Black Tide, page 6
Beth flips me off and takes a big swig of mimosa to show me what she thinks of my suggestion. I dig the Subaru key from my pocket and put it in her hand.
“Roll the windows down for Jake, would you? I’ll be right there. Maybe turn on the radio, see if you can find any kind of emergency broadcast. I’m going to go see what those people know about these things. Make sure we shouldn’t go get checked out before going home.”
“Checked out?” she asks, eyes widening. “Like, medically?”
“Just covering my bases. Don’t worry, you didn’t touch the thing.”
Beth snorts, stuffs the key into the pocket of her hoodie, and struts toward my Subaru.
The notion of her being some cosmic agent of fate comes back to me as I watch her go. Memories of last night flood my mind. The smell of campfire smoke on her skin, the taste of champagne on her lips, the weight of her body on top of mine as we lost ourselves in each other. The meteor shower may have saved my life, but what brought the meteor shower? Maybe it was her. Maybe it was us. Two souls hurtling aimlessly through the void, until by chance they collided with such force that it shook the heavens to rubble.
Beth looks over her shoulder at me and smiles. As if she knows what I’m thinking. Like she’s thinking the same thing. She even winks, to acknowledge our little secret. That the two of us have gotten away with something so monumental, so impossible, that even the gods took notice.
I smile back.
Then everything goes to hell.
6
BETH
The smile drops off Mike’s face so fast I half expect him to follow it to the ground, groaning and grabbing at his chest, done in by the effects of touching E.T.’s damned bowling ball. But whatever is behind his new wide-eyed look is actually behind me.
I dread turning around. There’s something in the air—and I don’t just mean the putrid miasma from the bowling ball. I’ve felt it since waking up from that awful dream, and it’s only gotten worse. First the meteorite he dragged off the beach, now all these freaked-out people trying to escape to sea. Then there’s the way Natalia seemed so dubious about the bowling balls being meteorites at all. What did she think they were? I don’t like any of it. It feels as though it’s all leading up to something, and that something is right behind me.
I turn around to look at whatever it is Mike’s gaping at, bracing myself for all possibilities. Or so I think. Turns out the scope of what’s possible today is much larger than even space bowling balls gave me reason to believe.
Three shapes are coming this way. Two are brown colored, the third inky black. They shimmer in the sunlight like mirages rising from the sand. It takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing, and even then my mind stubbornly crosses its arms, stomps its foot, and says, Nope.
They’re horses. Which ordinarily wouldn’t be upsetting. But these are geared up, galloping at full tilt, their riders nowhere to be seen. The ground trembles beneath their hooves. They don’t slow at all as they draw closer to us.
Natalia, the cell phone glued to her ear, stares at them with eyes as big around as the cap of my orange juice jug. She steps directly into their path, wonderstruck as a deer gazing into the pretty bright lights.
“Hey!” I shout at her. “Get back!”
She doesn’t move, and nobody in those cars, her dad’s friends and neighbors supposedly, offers any assistance. They just stare in morbid fascination, gawkers observing carnage that’s already come to pass. I see now that they’re in the midst of unloading things: coolers and overnight bags and boxes of what looks like canned food. How freaking long does it take to reach Portland by boat? One of them, that woman in the sweatpants, is wailing, grabbing at her hair with both hands. Natalia’s dad isn’t paying any attention at all, still jumping and waving like a madman, trying to signal the boat while his daughter is setting herself up to be turned into a kid pizza.
“Natalia! Get back!” I try again. She listens this time, and takes a rearward step just as the horses blow past. Their eyes are all white with panic, and the lead horse’s hind legs glisten with blood, its saddle stained red.
I backstep, too, shielding my face from clods of sand flinging toward me. My legs are already a bit rubbery from the mimosa—coupled with the possibly toxic stench of space debris and now a sight straight out of some biblical fire-and-brimstone propaganda—and my knees fold. I land flat on my ass in the sand. Nobody notices, not even Mike. They’re all still staring at those horses, which are already disappearing down the beach, fading into the mist blowing in off the waves.
