More Stories from the Twilight Zone (47 page)

“Get leukemia and die!” Herbert shouted in a voice he'd never heard before.

Daisy flinched and crawled under the table. This was not the Herbert she'd known all her life. The pushover, the introvert, the
sad sack. Daisy watched him enter the garage from behind a fortress of chair legs, a soft whimper her only retort.

 

Herbert drove along Craftbury's shoreline, eyeing the ocean with a nostalgic sadness. Fishing boats dropping their lobster pots. Cruisers and day sailers dotted the blue water. He passed Craftbury's famous marina, with its million-dollar yachts and catamarans. Herbert imagined that his cherished old sloop was out there somewhere.

With someone else enjoying it.

 

Midmorning and the parking lot at Stop & Shop was half-full. Mainly housewives and old ladies. Herbert parked near the front entrance of the grocery store. Inside his jacket pocket he massaged the leather pouch with one hand, walking in a kind of daze through the automatic door to be greeted by bright lights and fresh produce. Herbert never thought for an instant that his behavior was strange. He was enjoying whatever trance or spell
Agwe
had over him. And Dahntay's odd prediction so long ago on that dark beach came back to him like a lost radio transmission.

Take it, sailor mon. One day you might wake up and have a need for
Agwe.
The ocean always giveth. And the ocean always taketh away. That, sailor mon, is the essence of
Agwe.

Taketh away? Herbert liked the sound of that.

He headed for the seafood department.

 

A young kid asked Herbert if he needed any help.

“Just browsing,” Herb said.

The kid shrugged his shoulders and returned his attention to a clipboard. Seemed he had a floor to hose down next. Most of the store's seafood selection was displayed behind glass, but there was plenty of dead shellfish iced down in barrels and trays. Herb
studied a bushel of crawfish, some snow crab clusters, whole steelhead trout in a bed of ice.

Glancing around, Herbert removed Dahntay's pouch, untied it. Just a pinch of dust. No one was watching, except for the security cameras, but the guard usually watching the monitors was busier checking out the new teenage girl at the register in lane five.

Herbert sprinkled
Agwe
over the crawfish and snow crab, got a second pinchful, and powdered the steelhead trout. Then he waited. And waited. The kid turned around and eyed Herb curiously. He pretended to be really interested in a tray of Maine mussels.

Then the snow crab began to twitch.

 

Herbert heard a soft
plop
and realized the clerk's chewing gum had fallen out of his mouth, landed on the display window. The other
plop
was one of the whole trout flopping off the ice tray and landing on the floor. Its reanimated brethren followed. Soon five whole fish were flopping away from the seafood department. Not the panicked death-rattle spasms of a fish out of water. The trout advanced earnestly, an eerie intelligence to their bouncing, hopping movements. After all, they didn't
need
water anymore.

A woman screamed. Then he heard the kid speak.

“Mistah, them crab legs are moovin'.”

Herbert tucked the leather pouch back in his pocket and backed away, right into a display full of tortilla chips and salsa. He turned, an icy panic gripping him, and double-timed it down the nearest aisle. By then the chorus of screams had gained in volume. Old ladies shrieked, a man jumped over the pharmacy counter to safety. Children cried. Customers in the checkout lanes curiously craned their necks, mesmerized by the sound of breaking glass and manic shouting.

Herbert passed an end-cap full of batteries. The front door was in sight. The security guard almost knocked him down on his way up aisle seven, his gun drawn, his face twisted with fear.

An awful alien
hiss
filled the grocery store. Herb broke into a run at the sight of five dozen crawfish scurrying down the aisle in pursuit. Like demonic field mice, they overtook the security guard. An old woman with a purse full of coupons was next. A stock boy swatted at the crawfish with a broom. They made a terrible shriek.

On his way out Herbert heard gunshots.

 

Craftbury was so close to the state line Herbert could throw a rock from his beachfront yard and hit Rhode Island. And that's where Herb found himself, cruising along the coast road toward Madangasset and its world-famous fish market. It was midday. The events inside Stop & Shop, unnerving and fantastic as they were, simply drove Herb farther down the rabbit hole. He was on a mission.

And he needed supplies.

The twenty thousand square foot fish market was located on Madangasset Beach, a tony resort popular with the uppity hedge-funders of Litchfield and Greenwich Counties, along with the usual millionaire mummies who trickled down from Boston every summer to bake their flesh and drink martinis. Herbert found a parking spot between two Range Rovers. He had to call the credit card company to find out his available balance. There once was a time when he didn't even look at price tags.

The market was cool and smelly. Herbert pushed a cart past beds of ice. Aproned fishmongers worked the chains and slabs behind the glass displays of seafood. Herbert methodically explored every department, assessing the merchandise like a builder shopping for plywood and nails and paint.

Blue crab, alaskan King crab legs, jumbo prawns, crawfish, sea
scallops, rainbow trout, mackerel, red snapper, haddock, whole squid, lobster, razor clams, shrimp cocktails. Herbert selected all his purchases with an eye for design and functionality.

Each seafood piece had to serve a purpose.

 

Iris arrived home from work as expected, doing her usual entrance accented by slamming doors and cupboards, Daisy the dog woofing its way around the kitchen until Herbert appeared. But Herbert knew tonight would be different.

He couldn't wait for Daisy to go into the living room.

