Samuel found a cedar tree beside the path and walked to it, putting his back against the trunk and closing his eyes. He dozed off for only a moment when the crackle of tree branches woke him, and he suddenly felt energized with fear and anticipation. He stood and listened, the smoke from the colony now thick in the sky above, as if the colony itself were on fire. It was bleeding into the forest now, combining with the fog to make the world a sea of white.
Another crackle and then a movement up ahead.
Samuel stood motionless now, squinting his eyes, trying to focus his vision through the smoke and fog that was smothering the trees of the forest.
And then he saw the first Croatoan, its eyes piercing the blanket of mist as it moved into a gap in the fog. Another step and Samuel could now see the ragged points of its colossal teeth, grinding in abnormal directions, stabbing down as if punishing its mouth with its own fangs.
There was another crunching sound in the trees, this time to Samuel’s right, just off the path. He turned to it, and there he saw the second of the gods, splitting the branches and coming directly toward him, quickly.
In a second, Samuel’s emotions cycled through surprise and joy and fear, as well as a few others he couldn’t quite describe. This was the purpose of his life. His religion. And as both monsters drew within a few feet of him, he smiled.
And then he ran.
The burn in his legs and lungs was suddenly gone, replaced with a feeling of vitality as he descended the path back toward the sound, but as he navigated one of the moderate curves of the path, his foot caught a root, sending him tumbling to the dirt and the book to the leaf litter of the forest.
Samuel tried to get to his feet, but his left leg was no longer viable, and the bone that connected it to his foot was now sticking out through his skin. He crawled on his knees now, looking back to the path but unable to see the source of the loud crunching sounds that were following him.
His eyes drifted down over his bloody leg and the splintered bone protruding outward, which had now begun collecting dirt and leaves as Samuel labored toward the sound.
The sound.
He could now see it through the trees and fog, and within moments, he was back on the beach. With a strength he would never have believed existed within him, Samuel dragged himself back to the canoe, and then launched it to the water and climbed inside.
He looked back to the forest, and there he saw the greatest vision of his life. The two Croatoans stood tall at the perimeter of the tree line, like two purplish-black demons cast upward from Hell by the Devil himself.
The beasts from the sea began to approach, first one and then the other, and Samuel brought out the oar and dropped the blade to the water. He looked back to the gods, and then, behind them, and then, as if from some impossible dream, a wheelbarrow breached the fog and emerged from the forest, and behind it Nootau’s mother, Nadie stood.
She stepped to the beach and stopped, and Samuel could see in her eyes she had no idea she was behind the monsters during her journey down the path from the village.
Nootau’s father emerged next, and Samuel could see Nootau’s mother make an ‘X’ across her mouth, telling him to stay quiet. His expression was similar to his wife’s, surprise and incredulity.
This was Samuel’s chance, he thought. There were survivors, just as he had known, and now he could witness once again the beautiful brutality of the Croatoans.
“There!” he screamed, pointing his finger as he pushed himself up onto his one functioning foot. The move made his head feel light, as if the pain and loss of blood were slowly robbing his brain of nutrients. But he held on to consciousness, determined to convey the signal to the Croatoans that their prey lurked just behind them.
But his call only brought the beasts toward Samuel more quickly, and they were now only steps from the shore and the canoe.
“No!” Samuel cried, “They’re behind you. Just there.” He pointed again, but this time the motion threw off his balance and he stumbled backward, catching his foot on the stern seat, sending him splashing backfirst into the water.
When he raised his head above the surface, he could see the chest of one of the Croatoans approaching him, as the head of the other dipped below the surface.
The last thing Samuel saw as he felt the claw of the first Croatoan pierce his gut were the faces of Nootau’s parents, their eyes unblinking as they watched the second monster sink his teeth into the top of Samuel’s head.
Chapter 40
The ocean beach in front of Danny’s house was less than a five-minute drive from the spot on the bay where he stood currently, but by the time he and Renata Benitez arrived at the shoreline, Tracy and Sheriff Calazzo were nowhere to be found.
“Was this some kind of a joke?” Benitez asked. “Because if so, it’s a pretty goddam bad one.”
“Look at that,” Danny said, pointing down the beach about twenty yards.
Danny and Renata walked to the spot where Danny had aimed, and he saw the tracks instantly. They were footprints. Croatoan footprints, freshly made, and they were leading up toward the dunes that rose high in front of Danny’s house.
“Oh my god,” Renata whispered. “It is real.”
“So, you’re just now believing me?” Danny asked rhetorically.
They followed the tracks quickly, and within a few steps, Danny spotted it, just on the other side of the dunes, its blackened body rupturing the camouflage of the sea grass that sprouted in every direction from the sandbanks.
The Croatoan.
“There,” Danny said, his voice breathy and excited. He took another two steps to get a clear view beyond the mound, and there he could see Tracy, maybe ten yards beyond where the Croatoan stood, writhing in the sand, wounded.
Almost in unison, Danny and Renata began running toward her, Benitez with the shotgun pointed straight toward the sea beast, cocked and ready.
And then a blast gashed the air.
It was a gunshot, and following the report, Benitez collapsed to the sand in a heap, sending the shotgun sailing to the ground in front of her.
