The Call of Distant Shores (2 page)

When I reached the back yard, I stopped short of actually entering it to stare.
 
I’ve seen a lot of very odd things in my time in building maintenance.
 
I haven’t lived a sheltered or particularly sedate life.
 
In retrospect, I suppose nothing could really have prepared me.

In the center of the lawn, placed in a spiral that ran from what I guessed was dead center in the lot outward toward the fence, statues had been lined up like dominoes.
 
Most of them seemed to be renditions of something that resembled a lobster, though the head and eyes were far too large, and the claws…I think they were claws…had protuberances similar to opposable thumbs jutting out beneath.
 
The very center statue was small, maybe half a foot tall.
 
Each successive creature was a little bit taller.
 
From where I stood at the back door, I could see the center, shrinking in like the guts of a gigantic Nautilus shell.
 
As I stepped closer, staring openly with the tool bag dangling at my side, the center became obscured, and all I saw was the outer ring of taller statues. The last few were darker than the others, and I realized with a start that they were still wet – drying in the sun.

Not far to one side, a large vat of some viscous white paste rested with a hose dangling over the edge.
 
The white paste was slowly setting.
 
Beside it, a sorrowful expression on his face, stood the girl’s father.
 
He was a small mountain of a man.
 
His shoulders were too broad, and he stood there in a grungy wife-beater t-shirt and jeans – at least I think they were jeans.
 
They were stained dark and puddled over his feet so it seemed they melted into the dark earth.
 
I felt dizzy, and would probably have turned and staggered back into my apartment if Linda hadn’t dropped her hand on my shoulder at just that moment.

I turned and cried out, nearly tumbling us both to the ground, but she caught me.
 
She was stronger than she looked, and I found the transition from staring at her father and his
lobstrocities
(thank you Stephen King) to her smiling face a genuine pleasure.

“What…what are those things?” I managed to ask.
 
“Jesus, they look like some sort of mutant crawdads.”

Her smile didn’t falter, but I saw from her expression that the reference was lost on her.

“They’re Daddy’s creations,” she said.
 
“They aren’t finished.”

I glanced at the spiral of statues and shook my head.

“Most of them seem finished,” I said.

“They all must be finished,” she said.
 
“Every one. They aren’t separate works, it’s a single creation.”

I followed the inward spiral as far as I could.
 
Somehow, as strange as her words seemed, they also rang true.
 
I couldn’t imagine one of the creatures standing alone, or a pair of them on the two sides of someone’s front walk.
 
They fit together, and there was an eerie symmetry to it - except that something wasn’t quite right.
 
I followed the line back to the near end, the unfinished end.
 
The father still stared at me.
 
His expression hadn’t changed.
 
He held the limp end of the hose in one hand, and my mind returned to the moment.

“We have to hurry,” Linda said.
 
“If the mortar dries, it will be too late.
 
There’s no time to mix another batch.

I lifted the faucet handle, flashed on why I was there, and nodded, starting toward the back wall of the building.
 
It didn’t matter why they needed to finish the statues.
 
What mattered was they paid for the use of the water, and the hose and it was my job to get it back into commission.
 
Luckily, it was a simple job – a single screw to tighten, and they’d be back in business.
 
If all went well, and Daddy was happy, I thought maybe Linda might take me up on an offer of lunch, or drinks…or more. Except, the closer I got to the faucet, the harder it was not to glance over my shoulder at that growing army of statues.
 
I felt the weight of their cold, collective, lifeless gaze weighing on my shoulders. I told myself if we
did
go to lunch or dinner, Red Lobster was definitely out.

Linda trailed along beside me, not close enough for my taste.
 
If my eyes strayed back toward her father, they met her tanned, muscled thighs, and snapped back to the business at hand.

Just as I reached the wall and dropped my tool bag in the dirt, there was an agonized moan from behind me.
 
I glanced over my shoulder. Linda tried to step up and block my view, but she was too late.
 
I stood and stared.

The largest of the statues had shifted.
 
Where the wet mortar trailed off at the end of a long, misshapen claw, the color had changed.
 
Powder dribbled from the tip, like sand falling through an hourglass.
 
Linda’s father stood, staring at it in mute horror.
 
He moved to the trough and tried to dip out a glop of the unused mortar, but it was too thick and grainy.
 
When he applied it to the tip of the claw it clung, and then fell away like gobs of wet rice.

“What…” I said.

“The faucet!” Linda said.
 
She gripped my shoulders and turned me toward the wall.
 
As I spun, I’m certain I saw the end of that claw vibrate.
 
It was like it was trying to shake off the mortar.

Sweat broke out on my forehead.
 
I wished I’d had less to drink the night before and more sleep.
 
I fumbled with the zipper on the top of the bag and jammed my hand inside.
 
I needed a Phillips head screwdriver.
 
Suddenly, what had seemed a quick fix was looking like a major undertaking.
 
The sun was rising toward noon, but I felt clammy. I wanted to look back at those statues.

Linda’s hands dropped to my shoulders, and she began to knead the tight knots out of them.
 
I started to tell her to stop, and then wondered what the hell I was thinking and bit my tongue.
 
She wasn’t making the job any easier, but I suddenly didn’t care quite so much about what might be happening behind me.
 
Probably her intention.

“Just fix the faucet,” she said softly.
 
