Sea Creature (4 page)

Patrick was lying in bed, a bottle of beer in his hand, listening to a Mozart concerto on the radio. His shirt was off and sweat glistened on his chest. Christopher sat in a chair near the bed and waited until the piece was over before speaking.

“Where were you at dinner?” Christopher said.

“Didn’t feel like coming.”

“Patty, I set up that dinner so you could meet Maria.”

“I didn’t really want to meet her.”

“You need to find somebody. You’re bouncing from one chick to the next and I see it taking a toll on you. Don’t you want the white picket fence and the kids and the dog and all that shit?”

“Kids? What if I turned out like my father, Chris? They say you become the parent your parents were.”

“You’re nothing like him. Believe me.” Christopher went and got a beer out of the mini-fridge and sat back down. He popped it open, guzzled half of it, and let out a wet burp. “Speaking of his highness, I just spoke to him.”

“What for?”

“Our credit card was declined at dinner. I can’t tell you how fucking embarrassing it was to have Maria and her friend have to pay for their own meals cause I didn’t have enough cash.”

“That’s terrible. What’d he do, cancel it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s his power over me and . . .” They glanced to each other and Patrick looked down, absently tearing at the label on his beer. “That was his power over me and Andrew. His money. I think without it he wouldn’t be able to survive.”

“Well we can relate cause without it we’re not going to survive. They’ve been running the card here every week and when it declines this week they’re gonna throw us out. Unless there’s more fights in you we can bet on, we need to go home.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Chris. But you should get back before he gets pissed and thinks I’m stealing you away.”

“A little late; he already fired me.”

“He’s fired you before.”

“I know and I’m sick of it.” He walked over and lay down on the bed next to him. “This is our chance, Patty. More important, this is my chance. I’ve been researching this the past couple days. Everybody I’ve talked to thinks this thing in the ocean is a giant squid. There wasn’t a single fisherman that even suggested anything else.”

“I know.”

“No one’s even seen a giant squid before. There’s some like blurry National Geographic photos and that’s it. They don’t even know how big they can get. Some people think they can get as big as two to three hundred feet near the bottom of the ocean. That’d be the biggest animal on earth.”

“So what?”

“So wh . . . are you kidding? Could you imagine if we caught or killed this thing?”

“No one would care. It would be all over the internet for a while and then disappear.”

“Maybe, but that’s why I made some calls.”

“To who?”

“Hear me out before you say no,” Christopher said.

“Whenever you say that I’ve learned to say no.”

“There’s this guy whose blog I found. Taylor Hamilton. You ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“He’s like some oil billionaire. Obsessed with these things. I emailed him and then we talked yesterday.”

“And?”

“And he wants in.”

“In on what, Chris? We’re not doing anything.”

“I was really vague about where we were and all that. He says if we bring him in and share the credit, he’ll fund everything. And we’ll get just as much press. He says if we can capture one it’s a guaranteed book deal, maybe even a movie.”

“Not interested.”

Christopher mumbled something about pigheadedness and then got up to leave. He turned before leaving and said, “You and I both know your father controls you through his money. You’re going to need a lot of money for your life and you got no way to get it. This is your chance to get out from under him. Or you can fly back and beg his forgiveness and hope he gives you a job at the company. Your choice.”

Vanessa Kolkowski sat in a deck chair on the yacht and sipped a martini. The party had been going for over three hours and everyone was getting trashed. Her mother—who had forced her to come to this company retreat—was taking tequila shots with her boss, Anderson.

Anderson had a belly and was balding with fat white forearms that made Vanessa sick. He was nothing compared to her father and she didn’t understand how her mother could go from a man like him to Anderson. The divorce only went through two months ago; maybe she was on the rebound?

“Hi,” a man said as he came and sat next to her. He was older by at least twenty years and Vanessa had seen him with his wife earlier; before she grew sea-sick and went to lie down in a cabin.

“Hi,” she said, looking in the opposite direction.

“So I haven’t seen you before. Don’t tell me; you’re with accounting? Cause I know everybody and I don’t know you. I never get down to accounting.”

“No, my mom works for the company.”

“Oh yeah? Who’s your mom?”

“Pam Kolkowski.”

