The Origin (The Sighting #2)

by Christopher Coleman

  Danny felt a buoyancy well inside of him, hopefulness, his legal issues suddenly dwindling. But there was a new pressure now, a different type of anxiety as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “There’s been another death, Mr. Lynch. Right now we’re calling it a homicide.”

  “What?”

  Calazzo nodded. “And we know you had nothing to do with this one. And I no longer think the first one either.”

  “Why is that?” Danny was slightly in shock, and the question sounded as if someone other than he had asked it.

  “Because every instinct in my body tells me it’s the same person...the same man who killed Mr. DeRose.”

  “Oh no,” Danny whispered, his mind beginning to make automatic calculations.

  Calazzo smirked “Thought you’d be a bit more pleased.”

  “That someone died?”

  “Believe it or not, in a case like this, for most people, the answer would be ‘yes.’”

  “What part of the beach?”

  “What’s that?”

  “This killing, where on the beach did it happen?”

  “Well that’s just it, Danny, it was at the beach, but it wasn’t on the ocean.”

  “What?” Danny could barely breathe now.

  “Like I said. It was two high schoolers. Out late. Young lovers walking the bay front, I guess. Tippin’s Point. The girl says something...someone appeared from behind them and grabbed her boyfriend. Picked him up by his neck and strangled him. A sixteen-year old boy, can you believe that?”

  Calazzo shook his head, as if not quite able to picture the story he was describing.

  Danny could picture it perfectly.

  “And then it dragged him that way back to the water. Girl says her boyfriend barely made a sound. His neck was crushed, flopped off to the side within moments. What the hell kind of man has that kind of strength?”

  Danny didn’t give him the answer, though he sensed Calazzo was looking to him for the explanation. Instead he asked, “Well, the girl was there. She saw him. What kind of man was it?”

  “That’s just it. She says it wasn’t no man at all. What do you make of that?”

  “So a woman then?”

  Calazzo chuckled. “No, Danny, not a woman. To hear her describe it, sounds a bit like that thing you saw a few years ago. That thing in the paper.”

  Danny was quiet.

  “Anyways, she was hysterical, of course, and luckily she had the sense to run away. It was dark though—no moon tonight—and she was terrified, which tends to alter your perception. So who knows what she actually saw. But she’s sticking to her story.”

  “And what story is that?”

  Calazzo shrugged. “That it was some kind of a...creature. I don’t know. Her description was pretty detailed though.”

  Danny didn’t need to hear the description, he already knew exactly what the sea god looked like. His only interest now was in the location. “The bay, you said?”

  Calazzo nodded. “Yep.” He paused and stared at Danny for a beat. “There something you can help us with, Danny? Because goddamn, I hate to admit this, but I guess everything is on the table now.”

  Danny felt a surge of adrenaline run through him, knowing that the confrontation was coming soon, feeling that his nightmare was about to end forever one way or the other.

  “I think I can, sheriff, but I’ll need half the day to figure some things out.”

  “Half a day? Hell, I guess I can wait half a day for a murder to get sorted out.”

  “And if I were you, I would try to keep everyone away from the bay for the time being.”

  “That deal’s been sealed already.”

  “And I guess the ocean too, just to be safe. Put up whatever signs you need to, just keep the beaches clear. I know that won’t be easy, but I’ll be there by this afternoon. Bayside at Tippin’s Point. I’ll let you know when I’m coming.”

  Calazzo gave a moment’s thought to all Danny had said and then nodded, and Danny could tell he wasn’t used to being in this position, taking orders from a civilian about how his job should be carried out. But he had little choice now. The stakes had been raised to a point Sheriff Calazzo and his ragtag band of officers couldn’t reach alone.

  “Sounds fair to me, Danny,” he said. “You have a good night, sir.” He turned for the door and then stopped, pivoting back to Danny. “And I am sorry about all you went through yesterday. I should have listened to my deputy on this one. She said you were a good egg. Said it was that boy who was the rotten one.”

  Shane. Danny had momentarily forgotten about the kid. The boy who had offered his father to the god for a few seconds of terrifying, sickening glory.

  “He’s not bad, sheriff,” Danny replied. “He’s sick. And God willing, I’m gonna find the cure.”

  Chapter 29

  Samuel and Sokwa stood atop the shallow hill that overlooked the southern border of the village and colony, well back from the tree line so that the leaves of the oaks shrouded them in darkness. As they stared down on the peaceful arrangement of wigwams and longhouses, gardens and worksites, Samuel couldn’t help but smile as he clutched the woman’s book in his arms, pressing it tightly against his chest. He looked at Sokwa who stood beside him, and though she didn’t look nearly as joyous or confident as Samuel, there was an aspect of resolve in her eyes, one that Samuel now took pride in having built over the course of the day’s journey.

  “We’ll take a passage through the forest,” he said, “around the perimeter, until we meet the path that leads down to the sound. It is the same course I took yesterday to reach your house. If we’re quiet, no one will know we are here. Once down the path, we’ll sleep on the shores of the sound, and then tomorrow at dawn, we’ll take the boat to the Yapam and make the first call.”

