by Steven Welch
“Really?”
“No, it is a closet.”
And it went like that for some time as they waited. Hemmi just sat quietly, sometimes sleeping, sometimes staring out into the darkness.
Then, the harsh winds grew soft, the sound of sand rattling against the ship disappeared, and a scarlet light began to flood into the cabin.
The sun came up over the horizon and they saw where they had landed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE SHEEP AND THE OYSTER
THEY WERE IN a wide desert, smooth sand as far as they could see to the port side, but to their right was the single white cottage, its sides piled with dunes as high as Elise.
The little cottage of stone sat only yards away, framed in faded wood and sand scoured white.
A charming old sign hung from a frame that extended from the black slate roof.
“La Mouton and the Huitre.”
The Sheep and the Oyster.
There, outside of the sub, was a lonely little restaurant in the middle of a desert, and they were sitting in the parking lot of sand as if they were on holiday and had just arrived for breakfast.
“Perhaps they have fresh croissant and hot coffee. Let us see.”
Cold air rushed in when Jules opened the hatch. Elise hesitated near the cold storage space. She wanted to see what was outside, but she didn’t want to leave her friend. Jules touched her shoulder lightly.
“The emergency power will keep the crab cold. There is nothing you can do for your friend at this moment, Elise.” It was the first time that she had heard him use her name.
Her heart felt like it was going to break, but she followed Jules to the exit hatch. He was right. There was nothing she could do.
They stepped out onto the sand and sank to their ankles. Elise looked for lumps, wary of those awful sand slugs and who knows what else.
The desert stretched on as far as the eye could see, but now, out of the sub, it became apparent that they were on a plateau that looked out over even more deserts, and mountains beyond that.
“What is this place?” Elise asked.
Jules smiled and patted the side of the Aquaboggin.
“She is still true. I targeted a pre-programmed point on the mapping system. The tiny island of Ouessant, the westernmost shore of France and home to the ubiquitous Stiff Lighthouse.”
He looked around.
Except for the little cottage, the island was almost perfectly flat.
“Ah. Correction. Once home to the ubiquitous Stiff Lighthouse. It has gone the way of the dodo bird.”
“Why are we here?”
“This was a fuel depot and way station for Les Scaphandriers,” Jules said, “our bistro at the Atlantic’s edge.”
Elise looked off into the west, at the mountains and ridges and desert.
Hemmi stood next to her.
“Is that where the ocean used to be?”
Jules joined them and stared off at the vast, arid horizon that had once been the Atlantic Basin.
He was silent for a moment, and then spoke quietly.
“There once were many seabirds. Beautiful seabirds,” he said, “and sheep. Wonderful, delicious, tiny black sheep. And so much green grass.”
They heard no birdsong, just the soft whisper of the wind. So still. Nothing moved on the sand, no living things that they could see.
Jules turned and wandered off towards the cottage.
Elise and Hemmi followed. She could see that there were solar panels on the slate roof. An enormous stack of wooden boards and beams was piled high behind the place, spilling out to either side in a tumble of dusty debris.
Jules knocked on the wooden front door.
“You think somebody still lives here?” Hemmi asked.
The door popped open. Elise and Hemmi jumped back, startled.
Madame de Laclos glared at Jules Valiance with bushy white eyebrows that wiggled like cat tails.
“If you’ve come to save the world, you are too late. We’re closed,” she said.
What does a restaurant owner at The End of The World look like?
She was tall and lean, with large eyes and freckled, smooth white skin. There was no telling her age had her hair not been a shocking white, and even then she could be forty or seventy. Her thin ankles were wrapped in socks of many colors; her dress was of denim and leather, her apron a matted curtain of sheep’s wool. Elise thought she smelled like lavender soap and cigarettes.
“Gracie,” Jules said.
Madame de Laclos stared at Jules and her attitude changed from “get out of my place” to “my dreams have come true” to “I’m going to kill you with an axe” in the space of a blink.
“Jules,” she answered. Then she hit him in the nose with her fist.
Jules rocked back, gathered himself, wiped the blood from his nose, and smiled.
“My Gracie,” he said.
She considered him for a moment, her lips puckered up into a bow. She looked down at Elise and Hemmi.
“For the children,” he said.
Jules gestured to the two kids and smiled again.
Madame de Laclos grimaced.
“I despise you, Jules Valiance. For the children, we are open for breakfast. Entre vous. And wipe your stinking feet.”
They did as they were told and stepped across the threshold into the cottage restaurant.
The Madame muttered under her breath as she stalked into the dim room.
Elise smelled damp wool, flowers, and burning wood. The restaurant was beamed with dark wood and warm light shone from a cast-ironed pot-bellied cooking stove. More light spilled in from the clean glass windows. Piles of sheep’s wool in the far corner of the room. One small wooden table with place-settings and a decorative candle, unlit. There were fishing nets hung from a wall like so many curtains. Wooden casks were stacked in the back of the room where there was a tiny kitchen with a sink and a brick bread stove built into the wall. There were doors also in the back of the place that were closed. A bathroom, perhaps a bedroom.
