The Lonely Whelk

This book is
dedicated to:

Great
Bay Writers Group

for their support,
diligence, and patience.
I never would have gotten this far
without them.

P
ART 1

They called it the Coffin Room, although the
boxes in the room were not precisely coffins. The boxes looked like
coffins, they were lined with silk, and they even had people in
them, but the people weren’t dead. They were sleeping.

The room was long, and Holland could hear
Hawkings’ cane clanging loudly, echoing among the boxes with each
step he took. Her coffin lay at one end of the room, separated from
the rest. A wheel stuck out from the end. His feet scuffed on the
ground as he slowly hobbled over to it, leaned his cane against the
side with a clank, and grasped the old metal wheel with both
hands.

Rows and rows of people sleeping. Holland
typically tried not to think about it, as thoughts of coffins
filled with people that could wake up did not usually suit for
pleasant dreams; although, now that she was waking up, she wouldn’t
have to worry about dreams… at least not for the next few minutes.
As the wheel turned, the coffin’s lid began to open, slowly and
squeakily. It sounded like the gears of an old, giant clock. For
the first time in six hundred years, Holland saw light.

Her limbs felt like ice. One leg tingled a
bit, and the other felt like a dead log; she twitched her fingers
and rolled her eyes around in her head. Her ears were regaining
feeling, which was an odd sensation, because she had always
imagined that her nose would be first and then the feeling would
spread like warm water pouring down her skin. It didn’t feel like
that at all. It felt like her son was driving his toy train up her
leg while her ex-husband stabbed her in the heart. And here came
the emotions. She hated those.

Hawkings’ head appeared over the side of her
coffin.

“
By god, Hawkings,”
Holland croaked. Her voice was rough, as it hadn’t been used in
nearly six hundred years. “You look like you’re eight hundred years
old!”

“
Seven hundred and
ninety-three,” he replied, as a broad smile broke into his wizened
eyes. His face was partially hidden by a monstrous, pitch black
beard and mustache. “You look as young and beautiful as the day we
put you under.”

“
Has it really been six
hundred years?” she asked.

“
Yep. Minus two weeks. I
had to wake you up early because Old Man Jacobs died last night and
the crew was down to just me and Squeak.”

“
Jacobs is dead? Does that
mean that Captain Abrams and Lady Mastin are dead too?”

“
Yes, ma’am. Although, we
won’t have much opportunity to miss Lady Mastin. She spent the last
two years of her life carefully recording her voice into the
computer system.” His voice was scratchy and old-sounding, and it
gave the impression that each word he spoke required great
effort.

Holland raised her arm. “Ow!” she exclaimed
as blood rushed backwards into her body.

“
Careful,” said Hawkings,
reaching out to take her hand. “I need you healthy and strong to
help me wake up the rest of these bastards that spent the last six
hundred years sleeping. You know the rules: wake up from stasis,
and then you’ve got to sleep for twenty-four hours with your
nutrient pack plugged in. Let’s just hope I don’t croak before you
get back up.” He gave her hand a little squeeze and then let
go.

“
No, wait,” she said. “My
son.”

“
You can watch the
briefing vids when you wake back up, sis. But you need to sleep. Or
you’ll die. Literally.” Hawkings hobbled over to her med-station,
and Holland’s heart broke a little at the sight of his back, bent
so far over he looked like a hunchback. He turned a knob and a
yellow liquid seeped into the tubes that fed into her box. “You
won’t feel anything. It’s just sleeping medication.”

“
I don’t want to go… back…
to…” Holland took a deep breath and fell silent as darkness rushed
into her senses.

“
Sweet dreams,” she heard
him say as he leaned to kiss her forehead. “Please, wake up soon.
So I don’t die alone.”

The rain weaseled its way out of the clouds
and through the air, landing cautiously on the ground and slinking
into every corner and hole it could find. The street lamps hadn’t
bothered to turn on, so the light that lay casually across the
sidewalk primarily came from the windows of an old Victorian-style
house. The sign that swung in the light wind read, “Gwyn Oliphant,
Therapist.” Tall trees buffeted back and forth behind the house,
and weeds grew up through the front steps of the porch, making a
would-be beautiful house look tired and a little bit eerie.

The light that spilled onto the sidewalk
mainly fell on two gentlemen chatting in the living room, because,
although it was rather late, Mr. Oliphant had a patient.

“
I’m a villain,” said
Maxwell Dippings, leaning back in his chair. He glanced at the
chair next to him, as though he were non-verbally addressing
another person. The chair was, however, empty.

“
That’s very interesting,”
said his therapist. “What makes you think that?”

“
I have an evil plan,”
Maxwell replied in a quite straightforward manner. “And I
definitely think it will advance my career and my
goals.”

“
And what would that plan
be, hm?” Gwyn Oliphant, XXXV, scribbled rapidly in his legal
notepad, a carryover from his days as an intern with Percival
Oliphant, Attorney at Law.

