The Broken Hours: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft (13 page)

The weathered blue and green canning shacks ranged like a shantytown along the water. Gulls circled and cried. A fine cold mist blew in from the sea. The islands out in the bay had blackened and the sky over the gray water swirled darkly. The black ship was still there, inching toward the horizon in the paradoxically heavy-weightless way only massive vessels built to float could. The air smelled of wet rot, of the bottom of the sea churned to the surface. There was an odd electricity, as if far out on the water, something terrible gathered and swelled. Flossie cast questioning glances at me now and again. I knew not what to say. About anything.

She lifted her head and breathed deeply.

That air
, she said with obviously forced cheer.

Is putrid
, I finished.

Instantly, I regretted it. Flossie looked hurt. I was not angry. Or, at least, I was not angry with her. I was angry, certainly, with my employer. Perhaps with myself. A familiar story. I felt the beginnings of another headache.

Flossie stopped on the boardwalk and looked down the beach, one hand shading her eyes, the wind in her yellow curls. The romantic pose was not lost on me, as I supposed was her intention. I pretended not to notice and peered hard out at the horizon. The ship I’d seen only a moment ago had disappeared. I scanned the bay but could find no sign of it.

What are those people doing down there, do you think?
Flossie said.

She pointed to a small group standing looking at something on the sand near the edge of the foul water. Gulls cried and lifted and circled in the ruckus. Low waves rolled bleakly in. My eyes drifted out, past the shoals, to the low line of light along the horizon. Where had the ship gone? It bothered me. Gulls, something, wheeled erratically in the high wind, far out. I put my hands on the rail and the wood was damp and swollen and splintered beneath my palms.

Arthor? What are those people looking at?

I haven’t the foggiest.

Flossie clicked down the rickety boardwalk and I followed. Her heels sunk into the sand at the bottom and she wobbled, taking my arm.

Perhaps we should go back,
I suggested.
Something’s blowing in. And you’re hardly dressed for a day at the beach.

She shot me a pointed look.

A girl’s got to dress for something
, she said, and I had the odd sense she’d said this already.

Then, slipping her shoes off, she set out determinedly in her stockings across the sand, flat-footed, like a child. Jane would never have done such a thing. I would not have done as much myself. I did admire her, I had to admit, whatever she was or was not.

I followed Flossie to the fringe of a strange, bedraggled crowd. Wet-looking, all of them, and sad, as if they’d been caught in a storm. A small, pale boy in faded dungarees and a woolly red sweater had picked up a stick and was prodding at something in the sand.

Don’t, Stevie
, a woman, presumably the boy’s mother said; a bloated, equally pale, unpleasant-looking woman. She knocked the stick away.
You don’t know what it is.

I’m not touching it
, the boy said.
Not with my hands.

No, for heaven’s sake, don’t touch it,
someone else put in.

That’s right, keep well back, everyone.

What is it?
Flossie said.

The strange crowd parted slightly to allow us to step closer. I stood behind Flossie, looking over her shoulder. A terrible smell wafted up, as of rot, soured flesh.

There, half-buried, lay what I at first thought to be an astonishingly large strand of kelp, bulbous and glossy and reeking. Sandflies hopped crazily upon its slick surface, the wet sand sticking to it there. Then I saw what it was, and my stomach lurched.

Is that
… , Flossie began.

It’s a tentricle
, said the boy, Stevie.

Tentacle
, the mother corrected.

Is it an octopus?

Can’t be.

What then?

Beats me.

How long?
Stevie asked.

Some fourteen feet, looks like
, said a man in a battered homburg and spectacles. It was a moment before I noticed the glass in his spectacles was badly cracked on one side. I wondered if these were the “wharf rats” I’d heard about, who, having lost jobs and homes, lived in the abandoned canning shacks along the water or even, sometimes, beneath them. Certainly, they were a strange lot.

Impossible
, said someone else.

Pace it out.

Not me.

I’m not going near it.

Look how it’s buried there at the fat end.

Like maybe it’s attached to something.

Oh
, exclaimed the mother,
awful. I can’t even think it.

The slick flesh of the thing looked sticky, purplish, as if it were bruised. The smell was dense, a sour reek of earth overturned. But it was the bloated thickness of the thing that disgusted me.

What are those big bumps? Along the bottom there?

Suckers
, said the boy.

Steven!

That’s what they’re called.

I’m sure they aren’t
, said the mother.

It’s what they use to grab onto things
, said someone else,
so they can move.

The mother put her hand to her mouth.

Has anyone tried to pull it out?
Flossie asked.

Stevie stepped forward again, as if he might do so, and the mother swatted him back.

Arthor
, Flossie said, turning to me,
we should pull it out
.

What?
I said, appalled.

The crowd looked at me. I lowered my voice.

What on earth for?

Aren’t you curious?

Not enough to pull it out.

That’s a good idea
, someone said.
Somebody should pull it out.

But you don’t know what it’s got
, the mother said.

You think it’s got something? Down there?
asked a young woman, hardly more than a girl, in a bleached dress.

