Lullabies for Suffering

by Caroline Kepnes et al.

  “And yet here you are. How so?”

  “You know I had a shotgun. I put two large holes in one of them and Ronny took care of the other one, the one that attacked first. We left the bodies on the beach.”

  Marco took a deep breath, looked at me, and shook his head like a man who is forced to face something he really hoped he wouldn’t have to. I knew the look well. I saw it in the mirror every day.

  “You already saw them, so there’s no reason to lie to you,” he said.

  He sounded like he was talking to himself, not me.

  “Listen, Adam, you’re gonna have a hard time believing what I’m going to tell you, but it’s the truth. I’m only gonna tell you because it might be good for you to be on the lookout.”

  “On the lookout for what?”

  “Just…fucking listen to me. My uncle was a big shot in the Old San Juan. He ran La Perla for many years. Twenty years ago. He came up the ranks like everyone else. He started as a foot soldier and eventually inherited a solid set of dealers and connections in Mexico, Cuba, Miami, and Colombia. He took a decent business and made it explode. He turned those few solid contacts into a fucking empire. He was the first one to bring more than one delivery a day. He learned that the Coast Guard wasn’t a fan of hanging around the dangerous, choppy water near the reef, so he used smaller boats to get the stuff to the shore. If the small boats got stuck he’d send folks out in jet skis to get the shit and bring it in. He also liked to send a message to his enemies. If you fucked with him, he would kill you and then have his men take your body out to the reef and tie it there so the fish and crabs would feast on you. Then the bodies started…”

  Marco stopped talking. His eyes were still glued to something on the other side of the window. He hadn’t made eye contact with me. He was obviously nervous, and that wasn’t helping my own nerves much. He inhaled audibly.

  “The bodies started disappearing. My uncle told the men to use better rope because he wanted his enemies to see the bodies when the tide was low. That was the whole point of going through the extra work of tying them to the reef. He also wanted cops to know that La Perla wasn’t a place they wanted to fuck with. The men listened and did as they were told, but that didn’t work. My uncle grew frustrated. He told his men to use chains instead of rope. The chains failed to work. At first he thought it was sharks. Maybe they were getting to the bodies during high tide. A large shark was probably strong enough to fuck up some chains, so he started using more. The bodies kept vanishing. Then he got the idea that maybe people were doing it. Enemies saying they didn’t give a shit. Whatever. He made some of his men stay out there at night.

  “Well, they never saw a god damned soul out there, but the bodies still disappeared. It was obviously something under the water. He had to know, so he went out there himself with some men, a fisherman’s light, a dead body, and waited around. What he saw was…well, he caught the things in the act of taking the fucking body away. Everyone on the two boats saw the same thing. There was something out there, something not entirely human or animal, feeding on the bodies my uncle’s men were leaving.

  “Now, that part of the story is somewhat clear. You know, it’s easy to understand. The men who went with him were witnesses. Whatever. The point is that what comes next is what’s really hard to explain, and maybe even harder to swallow.”

  Marco looked at me for the first time. Something like anguish had taken over his features. He looked the way all men with heavy secrets look: broken and tired. I felt a connection with him for the second time that day. I knew all about feeling haunted by your secrets. I knew all about skeletons in the closet that never feel like they’re buried deep enough. I knew about secrets that would keep you up at night with the possibility of shattering your entire life if they were ever exposed. Marco kept talking.

  “My uncle started going out there whenever they had another body. He was obsessed with those things. He wanted to see them, to figure out what the fuck he was dealing with. Rumor has it he somehow established communication with those things. According to my mom, one of them climbed onto the boat and…started talking. The story goes that their species had lived off the coast of Massachusetts for generations. Then something happened, not sure what, but it had to be big, and they had to look for a new place to live. They ended up here in Puerto Rico, off the coast of Old San Juan. They’d been there for years. The water is always rough by the reef and there’s almost no boat activity out there because of it, so they were comfortable for a long time. My uncle kept going. He was obsessed. He developed a relationship with those things. My mom says he started using them for jobs on land. Whatever. The point is those things kept feeding on the corpses, but then something weird happened.