Jake is barking his head off. I don’t blame him. As stupidly excited as he gets at the sight of elk in the dunes, this must be a terrible tease.
But Jake doesn’t appear to have even seen the horses. He’s focused like a laser on the dunes, on the man jumping up and down, waving his arms, the bright flare still slowly falling to earth above him. Jake’s eyes are ready to pop from his skull, and bubbles foam from his lips. He looks flipping rabid.
“Mike!” I shout, stumbling to my feet and loping toward the Subaru. “Mike, let’s go, please!” I don’t know if I want to get off this beach more for Jake’s sake or my own. Something really bad has happened—or is happening—around here. Jake senses it, too, the way dogs can sense earthquakes and heart attacks before they happen. He can probably hear whatever new disaster this is, clawing its way toward us from the other side of the dunes. And here we all are, out in the open, our backs to the sea, nowhere to go but the slowly approaching boat.
Jesus Christ, when did this orange juice expire?
Mike hurries toward me, glancing over his shoulder as if afraid those horses might double back for another pass. He’s just about to me when the next horror arrives, but this time it’s in the form of a police SUV roaring down the beach access road, trailing a cloud of sand. It makes a wide arc, nearly clipping that red Jeep Wrangler, and speeds toward the larger cluster of vehicles. The lights are flashing, but there’s no siren. He must have seen the flare from the highway and mistook its meaning.
Mike stops in his tracks to watch as the SUV slides to a stop and a tall, overly muscled cop jumps out with a frenetic energy that immediately puts me on edge. I’ve known too many guys like that, guys who go around like a bomb with one second on the timer and if you accidentally connect the wrong wires … boom. He’s so amped up on adrenaline I half expect him to pull his gun and order us all to the ground, hands out, faces down, as if we’ve all taken part in a bank robbery and that boat was our getaway.
“Everybody, listen up!” he barks, holding up his hands to draw attention. As if that were even necessary at this point. “You all need to get into your cars and get off the beach. Right now! Go home or to your hotel, lock the doors, and wait for further instructions. If you don’t have a place to go, follow me back to Seaside High School.”
Nobody moves.
Not out of defiance but in sheer shock at this new development. It feels like we’re all trapped in a bizarre, shared hallucination. I can’t help but throw the nearest bowling ball a suspicious glance. Could that smell be having psychological effects?
“Come on, people! Move!” The cop claps his hands.
The others look down at the supplies they’ve unloaded into the sand, mouths hanging open, trying to reconcile whatever they’ve heard so far with what the cop in front of them is saying now. But what could that be? Go home, sure. But lock the doors? Is he worried about looters or something?
“We’ve got a boat coming!” Natalia’s dad shouts from atop the dunes, pointing.
The cop follows his outstretched finger and scowls. “Your funeral,” he says coldly. “I suggest you get those cars as close to the water as you can and wait. There won’t be time to fuck around with all that.” He waves a hand at the supplies.
“Why not?” a woman asks.
He looks at me, and I realize I’m the one who spoke out. I feel like I’m in a dream. Like between the mimosa and the bowling balls, I’m on some kind of supernatural cross-fade.
“What?” He’s incredulous that anybody is daring to question him.
“First you said go home and lock the doors, now you’re saying there isn’t time to wait for that boat? Why? What’s coming?”
He stares at us like we’re two idiots who just wandered into the middle of a movie and have absolutely no idea what’s going on, or how they even ended up in a theater. He’s not wrong. And that frenetic energy I identified? It’s fear. The man is straight-up terrified right now. I’m not positive he even has an answer for me, which is somehow worse than anything.
“This is about those things, isn’t it?” I press, aiming my jug of liquid courage at the bowling ball. “That smell? Are we being quarantined or something?”
The cop looks at Mike instead of answering me. My heartbeat spikes and my face burns.
“She yours?” the cop asks. Like I’m a dog that got off its leash and took a shit on the sidewalk.
