Dead Bait

by Romana Baotic (ed. )

  The rope continued to spin out of the reel in a blur of blue. Dawes tightened the drag a notch and could tell the rope slowed by the pitch of its hum.

  The homemade reel had been one of Larson’s ideas. Larson came to Dawes’s hospital room that second day, an older man with a worn face and hair that was not so much gray as it was drained of vitality. He was dressed in faded jeans, a chambray work shirt and an absurdly new tie. Grief rested on Dawes’s chest like a boulder, and his compressed heart seemed to pump acid through his veins. He barely looked at Larson, but everything changed when the man said what he had to say. “I know how it feels” Larson said. And I can give you a chance to get even. “You might not believe a word of what I’m about to tell you, but I can prove myself with a single question — did the shark have blue eyes?”

  Dawes tightened the drag another notch, and the rope slowed further. He let it run through a loose fist and felt his prey’s movements through the thrumming rope. It was fighting and that was fine. There was no danger of the hook coming out now unless it pulled it out. Dawes wouldn’t give it that chance. He grabbed the reel’s crank.

  Normal sharks had black eyes, of course; looking into them was like looking into a bullet hole. Dawes listened to Larson, listened and joined. It didn’t matter if it sounded insane. Dawes’s grief swallowed the madness hook, line and sinker. It took years of waiting and watching coastal papers for that unique modus operandi. It liked to take heads, and such sadistic precision made it different from the other attacks. Beyond that, they knew little. Larson lost his son off the coast of Haiti. Local stories said that might be where it came from. And Florida — where Melissa was killed — was not that far away.

  Dawes started cranking, and a ratchet sound filled the room. His back muscles seemed to wring his spine as they worked against his vertebrae to generate the necessary torque. Dawes grabbed the rope with his freehand and leaned back, creating slack, which he would draw up with the crank. He had a long ways to go, and it would only get harder, but that’s how it had to be; that’s why he was on the third floor, so he could get it off the ground. Then it would be helpless. Larson’s mistake was trying to face the thing on its own terms. Remembering Larson’s screams off Maine made Dawes’s sweat turn icy, but he wanted to face it again. He wanted to look it in the eyes when he killed it — for Larson, for the thirty-year-old father of three, for all the others and most of all for Melissa, for the way she looked at him in surprise before she went under. A person shouldn’t have to remember their love like that. The fact that it would end on the beach where Melissa was lost brought small comfort. Dawes hadn’t been sure if he would even be able to enter the hotel again. He did, though, and it frightened him that he felt nothing during the return. A person had to be dead to feel nothing.

  The rope creaked and strained, but Dawes didn’t worry about it snapping. It had a wire core and was rated for over five thousand pounds. He turned the crank, muscles trembling and the veins of his neck standing taut. Applied force and leverage gave him the advantage. His nemesis had no foundation from which to resist while Dawes had a steel frame bolted to the floor and a pulley system that magnified his strength. The amount of rope on the reel increased in thickness. The crank turned with something like ease now.

  Dawes had marked the rope with a piece of tape. As soon as that piece of tape came over the windowsill, he would know it was off the ground and helpless.

  “Soon,” Dawes said with each turn of the reel. His chest heaved with the effort. The first time he met Melissa played behind the spots dancing across his vision. She moved into his apartment building one fall day, wearing shorts, a sweatshirt and carrying a garbage bag full of books. He said hello, spent a year and a half trying to say more, finally succeeded and ended up not getting a chance to say goodbye.

  The tape came over the windowsill, and Dawes engaged the reel’s brake. He jumped to his feet, removed his gloves and grabbed the spear gun, his grin not unlike a shark’s itself. He leaned out the window, and a gray blur exploded upward, enveloping him with an overpowering fish smell. Dawes was knocked onto the bed, and the spear gun flew from his hand.

  It climbed the rope!

  The wereshark’s rubbery flesh was caked with sand. It stood on two legs, gills flexing and its tail curled with cobra tension. Its ventral fins had muscular shoulders and were tipped with spindly fingers, which struggled to pull the hook from a mouth filled with triangular shark teeth and human molars. Instead of a tapered lower jaw, the creature had a chin. The rest of its face was all shark, except for the flash of blue eyes.