Danny stopped in mid-stride. “What..?” He turned in a full circle, perplexed. “How did..?”
“If I was you, I wouldn’t move no more than an inch, boy.” A voice called from somewhere above Danny.
Danny didn’t move, not even to look up toward the voice. He knew instantly it was Calazzo.
“Not unless you want to join your friend, Tracy, there. Friends for dinner, maybe?” Calazzo let out a bellowing laugh at this joke, which, under other circumstances, Danny might have found funny.
The sheriff was standing on the porch of Danny’s house, and Danny figured out what was happening in seconds.
The goddamn sheriff.
Calazzo had seen the Croatoan rising from the waves, just as Danny had done that first day at Rove beach, and now he couldn’t look away. The sheriff had witnessed the majesty of the sea god for himself, and now he wanted to capture the full magic of its destruction.
Danny could see Tracy clearly now, as well as the substantial wound in her leg. It was from a bullet, unquestionably, in the back of her right thigh, and she was bleeding profusely, the darkened sand stained all around her. She had probably tried to run from the Croatoan, Danny thought, like any normal person, but Calazzo had already been charmed, and rather than risk the beast disappearing, he had shot Tracy, hoping to lure the beast to its wounded prey. And afterwards, Calazzo had taken his perch up above, hoping to witness the final execution with a bird’s eye view.
Danny studied the Croatoan now, which seemed to have become paralyzed by the sound of the pistol. It hadn’t turned toward Danny yet, still focusing on the quarry at its feet.
Danny didn’t have a plan, but he was also out of time. Two women were down. He didn’t know the status of Benitez yet—it was very likely she was dead—and judging by the lack of fight, Tracy didn’t have much time.
“Were you going to kill it afterwards, sheriff?” Dan
ny asked, getting straight to the point, not wasting time on questions to which he already knew the answers.
The sheriff scoffed. “After what?”
“After you watched it kill my friend. Were you just going to shoot it in the head?”
“Hadn’t really thought it all out, I guess. But my goodness, will you just look at that thing. Have you ever?”
“I have,” Danny said. “A couple of times. It is majestic. I can’t argue with that.”
“I’d say it’s even more than that, Danny. I’d call it divine.”
Danny knew exactly how the sheriff felt.
“You can stop here, sheriff. You can. It’s not too late. You can still exit this scene without too much trouble. I’ll vouch for you. I know what you’re experiencing. I’ve been there. It’s not your fault. It’s like a drug.”
“Drug addicts go to jail too, Mr. Lynch.”
“What then? What will you do?”
The sheriff was silent as he looked down at the Croatoan, which had now taken another step toward Tracy, seemingly over its disorientation from the gunshot. The sheriff then swallowed hard, blinking and shaking his head as he looked down on the victims below.
Danny could see Sheriff Calazzo’s mouth curl down in a frown, and his confident, fanatical eyes suddenly turned abstemious. It was the face of a man who had suddenly recognized his sin and was now facing the horror of his actions.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then pointed the gun at the creature and shot at it, striking it at the shoulder just beside its huge neck.
Danny didn’t know whether to run or watch, but it really didn’t matter. He couldn’t move. It was as if he’d been tied down and forced to watch a scene in his life play out on a movie screen, and whatever decisions he made in his mind were incapable of being carried out in reality.
And then the sheriff took a step forward to the edge of the rail, and Danny could see the events of the next few seconds play out before they happened. But there was little he could think to do about them.
“Sheriff, no,” Danny said, using a tone that he might have taken with his accountant as they reviewed the year’s taxes.
The sheriff nodded once and smiled knowingly. “I only have the one left. Tell them I’m sorry.”
Sheriff Calazzo then lifted his pistol and placed it against his temple, and then blew a hole through his head.
Chapter 41
Tracy couldn’t see the suicide, but at the sound of the gunshot, she screamed, and with that shriek, the Croatoan took another plodding step toward her, outstretching one massive arm, the five-inch claws at the end of it ready to clutch and crush.
Danny ran immediately toward Tracy, knowing in that instant he was going to die. Thoughts of Tammy entered his mind, and, as was always the case when he thought of his wife, he could hear the sounds of her final screams, see the pain in her eyes. But those memories would be ending soon. He would be with her now. If not in spirit or heaven, about which he was still agnostic even in these final moments, then in punishment. In justice. It was his turn to die as Tammy did, feeling the squeeze of the monster’s hands on his neck, smelling the death of its mouth as Danny’s own life drained.
“Hey, fucko!” He was perhaps two steps from the beast now, this ‘sighting’ that he had discovered one mundane morning on the shores of a sleepy beachfront town on the east coast of America. But it turned out to be no discovery at all. This was an ancient thing. Alive—somehow—existing in the darkest waters since the time of the earliest settlers. And certainly long before them, if Danny had to guess.
And then it had returned. To the shores of the Atlantic. Whether Lynn Shields was the first to see it or if there were more before her, Danny couldn’t know, just as he could never know the reason it had chosen to re-emerge in this century at all. Or perhaps it had always been here? There was certainly more evidence waiting to be found. If one looked hard enough, Danny surmised, evidence of the Croatoan would probably turn up in every culture in the Western hemisphere. Maybe beyond.
