Death by Water

by Alessandro Manzetti

  Relentlessly the tide bears us—sometimes floating, bloated decks for gulls, sometimes half-sunk and nibbled by fish—bears us toward the island. We know the surge of the shingle, and hear, without ears, the rattle of the stones.

  The sea has long since washed the plate clean of its leavings. Angela, the Emmanuelle, and Jonathan are gone. Only we drowned belong here, face up, under the stones, soothed by the rhythm of tiny waves and the absurd incomprehension of sheep.

  THE WASH

  by Lisa Morton

  “Your beauty kills.”

  Lidia looked at the man who had spoken, wondering if she’d misunderstood him—the words had tumbled out as slurry rubble. When she saw the half-empty beer bottle in his hand she knew it wasn’t his first of the evening. He swayed slightly, as if caught in a breeze, his smile loose and fluid.

  “Whoa,” the man—barely a man, he couldn’t have been more than twenty-two—giggled and added, “That didn’t come out right. I’m just really drunk.”

  Lidia didn’t even answer. Clutching her own bottle of water, she turned away and pushed through the crowd. Behind her, she heard, “Hey, c’mon—!”

  She kept moving, searching for some way out of the sardine-can party. When her roommate, Jason, had suggested this (“The guy throwing the party just scored a lead in an indie feature, so there’ll be a lot of networking potential there”), it’d sounded great. Lidia’s “acting career” didn’t even justify either word; she had neither career nor much acting talent. She’d been in L.A. for a year now, waiting tables at a restaurant she couldn’t afford to eat at while being bullied by the instructors in acting classes and cruising the industry websites for casting notices, but so far she’d scored nothing but mediocre reviews (“Lidia Sotos is credible as a vacuous ingénue”) in micro-theater productions. At home—a small town in Texas, barely twelve hundred—they’d all told her how pretty she was, how she could be a movie star…but in the land of movies, she was average, neither uniquely beautiful nor skilled.

  And this party had proven to be little more than a frat bash. The house, in a section of the San Fernando Valley surrounded by liquor stores and taco stands, was decent enough, newly purchased and renovated, but Lidia suspected the young owner’s money had come more from a recently deceased grandparent than an acting gig. And there must have been fifty more just like him all crammed into the house, the air thick with pot smoke and the smell of spilled lager. Lidia didn’t enjoy crowds or, if truth be told, parties. Not long after they’d arrived she’d been ready to leave, but Jason had spotted a gorgeous young man who had an intern job with a famous producer, and he was now actively engaged in trying to start something. Lidia watched them flirting, wondering what Jason wanted more—sex or work. In Hollywood there was often little difference.

  Why had she let Jason drive? Lidia knew he was a good guy, that he wouldn’t abandon her even if his handsome new friend asked to go somewhere else, but she also couldn’t expect him to want to leave half an hour after they’d arrived, especially not with the newfound lust interest. She’d tried to call an Uber, but it was apparently a peak time and the expense involved in getting her home would keep her from eating for the next three days.

  She found sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard, was relieved to find that here, behind the house, it was cooler and less peopled. The yard was expansive, recently landscaped with winding flagstone paths and drought-tolerant succulents. Lidia moved past the scattered couples, most involved in that quiet, intense chat that would likely lead to a one-night stand later on. How many would regret it the next day? She’d had two of those since arriving in California. Both had been unmemorable and led nowhere. She tried not to think about them now.

  She glanced at her watch—10:07 p.m.—and figured she could wait another half an hour before checking back in with Jason. The September night still carried the day’s heat, radiating up from the stone beneath her feet. Lidia wished there was grass here, but grass had become impractical in California, a state that was dying of thirst.

  Lidia wandered past agave and echeveria, yucca and euphorbia. A wooden fence, painted the same color as the flagstones, ran along one edge of the yard, but there was no house on the other side. Curious, Lidia walked to the fence, stood on tiptoes, and looked over.

