Peter Benchley's Creature (13 page)

Last night, for no apparent reason, Max had asked if he could go with his father in the morning.

"Sure," Chase had said. "Why?"

"I don't want to miss anything."

"What's to miss? You huff and you puff."

"And you feel great, right?"

"On good days, yeah. You pump the beta-endor-phins, and you feel great."

"So," Max had said, "I want to go with you."

Chase hadn't pressed the boy because suddenly, blessedly, he had understood what Max was really saying—that he had a month to be with his father and, though he probably didn't know he was looking for them, to uncover things, find answers, solve riddles about himself. Thirty days to make up for eight years. Like an archaeologist digging for clues to a lost people, Max was determined to scrape away the overgrowth of years and find out who he was and where he had come from.

The only problem was, Max didn't actually want to run, he wanted to Rollerblade, because his hockey coach had said it was the best way for him to improve his skating so he'd have a chance to make the varsity hockey team this coming winter. That meant going into town, for there was no paved surface on Osprey Island and thus no place on which to Rollerblade for more than five feet.

Chase had debated pressing Max to run with him on the island, arguing that to waste gasoline in search of pavement rather than to run on nature's own grass and rocks was a kind of corruption. But as he had formed the words in his mind, he realized that he was sounding like a pious pain in the ass.

So they had taken the Whaler and left the island at sunrise and gone into Waterboro.

As they had planed across the flat water, Chase had felt a niggling sensation that something was awry ... missing or out of place or just... wrong. He didn't know what it was, but it was there, somewhere in his mind.

His buoy. That was it. The one he and Tall Man had dropped the other day to mark the sensor head. They had meant to come back and dive the sensor up, but the compressor needed a part from New London, and so they didn't have air. They had gotten busy with other things; after all, the sensor wasn't about to go anywhere.

But where was the buoy? He should have seen it as they approached Napatree Point, but he hadn't, and now they were past Napatree, and as he looked eastward he was blinded by rays of the rising sun.

He dismissed it; the buoy was surely there, they'd find it on the way back.

Chase finished stretching and pretended to be busy, double-knotting his running shoes and doing knee bends, as he glanced at Max putting on his elaborate outfit: knee pads, elbow pads, helmet and, finally, a pair of black high-top lace-up shoes soled with yellow rubber wheels. The boy looked like a B-movie robot.

All Chase said was "That's safe, is it?"

"Sure."

"So how come all the pads?"

"Well ... it can be kinda hard to stop."

"So you're like a runaway train." Chase grinned. "Okay, killer, let's go for it."

"Where to?"

"You haven't seen the borough yet." Chase pointed. "We'll make a circuit: down Beach Street to the point, then back up Oak Street and down here. That's a mile plus. If you're still feeling your oats, we can shoot out to Route One and back!"

"Okay." Max stood up on the grass, as shaky as a newborn calf, and hobbled onto the pavement. The first foot to hit the hard ground skidded forward, and he staggered, windmilled with his arms, tottered, splayed and recovered. He smiled sheepishly and said, "Little rusty."

"That's a
sport
?"
Chase shouted in mock alarm. "Jeez, maybe after breakfast we can have a friendly game of Russian roulette."

"Just watch," Max said, and he leaned forward, pushed off with one foot, took a couple of long, striding steps, spread his arms and, as Chase watched in surprise, described a graceful circle around the parking lot. Then he pumped a fist in triumph and skated off toward the road that led into town.

Chase wanted to shout out warnings about traffic, pedestrians—about all the perils of growing up too fast—but he didn't. He took a few deep breaths and started to run.

As he crested the gentle hill that led into the borough, he smelled the aroma of cinnamon buns and frying bacon from the two restaurants on Beach Street that catered to the locals who worked early shifts at Electric Boat.

There was no traffic this early, so he ran down the middle of Beach Street, waving to Sally, who was stacking vegetables in front of the Borough Market, to Lester, who was unloading cases of beer from his truck at the back of his liquor store, and to Earl, who had been purveying newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, gum and paperbacks from the same storefront since long before Chase was born.

