An essay by Jonah Greenwich, as provided by Dorian Graves
Art by Shannon Legler
I was at my wit’s end when the bird was brought in.
Before its arrival was a stalemate. The rain had not stopped outside, leaving trails in windows that hadn’t been cleaned in months. On a chair to my left, a laptop with saved articles on fever remedies, still unable to connect to the internet. To my right, a cup of noxious green liquid that smelled of sewage, but according to the bottle, was the strongest combination of vitamins on the market. My patient, Seth Cross, eyed the concoction and pulled the blankets halfway over his too-pale face.
“I think God already hates me enough, Mr. Greenwich,” he muttered. His voice was soft and breathy, body too thin for a growing teenager. “You don’t need to hate me too.”
“No need to get melodramatic. I mean, this can’t do more harm than good, right?” I tried to hand him the cup, along with a napkin. “And it’s Jonah, please.”
Seth did not argue; I had met him before, and he never spoke a rude word to me. Granted, he never said much in general, but that might’ve been because I was dating his mother, Martha. Not that it mattered what he thought of me, for none of the doctors in town had anything helpful to say, other than “fever and a stomach bug, here are some prescriptions.” I figured I could at least try to help, and even if Martha’s home was a small mobile home–or as Martha called it, “a one-trailer trailer park” in the mountains–I still preferred it to the empty house or noisy cubicle I resided in.
Seth did not try the vitamins, see if they would stay down when everything else he’d eaten the past three days came back up with retching and tears. He did not get the chance, for this was when the bird was brought in. Its arrival was announced with a cheery “Seth! Look what I found!” from the younger Cross sibling, Angie. She entered in a soaked pink dress, golden curls bobbing. She stood next to me and showed us her find, its chest red, head lolling at an unnatural angle.
“It ran into the window,” Angie explained with the enthusiasm only children can muster. “Isn’t it pretty? I think it’s the first robin of spring, but I’d hafta’ ask Momma.”
I wasn’t a doctor by any means, but even I knew that even touching dead animals was bad news. I reached for the bird, already starting in on a lecture, but it was already out of the girl’s grasp. It was in Seth’s hands, and he stared with wide eyes. Even in death, the robin was so much more vibrant than his own pale skin.
Pop. Squish. Crunch.
He’d popped the bird into his mouth. And even as his teeth crushed down and snapped its tiny bones, his expression grew into one of mortification.
“What did you do that for?” I reached in vain for the bird no longer there.
Seth turned his face from me and shook his head. “Don’t know,” he muttered through bites. Squish crunch, squish crunch, gulp. “I was hungry.”
My hand trembled. I reached for the handkerchief and started dabbing the blood off his face. “You could have asked to try a normal meal again. Something not, you know, probably writhing with salmonella.” I jumped to my feet. “I’ll grab some paper towels to clean up the mess I’m sure you’re about to make. Don’t move.”
He didn’t as I left the room. His sister shot me a glare. I strode out of the small hallway, through the living room, and into the kitchen, already mentally preparing the explanation I’d give Martha when she returned from repairing a leak in the roof. I returned with the towels and a cleaning solution, and waited.
And waited.
To my astonishment, he kept it down. It might have been a trick of the light, but a bit of color returned to his face. He soon fell asleep again, curled up on his side. Angie crawled under the blankets with him and copied his position, her back against his chest, the top of her head just under his chin. She sang a wordless tune, barely audible over the rain hitting the roof. Keeping him calm, I guessed. She stuck her tongue out at me when I left the room.
#
Three days since leaving the office, its phones likely still ringing with questions even a child could answer about computers, and it was still storming. The clouds were so thick and dark, the mountains almost seemed to be in a state of perpetual night. The wind blew hard enough that I though the trailer would tip over and we’d tumble into the soaked moss, and occasionally, my thoughts were punctuated by a flash and Angie singing “One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi” until the inevitable rumble of thunder.
Even once we realized that Seth could eat raw meat and nothing else, there was not much we could do. We kept an eye on him, sure, but he mostly slept, sluggish and burning with fever. I had no internet for further research–I was told the mountains literally blocked any wireless signals–and the only books in the house were fiction, so I was caught between pacing and reading to the children.
Sensing my restlessness, Martha took me out of the house one afternoon. We were off to fix a local’s roof that had broken during the storm, she told me. She’d been a contractor once, before being a long-haul truck driver. “Daniel’s the one who got me into travel, y’see. Went all around the states. That’s how we found the children, actually.”