What? No.
The mother paused then, frowning, considering this new possibility. She shook her head.
No. What I meant is, you don’t know what it died from. I wouldn’t touch it, that’s all.

Maybe it isn’t even dead
, someone observed.

Oh, it’s dead, all right. The smell.

Well, we won’t touch it, then,
Flossie said.
We’ll just dig it up a bit, won’t we, Arthor? Just to see.

Dig it up?
I said in disbelief.

Again, the crowd turned to me. Stevie solemnly handed me his stick.

I repressed an urge to hit him with it. Instead, I took it and stepped forward. The crowd parted further to let me through.

I wouldn’t
, the mother said again.
You never know.

I made a few weak stabs in the packed sand.

Watch you don’t puncture it
, someone said.

Puncture what?

Whatever’s down there.

The crowd fell silent again, each variously imagining what might be down there. The gulls circled and screamed.

I scraped a little at the sand.

Oh, for heaven’s sake,
said Flossie and, dropping her shoes, she elbowed me aside. Before I knew what she was doing, she had grasped the end of the thing with a little mew of disgust and wrenched at it like she was strangling someone.

She’s from the Midwest
, I said to the crowd.

The man in the battered homburg stepped forward to help. Two more tugs and the thing came loose and Flossie and the man staggered backwards, dropping it in the sand. It landed with a sickening wet
thunk
. Flossie lifted her palms, stared at them as if they burned.

Why,
someone said,
it isn’t attached to anything at all
.

Not anymore, it isn’t
, another added drily.

I told you so
.

That’s right, he did
.

But … what is it?

That’s the question.

It’s a tentacle, all right.

But gotta be, what now, sixteen feet.

More.

The man in the homburg poked it with the toe of a waterlogged shoe.

I wouldn’t
, the mother said.

Someone should alert the authorities.

Authorities?

Police or whatever.

So they can arrest it?

The university, then.

That’s right, send it to college.

Someone’s got to figure out what it is.

It’s an octopus, like I said.

Can’t be
.

I know what I’d do
, said the mother.

What?

But she said nothing more.

I couldn’t stop staring at the thing. There was something too awful about it, beyond horrifying. Not just the swollen size, the heaviness, but some other quality, something … almost human about it.

It was then I noticed Flossie was gone. I turned to see her crouched down at the water’s edge, swishing her hands in the sea, the hem of her crimson dress darkened with seawater. She looked very small and I could, for an instant, clearly picture her as a little girl, playing in the dirt of an Indiana cornfield, bright hair straight down her back, late again for supper. I felt sorry for my peevishness earlier. What she was or what she wasn’t, it hardly mattered. And, then, I was not in any position to judge. What did it matter what any of us were or were not. I’d had enough of doubting. Enough of darkness. I needed certainty, light. She was the first glimpse of it I’d had in a long, long time.

That water’s not any cleaner
, I advised gently, coming up behind her.
You’d be astonished what they dump in here, those canneries.

Then I saw she was crying.

On the walk home, Flossie was quiet. The wind was up, ruthlessly, spitting cold drops that stung our eyes and faces, and we leaned into it, the sky black and rumbling over the water behind us. We walked quickly, in spite of Flossie’s heels. I made some silly joke about them, to lighten things, though I felt heavy also. She didn’t even bother to smile. The wind off the water buffeted against us, billowing her mackintosh out like a bright sail.

Better batten that down, sailor
, I said,
or you’ll float away
.

Still she said nothing, just wrapped her arms around herself, holding the coat to her waist, as if she thought I’d been serious.

Finally, I said,
Does it bother you, that thing back there?

She shook her head.

Helen, then? Or are you worried … do you think … ?

I took her silence as confirmation. The image of my employer in the window of my attic room came back to me. The missing women. The boxes of clothing. I did not say it was troubling me, too. I pushed the thought away.

I want us to think well of each other, Arthor.

I do think well of you, Flossie. I told you.

I meant it. She nodded. After a few moments, she said,
There’s another thing. That’s bothering me. Something I’ve been meaning to tell you.

I braced myself. Here it comes, I thought. The confession. She was, after all. Of course she was. It all made sense. Even as I told myself,
It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter
.

What is it?

The wind pasted her yellow curls across her eyes and she pushed them away and blinked furiously in the wind.

She said,
I met the next-door neighbour this morning.

Next-door neighbour?

I can’t remember his name. He has a little dog. Maisy, or something. Daisy.

Puzzled, I recalled the hostile old man in the camel overcoat I’d seen in the lane.

What about him?

He said,
she began,
he said some funny things about you.

I looked at her in surprise.

What could he possibly have to say about me?

Well, I’d just been asking him, you know, about Helen. He said he’d seen her around but not in a few days, and I said I was worried, that she was supposed to be here and then she wasn’t, and I hadn’t heard anything from her.

What does that have to do with me?

That’s just it
, Flossie said, looking uncomfortable.
He said—oh, I shouldn’t even have brought it up. I wish I hadn’t.

What did he say?