Where he'd done some rearranging.

Herbert quietly opened the door that led up from the basement to the kitchen. Iris didn't hear him. Sacks of groceries were scattered along the counters. His wife had a pot boiling already. Herb turned to his right and saw Daisy frozen at the threshold as she studied what he'd done in the living room.

“HERBERT! Come help me with dinner! I am TOO TIRED TONIGHT! Did you hear the news today? People went crazy at the Craftbury Stop and Shop! I had to drive all the way to Stonington. HERBERT!” Iris yelled over her shoulder.

“I'm right here,” Herbert whispered.

“Oh,” Iris said, turning around. “What's the matter with you?”

“I was ill today. I called in sick at work. But I'm all better now.”

“You're
sure
of that? Well, what did you do today? Sit around smoking cigars and reading old magazines? That's some life, Herbert. And what's that awful smell?”

Iris looked to Daisy, the dog mysteriously rigid in the doorway. “Sweetie? Whatcha lookin' at?”

The retriever took several cautious steps into the living room. By then whatever was in there began to make that terrible alien
hiss
that had frightened Herb so much in the grocery store. A pleasant chill pebbled his flesh.

“I did some shopping, dear,” Herb said. “I bought a new couch.”

Iris suddenly jumped at the sound of Daisy growling ominously. The hiss in the living room had grown to a crescendo. Iris ran. Herbert didn't try to stop her.

When she saw the couch, Iris shrieked. She turned to run but Herbert blocked the doorway. In his hand was a leather pouch, empty of all its magical contents. Iris reached out, her face taut with fear, just as Daisy the retriever leapt toward the now-moving couch.

But what ate the dog was no piece of furniture. What had been a wicker loveseat was now an undulating mass of scallops and salmon, with lobster claw armrests and a headrest made from crab legs, with beady black crawfish eyes peering out from the unmistakable impression of a face Herb was proud to have made. Mackerel cushions and an oyster-covered back wiggled and wormed as prawns and shrimp plopped and hopped toward the slobbering retriever.

Daisy foolishly launched herself against the beast, Iris screaming in protest. The squid tentacles Herbert used as trim along the lower frame of the couch snatched the dog. By then the crawfish and razor clams had worked their way through the dog's coat. The squid tentacles pulled Daisy's body toward the couch in a slurping, schlupping din of pure hunger.

The crab legs danced back and forth, black eyes glittering in ecstasy. Their little claws snipped and snapped in unison. As if to signal that the couch was happy with its meal.

And it wanted more.

Daisy was disappearing, a matted gooey mess of fur as the lobsters and prawns and fish heads sucked and slurped at the retriever. Iris vomited in a wastebasket. She felt Herbert's hands close on her arms.

“Herbert! No! NO! NO!”

“Come, dear. Let's sit for a spell.”

With a powerful shove from Herb, Iris tripped and fell into the waiting claws of the couch. The squid tentacles roped around her neck and pulled her toward a welcoming committee of blue crabs and dozens of pinchers. Catfish faces under the armrests smiled and licked their whiskers in anticipation. The prawns and shrimp scurried around her like cockroaches. Oysters clapped a percussive voodoo beat as Iris was consumed in seven wet and awkward gulps.

 

Herbert had to open the door to let the couch out.

Thank God it was dark. Couldn't imagine a neighbor seeing his inspired creation. He followed the undulating mass of reanimated seafood as it squished its way down the beach. He waved good-bye as the couch disappeared hissing and belching into the waves.

“An offering for you,
Agwe
,” Herbert said.

He admired the full moon. The tide. He smiled at the slimy trail the couch had left through the sand.

“The dog was extra.”

 

And the ocean giveth. And the ocean taketh away
.

Dahntay's words from so many years ago crept once more into Herbert's dreams. He dreamed he was on his sloop, the sun at his back, sailing through calm waters. A course set for the Antilles. On the foredeck Herbert gazed at the horizon. He'd never been happier.

And while Herbert slept peacefully, some crab legs worked together to form a bridge up the staircase of his house. Crawfish pushed as two giant Maine lobsters mounted the carpeted steps. On the first floor red snapper and bay scallops had formed ranks like an infantry awaiting marching orders. And in ways
only sea creatures could understand, instructions were passed along.

A whisper in the darkness. A hiss. A slurp.

“It's the second bedroom on the right.”

 

 

Desperation is a powerful emotion . . . one that can often lead to madness. Yet for one crucial interval as he stared at the moonlit waters of Block Island Sound, Herbert Menkel relished the mysterious beauty of the ocean. For some men find great comfort on the open sea. But in those dark depths was a magical force Herbert could never understand. The ocean giveth, and the ocean taketh away . . . only in the Twilight Zone.

 

Joe is, well, a middle-class racketeer running a middle-rank Mafia franchise operation. He wouldn't even call himself a good man, but he's not the worst of men either, now is he? Okay, so he's a gangster, but he's never killed anyone in the course of doing business, and he's never put out a contract.

But then, he's never had to.

Not yet.

Would he if he had to?

Joe doesn't know and he doesn't want to find out.

But he will.

Or has he already?

Perchance in dreams?

Because when the wicked flee where no man pursueth, they're likely to find themselves somewhere and somewhen where the past can become the future and the future can become the past—a somewhere and somewhen known as the Twilight Zone. . . .