But time was needed for that type of research, and Danny knew his days were short.
The Croatoan reacted instantly to Danny’s heckle and turned toward him, taking only a moment to shift its focus away from Tracy. It immediately reached for Danny’s neck, opening its mouth as it came, releasing from its gums a row of fangs that looked as if they’d been transplanted from some mutant piranha.
Danny turned to run, hoping to lure the creature toward him and away from Tracy, but he misjudged the creature’s dexterity and speed, and before he could take a second step, the monster had him by the back of the shirt and was now pulling Danny toward its body.
Danny closed his eyes as he felt the massive fingers grip his left shoulder, and then a quiet peace closed over him as he waited for the crush of his skull, wondering what thoughts, if any, would appear as his brain collapsed.
Boom!
The blast from behind him sounded like dynamite, and for a moment Danny thought it was the sound of life itself expiring.
And he was right.
The grip on Danny’s shoulder released, and his momentum from the struggle caused him to fall forward into the sand. He was facing to his right, and a half-second later, he watched as the Croatoan fell into view, collapsing beside Danny, a large piece of its head completely missing, strands of red and orange brain matter popping like fireworks from the dark head of the beast.
The Black and Purple man was dead.
Danny turned to see Renata standing above him, the shotgun pointed down at the Croatoan, pumped and ready.
Danny blinked severely, making sure he was seeing the correct person in front of him. “He missed you?” Danny asked. “But...I saw you go down.”
“No, he hit me. Right in the center of my chest.” Renata pulled her shirt apart at the buttons, exposing the bullet-proof vest beneath.
“He must have known you were wearing it, right? Calazzo? He knew?”
Renata nodded, the sadness clear in her eyes. “He knew.”
Danny could see there was a lot Renata Benitez would have to explore in the months and years to come, about trust and honor and being a police officer. But today, Danny thought, and forever more, she was a hero.
“Shit,” Danny shouted, standing up in terror. “Tracy!”
“I’ve already called the ambulance,” Renata said, putting up her hands to steady Danny. And, as if on cue, the sirens of the emergency vehicles began their broadcast in the distance.
Chapter 42
Renata rode with Tracy to the hospital, while Danny drove back to Tippin’s Point to check on Samantha. The yellow tape was still blocking off access to the bay, but of the half-dozen police cars that had been dispatched to investigate the murder of the teenager, only one remained. The rest, no doubt, had been sent to Danny’s house to explore that spectacle. At this point, Danny figured, he was going to have to change his name; no one in their right mind would ever let him live in their town again.
With only the single car at the scene, Danny figured Samantha had also heard the news and was now on her way to the beach house, and as he turned the car back toward the road to head home, he could see from the lot someone standing on the beach.
The air was still too thick to identify the person, but as he exited his car and approached the shoreline, he could see it was Samantha. She was alone, standing still, staring into the waters of the bay. It was a look Danny knew well.
“Samantha?”
No reply.
“Samantha, we...we did it. Renata, she killed it.”
Samantha turned to Danny and then back to the water. She pointed a finger to a spot maybe thirty yards out. Danny followed the point and, through a gap in the fog, he could see it. The black head that had changed his life forever. The picture he had taken with his phone at the ocean of Rove Beach, which had created such chaos in his life, was being re-enacted now upon the bay at Tippin’s Point.
Danny thought of the police car in the parking lot, and
without averting his eyes from the bay he asked, “Where is the officer that was here, Samantha?”
Samantha was silent as she watched the Croatoan submerge completely, exhaling fully once it was out of sight. She closed her eyes for a beat and then looked at Danny, her eyes now narrow with pleasure. “He’s gone,” she said smiling. “He’s gone.”
Chapter 43
Nadie dumped the last wheelbarrow full of human ashes into the bay and walked the path back up to the village. The fog had lifted and there was little evidence that anything out of the ordinary had ever happened there.
But there had been a great deal of death on this land, and even if the remaining members of her people had nothing to fear from the next wave of Englishmen that would be arriving one day, she knew they could never stay. This land had been claimed by devils. Manitoosh. It belonged to them now and perhaps always had. And there were vast lands to the west. Lands, legend told, that stretched further than a man could walk in thirty moons. Too much land to stay where they were now, living in the gloom of monsters.
Nadie gathered with Matunaagd and Janie and the remaining members of her tribe in the village center. All of them had a bladder slung across their shoulders and a small sack filled with food and a few sacred items. The rest of the village they left as it was, looking commonplace, cleaned of the dead and destruction that had littered the ground only a day earlier.
The smell of burning flesh was still heavy in the air, and Nadie looked once more at the cursed ground of her home and then spat on the soil.
She nodded once to Matunaagd who turned and led the small group toward the outskirts of the now vacant village. Nadie followed in the back of the pack, and as she passed the last of the tall medicine trees that sat just inside the perimeter of the village, she noticed a single word carved near the bottom of the trunk. The word was written in the letters of the English, and Nadie knew it was only Jania who could have carved it.
The Origin (The Sighting #2) Page 22