As Silas sat down on the upturned bucket behind the counter considering what he should do—continue his route or go home—he noticed more train workers had been gathering just outside the station house a car’s length or so from his truck. The sales window had been bolted closed, otherwise he would have had an audience of commuters and neighborhood children as they straggled up the hill from the platform. Through the truck’s windshield, Silas saw the men congregating. He was taken aback at what he saw on each of their faces, especially those that waved at him, waved at the Pappinjyn’s guttural moans from the trees, or waved listlessly at the waves crashing to shore. The Innsmouth look is what Grandfather Fern, and Howard Phillips had called it: the bulging, bulbous, massive black eyes, the widening, liquidly slackening lips, the stooped gait, the thickening limbs, shoulders, and torso, the graying skin, the mangy, patches of hair. Each of the train workers feebly gesturing had that look. How much had they eaten?
Silas had rewrapped his neck with the scarf and decided to continue the route. The small creatures insisted on it with their final chorus before disappearing into the treetops. After all, it was Silas’ final day before the Great Rising. Perhaps some of the stooping workers, smiling strangely at him, murbling about ice cream to each other, would attend the event. They would be welcome in some capacity that would be certain. Some who had had old blood—from the Billops or the Bentleys (themselves related to the Billops), or distantly related through one of Silas’ other family branches—would attend as participants. The others, as would be determined from how they took to the change, would be offerings.
Despite the pain and the discomfort, Silas decided finishing the route was his last important thing to do on dry land. He could manage a handful of hours, he hoped. Before climbing into the driver’s seat, Silas passed the soft ice cream dispenser, patting the yellow cylinder above the handles. It contained the special ‘saltwater’ formulation for the soft ice cream, which was injected into the mixture as the machine stirred its contents a few times an hour. This concentrate of the supply Silas’ Grandfather had returned with from his first expeditions back in Warren, was very similar to the specimens Obed Marsh had brought back but wound up not using from Devil’s Reef. This system was designed by Grandfather and perfected over the years ensuring Maxfield’s famous flavors were maintained on the road as they had been back at Maxfield’s shops.
However, the soft ice cream was not the only product infused with that covert formula. Now, Maxfield’s entire inventory, including the hard ice cream and Crustacean Crunchsicles that Silas so often served his avid customers, all contained that special infusion, since Maxfield’s entire product line was lovingly produced in the familial warehouse, right down to the waffle cones. Everything Silas’ family sold contained an extra few ingredients for their ape descended customers. Maxfield’s business took pride in its high standards of quality control. And those special ingredients ensured the transformations would be gradual, but not necessarily without pain.
Silas had his suspicions, however, that the more recent flavors and newer ingredients might be less gradual than the previous years’ batches. But, when Grandfather Fern returned only a few short weeks ago, he said it was time to increase transformation, and that Father’s defense forces would need to swell their ranks in preparation for the final push. Silas’ Rise would be the start of the final chapter, so to speak, before their individual Nests unified into one vast, global Nest. Silas also supposed that it was a blessing to both his people and the ape descended humans that Maxfield’s unsung recipes had replaced Obed’s rather messy ‘mingling’ between the races— between humans, their people, and those from the watery depths. How many countless lives had been lost simply because, as logic would dictate, the reproductive pieces from humans, or even from his own people prior to their change, don’t accommodate those of the Old Ones?
What Silas had seen earlier that day proved the collective efforts of Maxfield’s entire family were working greater than even Aunt Julia or Grandfather Fern had ever dared to dream: their transcendence had been enhanced. Even though it wasn’t true summer yet, it had been a strangely humid day when Silas started out that morning, driving one of the family’s newer, recently acquired “green” hybrid vehicles that ran on a combination of gasoline and bio-fuel. Maxfield’s prided itself in being a low-impact company, and it was their little joke that their new vehicles and factory upgrades which ran on significantly lower carbon energy sources, also ran on algae and other gifts from Mother Hydra and Father Dagon.