Most wonderful of all, though, there was green. So much green, and even little bursts of color from flowers here and there. Elise didn’t think it was possible for anything green to grow in this dry new world, but here, in this little cottage, there were small plants as green as emeralds. Little flowers, potted herbs, patches of grass in trays.
The Madame stoked the fire in the iron stove as she went and then began making preparations with a thick skillet and chopping blades.
Elise was curious. What could she possibly be cooking?
Jules and Hemmi sat at the table. Elise carefully stepped over lush piles of wool and stacks of books and made her way back to where The Madame was cooking.
The woman’s thin, wiry hands gripped the chopping blade tightly and chopped at strange things on a cutting board. Little bits of the things flew into the air as she went “whack whack whack.”
Bugs? Ewww. She was chopping up bugs?
Elise looked more closely. Shrimp. They were like fat shrimp with wings. Madame de Laclos worked fast. She pulled off the wings, ripped away shells, and chopped the yellow and translucent meat into chunks. The meat went into the skillet with a handful of green herbs and within moments there was a pile of the stuff.
The Madame glanced over to Elise and regarded her some disdain.
“Are those bugs?”
“What if they were?”
“Do they taste good, for bugs?”
The Madame smiled slightly.
“Well said. Not bugs.” She walked the skillet over to the stove and dropped it on top. The meat began to sizzle, and it smelled delicious.
“These are flying shrimp,” the Madame said as she cooked, “they come in swarms just before sunset every day. Flying east, towards the mainland. I catch them with those nets.” She motioned to the fishing nets on the wall.
The yellow fat of the shrimps melted under the heat and the clear, slimy meat began to turn white, then pink.
Hemmi and Jules popped up next to Elise, and all three stared into the blazing skillet with wide eyes.
“That smells good,” said Hemmi.
“I dreamt a dream of shrimp sauté, and voila, it is true,” Jules said.
“Go fill your cups with water from the sink,” the Madame said. They did as they were told. Clear, cold water shot from the faucet.
“This place has water,” Elise said to Jules.
“Yes, there is a deep well. A spring beneath. Thank God, there is still water in the sacred belly of our world.”
Elise drank deeply of the spring water and it was the best thing she had ever tasted, until, moments later, she took a bite of the sautéed flying shrimp and she thought that her heart was going to explode through her chest with happiness. She had been so hungry, they all had, and they devoured a skillet’s worth of the shrimp like jackals at a carcass. The Madame had another skillet ready in a flash, then another, and another, until they were as full as they had ever been of anything in their lives.
Hemmi wandered off into a corner and rolled up in some blankets of soft sheep’s wool. Elise thought about sleeping as well, but instead sat at the table with Jules and the Madame. She was quiet, listening, as they spoke over cigarettes and cups of water.
“Where were you?”
“Away. In Paris.”
“Ah. Are there people there?”
“Not many, no. Not many at all.”
“I am the only one here on the island. At The Turn, the things…”
Jules interrupted her.
“The Turn? Is that what you call it?”
“What else? Do you have a better name?”
“No.”
“Well, then, shut up. The things came from where the ocean had been only moments before. I hid in the shelter below the restaurant. It is well protected as you know. I stayed for a long time, then came up and found a sandstorm had smothered the village. I went house to house. Nothing. No one. Just, those things every now and then, but I had my rifle and I know how to use it. This you know as well, yes?”
“Yes, I know.”
“As time went by, I pulled the houses apart for wood and scavenged as I could. The big things rarely come anymore, just the flying shrimp and other harmless creatures. I pay them no mind unless I’m hungry.”
“They are delicious. A treat for the senses. Like you, Madame.”
She snorted, and that made Elise laugh. They both looked over at her as if they’d forgotten that she was still sitting at the table.
“And what is your story, mon fil?” asked the Madame.
“My name is Elise St. Jacques. I was in Paris.”
“Where is your family?”
Elise shook her head no.
“I am sorry, Elise,” the Madame said, and they sat for a while in silence.
“What about him?”
“Hemmi? He came from a hospital in Paris. There were kids there, but he’s the only one left, we think.”
“Jules, I did not know you were so parental.”
“I am not. Nor do I pretend to be so. I find these children offensive, but harmless mostly, and they might prove useful as bait.”
Elise punched him in the arm and Jules feigned agony.
“Something tells me that you are not joking, Jules Valiance,” the Madame said. She took a deep drag on the cigarette.
“Why now? Why have you come here?”
He just stared at her. Elise thought that it was awkward.
“Ah, you have come for fuel,” she said, “so that you can go on your grand adventure and set this world right again. Les Scaphandriers. The League of Astonishing Aquanauts. The secret soldiers of the sea.”
Jules was quiet.
“So, how do you know each other?” Elise asked.
The Madame laughed.
“I am Scaphandrier,” she said, “retired to guard our little way station on the coast. The Sheep and the Oyster is a restaurant, yes, but it is also a fuel depot and way station. We were quite the state secret, Elise. Mums the word.” Madame put her finger to her lips and smiled.