I knew Seth and Angie were adopted, and that Martha had been married once before. This was the first hint of the particulars. “Where did you find them?”
“One day, we were in Vermont see, and he brings me this boy holding a baby and says they’re lost. So we looked for their folks, but couldn’t find ‘em.”
“Where did he find the children?”
“Side of the road somewhere, I guess.” She pursed her lips, and her eyebrows scrunched together as the winds picked up. Overhead, the pine trees that covered the mountain began to quake like reeds. “No. That wasn’t it. He went fishing at some blocked-off beach, an’ found them there. Think that’s right.” She pursed her lips, as if for some reason, it was difficult to remember.
“I’m guessing you never found the parents.” I clutched the door handle as the car swerved. If only I were inside instead, curled up with a good book and some coffee.
Martha swore under her breath as she righted us. “I still hate these small cars, you know. Wind tosses them everywhere.” She was quiet for another beat, then spoke up as if she just heard my question. “No, never found any parents. No one who knew them. We looked long and hard, but Daniel got it into his head that no one else would take these kids, so we had to. They always got along with him better than me. ‘Specially Angie. She made all kinds of little songs for him.” Then she shook her head again, and something in her tone shifted. “They’re my responsibility now, though. And that’s alright. I keep ‘em happy and keep ‘em safe. Y’know how it is, right?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Before the silence grew too long, I asked, “Where’s Daniel now?”
Martha quirked an eyebrow, smiled. “No need to worry yourself, pumpkin. The ocean took him.” We pulled into the driveway of our destination; she kissed me on the cheek and spoke no more of it no matter how much I asked. I attempted to help with her repairs, but I was not strong enough to help her carry anything, and I kept slipping in the mud, so she sent me to wait in the car.
Something about Martha’s words unnerved me, but I could not place why. I told myself that it was the combination of a cryptic comment and Seth’s strange condition that had me on edge, that and the storm. I tapped a beat on the dashboard while watching Martha, her skin dark and weathered in contrast to her children, hair night-black instead of graying at the temple like mine. Even in this storm, she was a sight to behold.
There was another flash. My mind’s eye showed Martha lighting up, screaming, and turning to ash. Slipping off the roof and snapping at so many odd angles. Body smoking. Even though it was just my imagination, I had to turn away, focus on the senseless tone I was tapping until she returned.
When the job was done, she asked if something was wrong. I told her I was just carsick, wanted to head back. We did so, and she asked about my family; I answered, with a tight-lipped smile, that I didn’t have any. The rest of the drive was silent. When we returned, we found Seth in the bathtub. Angie informed us that her brother had grown gills.
#
The gills were not Seth’s only changes, just the first. Martha and I asked him about what happened, if he had any idea why he suddenly had gills, if any other part of him felt strange. He said he had no idea, but his fingers were starting to web as well, and his skin was clammier but still warm from fever. With shaking hands, I checked his pulse, reflexes, and anything else I could think of; they were all normal. I traced the gills to confirm they were real, and my breath caught in my throat. Martha did not shake, did not react at all–I chalked it up to shock.
While he still seemed capable of breathing air, Seth much preferred being submerged in water. This was difficult, for with his illness and the storm outside, we refused to let him go out to the lake, so he stuck to the bathtub. The water was kept cool, in an attempt to lower his fever, though I had a feeling that he wasn’t actually sick, just overheating from whatever strange transformation he was undergoing. We had to remove him on occasion for sake of our own cleanliness, or to clean up the blood from his meals.
Once I calmed down enough to think logically–at least as logical as one could get with such changes–I spoke to Martha about the situation. Gills could be easy enough to hide, but what about his new eating habits? If these transformations continued, would he still be able to function in the world? Could we even trust him with a doctor, or would they attempt to experiment on the boy like in all the sci-fi films? The question became a moot point. Like the internet, my cellphone did not work this far in the mountains, and the landline was down when I tried to use it. Martha assumed that a tree had fallen on the phone lines. I wanted to believe her, until I saw that the cord had been torn apart.
“I bet it’s rats,” Angie told me in a sing-song voice, swinging her legs on the couch as I tried in vain to fix the cord. “We didn’t get them when we had a cat, but we do now. Big ones, too.”
“Don’t feed any to your brother,” I replied. The cut in the cord looked too clean for bite marks, but I said nothing. When I pointed it out to Martha, she said the same thing. Rats.