As Silas began his route that brilliant Saturday morning, his heightened olfactory sense was encumbered by the powerful spell of the Spring season. Trying to ignore the scents of aromatic flowering trees and mowed grass, Silas slowly meandered along crowded streets on the Southern end of Staten Island, past pizzerias, fast food eateries, and bagel shops; he drove the speed limit to the irritation of other drivers. His acute sense of smell drew him along which streets would have the greatest concentration of both playful children and wheedling parents. When they saw the swirling patterns of Maxfield’s glistening truck, adorned with images of ice cream cones, popsicles, and scores of other iced confections, the children began the dance of the ice cream truck: shouting for money, shouting for their parents, pointing, shaking a parent’s hand, sleeve, or shirt hem, stamping their feet and singing, “Ice cream! Ice cream! It’s the ice cream man!”
Silas smacked his thick lips, smiling a rubbery smile as an impatient man in a black and white track suit, sandals and enough grease in his hair to fry a batch of potatoes waved at the truck, stepped off the curb and stood resolutely in the street. A few portly children with baggy t-shirts, sagging shorts, large gold chains, and heavily styled hair, came out of the backyard of the house immediately behind the man. Silas had no choice but to stop by what he assumed was the man’s garish home, a two-story ‘McMansion’ with tall white pillars, fake brick façade around the steps and foundation, and sky blue siding. Silas hated that what passed for progress in terms of home development on Staten Island had replaced the neighborhood’s stately, spacious, tasteful, historic homes from the last century.
Parking the truck, Silas lifted his girth from the driver’s seat (being without an assistant today) and turned toward the customer window. He was grateful for the height of the window since from the perspective of the customer, they could only see Silas from the midsection and above. He wasn’t an overly tall man, and the change made his figure much wider than usual. If they had been able to see his enlarged, ridged, gradually webbing feet, they probably would have selected another ice cream truck. Since his feet were transforming differently, he couldn’t wear the boots designed by Grandfather Fern to be worn during the change. Silas found he couldn’t properly feel the brake pedal, an important thing while driving, so he dispensed with the boots that morning. He did wear, however, a pair of heavy, blue neoprene gloves, which came almost to the elbow, and thankfully hid his scaled, grey, almost slimy skin from knuckle to wrist. He wore the gloves all day, pulling on thinner, clear disposable gloves over them to handle the ice-cream.
At the service window, Silas became distracted by the greasy, track-suited man’s gold chains, but also by the wrinkly white skin standing out on the man’s neck and hands. His track suit jacket was open and underneath he wore a white tank top that exposed his chest and neck. Just above the chains, around his neck were heavy layers of scaly dry skin with three raised scabs on either side, below his jaw, extending diagonally from top to bottom. Silas also noticed the tops of his hands, fingers and between his fingers were scaly scabs of dry skin. It was too soon in his process to determine if the man, or his prodigious offspring clamoring for iced treats around him, would be attending the Great Rising, or some future transcendence— or if they would attend as participants or offerings.
“What, shall it be Sir?” Silas asked smiling, trying to enunciate his liquifying syllables.
“Dad, Dad! Dat one! Git me dat one!” One of the more obese membe
rs of the man’s brood demanded: a boy of about 9 years old, who had been pointing at the two-scoop special of Maxfield’s blue-green, Salt Water Taffy. “Git me dat one in a carmel cone Dad!” The child had a similar sagging and scaling of the skin of his pudgy arms and legs, but not yet on the neck.
“Hold on Sal, I thought you wanted Choc-lit. You eva had Salt Water Taffy?” The man asked the fat little boy. Silas couldn’t help but wonder what marbles had been forced into their mouths. Soon enough, as their mouths widened, tongues flattened, and sinuses grew enlarged, their accent would be distinctly different.
As Silas further studied the father and son’s skin ailments, another of the man’s brood— a quieter, younger, and less obese boy in a near identical outfit to what Silas assumed was his older brother— asked Silas whether or not Crab Cakes had real crab in it. An even younger child with a paunch no child should have, squealed, “Crabs! I want crabs!”
