FICTION BY BRIAN J. SMITH

Brian J. Smith is the author of Dark Avenues (a novella and a short story collection both have the same name), 1342 Lindley Road, The Tuckers, Consuming Darkness, Abbie’s Wrath, Bad Allergies and Dead River.

He resides in southeastern Ohio where he drinks too much coffee, listens to horror fiction podcasts, has too many books and buys more, and thinks that Valentine’s Day should be replaced by Second Halloween.

He can be found on Amazon under
https://www.amazon.com/author/brianjsmith.

CARPE DIEM
by Brian J. Smith

I was in my patrol boat on the ocean’s blue-green water when a burst of static blared from my radio. “Check in, Five-Two,” a voice said. It was Eleanor, the dispatcher for the Patrick’s Bay Sheriff’s Department.

I snatched the mic from the right side of the radio and thumbed the button. “Five-Two checking in. Deputy Darlene Andrews speaking.”

“I got a call from Liz Haskins two minutes ago and she said that Ralph hasn’t come home yet and the boat isn’t at the dock.”

“Really?”  

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I got the same call from Joanie Tyson about Mel. Those two are fishing together today.”

“That’s odd. I mean, not odd that those two are together, but odd that they didn’t come back yet. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. They should’ve docked by now. They can’t be reached on the boat’s CB and that’s disturbing.”

“Did Liz and Joanie try their cell phones? That could be an option depending on how close they are to any towers, of course.”

“Of course. Liz tried calling three times and Joanie says she’ll keep trying. They both say they’ll let us know immediately if they hear anything from the Carp Diem.”

“I’ll go back to check it out,” I said. “Over and out.”

After she gave me the coordinates, I set my binoculars on the seat behind me and sped across the great blue swell of the North Atlantic. The sky was a deep purple canvas above a bright grapefruit horizon; the sun glinted off of the ocean’s dark surface. A cool breeze blew in from the west and filled my nostrils with the sharp salty air that clung to my dark blue slacks, matching dark blue work shirt and short sleeved white vest; it teased my dirty-blonde ponytail.

Behind me, frothy white waves spewed from my outboard, sending small geysers of water into the air in tiny lucid mists. Patrick’s Bay sat off in the distance like a brownish-white glob of glue on a piece of green construction paper; the lighthouse standing on the northwest corner of the island loomed in the sky like a thumbs-up sign.

I peered at the picture of my sweet wife Rosetta in the tiny oval photo hanging from my rearview mirror and smiled at her image like I always did. I checked the time on my watch, thought about the home-cooked meal Rosetta was going to fix us tomorrow night for a special occasion, and cut across the water.

A blue and yellow fishing boat appeared in the corner of my eye to the right. It was floating about forty-five yards away, spreading a thin map of ripples in its wake. A medium-sized American flag and the Langston Red Raiders flag flew on a thin, metallic flagpole. Both flags flapped lazily in the sweet, salty breeze sweeping in from the west.

Carpe Diem was painted along the rear of the boat in bold white letters. A narrow metallic ladder ran up the left side of the cabin and led out onto a large steering podium with a dashboard decorated in all of the neat little buttons and big circular radar screens.

I cut the motor, grabbed the gaff hook from the floor on the left aft side of my boat and pulled it. I inched the boat forward and held a rope in my hand, ready to hook it to the Carpe Diem. I tethered my boat to theirs and climbed aboard. My boat bobbed with the rhythm of the waves so I was careful as I boarded the fishing boat. Small peals of water slapped against the hull and glinted in the soft purple twilight.

I stepped across and landed onto the bow of The Carpe Diem with my right hand resting upon the right side of my holster. My first thought was that they might have been working all night long and were just catching some shut eye until they meant to hit land by seven or so.

I walked a few inches forward and called into the berth, “Hey, Mel! Are you guys down there?”

No answer. A flock of seagulls floated toward the west, their huge white wings casting odd T-shaped shadows across the surface of the ocean.

“Hey, Ralph!” I hollered. “Mel!”

Silence.

“This is Deputy Darlene Andrews of the Patrick Bay’s Sheriff’s Department,” I bellowed. I still got no answer. They must have been asleep or playing some Texas Hold ‘Em to pass the time but if that were true, then I would’ve heard them. I stepped toward the mouth of the cabin berth when a strange smell permeated across the doorway and hit me like a bucket of cold water.

It stank of rotten eggs. Were they having a farting contest in there?

I thought, Boredom can make a man do foolish and crazy things out here, especially fishermen like Mel and Ralph.