Martha was called out for more repairs. Not wanting to miss any other strange developments, I elected to stay behind and watch the children. I had never actually babysat them before, but they had always been nice enough, and I was sure gills hadn’t changed Seth’s personality at all. Angie kept handing me books to read them, but between stories, I managed to get some history out of Seth. It appeared that Seth had no memory of his life prior to meeting Martha and her late husband, and Angie had been too young at the time to know anything of use.
“After we moved here, we were mostly raised by our father,” Seth explained to me. This was a few days after he’d grown gills, and his skin was acquiring a strange, almost rubbery texture, covered in spots. “Mom’s always been the one to support us–you know how hard she works, Mr. Greenwich–Jonah, sorry. But Dad stayed home, got us caught up on the schooling we missed. Took us out and got us used to people.” He absently scratched his wrist with webbed fingers. “Apparently, I didn’t used to talk, not until Angie started. She started school before me, too.”
“It’s ’cause I’m smarter,” Angie said, leaning against the tub as she played with her dolls, brushing their hair until the brush was full of tangles and torn away. She had them dance around the edge of the tub, occasionally letting one fall in, where she would declare it eaten by “sharks and stuff.” “And I’m cuter. And I ‘member things better. You don’t know anything yet.”
“No, I guess I don’t.” Seth chuckled, and I caught a glimpse of his teeth. Too many, too sharp, too stained. I became aware of how much of my skin was exposed, even with just my face, neck, and hands. I was made of meat.
“What about you, Mister?” Angie asked, as she tossed another doll into the tub. “Do you got a family?” I shook my head. “No? Where’d they go? Did they leave you like our Dad did?”
“I just don’t have any,” I told them. I offered to read them a story to change the topic, and they agreed. I kept track of my breathing as I did, in and out, deep enough to feel my chest move. When I returned and started reading, I kept my eyes on the pages, refusing to look at the teeth that could easily sink into my neck.
#
“Do you remember when we came here, Seth?”
It was late at night when I heard Angie speak those words. The only other noises in that dark house were raindrops on the roof and the rattling heater. As I padded through the house after finishing a drink, about to return to Martha for the night, I almost missed Angie whispering. She should have been in bed, I thought, and meant to interrupt her. Curiosity took hold instead. I crouched in the darkness, next to the bathroom door open just a crack, and listened.
Seth hummed in contemplation before he answered. “A bit. The truck moved a lot, and I remember being surprised at how green everything was out here. And you were so small.”
“Not here as in this old place. I mean when we came to land, Seth. Don’t you remember?” I didn’t hear a response, but Angie continued in her soft murmur, “It’ll come back to you. Soon, I bet. The rest of you’s returning so fast.” There was a longer pause. “I s’ppose it’s my fault, really. I went for your head.”
“What do you mean?” There was confusion in Seth’s voice, and in my mind. I settled onto the carpet, making sure not to lean against the creaking walls and alert them of my presence.
“Let me tell you a story.” There was a splash; Angie getting into the tub, or Seth getting out? I wasn’t sure. “Once upon a time, there were the Singers of the Deep. We lived in all the waters, from oceans to rivers, and our songs brought storms and ruin. And humans. Humans loved the music, though it always meant death. Called us mermaids. Called us gods, too.”
“Us …?”
For once, I heard a deep bitterness in Angie’s voice. She didn’t sound like a child anymore. “We weren’t meant to die. Our souls never did, just drifted to a new body when the old one got too broken. It only worked if we were destroyed by one of our kind, though. Devoured. That’s the way it always was.” She made another noise, a mix between a sigh and a growl. “But the humans spread and broke our homes, took our food, and we had to hide. Separated from each other. Sunk back into the deepest depths of the oceans, or curled up in the polar ice caps, and never ever came up again. Everyone else’s souls were stuck in broken bodies and left to waste.”
I heard movement from the water in the tub. A gasp. Angie spoke again. “Not us, brother. We were smart. We always stuck together, and we had enough. We decided to climb up to shore, take the land from humans as they stole the oceans from us.”
Sloshing water. The rain outside grew heavier. Like a child, I wrapped my arms around my knees. I was all too aware of my heartbeat, of how loud it was as it slammed against my chest. There was, not for the first time, a cold and empty pit growing in my chest.
“It was your plan. Remember? When you last died.” Angie giggled. There was another thump against the tub, then it stopped. “You fought back, as was custom, but it was still so pretty. The way your skull caved in. Your eyes popped out of your skull. Remember? And your organs fell out, leaving your ribs like a hollow little cage. But even then, you wouldn’t stop about your plan. You were so happy. And soon, I get to be happy too.”