“She’s with me,” Mike says almost apologetically, and I make a mental note to kick him right in the balls when we get home.
“Get her and yourself into your vehicle. It’s for your own safety.”
“Come on, Beth. Let’s go.” Mike moves to guide me back to the car, but I duck away from him. Two minutes ago, I wanted nothing more than to get off this beach. But now I don’t want to go anywhere—don’t want to even move—until I have a firm grasp of what’s going on around me. It’s like we’ve found ourselves in the middle of a minefield and one wrong step will surely be our last.
“No,” I snap. “Not until he tells us what the hell is happening here. Why are they getting on a boat? Why are you telling us to go home and lock our doors? What is everybody trying to get away from?”
I half expect him to arrest me out of sheer annoyance. It would be a perfect garnish to this demented cocktail. I’m more certain than ever that this all has to do with the poisonous space turds. We’ve all seen and breathed something we shouldn’t have. All that’s left is to wait complacently for the cleanup squads.
But before the cop can do anything, Jake’s barking reaches such a fervor that everybody takes notice, even Natalia’s dad, way up on the ridge. I see something in the cop’s face that puts me on full alert: defeat. As if Jake’s fit tells him we’ve run out of time. Whatever he was here to save us from has arrived.
Good job, Bethany, my mom’s voice whispers hideously. As usual, you’ve ruined everything.
“Hey!” Natalia’s dad shouts. Then he’s gone.
I blink, trying to comprehend what I just saw and failing magnificently. One second he was standing there, then he wasn’t. Like somebody cut the film and spliced in a reel of empty dunes.
Before I—or any of us—have a chance to make sense of it, a single, sharp, human scream rises from beyond the ridge.
And then that, too, is cut short.
For a moment, time stands still. Even the ocean behind me falls into grave silence. Every person on the beach, including the cop, intently watches the space where the man had been standing, waiting for the universe to stop fooling around and correct whatever glitch has occurred and put him back where he belongs.
The moment lasts about as long as the man’s scream.
“Everybody, go!” the cop orders. This time, they listen.
Even me.
7
MIKE
Dizziness hits me first. Then denial. It can’t be. That did not just happen. It feels like the day Sarah walked out the door for the last time, those long minutes bleeding into longer hours, just staring at my hands and refusing to accept the truth that was closing in around me from every angle, crushing me like an empty soda can.
The moment is brief, and then I’m grabbing Beth’s hand and pulling her toward the Subaru, the world strangely devoid of sound above the pounding of my heart in my ears. I practically have to drag her along. She’s staring dumbfounded at the dunes as if she’s just witnessed a mind-bending magic trick. The cop is already back in his SUV and speeding past us. He’s bellowing something into his radio as he cranks the wheel and gasses it, spewing an arch of sand into the air as he ascends the slope. He stops at the ridge, at the spot where Natalia’s dad was just yanked from view by …
By what? What could possibly have done that? I desperately try to remember a hook reaching from somewhere offstage to snatch him away. But there was nothing.
There was nothing.
The cop jumps out with a shotgun in hand and charges into the tall grass, then down the far side of the dunes. The last I see of him is his head, before I have to shove Beth into the car. I have no idea what’s going on in her mind, but she’s in a daze. There’s no time for questions, though; the cop was right about that. We need to get out of here. Get home. Like everybody else was quick to do. As I look, the last set of taillights disappears up the access road. Even the boat has reset its course and is swiftly sailing right on by, having assessed the situation on the beach as a lost cause. Time for us to follow suit.
I reach for the ignition, but the key isn’t there. I shove my hands into my pockets, my stomach plummeting.
“The key.” I hold my hand out to Beth.
She stares at me as if I’m communicating in grunts. “What?”
“The key, Beth, give me the key.”
“I don’t have it.”
How much champagne did she put in that orange juice? “I just gave it to you,” I say, trying to keep cool. Trying not to shout all the things I want to shout: Damn it, Beth, why’d you have to start drinking again? How couldn’t you foresee that you’d need all your faculties in good working order today!