“Did you know a man named Clark St. Jacques?”
Madame thought for a moment.
“No. I don’t know this name. Why?”
“He was my Dad. He told me stories about Les Scaphandriers, but he never mentioned this place. I think his stories were made up.”
“Sometimes,” the Madame said, “I think our stories are made up as well.”
She pointed a bony finger at Jules.
“So, have you come for fuel? If not, then what do you want? I won’t have you stay here, there’s not enough of anything and this is a restaurant not a hostel.”
“Yes, I need fuel for the submarine.”
“Of course. There are things I need as well, Jules Valiance.”
She stood and slapped her hands together.
“The boy has gone to sleep, Elise, so you will clean up the kitchen. If you do it well there will be a fine breakfast in the morning before I kick you out. Quickly now.”
Elise did as she was told, gathering the dishes and rinsing them in the cold water of the sink. The water felt good on her hands and she was glad to do the work. She listened to the conversation between the Madame and Jules under the clatter of the dishes and the whisper of the faucet.
“Valiance, is the world, the whole world, like this?”
“I know only Paris, but the ocean is gone, the basins are dry, and the sandstorms are everywhere. There might be lakes that survived, inland waters, but without the ocean the world’s cycles are broken. So yes, I must assume that the world as we knew it is gone.”
“And these creatures, these things that come up from the canyons or fly in on the wind, are they from another world? They must be.”
“I do not know, but I assume we deal with otherworldly beasts.”
“You were alone in Paris?”
Jules went quiet then.
“Where were the others? Why were you alone?”
Silence.
“What did you do, Jules Valiance? What do you know?”
“I will be on my way tomorrow morning. Please keep the children here.”
“You did this, didn’t you? You and your great explorers? You did this?”
“The little idiot girl is kind, but watch the boy. He is like a feral thing.”
“Oh, Jules.”
Again, silence.
Elise looked back from the sink and saw that the Madame was holding his hand in hers.
When Jules Valiance spoke his voice trembled. He sounded old.
“Gracie, I leave in the morning. Do you need ammunition for your guns?”
“No. There is plenty below.”
“I have little medicine. Little food. What is it that you need?”
Madame de Laclos stood and walked to a little table. There was a plastic box on the table, a music player of some sort. She flipped a switch and little lights came on.
“I don’t use the electricity often. The old solar cells are good for just a few hours a week.”
She pushed a button on the box and it began to play a song. Elise recognized the music, a lovely country track by someone named Patti Griffin.
Madame de Laclos took Jules by the hand and brought him to her. She leaned in to him and spoke softly, just loudly enough so that Elise could hear.
“I need you to find yourself. You are lost in there somewhere,” she said, pointing at his chest.
Jules took her in his arms. They began to sway with music, dancing cheek to cheek.
The Madame kissed Jules on the cheek.
“I need my hero, Jules Valiance, to slay a monster,” she said.
Elise was embarrassed. She shuffled off to the pile of wool and snuggled into it, and soon she drifted off to sleep as the music played softly and Jules Valiance and the Madame danced.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
OUR LAST RESTAURATEUR
HEMMI SCREAMED IN the night.
It was a horrible sound, th
e scream of a terrified child. Elise came awake and saw that the boy was sitting straight up in the pile of wool, eyes wide, shouting as if chased by the devil.
Madame de Laclos was there in an instant and wrapped the boy in her arms. The screams stopped, and he nestled into her, sobbing. Elise watched as the woman comforted Hemmi, then tucked him back into the blankets and wandered off into the gloom of the restaurant. Elise crawled over to Hemmi.
“Are you okay?”
Hemmi muttered something rude and profane.
“Some of them might be alive,” she said, “maybe some of the kids are alright.”
The words felt false as soon as they left her lips, and Elise regretted them.
“No,” Hemmi said, “they’re all dead. I saw them. Those things killed them all like they was nothing. I don’t know what kind of things those were, but they killed all my friends dead.”
Elise didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.
They lay in the dark and soon fell sound asleep.
*
Morning came with the smell of sizzling herbed shrimp.
Elise and Hemmi woke to that wonderful aroma, and the sounds of the food cooking. The two were nestled in heaps of warm sheep’s wool. Elise saw that Hemmi’s eyes were gummy with sleep and tears.
They ate, devouring heaps of the shrimp and guzzling cold water, then took turns at the bath. There was a porcelain claw foot tub in the little bathroom. The Madame heated water on the stove and Elise simmered in the warm water until her skin puckered and the bath grew cold. The Madame explained that all the bath soap had been used up years before, but a drop from a big jug of lavender scented laundry detergent would do the trick. There were little flowers growing in pots on the windowsill and they, along with the detergent, gave the room a lovely scent. Hemmi came next. He was filthy, as there had been no water for bathing at The Nursery, and The Madame spent time adding and replacing the water in Hemmi’s tub until he was as clean as could be. Then there was Jules, and for his bath Elise was most grateful. Jules Valiance was a stinker, and in need of a good soak.
When the sun was up full, Jules escorted Elise to the submersible to check in on Charlie.