I had enough. With a gasp of air, I got to my feet and threw open the door. There was Seth, pressed against the wall, skin pale and eyes wide. Angie was against him, arms around his neck. She had gills like him, spots like him, teeth like him. Her tiny dress had ripped in the back, making way for…for…arms?
No. Not arms. Those were not arms.
She smiled at me with her endless rows of teeth, and laughed. The world shifted sideways, and the last thing I felt was the floor crashing against me.
#
My first thoughts, upon awakening, were a memory of an alarm going off. I was walking into a house, and there was something strange about the air. It was warm, and bright in a way it shouldn’t have been. Nobody moved inside, but there were bodies, back then. The alarm would not stop, but there was something strange to its cry, like a melody. I opened my eyes, and as they settled on the features of the trailer, I recognized the memory and pushed it aside.
My second thoughts were of escape, but when I tried to move, I was pushed back down onto the torn old couch. “Y’just woke up,” Martha told me, hands on my shoulders. “You’re not running off anywhere right now.”
I struggled for a moment, then stopped and listened. I heard nothing but the din of rain, lighter than it had been. No more, no less. “Where are the kids?”
“Angie’s still with Seth. Hasn’t left his side, ‘cept to tell me that you passed out in the bathroom.” She smiled at me, moving one hand to brush my hair back. “Too much to drink, pumpkin? I mean, I got a stockpile, but that doesn’t mean ya’ need to rush through it.”
“It wasn’t that.” I shook my head, which resulted in a headache. I briefly wondered if I had a concussion, because the world was so blurry, but then I realized I was simply missing my glasses. “Help me up, please. We need to get out of here.”
“No one’s goin’ anywhere, Jonah. Road’s flooded, and no one’s taken care of the tree blocking the road to town.” I think she smiled at me, but it was hard to tell. “We’re safer here, an’ I got enough supplies to last ages. If y’don’t mind canned beans, of course.”
“You’re wrong. We aren’t safe.” I tried to push her hands off my shoulders, but she was stronger than me by far. “Your son is turning into a monster, Martha. He was never human to start with. And Angie, she’s in on it.”
She finally moved one hand, but it was just to my forehead. “Think you might’ve hurt that pumpkin head of yours when you fell. Or you’re getting Seth’s fever. Look, stay here, I’ll make you some soup. Okay?”
My voice rose as I tried to tell her that we knew Seth didn’t have a fever, it was part of transforming, but she didn’t listen, just strode off to the kitchen. I could see her from the couch if I sat up, but that induced a wave of vertigo. I swore to myself but stopped shouting when I did hear something. I thought it was Martha humming at first, and I found the tune familiar. I tapped it on my leg as I waited, a simple tune, like a nursery rhyme.
That gave me pause. A nursery rhyme? I hadn’t heard one of those in ages, not since–it didn’t matter. I got to my feet and waited for the vertigo to stop. I searched for my glasses but couldn’t find them. That song kept repeating. I stepped toward the noise, not toward the kitchen but the bathroom and bedrooms in the back, stopped again. Angie had mentioned something about this to Seth, about singing and luring and death. It was a trap, and Martha was already under its sway.
I ran out the door. I almost fell down the porch steps, and the earth was so saturated with water that my feet seemed to sink into the grass. I reached my car, not thinking about where I would go or even if I’d remembered my keys, and stopped. The tires were flat, the chassis sinking into the earth.
I remember standing there for a time, almost unaware of the rain until a gale reminded me how cold it was. Brought back to my senses, I prepared to run down the driveway, a steep path up the side of a mountain where the trail had likely turned to mud. But then I heard that song again. Lilting, slow, peaceful. I almost hummed along myself, but no, this was their work, Seth and Angie’s. They knew I heard them. They knew I–
“Mr. Greenwich.” That was Seth’s voice from the porch, but I didn’t answer. Just stared at the path before me, even if everything was a blur. I couldn’t see what had pierced my tires, but I could just imagine Angie chirping “rats,” and Martha agreeing, yes rats, had to be rats, there was nothing wrong.
“Jonah.” A tug on my sleeve. My movements were sluggish as I faced Seth. His skin was mottled with dark spots, teeth like so many needles, gills deep red like open wounds. The rain plastered his near-white hair to his face, and his eyes, they looked tired but still human, sea-foam green. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But please, don’t leave.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” My voice was little more than a croak. The air was so cold.
Seth tightened his grip on my sleeve; I noticed his fingers were now webbed. “Angie’s being … weird. You heard. And Mom’s not any better.” He tugged my sleeve again, like a child, like–“Please. I’m scared, please.”