Still, even they knew when to quit horsing around. They aren’t exactly spring chickens, so this could be serious.

My gut churning with unease, I winced and reached inside of my left pocket for my lucky red bandana. When I pressed it against my face to keep from inhaling that putrid smell, a loud squawking sound burst out from somewhere above me. I flinched, sprang into a well-aimed cat stance and placed my right hand onto the checkered black grip of my nickel-plated .38.

It was coming from the CB radio on the dashboard behind me. I sighed, slid my hand away from my gun and cursed under my breath.

I shuffled away from the berth and moved across the boat, grasped onto the sides of the ladder and climbed onto the steering podium. The flags whipped at the air around me as the wind accelerated. The deepening, purple sky pulled odd shadows across the sea’s oscillating blue surface.

The large ivory-white steering wheel and the tiny silver buttons dotting the dashboard glinted in the sunlight. I winced as another burst of static filled my ears. I approached the CB radio and grabbed the mic. It didn’t seem to be functioning. I figured that the radio’s alternator rectifier was going bad, and that is why there was so much whirring and static.

I went back, threw myself over the ladder and climbed down. I slapped my hands together, skulked to the cabin berth and drew my pistol. The smell intensified. It burned my nostrils and clung to my clothes.

I entered the berth. A light shined through a port window. I saw green carpet and oak paneled walls. A trail of muddy footprints dotted an L-shaped white bench seat on the left that surrounded a large, square wooden table where a small dented metal cup sat on its side. The small stainless steel sink on the far right was cluttered with dirty dishes. A large, fist-sized hole had been punched through the door of the microwave that sat on the far left of the kitchen countertop above a flat-screen television.

I found it odd that anyone would get madder at a microwave than they would at something offensive on a TV, but you never knew with fishermen.

Something else glinted in the corner of my eye and drew my gaze back toward the table. What I originally thought was a small, dented metal cup lying on its side on the table turned out to be an iPhone. The phone sat inside of a spongy, gray phone case. But what was on the table next to the phone is what gave me pause.

It looked like a thin sheen of blood.

I moved my hand into my right pocket, extracted a pair of black nylon gloves with a thick Velcro black strap and slipped them on.

I took the phone off of the table and pressed the HOME button on the bottom of the phone and slid my thumb across the screen. The screen blinked and revealed a picture of Mel and Ralph holding each side of a thick gray blanket in their hands as if it were a fishing trophy. I couldn’t see what was under the blanket but whatever it was it’d looked like an overinflated football.

Whatever it was, their expressions looked like they’d found the discovery of a lifetime.

Had they discovered a new type of fish?  

Had they found gold that’d been buried beneath of these waters for centuries?

Below the photo was a text message in all-caps: MOTHER NEEDS TO BE FED NOW.

I placed the phone back onto the table and stepped further inside. I reached the V-Berth door on the other side of the room. I placed my right hand back onto the butt of my gun and wrapped my left hand around the small, round white doorknob. The door opened like an accordion, spilling a carpet of sour purple sunlight across the doorway beneath my feet.

When I peered inside, the putrid stench I’d smelled outside of the cabin hit me with full force. It was overpowering. I didn’t know what could cast off such a nasty, putrid stench but I knew that I had to find out. I wouldn’t second guess myself; I didn’t want to quarantine the
Carpe Diem and put two hardworking men out of a job for an extended period of time, so I had to know for certain exactly what was going on here.

I stooped down and peered inside. A large, twin-sized bed sat on the left side of the room against a bleached-white wall, its linens rumpled and stained with sporadic bibs of dried blood. On the right side of the room, a shaft of bright sunlight poured through the large round window that snatched tiny dust motes out of the air and spread a carpet of light and odd shadows across the floor.

I hoped that I could find them before sundown. I hoped that they weren’t injured or something although that would explain why no one could reach them by cell phone, even though they were close enough to shore to ping a cell tower.

I stepped inside of Mel’s room, pinched the blanket between my thumb and forefinger and flung it aside. The blanket slid toward the foot of the bed, revealing a sticky puddle of blood in the center of the mattress. I leaped back from the bed, snatched a quick breath and swallowed the dry lump forming in the back of my throat.

I didn’t know if I felt relief or anxiety when I discovered that the bed was empty. Mel was gone from the berth. But someone had left some blood behind on the bed.

Suddenly I heard a hollow thud came from the other side of the boat. I licked my lips, clutched my .38, crept across Mel’s room and stepped out. I climbed the steps toward the main cabin, skulked across the room and approached the door leading to the aft cabin.