  Beyond the fence, the land sloped down sharply, about fifty feet, to a concrete channel lined on either side with rusting chain link fence. The channel was perhaps thirty feet wide; on the other side, another steep climb led to the continuation of suburbia, with fenced-in houses lining the top of the slope.

  The locals called these paved eyesores “washes”; they’d apparently once been brooks or creeks, but had been neutered of all nature to prevent flooding, or so Jason had told her when she’d asked about them. The Los Angeles River was, in Lidia’s view, not a river at all but just a bigger wash. Considering how seldom it rained in Southern California (“It used to rain a lot more,” Jason had assured her), she thought they must have other reasons to exist, maybe boundary lines or dumping grounds. She’d grown up around real rivers and creeks, and she didn’t recall them ever seriously flooding.

  From her vantage point, Lidia could see several hundred yards along the wash before it curved both north and south. Stretches of it were dimly lit by light spilling out of windows and streetlamps. A darker strip along the bottom of the wash was a thin trickle of water, little more than what might be carried by a gutter.

  Lidia was about to turn away when movement caught her eye. She looked into the wash again, seeing nothing, but certain something had just been there, something that had passed from her view. She waited, looking down—

  There it was again. She saw it in a patch of shadow first, a darker blotch moving in a slow, jerky manner.

  A tumbleweed, or old bag caught by a night breeze? But there was no breeze tonight. No, it was some kind of animal, maybe an injured dog or…

  It disappeared again. She watched, willing it to come back into view; it seemed to be moving from one side of the wash to the other.

  She saw it, then, almost directly below her. It had activated a neighbor’s motion sensor, placed behind his chain link fence to light up intruders in his yard. It froze as it was caught by surprise.

  Lidia stared, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It was the size of a large dog, but was plainly no canine. It was black, but the way the light glinted suggested it was scaled rather than furred. The head was the size and shape of a human’s, the front legs could have been arms…but something was draped across its back, hiding part of the rear legs.

  Wings. Wings grew from its shoulder blades, as darkly feathered as any crow’s. One was folded, jutting up from the hunched back, but the other dragged along the ground, broken, useless.

  Lidia leaned forward. The thing glimpsed movement. Its head snapped up, she saw yellow eyes and yellow fangs. It fixed its sulfur-colored gaze on her.

  Holding her breath—unable to breathe—Lidia waited. It looked up at her, its expression alien and unreadable. Her mind ran scenarios—it would jump, crawl like some monstrous crab, run up the steep sides of the wash to attack her, its bent wing would abruptly heal and it would swoop into the air and dive for an attack she couldn’t defend herself against. Maybe others would join it, others that even now were in the wash, hidden by the bends and unlit spaces. Maybe it would—

  It turned and fled, a spasmodic, zigzag escape.

  Heart hammering, Lidia watched until it disappeared around the curve of the wash. Even after that she watched, waiting to see if it would return, or if something else would happen, maybe something even worse gyrating into view—

  “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  Lidia jumped and spun only to see Jason behind her. The object of Jason’s flirtation stood a few feet behind him, waiting, smiling shyly. Jason put up placating hands. “Whoa, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “I…” She couldn’t find words for what had just happene
d. “There was something down there…”

  Jason looked at her, perplexed, then stepped up to peer over the fence. He looked both directions before stepping back. “I don’t see anything now.”

  “It was like…” Lidia risked a glance back into the wash, somehow hoping for a last glimpse that would save her from having to describe what she’d seen, but the concrete channel was hidden in shadow, lifeless.

  Shrugging, Jason said, “A coyote, maybe? I think these washes lead back up into hills.”

  His handsome friend overheard and walked closer. “Matt said he saw, like, a huge coyote in his front yard a week ago. He was coming home late at night, and it was just standing there. It wasn’t even afraid of him—it waited until he parked, then just sort of sauntered off back to the wash.”

  Jason smiled at his friend and then turned to Lidia expectantly.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “this wasn’t a coyote. It was black, and I think it had wings, and it was…I don’t know, hurt or sick…”

  Jason and his friend exchanged a curious glance, and Lidia could see what they were thinking: The girl’s had too much to drink.