There was something in his voice I couldn’t quite place, and something in the back of my mind I was trying to ignore. I shoved the thoughts aside them and let Seth lead me back, though he paused before we retreated under the porch, tilting his head so the rain slid down his face and into his gills. In front of us, the trailer creaked as if bearing the weight of all the storm water; indeed, instead of white, it was now mottled greens and browns with tracks dug in by the rain. Moss had made a home of the roof.
They brought me back inside. Martha sat next to me on the couch after bringing me fresh clothes and soup, but there was something distant in her dark eyes. Angie brought me a blanket and a book, said this time she’d read to me. She convinced Seth to leave his bathtub for the recliner and she sat on his lap as she read. She didn’t so much read a story as sing it.
I lost the words in the melody, even as I considered running. Martha’s arm tightened around my shoulders.
#
“He’s not changing fast enough,” Angie told me near the end of that week.
We were in the living room, and Martha was out of the house on another errand. By that time, I refused to pass the bathroom doorway when Seth was hungry; his smile was too tight. The knobs on his back had grown into tentacles, long and thin, and they writhed in the bathtub water like snakes. I read to him from the doorway. Before I could remind her of this, she said, “Not his body, I mean his mind. Something’s not right with it. He doesn’t remember anything from before.” She sighed and chewed her lip. Though the rest of her returned to human form, she kept the teeth when Martha wasn’t around.
“That’s not normal, then.”
“Nuh-uh.” She picked up her doll and began to tug on one of its arms. “When our people’s souls first come into a new body, they’re like kids, and we have to re-teach them everything. But when they’re ready, their body shifts to fit their memories. Seth’s is going without his mind.” The arm came off with a pop. “But he can’t stay like this. He has to remember, so he can send me off to my new body. I hate this one. It’s so small and pink and … and weak.” She spat the last word as she tossed the toy arm behind her. It hit the wall and slid under the couch.
“Your kind transforms, then.” I thought about this new information, and what Angie had said before. “Between human, and a state more like … mermaids. Squid-based mermaids. But you only have enough power for a child’s form.”
“Exactly.” Angie nodded, golden curls bobbing. “Well, our true forms, they aren’t human at all. Those are the ones we’re raised in, the humans are just disguises.” And then her eyes widened, mouth gasped just enough for me to see her needle-teeth. “Oh.”
“Oh? Oh what?”
“I know what’s wrong. Why didn’t I see it sooner?” She hopped off the couch, casting the doll aside, and ran over to hug my knees. “You’re useful after all, Mr. Greenwich!”
I didn’t dare move, even to try to remove her. I could smell gore on her breath, even though I hadn’t seen her eat. What had she been sustaining herself on, drowned animals from out in the storm? “Can I ask why?”
“No, ’cause then you’ll try to run again, and I need you. You’re just the right kind of broken inside.” She squeezed my knees tighter before staring up at me, head tilted. “How old was she?”
I raised an eyebrow. “She?”
“Or he. I dunno, but you know how to deal with kids. You used to have one yourself, didn’t you?” She finally let me go, but grabbed one of my hands, dug sharp nails into my palm. “You know what it’s like to lose those you love. But that’s why I like playing with you.”
She skipped off, and my hand started to bleed. I stared at it and thought about screaming, but the sound would not come, stuck in lungs that felt too empty as they clamored for air. My breathing became fast and shallow. I covered my hand and stared out the window to ground myself, to breathe again without imagining I was being choked.
The one time I walked by the door that afternoon, Seth began to sing. It was a quiet tune I couldn’t quite catch, and I almost went closer in order to figure it out. I stopped when I felt the cold of the doorknob through the bandages on my palm. I ran back into the living room, and when Martha returned, I asked her to deal with Seth for the rest of the evening.
When Martha left us to go feed Seth, Angie smiled at me as if we shared a secret. In that moment, I did not know why.
#
This time, it was I who found the bird. This one was alive.
It was dinner the next day, and seeing as my hand was bandaged and no longer bleeding, I was once again asked to feed Seth while the girls finished up a more human meal. Smart enough to toss a jacket on this time, I strode through the endless wet and into the shed, which was really just a smaller trailer with a freezer inside. I had to pause when I realized the door to the trailer was open, and there was a crow inside. It turned to me and cawed before resuming its meal.