“Oh, right.” She jams a hand into her hoodie pocket, coming back with only her cigarettes and lighter, which she deposits into the cup holder. Then she tries her shorts. Up front are those silly fake pockets so mind-bendingly prevalent in women’s clothing. She pulls something small and metallic from the back pocket, and I nearly lunge for it in my eagerness, but it’s only her house key. She tries her hoodie again.
My stomach sinks further. That dizzy denial makes an encore performance. This isn’t happening.
“What the hell?” she asks nobody in particular.
“Where is it?” I want to grab and shake her until it drops out into my hand, but I resist. That would be a good way to lose an arm.
“If I knew that, I’d give it to you!”
“Get up,” I say, calmly as I can. I don’t even know what I’m freaking out about, exactly. The boat, the cop, the disappearing man. I know it must all add up, but I can’t do the math, and I do not like it. “Lift up.” She raises her butt. I pat the seat, dig my fingers into the cushion crack, between the seat and center console, listening desperately for that telltale jingle.
I don’t hear it.
“Did you drop it outside?” I ask, my voice going shrill.
“I said I don’t know!” Her eyes are as wide as those horses’. Those horses. What was that all about? And what happened to their riders? More variables in this awful, increasingly baffling equation.
The image of that man disappearing as though a trapdoor opened beneath him invades my mind. I shake it away. Not now. No time for that now.
Beth gets out and searches around the car for about three seconds before throwing up her hands in frustration. I get out and join her. Clearly this is a two-person job, when one of them has half a jug of mimosa in them.
“You fell,” I remind her in a low, conspiratorial tone. As if I don’t want anybody to overhear. To know how badly we’ve screwed up. Not that anybody else is around. The red Jeep Wrangler is the only vehicle remaining, silent and empty and sad, its owner having been plucked from existence by unseen hands. “You must have dropped it by accident. Where was that?”
“I don’t know, here? There? Somewhere.” She shrugs.
“That really isn’t helpful, Beth.”
“Gee, sorry! Just let me grab my metal detector!”
I let her have that one. We retrace our steps, quickly losing the trail in a mess of shoe prints and hoof marks and tire tracks. It wasn’t this far away—I know that much. She never got this close to the other cars. It’s somewhere between the meteorite and the Subaru.
“Goddammit, it’s got to be here,” Beth mutters. She hasn’t seen that we’re alone yet. But she will, soon. Hopefully after we’ve found the key and are speeding back down the beach.
“It’s probably just buried,” I say—also unhelpful—and kick at the ground. “One of us must have stepped on it, or—”
The blast of a shotgun cuts me off.
* * *
The police SUV is still idling at the top of the dunes, the red and blue lights silently flashing their warning. We stand motionless, for what feels like at least an hour, waiting to see the man’s shape rise again from the grass, shotgun resting casually on one shoulder like a hardened action movie hero.
But he doesn’t come back. He doesn’t fire any more shots either.
The silence is broken by a long, piercing wail. A shriek, that would be a better word for it. It’s not the cop, though. It’s not a human sound at all, not like anything I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s like metal tearing and a woman screaming in rage and the hungry howl of some feral beast all at once. I can’t even process it as real. It’s a dream sound. A nightmare sound, impossible to transcribe into reality. But there it is nonetheless.
The shriek blessedly dies away. Beth’s mouth hangs slack, her eyes searching the ridge for the source of that noise. I’m not so sure I want to see it.
“Let’s get back in the car.” I say it quietly, so that whatever produced that sound can’t hear me.
“What the unholy fuck was that?” Beth whispers. It’s a relief to know I’m not alone in being unable to identify it.
“I don’t know. Just get in. Please.”
“What about the key?”
“We’ll flag the cop down when he comes back,” I say, my confidence pitifully insincere. It’s a defense mechanism more than anything. When the world around you suddenly ceases to make sense, you grasp for any reasonable thought and hold on for dear life.