  Dawes frantically looked for the spear gun and spotted it beside the room’s desk. He bounced his way off the bed and darted for it. The wereshark succeeded in pulling the hook from its mouth and lashed out with its tail. Dawes slammed against the wall. His cry of pain seemed to come from far away, and he clenched his vision down to a pinprick, like his eyelids were tiny fists holding onto consciousness. When he was sure he wasn’t going to go under Melissa went under Dawes sought an opening.

  The wereshark advanced, making an eager grunting sound. Dawes tried to buttonhook around it, but the room was too cramped. He ducked a swinging gray arm and got hip-checked by the TV. After getting a nose full of carpet, Dawes had his ankle grabbed and found himself being dragged toward gnashing teeth. Visions of Larson’s mangled, decapitated body filled his head. Dawes kicked with his free leg, hands scrambling for something — anything — to use in defense. All he got was the bedspread. It pulled onto the floor, dropping the newspaper and Bible within reach. Dawes grabbed the Bible and shoved it into the wereshark’s mouth before the monster sucked up his leg like a string of spaghetti. Gagging, the wereshark dropped Dawes and swiped at the obstruction in is throat. While it was distracted, Dawes went for the spear gun once more. He brought the weapon to bear as the wereshark spat the Bible out.

  Thwip! Thunk! The spear stuck quivering in the wall.

  Trembling muscles caused the shot go wide, and frustration caused Dawes to scream in disbelief. The wereshark, meanwhile, advanced with that half-grin on its face. Dawes could see the pores on the wereshark’s nose — Ampullae of Lorenzini — which sharks used to detect bio-electrical impulses in the water. He had studied them during the years he spent waiting and preparing for this moment. Sharks were made to kill, and combining their nature with human nature made for a creature even more deadly. The wereshark’s nostrils flared. They could smell one part blood in one million parts water, and when they smelled blood, they went into a frenzy. This fact caused an idea to shoulder its way through Dawes’s dismay. He lunged for the spray can, twisted off its cap and doused the wereshark with the remaining blood. It stopped advancing, head thrashing side to side, teeth snapping its senses overloaded.

  While the beast was confused, Dawes danced around it and wrenched the silver-tipped spear out of the wall. Dawes screamed and charged, burying the spear in the wereshark’s chest. Momentum from the attack carried them toward the open window. A lunatic laugh of victory escaped Dawes’s throat as he stared into the wereshark’s eyes. It was the moment he had been waiting for, what he paid for with his inability to let things go. He wanted to see that same look of surprise he saw in Melissa’s eyes. And pain. Then Dawes shrieked as he and the wereshark went out the window — not because of the fall but because of impossible recognition.

  They shattered one of the patio’s glass tables. Dawes landed on top of the wereshark, and its body broke his fall. He bounced away and rolled to his feet as the wereshark crawled behind one of the hotel’s beach chairs and collapsed. Only its hindquarters remained visible. The gray of its legs faded, growing pink. Its tail shrank in on itself, retracting out of sight like an earthworm into its burrow. Throughout the process, Dawes bit his knuckle hard enough to draw blood. It couldn’t be, but he knew what he saw when he looked into those eyes. Nausea churned his midsection. Dawes had to look, but trepidation blocked the signals between his mind and limbs, like his will was a frozen computer tha
t needed rebooting.

  When Dawes finally moved, he was driven by emotion rather than conscious thought. He crept forward, mouth dry with the metallic taste of dread. He peeked over the edge of the chair, and a face came into view like the moon going through its phases.

  “Melissa,” Dawes said.

  Bare skin and hair slimed with mucous — she was hunched around the spear in her chest. Blank blue eyes found Dawes, and sparks of consciousness ignited in their depths. “Robert,” Melissa said. “I had a bad dream. I was drowning.”

  Dawes’s hand seemed to travel the distance of the universe. When he finally touched her, he was tethered to the world once more. Melissa’s fingers were cold and clutched his own with feeble weakness. He didn’t know how to react to the sensation; it had been too long and the situation too insane. Dawes’s lower lip trembled.