Everybody waved back, everybody had a word for him and Chase suddenly regretted that he didn't come into town more often. This was home, home was people and he wondered if his passion for his island was becoming unhealthy, turning him into a recluse.

He ran past Veterans Square and the old bank building that still displayed the tattered flag that had flown on the point when the British, in a fit of malicious whimsy, had shelled Waterboro during the War of  1812.

Chase met Max at the end of the point, where they spent a moment appreciating the sunrise. Then they turned back and, with Max zigzagging like a minesweeper in front of his father, threaded their way through the little side streets until they emerged onto Oak Street, with its stately captains' houses from the glory days of whaling.

Oak Street was wide, straight, open and empty. "I'm gonna pump," Max said. "See you back at the club."

"Go for it. Just be—"

But Max was gone, churning with his legs, sweeping with his arms, head down, back bent, his rubber wheels humming on the macadam.

Chase sprinted after him, more for the exercise than from any real hope of being able to keep up with him, but after two blocks he was winded, and he slowed to his normal rhythmic lope.

Max pulled away, a block ahead, then two, then became only a dark blur speeding down the shaded street.

Chase saw the girl first, saw her step out of the door of the house and turn back to pull the door closed and cross the sidewalk—looking not at the street but down into her tote bag—and step into the street.

He shouted, but his words were whipped away in the wind.

Max probably never saw her, for his head was down; he certainly never heard her, for the padding in his helmet pressed tightly against his ears.

Chase saw the girl's head suddenly snap up, the tote bag fall from her arms, and her hands rise toward her face.

Max must have sensed her then, somehow felt her presence, for he jerked upright and tried to veer to the right. One foot must have hit the other, or crossed over it, for his feet came to a sudden stop and his upper body catapulted forward. One of his wheeling arms struck the girl and spun her into a parked car. She bounced off the car and fell to the street in a billow of blue cotton skirt.

Chase saw Max fly for a moment in gangly slow motion and fall like a shotgunned bird, striking the ground first with his knees, then with his elbows, then with his head. He somersaulted once, and lay still.

Chase accelerated to a sprint, his mind cursing and praying while his body gasped for oxygen.

He saw the girl grasp the bumper of a car and pull herself to her feet. She walked over to Max and knelt down and touched his face. Max sat up, they looked at each other and Max said something; the girl shook her head.

Chase saw the girl turn her head his way, see him and suddenly jump to her feet, grab her tote bag and, with a last look at Max, disappear down an alley between two houses.

By the time Chase reached Max, the girl was gone.

Max was on his hands and knees. He reached a hand up, and Chase took it and pulled him to his feet, keeping an arm around his waist to steady him. "Are you okay?"

"Sure." Max smiled wanly. "That's why the pads." He gestured at his knees, and Chase saw that the fabric covering the pads was tattered.

"What about the girl?"

"She's fine . . . just shaken up."

"She said that?"

"Not . . . not exactly." Max frowned, as if unsure what the girl had said.

"So how do you know she's fine?"

"I don't know ... I just know."

"Max . . ." Chase felt himself growing angry, and he fought to keep his mouth from surrendering to his temper. "Look, you
creamed
that kid. Maybe she's hurt and doesn't know it. Maybe she's looking for a doctor right now."

"She's not," Max said flatly.

"Why'd she run off?"

"I don't know."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing."

"What d'you mean, nothing? She has to have said
something . . .
like, 'It's okay' or 'How are you?' or 'Why don't you look where you're going?' "

"No," Max said, "she never said a word. She came over, and I said, 'I'm really sorry, are you okay?' and all she did was touch my face and smile. But it was like she
was
talking, like inside my head I could hear the words."

"What words?"

"I'm not sure, maybe they weren't even real words but more a kind of feeling . . . sort of a 'Don't worry' and 'I'm glad you're not hurt' kind of thing." Max paused. "Then she saw you and took off."