  “My uncle was killing too many junkies. You know, motherfuckers who didn’t pay their debts and assholes who started dipping into stuff they were supposed to be selling. My uncle was dumping bodies full of heroin and those things got hooked on it. Got themselves their own habit worse than you. Apparently they have the ability to…I don’t even know how to describe it. Like I said, they are in the water, living on the reef, but they are also out of the water. Some of them are normal enough to stay out of the ocean for hours. The point is this: they started showing up at my uncle’s house. They had figured everything out. They were infinitely smarter than my uncle had guessed. He got scared. Those things had information. They knew how many boats were coming in. They could destroy the whole drug trade if they wanted to. They didn’t threaten my uncle, but they asked him for whatever was in those bodies, so he started selling them heroin.

  “The relationship stayed that way for years. Before he died, he talked to me about the whole thing. At first I thought he had lost his fucking mind. You know how when folks get old and their brains start slipping. But that wasn’t the case. He had some of his men take me out there. He wanted those things to get to know me before he died. I was the new boss, so I was going to be dealing with them. I went out there and one of them climbed on the boat. I was scared shitless. I’d never seen anything like it. Then that fucking thing started talking. It sounded weird as hell with those huge, unmoving lips, but I understood it. Their main concern was to keep things as they were. They’d become addicts, all of them, the whole damn colony were junkies. They needed me to keep the supply flowing. I promised them nothing would change. You know how you look at someone’s face when you’re talking and the way they look back at you or the way they smile gives you a hint of whatever is going on in their heads? That shit was lacking in this conversation. Those huge eyes never blinked. The lips didn’t move much or smile. It was…what’s the term? Expressionless. Whatever. It freaked me out. I wanted to keep them happy and keep them away from me. When I took over and the business got too hot for me to take care of everything, I took Ronny with me one night and did the same thing with him. He’s the one who’s been dealing with them since. This was about two or three years ago. Sometimes I still see them outside my house or swimming close to our boats when a big delivery comes in. It’s weird. It’s like they want to keep those fucking fishy white eyes on everything. Always watching. Whatever.”

  Marco stopped talking again. I was glad he did. The information I’d received was too much. It was incredible, but it fit well with what I’d seen and heard the previous night. I could believe it, but I didn’t want to. The thought of strange humanoid things living out on the reef and feeding on corpses while also walking on land and interacting with us was too much for me. It was like someone had lifted a veil and shown me that my version of reality was weak and easy to shatter. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go straight to you, Angelica, kiss the top of your head, get a fix of dope, and forget everything. Sadly, Marco had more to say.

  “I’ve had to deal with those things since I took over. You know, with Ronny’s help. We hand them the junk and then someone brings us money the next day. The whole thing freaks me out. Did you get a good look at them?”

  “It was dark out there, but I think
I did,” I said.

  “They’re horrible. They…they shouldn’t be. They seem smarter than us. I still have no idea how they get shit done on land, but they do. They come out. They even kill people. I know because I’ve seen it happen to people who cross them, to folks who go out there to see if the rumors are true. One time a Cuban took a shot at one of them from his boat. It was a new guy. I guess he didn’t know any better. The boat disappeared on its way back. Those guys never made it back to Miami. Another time, a guy went out there with Ronny and started asking questions. It was too much for him to process. He put his hands on one and pushed it around before Ronny dropped the backpack, apologized, and yanked him outta there. A few days later the kid came to see me. He said strange men in huge coats were following him around, showing up everywhere, hanging outside his place at all hours of the night and vanishing every time he opened the door to go confront them. Then I stopped hearing from him, no answer from his phone, until Ronny found him. He was in the tub. We never found his head.”

