrong place and wrong time? After a few moments of pondering this question, she knew the answer was ‘No,’ she’d never offered a woman, a statistic that was due mainly to the fact that the vast majority of homeless people were men, and that there was always the vague implication sex was a possibility for them. But only if they could find their way to the beach some time before dawn on a particular morning of Lynn’s choosing.

  The Beach. Her beautiful beach. What if the publication of the story made her beach no longer viable? What if this tiny article by that cunt of a reporter whom she hadn’t thought about in ten years destroyed her paradise? This is the feeling of loss beach town residents must have been experiencing for decades, Lynn thought, once greedy developers got that twinkle in their eyes and then bulldozed into their quiet enclaves, constructing massive hotels and condos along the shore lines, flooding their once-quaint towns with condescending magpies and drunken sorority girls.

  Would this be the fate of Rove Beach as well? It was already trending there. The runner and his wife were new to town, and there were a dozen other couples just like them that moved in every month.

  Maybe she could leave? Was that possible? After all, it was the sounds of the minka that lured her God to the shores, not the beach itself. Though could she even know that for sure? Perhaps it was both, a perfect, unique combination of sound and something else—the water temperature or latitude of the town, perhaps—that brought it marching out of the sea to the dark shores every fourteen months.

  And where would she go anyway? If she were to sell her home and leave, she’d never profit enough from the sale to be able to afford another home that was in such a secluded place directly on the ocean.

  Lynn composed herself and thought about her prisoner now, whom she’d planned to dispose of tomorrow night, when the weather was forecast to turn and there would be little chance that any late night beach walkers would decide to go sauntering down her stretch of sand. It was a shame, she knew, to have to give up such a prime source of food as the runner—Daniel Lynch—especially since he was so aptly restrained in her grotto.

  The grotto.

  She’d had it built illegally by contractors—illegal themselves—back at the turn of the millennium, forging paperwork that “proved” she was lawyer, and threatening to pull all the necessary levers of litigation to have them deported if they didn’t build the in-ground space to her precise specifications. She’d paid them, of course, but not much, and after two months of backbreaking work, the result was a relatively hidden cut-out in the side of one of the dunes that buffered against her backyard, complete with a thick piece of wood, acting as the door, which had been carved into the shape of an arch and wedged into the grotto opening.

  Immediately following its completion, Lynn had planted dozens of tufts of wild beach grass around the door for camouflage, and then had bought a NO TRESPASSING sign at a Home Depot, erecting it directly in front of the grotto’s entrance. And there it stood today, never tampered with or questioned. The dunes weren’t her property, of course, which is why the grotto had to be dug mostly by hand and at odd hours, but the sign didn’t make that claim; it simply kept people away. And despite the crowds of locals that frequented her stretch of beach in season, it drew little attention from city officials.

  When she’d first come up with the idea of a seaside prison, the year after her first feeding, it had seemed an absolute necessity. How else was she going to keep her victims contained and silent—and alive—until the God finally arrived? At that time, she’d no real formula or estimation regarding its arrival, so she figured she could keep a prisoner, bound, pulse barely detectable, and then drag the person night after night to the beach, where she would wait for the feeding.

  But the work of keeping a person captive was far more gruelling than she’d ever anticipated. In addition to the responsibilities of feeding, watering and warmth, Lynn seemed to spend every moment away from the grotto on edge, distracted and irritable, or laying sleepless in her bed, wondering if the prisoner had removed its hand ties and gag and was now on the brink of escape. And the constant back-and-forth from the grotto to her home was more than mildly suspicious, an invitation for some Nosey Rosie to ‘have concerns’ and call the police.

  So the grotto had sat empty almost every year since its construction. Lynn still made a point to check on it occasionally, but that was only to ensure it was still structurally viable. And those maintenance checks had paid off. Here she was now using it, and for just the incarceratory purposes for which it was designed.

  Lynn stepped out to her lanai and looked down at the top of the dunes below, knowing the Daniel Lynch was beneath them, gagged and bound and likely sleeping. She stared up at the sky and the storm clouds that were approaching. At dark the rain would begin to fall.

  She followed the path down to the beach and walked a hundred yards or so past the hidden grotto to where a tarp-covered object sat buttressed against the dunes. She grabbed the tarp at the front and pulled it up and backward, revealing a small, two-person ocean kayak, a leftover from t
he days of her cohabitation with Lyle. It was something they had bought together, just days before their short-lived engagement.

  Lynn gripped the inside hull of the kayak on either side and walked backwards with it, slowly dragging the boat across the heavy sand, digging her heels deep, her thighs burning all the way until the kayak laid positioned next to the NO TRESPASSING sign, just outside the grotto entrance. It would be difficult work to get the runner in the boat and the boat on the water, but she’d accomplished more difficult tasks before. In any case, he would have to be sent to sea, and so as not to risk him floating up to the shore in front of her house a few days later, she would take him out as far as necessary.

  Chapter 14

  Danny awoke to the sound of rustling outside the cave. He smelled piss, and felt the warmth of his own urine between his legs and down the back of his left thigh. The vague glow of moonlight filled the short space of the runway that led away from his prison, and then it was abruptly replaced by the beam of a flashlight. He could hear the steady downfall of rain.

  Danny squinted at the bobbing ray approaching him, his sun-deprived eyes trying desperately to adjust.