  After a few seconds, Jason gestured toward the front of the house. “What do you say we all take off? Oh, and this is Raphael—if it’s okay with you, he’s coming with us.”

  Lidia nodded, not really thinking about home or Jason or Raphael. She allowed them to lead her out of the yard, through the party, and down the block to where they’d parked. Just as Jason was unlocking the car door, a strange sound cut through the suburban night, a series of high-pitched yips that ended in a howl. “There, see?” Jason gestured vaguely to the north, where the hills crouched like waiting predators. “Coyotes.”

  But it didn’t sound like any coyote Lidia had ever heard.

  Lidia wasn’t scheduled to work the next day, which was good because she’d gotten little sleep. Jason and Raphael had stayed up much of the night, talking, watching videos on Jason’s tablet, making love. Raphael’s cries of pleasure had been followed by Jason giggling and shushing.

  Normally, Lidia might have felt a twinge of jealousy, not because her roommate was having sex but because it sounded fun. Her encounters had been a few brief sensations followed by the queasy feeling that she’d been used, that she’d given away something with far greater value than what she’d received. Back home there’d been Brendon, a sweet boy who’d worshiped her; they’d dated for nearly a year before they’d finally slept together. A week later, Lidia had decided to leave for Los Angeles. Brendon was heartbroken, but the truth was he bored her; she had no intention of becoming the dutiful wife of the one-time high school football champion who now sold insurance and carried more debt than he’d ever pay off. She’d lied and told Brendon she’d stay in touch. She hadn’t returned his last three messages.

  But what really kept Lidia awake all night was neither her roommate nor her ex, but what she’d seen in the wash. She knew Jason must have been right—it’d been a particularly large blackbird, or a dog with something stuck to its back, or a human prankster, obscured by shadow. But that didn’t explain the feeling she’d had watching it, a profound sense that what she was seeing was wrong. The only time she’d experienced anything like this had been when she’d seen the dead body of her grandfather laid out in his coffin, his face made up by the morticians to resemble a ghastly doll, not at all the man she’d known and loved. She tried multiple Google search terms (“Los Angeles wash animals”/“Los Angeles creatures”/“Southern Californian urban legends”), but found nothing that sounded like what she’d glimpsed.

  She finally dozed for a few hours, but woke up when she heard sounds from her kitchen. Throwing on clothes, she crept out to see Jason, alone, humming to himself as he made coffee. “Hey,” she said.

  He smiled. “Oh, hey. Want some coffee?”

  “Where’s…uh…” She had forgotten the name of Jason’s friend.

  “Raphael? He split already. Had to meet up with his fams for church, if you can believe it. Hey, I’m sorry if we were loud last night…”

  “It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  Lidia hugged herself as Jason poured two cups. “That…thing I saw in the wash. I wish you’d seen it—I don’t know what it was.”

  “Did you try digging around online a little?”

  Lidia nodded. “I did, but…nothing.”

  Jason sipped his coffee, peered at her, and finally set the cup down. “I’ve got an idea: it’s Sunday, neither of us has to work, so let’s go down there.”

  “Down where?”

  “Into the wash. You’ve got me really curious now.”

  Lidia’s stomach clenched, from both anxiety and excitement. “Oh, Jason…I don’t know…how would we even get down there?”

  “It’s probably not that hard. I’ll bet we can find a hole in a fence somewhere.”

  “It doesn’t seem safe…”

  Jason stepped closer to her, grinning. “C’mon, there are two of us. And it’s not like we have to worry about flash flooding or anything, right? Besides, you need to know, don’t you?”

  “I guess so…”

  Before Lidia had answered, Jason was walking out of the kitchen calling back over his shoulder, “Just let me get a shower, then we’ll do it.”

  “Okay.”

  From his bedroom, Jason shouted, “We’re going urban exploring!”

  Lidia smiled weakly.