  Sokwa looked to the ground as her eyes bled to sadness. “I don’t want my family hurt, Samuel. Or any of my people. Can you promise that?” Her tone was doubtful, her face contorted with confusion and distrust. “How do you know when we call it, if it comes, that they won’t all be taken by the Croatoan?”

  “I know it, Sokwa. Just as I know the Croatoan will come. I believe it and thus I know it. Once we call the god from sea and beckon it across the sound to the island, just as the stories in the book described, we will have time to warn whoever you wish. And if they heed your warnings, they will have ample opportunity to flee. You tell them why you have done what you’ve done—what we have done—with vigor and purpose, and they will believe you. Nootau’s parents already know the creature to be real. It won’t be difficult, Sokwa. We’re saving them in the end. I will have saved your people by summoning the Croatoan.”

  Samuel had no feelings or concern about Sokwa’s family or any of the Algonquin people on the island. He only wanted to put to test the lessons in the woman’s book. To see if he could still use the sounds of the conch to draw the creature from the depths of the Great Western Sea, on command, and then watch it make its way across the beaches to the sound. From there he would take the boat back across, just as he and Nootau had planned that first day, when the boat had been pulled by the tide and Nootau had tried to swim across only to be caught and torn into fragments.

  But Samuel would be quicker this time. He would have Sokwa ready to go with the boat as soon as the creature had locked them in its sights. And once they were across to the island, Samuel would sound the conch again, drawing it further toward him, to the shores of the island and then up the path to the village. “You believe me, yes?”

  Sokwa nodded, her eyes pleading, imploring Samuel to instill in her the belief that every word of what he said was true. “But how, Samuel? If we can draw it to the village, how will we keep it from destroying everything in its path. From destroying my people?”

  “If we can draw it to us, we can draw it away. We need only see the death of my mother, and once that is complete—and you have seen the majesty of it for yourself—we’ll lead it back to the sound and destroy it,
if that is your wish. I’ve stashed weapons from my father’s armory in the brush by the beach.”

  None of this was true, but Samuel knew it wouldn’t come to matter. He had captured the imagination of Sokwa, using most of the walk back from the woman’s cave to re-tell the story of his two encounters with the creature, first describing his day with Nootau, and later his night on the beach during Kitchi’s death. The truth of what happened in both instances was barely existent in his words, but Samuel gave no thought to his lack of sincerity. He had accomplished his goals with Sokwa, and the girl hung on every word as if each was a bar of gold, asking him to re-tell the tale of Kitchi’s death twice more before they reached the village. And with each re-telling, Samuel added some detail that was more intimate, more grotesque, illuminating the butchery of the killing with images that left Sokwa wonderstruck.

  And by the time they had trekked to within an hour of the colony, Sokwa was nearly salivating at the thought of seeing the Croatoan. Her manner was reminiscent of Nootau’s on that first day by the dunes, so driven by his uncle’s story was he that he ran without concern to the canoe that would take them to the beach. The consequences of disobeying his parents or the danger of the creature itself were secondary to Nootau that morning.

  But there was more to Samuel’s plan than painting images of the creature; that alone wouldn’t have been enough to convince Sokwa to agree to his plan of death and destruction. He added sordid stories of his mother’s abuses toward him—some of which were true—as well as the more twisted lie that his mother had murdered his infant sister by smothering her in her cradle in order to suppress her crying and screaming.

  But the real hook of Samuel’s plan came from the lie about how he had overheard his parents in conversation just before his father left for England. ‘He has not gone there for food or supplies’ Samuel had lied to Sokwa, ‘he has gone for soldiers. And iron tools which he is bringing back to build gallows for every member of your tribe. They’re all going to hang, Sokwa. All of your tribe has been sentenced to torture and death.’

  This last part of the fable was true—her tribe was going to die—but it would not come as a result of Samuel’s father or any English reinforcements. Once the Croatoan was released upon the village, once it had been led through the forest and to the colony, Samuel knew there was little he could do to stop it. There was no reversal of the call that could end the slaughter of the people there.

  Samuel’s lies had also done well to lead Sokwa away from the cave. When the opportunity had arisen, during the point in their visit when the old hermit had gone to the perimeter of the cliffs to check on her crazed prisoner, Samuel convinced Sokwa that they were both destined to end up in one of the vacant sand holes, just like the woman who stole Samuel’s bladder.

  After much debate, she had agreed, but not to taking the book, fearing that stealing it would lead to some curse or bad luck. But Samuel insisted the book would be important to the history of her people, and that if they allowed it to stay buried in the beachside caves, it would never be found, and all of the knowledge of the Croatoan and its destruction would die with it.

  And Samuel insisted Sokwa add to the book, as well. And during one of their rests, using only the flint of a rock, she marvelously re-created the woman’s call on the rocks and the Croatoan’s rise from the sea, Samuel describing the creature to her with all the detail he could muster.

  Samuel had also taken the conch, which Sokwa did not notice. And as Samuel thought about it now, he could only imagine the fury and panic the woman would feel when she noticed it was gone. Surely, she had thought it special in some way, despite that it had never drawn the creature, and there was a new conch to be found on the beach every day.