Of course Silas couldn’t tell them about the deep sea formula, but the Old Ones weren’t truly crab descendent. Not the ones around New England, at any rate. More octopoid than crustacean. The Nests from the Baltic and Norwegian Seas were more crustacean, arachnid, arthropoidic. So, Silas spoke confidently about the decided lack of genuine crabby bits.
“Sure Sal, you cin try it. I’m havin’ the Crustacean Creamthingy. It was my fave growin’ up. Have what you want Stevie, Vinny, and Pete, tab’s on me kids.” The father laughed as he looked up at Silas for the first time to place their order. “I know you? I seen you before. You been around the old nay’bahood? Clinton street, around there? I seen you before, man.”
“Why yes, sir. Maxfield’s has delivered in Red Hook, but mostly my family works through-out Brooklyn and Staten Island.” How exciting! Silas thought, trying to remain calm as he filled the man’s order. The other children who surrounded the man and his sons began fidgeting raucously. One rotund blonde girl fought her way past the smaller of the man’s progeny, remarkably like a muppet cross between Kermit and Ms. Piggy. She began drumming against the underside of the counter. Silas cooly ignored her, very pleased that this was not the first time this man had tried Maxfield’s.
“Dat’s frickin’ awesome man. I memba buggin’ my mutha when you-ah truck was comin’ roun, like lil Sally-boy an’ his brutha and cousins did ta me,” the man said as he paused to scratch at the top of his right hand. “We always look for ya trucks in summa, hey aint’cha out kinda early this year?”
“This is the earliest we’ve been out in years.” Silas removed one plastic glove to take the man’s money after he handed over the creamery treats to the dumpling male children fighting over the coveted window space with the googly-eyed blond muppet girl.
“I apologize, sir, but you may have my own affliction with the season. Is that eczema?” Silas knew full well what it was, but he couldn’t resist asking this humiliation of a primate and his aping offspring— out of sheerest curiosity. He also vaguely wondered how much longer the man would be going through the change since he didn’t look much older than Silas was himself.... but the children’s outward appearances were far too advanced for their ages. All the man’s brood had the scaling skin in patches on their arms, neck, and hands. The quieter child, Stevie, had more than a slight bulge to his eyes. It was certainly working, but Silas would have to tell Jyssamin, as Maxfield’s new chief, as well as Grandfather Fern, that the latest concoctions Grandfather brought back from the near decade-long sea expedition, the ones that replaced last year’s formula, were bordering on Golden Kraken strength.... unless they have the old blood.
“Haven’t a frickin’ clue, man. It like start’d literally I kid you not outta the blue last week. I got no allergeese man. But dis yea, eva since last month, bam I got sneezin’ an’ itchin’ an deese big patches of dry shit. Sally and Stevie, Vinny and Pete, too. Dunno, what the fuck man. Dat’s what I got meds for, but....” He paused while putting his change back in his wallet, “dey ain’t workin, and I don’t wanna give that crap to the little guys, ya know? Thanks man, see ya later.” Shrugging, he stepped aside when the muppet began bobbing up and down, her limit of patience long since having evaporated.
“GIMME a Crusty Crunchsickle and sc-o-o-o-o-ps of Salt water taffy!!!” She bellowed in a voice louder than any child had a right to possess.
A slender, dark-haired woman with a vaguely orange glow to her skin, turned to her husband, winked, kissed him on the cheek while utterly failing at the sexy whisper with her high-talking dismally local voice, “Oooowwww La La! Roo Da Aetell Sorbet! It sounds like a French romance novel.” Silas inwardly shuddered as the ‘t’ was pronounced in Sorbet. Rue D’Auteil you hideous ape!
The blonde muppet may have belonged to this new couple, yet the dark-haired woman had no look, her skin was unblemished, her heavily jeweled fingers were distinct and separate. Her stocky husband’s tattooed arms and rotund legs weren’t as unchanged, however, they were mere whispers compared to the first family— and the bulging muppet hopping around hooting out different flavors in a frenzy, reminded Silas of a junkie fiending for a hit.
“Mermaid Melon Meringue! Crabby Cream Cakes!”
