The Fog

by Dennis Etchison

  Who would do a thing like that, anyway? Who would want to? Maybe one of those Tri-County Junior High boys, the ones who drank beer out here with their girlfriends in the middle of the night until Sheriff Simms scared them off. But, it was against the law to steal tide pool animals or even to mess around with them too much. For sure it was a crime to kill them. Besides, it was just plain cruel.

  Again he thought: who would want to do a thing like that, nail up starfish under my house, under my mother’s bedroom? And why?

  What did it mean?

  I’ll tell Mom, he thought. Maybe she’ll know. But I won’t tell her right away when she wakes up. She’s always kind of crabby for a while. Never for long, though. I’ll tell her, no, I’ll show her, this afternoon. Before she has to go back to work.

  Feeling a little bit funny in his stomach, he trudged back up the shore to his fishing gear. He would get the mussels he needed somewhere else.

  He shielded his eyes but couldn’t find the dog. He looked up and down the beach, at the greenish seaweed that was getting sticky in the sun, and at the broken-up chunks of jellyfish strewn ahead of him, and at the blurry white line where the sea met the sky. It was really white today, which meant that some fog would be coming in tonight. That would be kind of fun, sitting by the window and imagining that Antonio Bay wasn’t out there anymore and he was anywhere in the world he wanted to be in. There hadn’t been a good fog yet this year, but it looked like they were due for one now. The only thing bad about it was that Mrs. Kobritz said she hated having to walk home to her house in it, not being able to see a foot in front of her. She said once that she was afraid she would slip and fall on the path from the landing and no one would know she had fallen or hear her cries until the morning, and by then—what? She never said. It could be bad, though. She could break her leg. And his mother, she probably didn’t like the fog, either, driving all that way home from the Point, though she never complained. But the road was narrow and twisty through the trees, he knew. He had been there with her plenty of times himself.

  He began to get that sad feeling you get sometimes for no reason, say at the end of the summer when people start to leave the beach and school is about to start and the beach is mostly empty again as far as you can see, with nothing but some old cans and busted styrofoam ice chests left behind in the sand. It was okay again when you forgot about that and started enjoying having it all to yourself every day. But still, he knew he didn’t feel very good right now, and that was true. He didn’t know why, but it was a true thing just the same.

  Somebody was signaling to him.

  It looked like someone was using one of those Scout mirrors that flash Morse code when you don’t have a walkie talkie. Whoever it was, he was in behind the big rocks, flashing the sun right back into Andy’s eyes. It seemed like code.

  He ran toward it.

  He came up short and dug in his heels. The water lapped over his bare feet and buried them deeper. He wondered if he kept standing there in the same place and didn’t move, would his feet sink deeper till he was sucked down to his knees, then his waist, then—

  There was nobody.

  The flashing was still going on, but he could see from here that it was a shiny thing stuck in between the rocks where the waves had made holes, a piece of tin can, probably, or a plastic, well, a plastic something. That was what it was, because if it was a tin can it would have gone bad by now. Anyway, he ought to take a look, just in case it was something for his treasure chest, like the keys and the deep sea sinker and the ladies’ Timex watch without a band.

  He unstuck his feet and made for it before the next wave could smash it loose. He scrambled over the rocks, being careful not to cut his feet. When he was almost to it, his eyes opened very wide.

  Gold.

  It was a gold coin. He could already see the markings on it, the imperfect round shape the way old coins always were, and the outline of a head inside the lettering.

  This, he thought, is the very best treasure I ever found.

  He leaned over the side of a boulder and reached for it. A small wave struck the boulder and sent a fan of spray over him.

  The foam churned and drew off, and the coin was still there. It glinted into his eyes, making it hard for him to see, but he reached for it again just as a bigger wave crashed into the rocks and over him, filling the space with more whitewater. He reached for the spot where he knew it would be. He touched something slimy, then something hard. His fingers closed around it. It was—

  Something clutched his wrist.