  Marco stopped talking again. He looked deflated and scared. I could tell he was done. His posture changed. He slumped on his seat, his body a weak, bent period at the end of his long explanation. I had to say something because I still had a huge question hovering around in my head.

  “I believe you, man, but there’s something I don’t understand. They were blaming Ronny for being sick. One of them had a nasty wound on its face. They were saying the last batch was bad. What the hell was that all about? Did you try to mess with them? After what you told me, it doesn’t seem likely,” I said.

  “I think I know what that was all about. We sold them some bad junk, but I assure you that was an accident.”

  Marco looked at me. There was something else in his eyes now. I’m a junkie, so I recognized it pretty quickly: guilt.

  “What do you mean by bad junk?”

  “We tend to cut our stuff with safe shit. Talcum powder. Sugar. Detergent from the dollar store. Powdered milk. Baking soda. Whatever. Junkies are only good business if they’re still alive, you feel me? A dead customer is a lost dollar, so we try to keep our shit relatively clean. This time around we brought in two new guys, Dominicans, who needed a gig. We were moving a lot of product and were short on hands. We gave the Dominicans a few keys and asked them to cut it. Apparently they used rat poison. I think the damn rat poison is what made them sick. I’m not a scientist. Shit, I don’t even know exactly what those things are, but they’d never complained before, so my guess is that the rat poison fucked them up. They reacted to it or something, something about their species was hit even harder than a regular human’s body. Different DNA.”

  “And this means what for us? Why did they attack Ronny and me at the beach?”

  “I have no fucking idea, man,” said Marco. “I hope they all die from it, but I doubt that’ll happen. If half of what old timers say is true, those fuckers are resilient. They don't overdose, that’s for damn sure. Others have tried to get rid of them before with no luck, rumors are, even the U.S. Government. I’m sure they’ve paid the consequences. I don’t know what the fuck we’re gonna do. For now, just watch your back. You know, until this thing cools off. I’m gonna tell Ronny to drop off a free delivery for them. Premium and uncut. With a note, you know. A gift. Sort of an apology so they know we meant no harm. It was a fucking accident.”

  Watch your back. That’s what he said. My paranoia ramped up to eleven. Then Marco said he had some business to take care, so I got out of his car and he left.

  Once again I sat in my car and thought about everything. My veins were aching for a fix, muscles cramping, my brain was begging me to give it the magic chemicals that made it slow down a bit, but I needed to think, to process, to try to understand. More than anything, I needed to come up with a plan to keep you, your mother, and myself safe.

  There was no denying that what Marco had told me was true. At least some version of it. I had seen the damn things with my own eyes. That said, I had questions. Lots of questions. Do you know what people who went to college do when they have questions, my dear Angelica? They do a bit of research. I was an anthropologist and had never heard of anything even remotely similar to those things living on the reef, but that didn’t mean no one had ever heard of them. I had to cure my ignorance, and the easiest way to cure ignorance is with heavy doses of information. I was finally going to put my damn degree to work. I was going to use the rope ladder to climb out of this dark hole I was in.

  Now, I’d like to tell you that I went home, got a fix, and rested until the next day. Only two of those happened. I went home and got a fix, but didn’t get any sleep. I was afraid of nightmares, which I knew would come, so I stayed awake and watched you sleep as my body and brain dipped in and out of the beautiful heroin nirvana. I breathed in the air you exhaled. I watched your eyes twitch and imagined your dreams. I became one with every ounce of your flesh.

  It was my thirst that broke that spell. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Our kitchen sits opposite two large windows that look out at the street and the houses on the other side. I had looked out those windows a million times and seen people walking and cars going by. I was also high and being high makes your brain operate like a phone call from another country on a landline made by someone wearing a wet towel around their face. That’s why it took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. Outside our windows, right across the street from us, was a figure. It was standing behind a neighbor’s dilapidated truck, bathed only by the light of the moon and the bit of yellowish haze from a nearby lamppost. It looked gangly and was covered from head to toe with a long coat and hat. It was a look I unfortunately knew very well. The vision made fear’s cold, strong fingers seize the back of my neck and squeeze.