  They never found a body.

  She was bitten.

  She changed.

  She was out there the whole time.

  A sob caught in Dawes’s throat like a hook.

  “Something’s burning in me,” Melissa gasped.

  Dawes grimaced at the blood. “It’ll stop soon.”

  Melissa’s eyes went wide with remembrance. “The shark!”

  “It’s gone now.”

  “No,” Melissa squeezed his hand. “He’s here!”

  The hairs on the back of Dawes’s neck rose. He turned, and there it stood in the shallows, as still as a stone idol. Water lapped around its white belly. Its triangular head was shaped like a missile, and its teeth reminded Dawes of a living table saw. Its blue eyes glared; looking into them was like looking over the edge of a cliff.

  “He’s here for me,” Melissa said. “Run…”

  This time it was Dawes who looked surprised. “Never.” He removed his hand from Melissa’s with some difficulty. Then he stomped off across the sand.

  “Robert!” his wife called after him.

  Dawes didn’t reply. He marched toward the creature that awaited him, having no idea what he would do when he got there, only knowing he couldn’t let it touch Melissa again, even if she was only going to remain in the world for a short time longer — that and the fact that only one of them was going to come out of this fight alive.

  The wereshark met Dawes halfway. Dawes swung an ineffectual fist, and the wereshark batted him aside with steel strength. Dawes hit the beach, biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood. He expected to be fallen upon and rolled into a crouch. The wereshark ignored him, however, and stalked across the beach toward the patio. Desperate, Dawes dove and tackled the wereshark from behind. Its skin was smooth as silk rubbed one way and rough as sandpaper the other. Abrasions erased the epidermis from Dawes’s hands and arms. The wereshark planted a powerful leg in Dawes’s chest and kicked. Dawes skidded through the remains of the patio table, nearly impaling himself on one of the larger shards.

  The wereshark reared up over Melissa. What had to be seawater dribbled from the creases around its eyes. If it wasn’t seawater, it was tears, Dawes realized. The ramifications of that numbed his already unfeeling self even further.

  The wereshark took heads. Dawes and Larson thought it sadistic precision, but what if it was something else? According to many shape-shifting legends, only two ways to kill werebeings existed: silver and beheading. What if the wereshark took heads because it was compelled to kill but still human enough to spare its victims its curse? But it didn’t take Melissa’s head. It took her. Why? Because it was tired of being alone? Because it wanted companionship in the abyss, to breach the surface and hunt with another?

  He’s here for me…

  Melissa screamed as the wereshark reached for her. Dawes thanked Christ she hadn’t been fully aware of what happened to her while imprisoned in an abominable aquatic form. If she was, she wouldn’t have tried to kill him or think the experience a bad dream. But Melissa was aware now, and she wanted no more of it ever again.

  Dawes lurched to his feet, grabbing a machete-like piece of glass from the broken patio table. The table was made of glass thick enough to withstand the abuse of drunken spring breakers, and the shard was sharp enough to cut Dawes’s fingers. He rose up behind the wereshark and aimed for the base of its neck…

  *

  Dawes couldn’t leave Melissa on the patio, and she couldn’t be helped by anyone anyway. Plus, how would he explain her reappearing after two years to authorities? How would he explain the spear in her chest to the paramedics? Dawes carried her across a beach that gleamed like bone under the stars. The ocean embraced him, and its waters took Melissa’s weight. Her hair floated around her head in a blond corona. The undertow tried to pull them out to sea, as it did the headless remains of the man who had been the wereshark — an islander with voodoo symbols carved into his skin. Dawes held Melissa’s hand and resisted the current.

  Melissa’s words become more strained. “You look different. How long?”

  “Not long.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Not long,” Dawes said again. “Time’s never long when it’s about you.”

  “Did you feel bad?”

  Dawes shrugged.

  “Don’t,” Melissa said.

  Dawes had surprisingly little more to say. One would think that having such a chance would lead to a torrent of words, but it was just the opposite. He found he only wanted to say one thing. Until then, he just wanted to be there.