As soon as I entered the trailer to shoo the bird away, I was hit with the smell of decay. I covered my mouth and nose, willed myself to step closer. The freezer was open, the rotting meat inside serving as the crow’s meal. It flew out in a huff as I waved it away. This bird surely couldn’t open the freezer by itself, so how–
Another chewed cable, this one a power cord. A burn mark next to the power outlet, where a fire from the exposed wiring might have started if the open door hadn’t allowed the rain to enter and quench the budding flames. My thoughts sang of fire alarms and claims of “Rats, I bet it’s rats” as I staggered out of the shed.
I ran back inside, only to hear the last notes of a tune when I reached the porch. I entered to find Angie using an old rope to tie up Martha, who was unconscious and had a pool of blood growing under her head, where I presumed it cracked against the linoleum floor. Angie’s own tentacles, black and spotted with violet, had torn through her pink dress and were working alongside her hands to tighten the knots.
“Animal meat’s not going to bring his memory back, so I got rid of it,” Angie explained, and she almost sounded happy as she tied up her adoptive mother. “Seth needs to learn that he’s not a human and never was one. He’s gotta lose his human ties.” I took a step forward, and she laughed. “You’re not going to stop me. You don’t have the guts! What’re you going to do, let me tie you up instead? Let him eat you?”
I wanted to say that I would, but my legs were quaking, and I had to grip the doorway to steady myself. Outside, the crow I’d chased off cawed, saying more than I ever could.
“That’s what I thought.” Angie stood and grabbed Martha’s feet, still covered in mud-crusted boots, and tried to lift. “She’s your only real connection too, isn’t she? The rest of yours are gone. You know what lonely tastes like.” She pulled, but only managed to move Martha a few inches. She swore under her breath in an inhuman tongue.
I watched her struggle to the sound of rain, which knew at this rate would fall until even the birds would drown, robin and raven alike. “I could stop you, you know.” I took another step forward, as if that could make the threat real. “I could stop all of this. Take Seth away so you can’t get a new body. Stop you before you can destroy anything.”
I assumed Angie would take this as a threat, maybe even attack. I shuddered at the thought, but nothing came. She just laughed at me, tentacles wrapping tighter around Martha’s ankles. “If you really loved her, you would’ve done it already.”
She was right.
My heart pummeled against my chest as I strode over, grabbed one of Martha’s hands, and began to pull. Not out of the house, but toward the bathroom. Angie paused, surprised, but then followed while doing her pathetic best to help carry. When we reached the bathroom, Angie kindly opened the door. I pushed Martha inside, caught a glimpse of Seth’s sea-foam eyes and bloody mouth, and slammed the door shut.
“What do you think you’re doing? Why’d you tie up Mom?” Even as he asked, Seth’s voice waved and cracked; he already knew what we were doing.
“It’s for your own good, Seth,” Angie called from my side. She put her hands in her pockets and began to rock back and forth on her heels. “If we want to keep going, you’ve got to give it up!”
“Give what up? I don’t understand! Mr.–Jonah, open the door!”
His voice rose as he continued to demand. Musical and hysterical, it lured my hand to the doorknob. I hesitated, ready to turn it, but stopped. I took a breath that shook me. “I am not enough to cure your humanity, Seth. I’m sorry.”
Before I could stop myself, I strode back to the living room, to that battered couch. I hesitated, even as Angie nodded at me from the bathroom door, pressed against it as Seth clawed at it from the other side. We had no locks, but we didn’t need them. I shoved the couch down the hallway, its feet scraping against the carpet.
Seth kept begging, but the words didn’t register as I pushed the couch into place. It was an old and heavy thing, one Seth couldn’t move in his weakened state. Martha could’ve, but she was about to be out of the picture. The thought itself almost made me choke.
Angie reached up and tapped my arm. “It’s okay,” she whispered, even as I flinched. “It’s hard, I know. Martha was nice.” She wrapped her tiny fingers around my hand and tugged. “We should leave him alone. Otherwise, you might change your mind.”
I let her lead me back to the living room. I sat in the recliner next to the window; the rain streaked down it in torrents, distorting the outside world. As green as the trees outside were, the darkness of the clouds above seemed to suck all color out of them. My mind felt just as bleak. “Do you have no heart?” I finally asked. “And no quips about your alien biology. You know well what I mean.”
“I do.” Angie did not sit this time, but stood in the middle of the room. “And I liked Martha, I really did. She was a nice human.” Her expression fell as her brother’s shouting faded into whimpers. For the first time I could remember, Angie actually looked sad, her tiny hands curled into tight fists. “But we’ve already lost so much. Our family, our friends. All of our kind are lost now.”