Her lips were so close to my ear her breath tickled over my skin.
 
She smelled wonderful, some mix of spice and vanilla.
 
I felt my erection press into my jeans and nearly dropped the faucet handle.

“Christ,” I muttered.

I slid the round handle over the square tip of the faucet.
 
It slipped on so easily that I stopped, and for the first time looked closely at the faucet, and the handle.
 
The end of the faucet valve was a square post that protruded about an inch from the valve itself.
 
The handle had a square hole in the center, and this slipped over the protrusion, held in place by a single screw. That’s how it was supposed to work.

I don’t know how I missed it up until that point, but the handle was broken. One side of the inner square was broken away – or melted?
 
One of the adjacent sides was only partially there.
 
I gripped it and turned.
 
It tried to catch, but there wasn’t enough of the square left to grip the edges of the valve, and it slipped.

“What in the hell happened to this thing?” I asked.

I turned and held it up to Linda, not really angry, but very confused.
 
It was a mistake.
 
Over her shoulder, I had a clear view of the spiraling statues.
 
The first two or three, the largest, had shifted.
 
They were no longer in the same position they’d been carved in, and I was not quite able to believe – in that moment – that they’d actually
been
carved.
 
One claw had opened, and it was raised over Linda’s father.
 
Those farther down the line had begun to drip powder, as the larger ones had moments before.
 
The damage rippled in toward the center.

“Please,” she said.

I glanced at the handle again, then tossed it aside and dove for the tool bag.
 
I cursed myself inwardly because – even though I knew I had vice grips, I didn’t know whether I’d put them back in the bag.
 
I dragged out a hammer, a tape measure, a set of drill bits and a handful of assorted nails and bolts.
 
There were pliers, and I briefly considered giving them a try.
 
Then my mind filled with the image of that monstrous claw with its impossible extra appendage.
 
I waited, expecting to hear a scream as I dug into the bag again.

I found the vice grips at the very bottom of the canvas bag. I turned to the faucet and snapped them shut over the valve, but they were set too wide.
 
I heard Linda moan, and I wanted more than anything to look back at those statues.
 
I also wanted to turn and run, screaming, into the street….but Linda still leaned in close behind me, her perfume confusing my senses.
 
What
was
that scent?
 
It made me think of the beach, and the sand, though I knew that was crazy.
 
The beach only got bottled as a scent on Seinfeld.

Behind me I heard a sound like something soft and wet sliding over a rough surface.
 
I heard a barked scream and something clattered to the ground.
 
Sweat dripped into my eyes, and I closed them tightly.
 
I fumbled with the vice grips, found the wheel that loosened and tightened the grip and started spinning it.
 
I forced my eyes open with a gasp – I wasn’t sure in my panic if I was loosening or tightening it.

“Hurry,” Linda hissed. “Oh please…Daddy…”

I stared at the vice grips and almost laughed. Somehow I’d gotten it right.
 
I leaned in too quickly, smacked my head on the wall, nearly toppled over and felt her hands on my shoulders, steadying me.
 
I saw the valve and I reached for it.
 
My knuckle smacked into the concrete wall and I cursed, but I dragged it down and found the metal rod, clinging to it dizzily.
 
I wrapped the vice grips around the end of the valve, gripped the handle, and heard the loud CLICK as they locked in place.

Blood joined the sweat trickling down my face, oozing from a cut where my scalp hit the wall, but I blinked and focused.
 
I’d gotten lucky the first time, but once again I found my mind blanking.
 
Which way should I turn the valve.
 
The stupid rhyme my father had taught me years before tried to surface, but my head pounded.

“Righty,
tighty
,” I gasped.

“What?” Linda said.

“Lovely Lucy,” I muttered.

I spun the valve.
 
My knees had gone rubbery, and when I wrenched on the valve stem, Linda let go of my shoulders, leaving me to find my own balance.
 
I never had a chance.
 
The world lurched, and I toppled.
 
For just a second, I held onto the vice grips and pressed my hand into the wall, but it was no good.
 
I fell, turning slowly.
 
That moment stretched into a surreal eternity.

As I turned, the lot behind me came into view.
 
I couldn’t see any of it clearly, but what I did see wasn’t possible.
 
Linda held the hose, her hand on the metal spray nozzle, gripping tight.
 
Water arched up and over the spiral of statues, except, something was wrong.
 
The statues were moving, and they weren’t …white.
 
Not exactly.
 
Some still were, in near the center, but the others were moving. The spiral hadn’t broken – it spun.
 
The larger statues – creatures – moved steadily inward.
 
The smallest, in the deep center, were still solid, and the larger ones, moving in, crushed them to white dust.

The water slowed them.
 
Just as I hit the ground I saw Linda’s father, like a professional wrestler bursting out of a pile of bodies, press to the surface, coated in white slime.
 
He fought through the sliding, chattering horde toward the trough of mortar, now overflowing with water.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell him to look out, as one of the creatures spun on him and lifted a huge claw.
 
Water splashed into the thing’s face, and I remember hearing Linda’s voice.

“Daddy!”

The throbbing in my head hit a crescendo, and darkness swallowed me whole.

When I woke, I was in my apartment.
 
Light streamed in from the window, and my head felt like it had been used for a drum.
 
I heard something move, and it all came back to me in a flash.
 
I scrabbled back, hit my head on the headboard, and cried out.