"Christ, we don't even know who she is. I didn't notice what house she came out of." Chase glanced down the alley as if expecting to see the girl, but the alley was empty. Then he turned back to Max. "Well," he said, pointing at Max's blades, "you want to take those things off and we'll walk back to the club?"

"No, I'm fine, let's keep going. It's this helmet, that's the problem. I never heard her."

"Stick close to me, then, I'll be your eyes and ears."

"Right," Max said. "I'll circle you like you're a defenseman."

Chase smiled. "Great, maybe we can share a room in the intensive-care unit." He started off at a jog.

When they reached the end of the street, Chase had to make a choice: they could proceed ahead and return to the club and get in the boat and go back to the island, or they could take more time, get more exercise, by winding through the small back streets on the east side of the borough.

Jogging in place, he looked at Max, who was happily skating backward and pretending to cradle a puck with an imaginary hockey stick, and decided that the boy was indeed unhurt and could use the workout. So he turned right off Oak Street and ran down toward the big red-brick building that had once been the borough school and was now a complex of apartments.

The street dead-ended in a chest-high stone wall beside the building. Normally, Chase would have turned several yards before the end of the cul-de-sac, but in the bay beyond he saw a flock of terns feeding, and the sunlight on their white bodies and on the water that splashed as they dove looked like a spray of diamonds. He kept going toward the wall, pointing out the terns to Max, who sped by him and circled to a stop.

They watched the terns for a moment, turned to go, and as Chase's eyes left the water, he saw something in the rocks at the water's edge. He paused.

"What?" Max said.

"I'm not sure." Chase looked again, scanning the narrow expanse of pebbles and boulders. Max leaned on the wall beside him. "Where are you looking?"

"By that mess of weed," Chase said, pointing.

A wave lifted the clump of weed and moved it a couple of feet closer to shore.

"Dad!" Max shouted. "It's a hand!"

17

ITS fingers were locked in a claw, as if whoever it was had been trying to climb something or grab something or fight off something at the moment he or she had died.

"Stay here," Chase said, and he hauled himself up onto the wall, swung his legs over and dropped down onto the pebbly strand.

"But Dad . . ." Max was already unlacing his Rollerblades.

"Stay
here
!" Walking toward the clump of weed, Chase tried to recall if he'd heard of anyone reported missing. Then he wondered how long it took a drowned body to rise to the surface again. It happened, he knew that: after a while the gases in a body built up, and as they expanded, the corpse would float.

The clump of weed was huge, extending far out into the water. Chase didn't want to touch the hand—what if that was all there was to it, or what if there was more but it was so rotten that it fell apart?—so he used his running shoe to nudge aside the rubbery strands of weed.

He saw a head then, and what was left of a face, and bile rushed up the back of his throat and poured into his mouth. He dropped to his knees, coughing and spitting.

The skin was whitish gray; the eyes were gone, and the earlobes and the lips. There was more of the body snarled in the weed—no blood left in it, just shredded white flesh interlaced with strands of neoprene wet suit.

"Call the police," he said to Max. "Go down to Beach Street, the news office, and ask Earl to call the police."

"Who ... who is it?"

"I don't know."

"What happened?"

"Just
go
!"
Chase said, and almost immediately he heard the rattle of Max's wheels on the pavement.

When he thought he could look again without retching, Chase crawled closer. The face was unrecognizable, but there was something familiar about the hand.

The watch. The watch on the wrist of the hand with the rigored claws was one of those diver's watches that did everything but rinse your socks—told the time in every zone on the planet, had windows for bottom time, lap time and phases of the moon. It was the watch of a gimmick freak, and he'd seen it before. But where?

It came to him: Waterboro Lumber, holding out a can of WD-40. He had remarked on the watch, and the owner had insisted on explaining every function and had told him how to order one.

Buck Bellamy, that's who it was. Could this be what was left of Buck Bellamy? But why? Buck was an expert boatman, a certified scuba diver, and in high school he'd been a competitive swimmer.