  He felt it closing over his flesh, coiling like a whip. For a second he was frightened, but then he realized it had to be a piece of kelp snapping loose in the tide, tough and rubbery and hard to break. He tugged.

  The water ebbed from between the slippery rocks, and the suction of it pulled him down. The fingers of his other hand scraped the worn stones, and then his fingernails, scratching as if across a wet blackboard. He toppled headfirst, his feet caught at the last and he was anchored again, safe. The force of the water was stronger than he had expected. Be wary of the sea, my boy, Captain Machen had said. It taketh away and does not give back, except that which it has transformed into its own kind.

  And then the water was clearing and running out, and he saw his wrist which was just tangled in seaweed. As soon as the water finished running out—

  His fingers closed around it.

  Only it did not feel like a coin anymore, it felt long and soft and hard at the same time and covered with grooves. He gave it a yank.

  It came free. But it was not a coin.

  It was a piece of driftwood.

  No, not driftwood, a board of some kind. It was gray and chip-tooled by an axe, the way they used to do it in the old days. It was a plank, a piece of a plank. And it had a word carved into it.

  It was from a ship. He was so excited he forgot about the gold coin.

  He walked back to the house and into the kitchen, not caring that his clothes were soaked, gazing into the carving on the wood, studying every inch. The letters were deep and dark. Maybe they had been burned there, the way he burned dry driftwood with his magnifying glass. He was sure he’d found something special this time.

  An ugly morning.

  Al’s eyes and the running lights of the Sea Grass remained before him. Nick had tossed until past dawn, trying to dump the image, but the lights would not go out.

  And now here was Hank Jones, squatting at the end of the pier, jotting neat, ordered notes about tides and temperatures on his schedule, just like God was still in his heaven and all was right with the world. The empty berth where the Sea Grass should have been gaped prominently behind him, as painful as a missing tooth. But Hank didn’t take any notice. The slate-gray waters lapped between the CC Princess and the Sundowner II, as if Al’s boat had never been there at all.

  “Where the hell are they?” Nick said too loudly.

  Fishermen eyed him gravely and returned to their nets as though they had spied an albatross flapping about in deck shoes, hovering in search of a nice hospitable place to settle.

  Elizabeth drew closer. A tremor passed through her. Don’t say it, he thought. Don’t say I knew it, not now, or I’ll send you packing for sure.

  “Pulled out at four-fifteen yesterday, and that’s the last I saw of ’em,” said the dockmaster.

  “Al told me seven-thirty,” said Nick, hoping to make it real. “Right here, same as always.”

  “Aw, you know Al. If I were you, Castle, I’d find myself another boat for the day.”

  Just like that.

  Nick slowed himself down and bit off his words. “You call the Coast Guard?” he asked casually. He hoped it sounded casual. It didn’t.

  “Nick,” said Jones, unperturbed, stroking his leathery face, as if that would change anything. “They probably got drunk last night and are still out there sleeping it off.”

  Nick cut him off. “Al wouldn’t do that.”

  “He’d do anything, t
he crazy bastard.”

  “Yeah, he’s crazy,” said Nick, “sometimes. And you, you know what you are? You’re ugly as a—”

  “Nick,” said Elizabeth.

  “No! Al’s not crazy all the time, not when the chips are down. Every time, we’d stop drinking before we got so plastered we couldn’t make it back. Every time. He’s too good a sailor to stay out all night and not let someone know. But you, Jones, you’ll stay as ugly as a scumbag for the rest of your life, and there’s nobody can do anything about that.”

  Jones stood. “You sound like his wife,” he said tightly.

  “I’m his friend.”

  Nick turned on his heel and left the dock, so fast that Elizabeth had to run to keep up with him.

  “Can I ask you one question?” she said.

  His left hand was throbbing, his other shaking. He clamped his teeth together. His eyes were watering with rage.