  Sokwa followed Samuel through the trees around the perimeter of the village until they reached the path that led down to the sound. From there they descended the gradual slope, winding around the corners and up the inclines where Samuel had pushed Kitchi in a wheelbarrow only days ago. At the bottom of the hill, they found a thick clump of bushes behind which they would camp for the night.

  Samuel was hungry now, extraordinarily, and he knew that once tomorrow arrived, he would need a proper meal from somewhere, though he couldn’t at that moment imagine where it would be gained.

  He took a deep breath of the beach air and thought about his plan once daylight came, constructing it over in his mind again and again, trying to locate the flaw.

  But it felt right in his mind. It was all meant to happen just as it was.

  “You believe me, right, Sokwa?”

  Samuel looked to the girl, hoping to garner more confidence through her assurances, but Sokwa was already sleeping. He closed his eyes and lay down beside her, and as he lay, drifting to sleep, he conjured once more the image of the Croatoan ripping out the heart of his mother.

  Chapter 30

  Danny and Samantha stood on one side of the bar and Tracy the other, each staring at the pages of the open book in his or her own unique way, squinting or cocking a head or neck, trying to find the string of words or an image that would provide the answer to a question that had not yet been asked. But Danny knew the gist of the question: how could they draw the monster from the sea and into an awaiting trap?

  The trap part was an additional question, of course, one Danny hadn’t thought much about to this point, but he figured if they could answer the first question, the answer to the second one would fall into place.

  But that they had to kill it was no longer up for debate. There was no other option; it had killed again, and this time the victim was a teenager. Thankfully, it sounded as if the witness had resisted getting mesmerized by the sea god and had not fallen under its spell the way Danny had.

  And Shane.

  And Lynn.

  Danny supposed that had this young girl seen her boyfriend slaughtered from a distance—from the safety of the dunes or a porch, perhaps—she would not have had the same restraint. But according to Sheriff Calazzo, the god was upon them before either realized what was happening, and her natural survival instincts had won the day.

  Thank god for that.

  “Roanoke,” Samantha said shaking her head. “Christ. That was like five hundred years ago.”

  Danny had awakened both women minutes after the sheriff left, much earlier than he had anticipated when they went off to bed only a few hours earlier; but given the visit by Calazzo and the dire news he’d brought with him, there was precious little time to waste.

  Samantha and Tracy had both gathered naturally at the bar, circling around the mysterious book as if drawn by a magnet, and there Danny had shown them the title page, getting similar reactions to the one he had expressed upon seeing it.

  “Where the hell did it come from do you think?” Tracy asked. “And where did Aunt Lynn get it?”

  “Five hundred years ago,” Samantha repeated, not addressing Tracy’s questions. “This book is that old?”

  “No,” Danny answered, “look.” He ran his finger under the Roman numerals at the bottom of the title page. “It was published in 1874. But I do think there are things in here that are that old. Some of these drawings were copied from originals of that time. At least according to the captions. And from what I’ve read so far, much of the text in here was translated directly from an earlier book, one that was supposedly found on the site of the Lost Colony after it was abandoned.”

  Samantha shook her head. “I never heard about any book found there. All they found were those carvings on the trees. ‘Croatoan.’ I think it was the name of a tribe that lived near there.”

  Croatoan. It was the word Danny was searching for earlier—one that he had already read in several places throughout Lynn Shield’s book—and now that the curious term had finally breached the air, it sent a shiver across his back.

  “Most people think the colonists were killed by the tribe, and...I don’t know...someone carved the word on a tree as a clue or something. A warning for the settlers coming from England,
I guess.”

  Danny nodded as Samantha spoke, having gathered this same data from his memory bank during his scan of the text thirty minutes earlier. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s pretty good.”

  Samantha gave a self-satisfied smile.

  “But,” Danny paused for effect, “what if it wasn’t a warning about the tribe?”

  “Who then?” Tracy asked.

  But Samantha had already arrived at the answer. “The creature. The warning was about the creature. Our sea beast. ‘Croatoan’ was the name of a tribe, but maybe it was also the name the natives gave to the creature.”

  “Wait, what?” Tracy shook her head. “You’re telling me this thing is five hundred years old? How could that be?”

  Danny frowned and shrugged. “I’m not telling you that, but I do think Samantha may be right. There are things in this book that...I don’t know. I guess there’s no way to know how accurate any of this is. It could all just be a fairy tale made to look like reality. But Lynn had the book at her home, and I can’t believe that is a coincidence.” Danny opened his eyes wide and looked at each of the women for a long moment. “And the pictures inside...you have to see them.”

  Danny thumbed open to the first page, about a quarter of the way in, and there, in what the caption below described as a retracing of an earlier drawing, the smooth, black head of the sea god was rising just above the water line, its massive shoulders spread like mountains, its expressionless eyes contrasting with the huge teeth that lined the bottom of its face.

  “Holy shit,” Tracy whispered.

  It was the third time Danny had looked at the picture since Calazzo left. The first time he had stared at it for more than twenty minutes, studying the similarities between the picture in the book and the one in his mind—the one that had been etched there forever by his first sighting at Rove Beach.