“
Oh, I can’t tell you.”
Maxwell braided his fingers together. “I can only tell my
archrival, and then only right before my plan is about to succeed.
That’s how being an evil villain works, you know.”

“
And who is your
archrival, hm?” Mr. Oliphant peered at Maxwell over his half-moon
glasses.

“
His name is John.” Maxwell
smirked. “And boy is he going to regret that.”

“
Regret what?” asked Mr.
Oliphant.

“
Being named
John.”

“
This is all quite
fascinating,” Mr. Oliphant replied. “And what is it about his name
that he will regret, hm?”

“
Having it.”

“
Yes, but why?”

“
Oh, I can’t tell you
that.” Maxwell took a deep breath. “But I’ll tell you when it’s
over. You’ll be so proud. Don’t worry, I can’t fail.”

“
What does Maddy think of
this plan, hm?” Oliphant asked.

“
Ask her yourself!”
Maxwell demanded.

Mr. Oliphant turned his body to face the
empty chair next to Maxwell. “Well? What do you think of this plan,
Maddy?” He then turned his body back to face Maxwell.

Maxwell began to speak in a slightly
higher-pitched voice. “I don’t think that Maxwell is really a
villain. I think he is simply responding to a world that has
labeled him as ‘different.’”

“
That is a very
interesting perspective, Maddy,” Mr. Oliphant replied, scribbling
rapidly in his notebook. Maddy had been coming to their sessions
for years, and Mr. Oliphant had not yet figured out a good way to
tell Maxwell that she wasn’t real.

“
Well then, Maxwell, would
you care to let me know when your plan is going to go into
effect?”

“
Right this very instant,”
Maxwell said, his voice returning to normal. Without warning, he
stood and leaped through the window.

The sound of shattering glass barreled into
Mr. Oliphant’s ears as he leaned forward, frowning, and watched
Maxwell Dippings land on the pavement a few feet down, shake shards
of glass out of his hair, and sprint down the street.

“
Thanks for all your help,
Mr. Oliphant,” he yelled over his shoulder. “You won’t regret
it.”

Mr. Oliphant shook his head. “I should
probably call the police on that one, hm.” He glanced at his watch.
“But after dinner, I think.”

Maxwell Dippings did not run home, assuming
that eventually Mr. Oliphant would, in fact, call the police.
Instead, he headed to an old playground which was overrun with
weeds, bushes, and small animals that made their homes in the
brush. He leaped over the rotting three-foot wooden fence that had
once completely surrounded the miniature park, and followed a
barely visible winding path of stomped-down weeds towards the main
structure. The playground had a slide, a six-foot platform with
some holes and a fake steering wheel, and a couple of rope ladders.
On the other side of the park, a swing set and some plastic animals
on springs stood eerily.

All in all it looked like a faded remnant of
a long-forgotten past that smiled cheerfully with the hope that
someone – anyone – walking by would stop and take notice. Alas, the
happy cries of children were a distant memory for the old, lonely
playground, and it tolerated the presence of the odd Mr. Dippings
with the hope he might eventually attract other living beings
besides rabbits.

Children never played here anymore, in part
due to the lack of architectural integrity, and in part due to the
fact that Maxwell had spent many nights pretending to be a ghost
and scaring away anyone that lingered past dusk. This was Maxwell’s
place now, and he wished to keep it entirely to himself. Everyone
deserved their space, didn’t they? This was his.

Ducking underneath the slide, Maxwell
entered his secret lair. The entrance was no more than a hole in
the wood, although he had rigged a cardboard door to help block out
the wind and rain. As he stepped in, he reached out to touch a lock
of his arch nemesis’ hair for luck. The inside was a large,
inelegant hole carved into the ground; he spent hours digging one
night, and then had used rusty nails to secure old slats to the
structure to make walls. Over time, he had even had the foresight
to steal some insulation and put another layer of old wooden slats
up to help it stay warm in the winter. Encouraging the weeds to
grow up and around the slats as camouflage had proved harder than
he had expected, because, while it was quite a ubiquitous species
that found ways to take over everywhere it went, they didn’t really
grow up as much as out.

In the center of the room was an old
charcoal grill. A pipe was taped over a hole in the lid, and rose
up to the ceiling. This was for keeping the place warm in the
winter. Maxwell used it as little as possible, because he didn’t
want anyone coming to investigate a smoking playground. An old rug
that smelled a bit like wet possum covered the ground, and a few
pillows and a feather blanket made the tiny room a bit more
comfortable.

Maxwell settled down onto his favourite
pillow, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the far wall. He
gazed at the pictures which were tacked over the walls. Most of
them were of John, but some were of the Globe building downtown and
others were ones that Maddy had taken of Maxwell hiding behind
bushes. A large map of the planet graced one wall, and tacks with
strings tied to them covered it, marking out Maxwell’s plan in
points and pretty colours.