  A man lives a decent life, he told himself, a man like Al Williams, say, and everybody likes him, everybody asks him for favors and hangs around. But something happens and nobody says word one. Which makes it the same as if he had never been there, at least in their minds. That’s the part that tears it; it’s as if he had never been there at all. Well that’s not how it works, by God, and it never has been. That’s what I say. You don’t cut line and move on when your friend is on the other end. Not where I come from. That’s not the way Al was raised, either. He’d put his hand in the fire for me, if it came to that.

  Elizabeth was right there. She seemed afraid to touch him.

  “I said . . .”

  “I heard you.”

  “Well, isn’t there something we can do? About your friend?”

  “You want to know what I’m going to do? I’m going to Ashcroft and I’m going to get him to take his boat out to look for the Sea Grass, that’s what I can do.”

  “Who’s Ashcroft?”

  “Someone who owes me a favor.” No, strike that, he thought. “Someone who owes Al a favor.”

  “Can I do anything to help?”

  “I thought you had to get to Vancouver.”

  “I do. Eventually.”

  Stevie Wayne lay on her back, her hands curled by her face. The morning light that was filtering through the curtains held her eyelids down with a palpable weight, but she knew she could not let that go on much longer. She had things to do. There was coffee to make for Marty, and formula for Andy, and the cat would have to be let out, and the car pool with Sara Micheler’s kids, and . . .

  But was this a weekday? No, it was a Saturday. So Marty would still be asleep. She would have to be careful not to wake him. She hoped she hadn’t already. There had been something, something in the night, a terrible dream, things climbing up the landing under the house, sliding with an awful kind of sucking sound, so awful it—they—might even have been real. And then the pounding. She could hear it now if she allowed herself. Had it already awakened Marty? She reached out to the pillow next to hers. She’d ask him later, after he had his coffee and—

  The pillow was empty and cold, like the rest of the bed.

  For a heart-stopping instant panic seized her as the pictures returned. She opened her eyes with a pop and raised her head. And then she remembered. Other pictures took their place, the pictures of her life as it had been once melting seamlessly into pictures of her life as it was now. There was one by the half-empty glass of water on the dresser.

  Herself in front of a microphone, her hair much shorter, shaking hands with a handsome, dark-haired man a bit older than she was. A bit but not much, not enough to matter. Already his face was becoming harder and harder for her to remember. She moved on to the next picture, a framed 5 x 7 of the two of them with their arms around each other, smiling into her brother’s camera. Then the baby pictures of Andy. And then the last one, a newspaper clipping from the Antonio Bay Gazette:

  KAB HAS NEW OWNER

  Stevie Wayne Also to Serve as Disc Jockey

  “Mom?”

  She heard footsteps prancing through the kitchen. It’s all right, she thought; I don’t mind. He doesn’t know what time it is. And why should he? It’s Saturday, isn’t it? A day to play. A big, sloppy tear loosed itself from the corner of her eye and was absorbed into the pillowcase. She wiped it away and lifted herself to her elbows.

  “Andy? It’s okay, honey, I’m not asleep.” Actually I died in my sleep last night and there’s no way to wake me up. There’s no reason to. But since I’m dead now, it doesn’t matter.

  He burst through the door. “Mom!”

  She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and mussed her hair. “Are you wet? Why are you so wet, honey? What have you been—?”

  “Mom, c’mon, lookit! Look what I found.”

  “Not until you change your clothes. My God, look at you. What have you been doing, diving for pearls?”

  And then, involuntarily, she started to laugh, at his shriveled jacket and his pink cheeks and the way his hair was plastered to his forehead, his fat little hands out in front of him with a present of some sort. A cherub, she thought. A messenger boy in a harem, with a gift on a pillow for the queen mother. Thank God he’s not the cat, she thought, and laughed harder. If he were the cat, she thought, he would be bringing me the kind of treasure I can live without, thank you, like a gopher or a bird or a rat, and plopping it ceremoniously in front of me on the bed the way he used to. Then she remembered that the cat was dead, too, and the laughing wound down and stopped at last.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” she said. “What have you got? Come here, damn your hide. I love you a lot, do you know that?”