  I knew what the figure outside our window was and I knew it was looking for me. My life was in danger. I can’t explain exactly how I knew but I was sure it was true. That figure was one of those things and it was looking straight at our house. I had put a shotgun blast into one of their brothers, and this smarter species wanted revenge.

  My options were limited. I didn’t have a gun, and going out there with a large knife struck me as stupid. The idea of leaving the house and trying to talk to the creature crossed my mind, but willingly leaving the safety of the house unarmed seemed like the worst idea in the world. Especially since it would mean leaving you and your mother alone.

  When faced with awful choices, human nature often takes the path of least resistance and immediately falls into a state of inaction. Instead of going out there or even approaching the window to get a better look, I stood were I was and kept my eye on the creature outside.

  Time passed. The thing didn’t move. Neither did I. Time is a strange thing when your blood is full of junk. It stretches like cheap bubblegum and then collapses on itself. A half hour can seem like an eternity spent in an alternate dimension and a few hours can go by in what seems like a five-minute power nap. I tell you this so you can understand I’m not lying when I say I have no idea how long I stood there, watching the figure on the other side of the street. Eventually I needed a bathroom break. My body started moving toward the bathroom before I realized I was doing it. When I came back to the kitchen and looked out the windows again, the creature was gone.

  I went back to bed after that. I wanted your mother to feel me next to her because I didn’t want her to worry. I think I managed to do the opposite. I fell asleep and the nightmare was there waiting as I feared. It was short, but brutal.

  A creature was dragging me into deep water by my leg. I was screaming. My hands were bloody from trying to hold on to the reef. The beach was deserted. The thing had its nails buried in my flesh. It pulled me toward the other side of the reef. Soon my shirt was gone and the sharp rocks were digging into my flesh. Saltwater entered my wounds and made me scream louder. Then the last rock slipped away from my bloody hands and I was quickly pulled underwater. The creature held on to me, dragging me deeper and deeper. Light fractur
ed and blue darkness began to surround me. Rays of light danced above me like empty promises. My chest ached and then my body inhaled against my will. Ocean water invaded my lungs and stung my nostrils and the back of my throat. As the darkness threatened to swallow me forever, I looked down at the creature below me. I saw its greyish body moving through the water effortlessly, the awkwardness I’d seen on land replaced by an animal agility that spoke volumes about its strength and speed. Finally, just as black clouds were entering my vision, I saw the peaks of buildings. There was a city beyond the reef, a secret city no one knew about where I would spend all eternity.

  I woke up screaming, sweat running down my face. Your mother woke up. I never went back to sleep. Instead, I paced the house like a maniac until the sun was out. Every time I went to the kitchen, I pretended not to look out the windows, but I did. The thing was still there. A Profundo. A deep one. That’s the name that popped into my head. It worked as well as anything else.

  The next morning I skipped work and went to the library at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. That library had been my home during my last year as a student. I knew where every classic anthropology tome sat on those endless rows of dusty shelves. This time, however, I didn’t know exactly where to start, so I talked to the old lady at the counter who, according to silly student lore, never left the damn place. I asked her for books dealing with coastal folklore, human-fish hybrids, strange sailor narratives, and books on legends from the ocean from across the globe. Then, just as she was rattling one last name off her computer screen, I remember what Marco had said and asked her for anything they had on the history of Massachusetts.

  I spent the next five hours the same way I’d spent countless days as a student: reading.

  Humans have always had a strange relationship with the ocean. It gives and it takes away. It leads to discovery and destruction, to new opportunities and to war. The ocean carries diseases from their points of origin into new territories. It contains strange creatures and sunken ships. The ocean feeds us and we serve as food for some of its denizens. Humans have understood this forever, and our tales reflect that in a plethora of cultures.