She did not cry. I did not know if it was possible for her to do so. But she let her human form slip, let her skin go dark and mottled with violet spots. Her tentacles writhed together like a child twiddling her thumbs, and her eyes glowed oh so faintly.
“Seth told me that if we got rid of the humans, at least some of them, we could wake everyone up again. I can’t stop because of one kind exception. And I can’t lose Seth now too.” Her tentacles wrapped together, a mockery of humans wringing their hands. “You understand, don’t you? What it’s like?”
I ground my teeth together, kept my expression blank. I thought of my home, where old picture frames were surely collecting dust. Perhaps it was raining there too, and water seeped under the doorway, finally doing away with the emptiness that had taken up so much space for so long.
I nodded in response to Angie’s question.
“Good. I’m glad.” She walked to the window and stood by me, looking through the blurred glass. “Then we just have to wait. Funny how everything comes to that, huh?”
#
Night fell, and I found myself playing with matches. I had not touched them in a long time, but there I was on the couch, lighting one and staring at the tiny flame until it went out, and the next one had to be lit. We didn’t have any other lights on; the power finally went out a few hours before, likely from a tree crashing in the endless storm.
“I’m not a monster,” Seth sobbed from behind the bathroom door. His words were punctuated by fists and tentacles slamming against the wood. “Let me out. Please.”
“Give it up, Seth,” Angie murmured from beside me. Her eyes were shut, but her skin glowed faintly in the darkness. She sounded tired, more than any child should–but she was not a child, not really. “Just eat her already, so we can go.”
“No. No. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m good, I’m not eating our mom.” Despite his claims to humanity, he snarled. “Where’s Jonah? Jonah, get me out of here. Something’s wrong with Angie.”
“Something’s wrong with all of us.” I struck another match. The orange glow burned my eyes, my thoughts. “I used to have a family, you know. Before this.”
While I imagined Angie casting me a sleepy I-knew-it-all-along smile, Seth just struck the door again. “Mr. Greenwich, I don’t really care right now. I’m starving.”
There was a soft voice, one I couldn’t make out the words of. Martha, finally waking up. I imagined her prone on the floor, unable to move much at all. Her only light would be that of Seth’s body, illuminating his pale face and bloody teeth. But I could not see the image, even when I closed my eyes. All I saw were flames and bodies scorched black.
“Faulty wiring,” I said. “I noticed it that day, but was too busy to fix it that moment. Was out late, working overtime. When I came back that night …”
And I heard a scream, and I thought, yes, that must’ve been what it sounded like when the flames first started. My wife screaming. Except then there was the sound of tearing flesh like ripping curtains, except the noise was wet, followed by squelches and gasps for air, and nails raking down the door instead of the fire alarm’s song of beep-beep-beep.
“I didn’t feel anything when I got back,” I said as I lit the next match. “Isn’t that strange? But I did love them. Maybe I’m just too much of a coward to feel remorse. I mean, I loved Martha, I swear I did.”
Seth did not listen. He just ripped and tore and ate, with heavy gulps and panting breaths. Occasionally, a gasping sob. I could not hear his voice. I sat and listened regardless, twitching at each sound as if it were happening to me. I could not bring myself to look away from the flame as it flickered.
Martha screamed her last, and the sound cut off in a gurgle. I repeated, “I swear I loved you,” and let the last match go out.
#
I do not know when I fell asleep, but I woke up on the floor in the living room, a blanket haphazardly tossed over me. The sun was just starting to rise, and the bathroom door opened. The couch was shoved away with enough force that its frame snapped in the middle; I didn’t even know that was possible, not that I noticed in my groggy state. I was just opening my eyes when I saw a shadow far too long, stretching down the hallway as if trying to claw at the light.
Seth looked different. It was not a physical thing, though indeed, the fragility in him was gone. His tentacles were wrapped around the snapped doorknob and the wooden beams of the now-broken couch. Blood smeared his body, though it looked like he’d tried to wash at least some of it off his face and hands. No, even those were familiar, but it was Seth’s dark-ringed eyes that caught mine. They were bloodshot, but the sea-foam green was gone, gone to the color of the storm clouds.
“We’re done here.” His voice was stronger, yet at the same time, tired. Resigned. “We need to get back to the ocean. For Angie.” He turned away from me to go wake up his sister.
Forcing myself to not stare at the mass of tentacles writhing on his back, I said, “Did you want to bury Martha?”