  “I kno-o-w,” he said dismally. “But lookit! First it was a gold coin, and then it turned into this neat piece of wood!”

  “Andy, I’m so tired I can’t even see straight.” It’s not your fault, she thought. “I’m dead to the world. Will you pick some flowers for the funeral? You know I love carnations.”

  “Sure, Mom, but look at it!”

  She looked at it. It was a piece of driftwood. She kissed him lightly on the lips. He managed to endure it. Must be my morning breath. “Good morning, Andrew. Did you have a good time last night?”

  “Yeah. Old Mr. Machen . . .”

  “What about him? Andy, you’re not still going up there at night to listen to his crazy ghost stories, are you? Look at me.”

  “Naw, Mom. Jeremy asked me to go with him, only I didn’t.”

  I wonder, she thought. She had never seen the man, but the children seemed to go for him in a big way. I should call him. Except that I tried that already. His number isn’t listed, and no one seems to know where he lives. I guess I could try talking to the other parents again.

  “Did you thank Mrs. Kobritz for staying?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did she say she was coming over again tonight?”

  “Uh-huh. Mom, can I go get a Stomach Pounder and a Coke?”

  How quickly they change gears, she thought. Exit the wood to the junk pile, enter the Golden Arches. “After lunch. Did you eat your breakfast?”

  “Yeah. I’m gonna go look for another one. Maybe this time I can get the gold coin!”

  He jumped off the bed and raced out of the bedroom.

  She sat for a moment, scratching her arms and yawning, thinking about nothing. She crawled across the bed and watched Andy kicking up sand on his way back up the beach. You keep me going, kid. she thought. You and no one else.

  She got up and walked flat-footed toward the bathroom. On the way, she paused and took a closer look at the driftwood.

  There was something written on it.

  She picked it up. She smoothed her hand over the surface, pushing back layers of dirt and marm. The feel of it made her shudder. But she was curious.

  Underneath, in black, burned letters, was a single word:

  DANE.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “. . . Moving westerly at five knots. The temperature for the Antonio Bay area will be in the hi
gh sixties. High tide at three forty-six, low tide at nine-thirteen.”

  “Is it always like this?” asked Elizabeth over the mechanical voice of the Coast Guard broadcast.

  “Like what?” At least he had heard her this time.

  “I don’t know. Like glass. I always thought the ocean was supposed to be dangerous looking. At least out here this far.”

  “That’s what worries me,” said Nick, and went to join Ashcroft at the helm.

  Fisherman’s logic, she thought. Whatever it means.

  “. . . Bulletin to all vessels and crafts. Be on the lookout for the Sea Grass, a thirty-foot trawler last seen approximately twenty-five miles east of Spivey Point. As of one fifty-seven today the Sea Grass has not responded to radio communication . . .”

  She hunkered away from the spray and touched up her latest drawing. The paper was damp, but at least she didn’t have to spit to shade in the dark areas. She had the seascape down pat, the waxy skin of the wavelets cutting the page into two halves, which was not the way you were supposed to compose a picture, but what the hell? Nick liked her work.

  She didn’t know what to do about the sky. It was clear now, not a cloud in sight, but she wanted somehow to stick a few wisps in there somewhere, right above the horizon. She could only show white properly if she made it a night scene. Well, why not? A few stars, an old hunk of moon. How do you draw a moon? Incredible, she thought. I never have. Green cheese, she remembered. No, Swiss cheese. No . . .

  “There!”

  Ashcroft handed Nick the binoculars.

  It was a spider on the water. Then an oil well, one of those short pumps like they had in Long Beach, bobbing their prehistoric heads day and night. Then it was a boat. Ship. Which one was it, now?

  She joined Nick.

  “It’s her,” said Ashcroft.

  “I knew it,” she said.

  Nick plunked the glasses against her chest without turning.

  “Ow,” she said. He didn’t mean it. She hefted the binoculars.

  Yep. The paint was peeling in spots, but she could make it out:

  SEA GRASS.