“Isabelle, make a choice. You can’t have ’em all,” the man said turning to the bobbing child. The little frog-like girl decided on a scoop of Salt Water Taffy and Mermaid Melon Meringue in a chocolate waffle bowl. The father ordered the same, while his wife pointed to her slim figure and shook her head tittering annoyingly. Silas filled their order and several successive ones, but the muppet girl’s family stayed close to the window, barely allowing other customers near, as the mother began chatting to other, similarly orange-tinged women who brought their own bulbous children to partake of Maxfield’s special confections.
In less than a quarter of an hour, the blonde frog child returned with her father and ordered another round of different flavors, much to the dark-haired woman’s complaints. “Tony come on. Izzy’s teacher even told you she has to learn better habits. She’s going to be the only kid in her class that’s rolled to graduation.”
“Nice one Tami. Your kid may be like my side of the family, but she’s got ears. I’m not puttin’ her on your damned hunger strike, k? It’s her birthday tomorrow, so chill out.” Since the blonde frog didn’t waver in her demand for her ice cream “NOW” Silas was certain that her need for more Maxfield’s was amplifying some deep ancestry, as with his day’s first customers. Who knew Staten Island had so much fish blood? Silas laughed to himself. Then, abruptly, Silas was alerted by the deep wet croak of the Pappinjyn.
His attention quickly turned to the large oak edging the sidewalk on the other side of the street. There were the little chameleon-like creatures, a cross-between crows, toads, and fairies, that shadowed many members of Silas’ clan, but he hadn’t heard their calls in many a day, and certainly hadn’t expected to hear them this early in the morning. Later on, just before his midday coughing fit during his lunch break, the trees across from the Tottenville train station would ring with a croaking cacophony.
“What’s them? Chickaydas?” The blonde muppet asked her father.
“Fuck if I know. What am I, the wild kingdom or somethin’?”
“I hate them things, big-eyed bug bastards,” the dark-haired woman said, clutching her husband’s arm. “I ain’t hearin’ no Chickay-thingies tho.”
Silas didn’t expect the woman to hear the cry of the Pappinjyn. That was reserved for only members of his family, and those undergoing the change. Unless possessed of the old blood, the newcomers to their clan wouldn’t be able to commune with or understand the nature of the Pappinjyn’s cries.
The croaks chorused again, cautioning Silas to the street and he saw a blur of blond hair and blue-green clothing on a foot-powered scooter rampaging down the sidewalk, off the curb, into the street, and back onto the sidewalk, aiming for the throng surrounding Silas’ truck. Out of the corner of Silas’ eye, he glimpsed the slight movement in the tree of Pappinjyn, its skin molded and colored to the texture of the tree.
The boy slowed to a stop in front of the frog girl. It was Tommy the Terror, as Silas affectionately called a slight, dimpled, angular-looking child whose sole purpose in life— especially during this particular sunny Saturday as he had for the entire previous season— was to inform all the neighborhood children and their parental units that what Silas sold was tantamount to crack cocaine. Tommy was no more than 10 or 11 years old and his mother was trying to raise him as a vegetarian, or some such thing, out of respect for “all animal life” as he put it once. The only problem, while Tommy may regurgitate what his mommy told him, he had no qualms about pushing down smaller children, spitting at Silas, or aiming his scooter for squirrels— having successfully run over a baby squirrel last August right in front of Silas’ truck.
“My Mom says eating dairy is bad for you and hurts the cows!” He hollered at the frog-girl-child as she smiled into her ice cream with each bite. Silas did have to admit, her bulging eyes had a slightly deranged, drug-addled glimmer to them.
“Whatsamatta wit you?” Tommy shrieked in a shrill, ear-wrenching tone. “You look like a zombie!”
“I don’t care it’s GOOD!” She cooed in sugar-induced rapture. The muppet’s father woke from his silent, wide-eyed consumption and took his child away from the disruptive adolescent anti-Maxfield’s activist. The man was too encapsulated in the moment of sugary goodness to bother speaking to the boy, or even interrupt his wife’s chuckling admiration of another orange-tinged woman’s pedicure.
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