  An hour later, they were driving through last night’s neighborhood, trying to follow the course of the wash hidden behind houses. A curve in the street revealed a foot-bridge crossing the wash two blocks north of the house where the party had happened. Jason parked. “This looks good.”

  As he stepped out of the car, Lidia followed silently.

  The bridge was no more than thirty feet in length. The wash stretched off in either direction, the concrete dusty-dry, empty except for scatterings of trash. The grassy embankments topped either side, chain link or wooden fences separating the backyards of the suburban homes from the alien expanse of rubbish and concrete.

  Jason shot out a pointing finger. “There, see? What’d I tell ya?”

  At the far side of the bridge the chain link terminated in a gate. Although a heavy length of chain and padlock secured the gate, the metal frame had been bent out far enough to allow entrance. Jason jogged to it and stepped through easily. From there, it would be little effort to clamber down the sloped wall to the bottom of the wash.

  Feeling something she couldn’t name but that made her anxiety ramp up, Lidia walked to the gate. “Come on,” Jason said, waving her through.

  Lidia nodded at the gate’s frame, where inch-thick solid metal had been not just bent but curled up. “How did it get that way?”

  Jason looked, shrugged. “Probably some city maintenance guy forgot the key and used a crowbar or something. Who cares? Come on.”

  Lidia crouched and stepped through the gap. As she straightened on the other side, the city scents of car exhaust and uncollected rubbish were replaced by the rich musk of algae.

  Jason led the way, traipsing through the ankle-high grass of the embankment. When the brush a few yards in front of them rippled Lidia tensed, but then a squirrel leapt up to a half-dead tree limb before turning back to chitter at them angrily.

  Gesturing at the squirrel as it disappeared over a brick wall, Jason said, “Hey, maybe that pissed-off squirrel was your mysterious creature.”

  Lidia didn’t even answer, just shot her roommate a sour glance until he held up his hands, surrendering. “Just a joke— ” Jason broke off as he started to turn, glanced down, saw something that made his nose wrinkle.

  “What?” Lidia joined him, looked down to see a dead animal half-buried in the wild grass at their feet. It took her a few seconds to identify it as a coyote. It wasn’t a large animal, no bigger than a medium-sized dog. It was difficult to see in the thick growth of grass and weeds, but it still caused Lidia
a jolt of alarm. It hadn’t been dead long—blood from its disemboweled belly still glistened on its tawny pelt, the open eye that stared forever forward didn’t look glassy yet.

  “There’s your fuckin’ coyote,” Jason muttered.

  Lidia felt a strange rush of pathos as she stared down at the coyote’s corpse. It must have been young, hadn’t reached its full size, and whatever had killed it hadn’t eaten it…or at least much of it. “That’s definitely not what I saw last night.”

  Jason couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the remains. “What the hell kills a coyote out here?”

  Lidia had no answer. Somewhere nearby, in the neighborhood surrounding the wash, a child uttered a high-pitched shriek. It was a mundane sound, but it made Lidia wish that she hadn’t let Jason bring her down here, that she’d stayed home, tried to forget the party, the wash, the thing she’d seen there—

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Jason sped past her. Ahead, the embankment above the channel narrowed. The slope eased down to the bottom of the wash with less severity, and Jason trotted down. He stood at the bottom, his feet on either side of the line of water no wider than a hand, and grinned up. “Come on down. It’s not that steep.”

  Jogging down to meet him, Lidia worried briefly about getting back up. The slope seemed to slant more than Jason had indicated, leaving her to picture them losing footing when they tried to return, slipping down the rough concrete, scraping hands as they fought to gain purchase. But it was too late now—she was in the wash itself. Maybe exits would be easier to negotiate ahead.

  Jason strode off to the north, toward the hills. A few feet behind him, Lidia looked up at the sides of the wash, at the fences that could only be partly glimpsed from this angle, at the searing blue sky overhead, and she wondered why the bottom of the wash seemed so quiet. The only sounds were their footsteps and some distant hum (a freeway?).