“There is nothing left to bury.” He shut the door to Angie’s room behind him. I did not hear their conversation, just Angie’s excited shout. I imagined her hopping off the bed to embrace her brother, to talk about the next step in their plans with the excited voice only a child could muster. Seth would agree, quietly, and stroke her hair, leaving streaks of red in those golden curls.
I left my imagination behind and went to check the weather outside. Clear. Still soaked, but the sun crept through the sky, the early morning sky not yet blue. The air was crisp, and I finally realized how stifling the trailer had been. I could breathe.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and there was Seth again. He handed me a box of matches. “You forgot these,” he said, and then, “We need you to drive us somewhere.”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice in the matter.” I took the matchbox and shoved it into my pocket. My own car’s tires were slashed, but there was still Martha’s truck. It would still smell like her. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” He licked the blood off his lips, and I knew he was right. I wasn’t sorry–I wasn’t much of anything.
Blood smeared his body, though it looked like he’d tried to wash at least some of it off his face and hands.
#
The Pacific Ocean is not like the oceans that live in postcards, especially not in Bandon. It is a cold place, where the pine trees manage to invade the beach, and the piers are made of rotting wood, snapped to resemble teeth of beings long since gone. It was night, and even as Seth and Angie held hands and stared out at the ocean, they no longer looked human.
When I reached them, Angie pointed at a spot in the sand. Not seeing anything significant, I stood there instead. Angie smiled at my obedience and said, “That’s where Daniel stood, years ago. When he left Martha.” I saw her brother’s features tighten; she tugged on his arm in response. “You’ll get over it. You got over Daniel. He gave himself to help us too.”
Angie let go of her brother’s hand and stepped into the sea foam, letting the waves lap against her bare feet. “I almost forgot myself too, you know. It’s been so long since I was myself, ever since Seth was reborn. But Daniel was good. He saw that I was sad, and he said I could take whatever I wanted to be happy.” She paused, just long enough to face me and lick her lips. “So I did.” She picked up the pace, began to twirl along the water’s edge, arms and tentacles outstretched in a child’s dance. “Daniel loved us, and Daniel listened.”
“Daniel was a fool,” Seth muttered, arms crossed. His eyes darted to meet mine. “You are too. You’ll end up the same way.”
“Won’t we all, in the end?”
Seth stared at me, and there was pity in his eyes, so much like Martha’s. Against my will, I felt a pang in my chest. Seth watched me for another moment before shaking his head and turning to his sister. She stopped her dance and faced him. They did not speak, but Seth strode toward her, stepping into the waves. She raised her hand and he took it, bringing it to his lips. He clamped those needle-sharp teeth through her fingers, and she did not flinch. Smiling, she pulled away, grabbing his tentacles in hers, and pulled him deeper into the waters.
Their forms warped further, distorted by the waves. The features became more and more alien, more shadowed the farther they went out, until I could see nothing more than silhouettes. Primal shouts pierced the lapping waves. The occasional limb, no longer human ones, broke the surface. The sound of ripping, tearing, laughter, screams.
I sat on the cold sand and watched. I had no plans of where I’d go after this; there was no one to go home to, and I felt that my days of dragging myself to the office were over. I could’ve walked into the ocean right there, or lit a match and let it burn through me, but that was not my place. I was the one who let death happen to those around me, not the one it happened to. Like with Martha, there was nothing left in me to bury. Maybe it was not my place to die from the mission of these children, but to watch while the rest of the world went to ruin. Maybe, I thought as I caught a flash of teeth in flesh, watching was all I could do.
The screams and the ocean seemed to combine into a song, a wordless song I knew all too well. It covered up the emptiness, filled the darkness with change and life. The air smelled of blood, but it was the herald for new times ahead. The world was changing, and so were the children, the singers, the gods.
I raised my voice to sing with them.
This story was mailed in by one Jonah Greenwich, with no return address. An attached note states that this is his “only warning about what is to come.” The manuscript was written in pen on notebook paper, instead of typed, with parts that were almost illegible due to burn marks and water damage. No further records on Mr. Greenwich have yet been found.
Dorian Graves is a recent graduate from Mills College, majoring in English/Creative Writing; “A Taste of Empty” was half of a senior thesis. Dorian can usually be found in the mountains of the West Coast, working on the first (and second, and third) book of an urban fantasy series, or herding cats. More information, along with some artwork, can be found at http://pictureofdoriangraves.blogspot.com/.
Information about Shannon Legler and her monsters can be found at http://shannonlegler.carbonmade.com/.