I thumbed back the hammer on my gun, reached out with my left hand and jerked the door open. My heart thudding with icy cold fear, my skin bristled. When the hairs along the nape of my neck stiffened, I clamped my left hand across my gun hand to hold it steady. I descended down the stairs.

Darkness filled the cabin and spread a faint pocket across the bottom of the staircase. In the thin sliver of light penetrating the cabin, I saw two indistinct figures lying across the middle of Ralph’s bed. A chorus of heavy breathing was the only sound in the room, save for the sound of my insistent heartbeat, loud in my ears.

I saw two figures lying together in the same bed. I hoped that I hadn’t stumbled into something that would stain their family name. They could have gotten drunk and decided to sleep in the same bed. That kind of behavior might have gone over just fine in a big city, but it would not be well-received in tiny Patrick’s Bay where everyone knew everyone.

I slipped my left hand away from my gun hand and pawed at the wall to find the light switch. When the overhead bulb beamed to life, the same icy-cold fear that hammered my heart against my chest trickled down the length of my spine and pinned my feet to the floor. My mouth opened from underneath my bandana so I could draw in a large breath. I uttered a loud wheeze as a fresh carpet of gooseflesh spread across every inch of my body.

The walls were covered in a soft pink spongy film that reminded me of a woman’s birth canal. Mel and Ralph were lying motionless and naked on the bed, their big barrel chests rising and falling with each breath. Although their eyes were closed, they twitched underneath their lids as if they were having some hostile dream from which they couldn’t wake.

I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. A pair of large pink tubes were clamped onto the center of the two men’s stomachs and twitched. The tubes were connected to what appeared to be some sort of infusion set like a hospital IV set-up. The infusion tubes were connected to some sort of giant vulva-pink egg, streaked with red and blue veins that dangled from a tiny pink thread attached to the ceiling. Everything pulsated with the vitality of the life it was draining from the two men.

I thought back to the picture on the cell phone and compared the shape of the cocoon with the shape of the thing under the blanket.

Where had they found it?

Had it come up from the water?

Had it come—

The familiar rip of torn fabric cut me off in mid-thought. Something came from the other side of the room and caught the corner of my right eye.

A third long, pink tube slithered out from beneath the bed and traveled across the room like a snail, leaving a sticky lucid trail across the carpet. Then it curled back like a snake, whipped at the air and stretched across the room, its suction-cupped head flexing and unflexing like the gills of a fish. It seemed to be all three of those animals in one single entity.

I leaped back, clenched my pistol in both hands once again and collided with the staircase. The third pink tube gave a snake-like hiss that froze my heart. In my shock, I jerked my arms and my left elbow struck the middle stair, causing my weapon to discharge. A loud gunshot blasted across the boat.

The tube jerked itself back at the explosive boom of the gun. A small glass lantern fell from the edge of the windowsill and crashed onto the floor. The noise of broken glass filled the cabin, followed by a large whooshing sound.

A tongue of blue gas licked the floor and spread across the cabin in a wind-blown funnel of red-orange flames. The fire swallowed the hungry tube and sent it plopping onto the floor between the bed and the window in a long strand of crackling flames. Mel and Ralph were casualties of the fire. They remained in place, their bodies motionless and charred; a pocket of blue flame sputtered from the former’s left eye as another spewed out from between the latter’s inner thighs.

A fire on a boat is no joke. As thick ghosts of smoke rose up from the flames and filled my nostrils, I turned and ran up the stairs. I coughed, my chest burning like a bad case of acid reflux, and rolled across the cabin in case I caught on fire and didn’t yet know it.

My heart raced with fear as I clambered back upon my feet and ran out of the cabin. I leaped across the bow and back onto my patrol boat. I untied the tether and quickly made my way to the boat’s radio.

Before I contacted Patrick’s Bay, I inhaled large gulps of cool night air deep into my lungs and peered over my shoulder. A river of hot tears brimmed in the corners of my eyes and obscured my vision. Thick clouds of black smoke rose into the sweet salty air and dissipated in the breeze, filling my nostrils with the smell of burning wood.

Mel and Ralph had been my friends.

“Five-Two, Mayday. Come in, Patrick’s Bay. Come in, Mayday.”

“Patrick’s Bay Sheriff’s Department. What’s your emergency, Five-Two?”

“The Carp Diem’s on fire, Eleanor.”

“Copy, Five-Two. I’ll send The Protector immediately. Stand by.”

I hoped that The Protector, otherwise known as the Sheriff’s Fire Boat, would be too late. Whatever Mel and Ralph had discovered should never make it to shore.