  Melissa’s blue eyes closed and struggled back opened. “I’m tired.”

  “Go back to sleep,” Dawes said.

  A half smile crossed Melissa’s lips. “Goodnight…” While her eyes stayed open, the glow of a quarter moon was the only light in them.

  “Goodbye.”

  Dawes might have stood there hours. He might have stood there minutes. As the sun began to rise, he felt it was time to let her go of her hand.

  Melissa floated away, and he remained in place.

  Searching for the Sea Monster

  By Lance Schonberg

  I hate seaweed. Slimy, grasping, puke green ropes reaching out of the darkness to bind you, hold you gently bobbing in place to wait for the end. I wonder what the seaweed gets out of it. Fertilizer, maybe? Not that there’s ever much left behind. All I’ve ever found are a few shards of bone lying in the sand and I don’t see how that would be enough for cooperation.

  Maybe I’m crazy, but does that make me wrong. There’s something about this stretch of coast, something that hates, something that strikes whenever we’re not looking. Only I am looking and it doesn’t seem to mind, or maybe it doesn’t care.

  If you look at the numbers, really look, the incidence of missing people here is about three times the coastal average, accounting for population density. There’s something here that doesn’t belong.

  The seaweed is the key. Any time I get close to a big strand, some bit of it twitches against the current; ready to reach out and take whatever it can, waiting for the right moment, the right command. If I can just catch it in the act, I might be a step closer. Maybe I am crazy, but I will find out what's wrong here.

  *

  Thursday morning clouds roil across the sky, and the wind they ride on pushes waves in fast. Too cold for swimming, but a surfer might find entertainment on the beach today. I haven't seen any yet, just shore birds, sand crabs, and stranded jelly fish.

  But something smells below the cedar and salt water. It's faint, too subtle for me to know if it's something coming or something left behind, but it draws me to the ripple of sand where the strongest waves reach up from the ocean. I stand there, staring out into the water, and search the shallows through crash and foam for some sign of why I’m here.

  A surge of cold water rushes over my boots reaching all the way up to my ankles and I look down to see the receding wave leave something behind. Wrapped in a few light strands of seaweed, an expensive running shoe sits off kilter in the sand. The next wave licks the toes of my left boot and the one after lacks the will to get even that f
ar. It takes three more before I can do more than stare at the shoe. Some feeling, some subconscious vibration makes me suspicious, unwilling to take the gift.

  But it’s not something I can refuse. Holding my breath, I bend over and grab the shoe, expecting to feel something, but it just feels like a wet running shoe. The water hasn’t started to leach away any of the bright colors yet so it can’t have been in the ocean for more than a couple of days.

  I lift it almost to eye level. Something tumbles inside, not making any noise but I feel the bounces. I tilt the shoe toward me and shake it. Several more bounces bring the unknown thing to the heel.

  It’s a toe.

  Not a big toe or a little toe, but one of the ones in between, drained of fluid and bleached white by the salt. The real deal, it’s definitely a human toe. Male or female? Morbid curiosity. It’s a man’s shoe, I think. Whoever it belonged to, for me it’s a gift from the sea or a taunt from my quarry.

  More disturbing, it’s probably both.

  *

  It’s a tough decision to call the police. They’ll spend the whole day, at least, sending in divers to look for more body parts or clues, and generally muddying the waters – pun intended. But someone died. If the police can find anything to narrow down who it might have been, that’s as important as my search could be. More important to the dead man’s family, if he had one.

  I’m not brave enough to dive at night so Friday morning comes before I’m back at the beach. The sun nearly reaches zenith before the wetsuit shows my bulging middle to the world. Flippers and mask secure, I try to line up exactly where the shoe washed ashore and wade into the gentle surf.

  When I reach the point where the waves push up against the bottom of my mask, I stop and let the ocean hold me. It gives me a primitive feeling in the pit of my stomach, imagining what it must have been like for my very remote ancestors to poke up out of the water and see the alien world above. Turning around, it’s an ever stronger feeling as the waves wash up and down showing me varying amounts of beach and tree.