“Pam’s your mom?” The man looked over to Pam. “Oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“She your boss or something?”

“Well, not exactly. She’s . . . I mean. Yeah, yeah she’s my boss.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell her you were hitting on me. I won’t tell your wife either.”

The man thought for a while and then stood up without a word and walked away. It put a smile on Vanessa’s face. Men had been paying attention to her from an early age, far younger than she could remember. Her mother had gotten her into modeling and she was used to having all eyes on her. But sometimes it depressed her. Men that barely knew her would tell her they would leave wives and children they had been with for years for her. She didn’t intend on getting married for that reason; men just couldn’t be trusted.

She finished her drink and stood up. Looking around the deck at the employees mingling with management and kissing their asses made her nauseated. That was one thing her mother did give her through her modeling: freedom from a boss. Photographers could sometimes be just as demanding but her agent could deal with them if they got out of hand.

Vanessa walked over to her mother. Her face was flushed from the alcohol and Vanessa could tell she would be too drunk to drive back to the hotel when they got to shore.

“I’m going to bed,” Vanessa said.

“Already? Stay and have some fun.”

“I’m really tired. I’m just going to go to sleep.”

Anderson, after staring at her boobs the whole time, said, “My cabin’s below deck and there shouldn’t be anyone there. You could use that.”

“Thanks.”

She walked off and glanced back once to see her mom running her tongue along Anderson’s fat lips.

Vanessa found some steps leading below deck. She was in high heels and had to grip the railing on either side to keep her balance but she made it down and walked through a narrow corridor. She passed a bathroom, a closet, a small office, and then came to a door at the end marked, “ANDERSON J. ORRO: CAPTAIN AND FIRST MATE.”

What a douchebag
.

Inside was as plush as any yacht she had ever been on. There were nice rugs on the floor and all the wood was a dark antique-looking brown. There were spirits in nice glass bottles at a bar and the couch was black leather and circled the room, a flat-screen taking up most of one of the walls.

The bed had leopard print sheets and there was a package of unused condoms laid on the nightstand.

She went to the bar and smelled what was in the various bottles. She found a bottle of vodka and a can of orange juice in a fridge and made a screwdriver with ice. She sat on the bed and drank and tried to see if her cell phone was picking up reception yet.

It wasn’t and she put it in her pocket and lay down on the bed. A tiny window was open above her and she listened to the party for a while before dozing, and going to sleep.

*****

Vanessa felt tickling on her leg. Still half-asleep, she moved her legs, thinking it was some of the hundreds of bugs that were always around in Chile. The tickling didn’t stop and it began to move up her leg to her thigh and then her hips.

She awoke to see Anderson’s fat face above her. His hands were caressing her hips and trying to get her shorts off. He stunk of liquor and sweat.

“Get off of me, now.”

“Oh come on, don’t be such a prude. I saw you looking at me earlier.”

“Anderson, get off me or I’ll scream.”

He grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head, kissing her neck. She struggled and brought her legs up enough that his body wasn’t pressed against hers and she tried to bite his face which only made him laugh.

“You like it rough?” he said. “I can do rough.”

She screamed.

It wasn’t from Anderson or his stinking body or the fact that if he did rape her her mother would probably take his side. Out of the periphery of her vision, she saw something coming through the window.

It was white and slick with what looked like circles on it. It was as thick as a tree trunk but seemed to shrink to get through the window. The tip slithered down to the floor, running over the rugs and up a table.

“Just relax,” he said, “and you might enjoy it. Like I told your mom; I get what I want.”

The thing seemed to hear his voice and crawled along the floor and up the bed. She screamed and fought and yelled and tried to pull away but he held her there as the thing climbed up onto the bed. It went over Anderson’s back and he smiled, thinking it to be her.

The thing clamped down onto the fatty flesh of his back, sending a massive spatter of blood over the bed, the walls, and the ceiling. Anderson screamed as he was lifted into the air. The flesh ripped and he fell hard to the floor. He tried to get up and run out of the room but the thing moved as quickly as a snake and wrapped around his waist. It began to drag him near the window and the more he fought the tighter it wrapped itself around him.

The thing crushed his midsection to the size of a watermelon. Blood was spewing from his eyes and ears and mouth and nose. He was pounding at it with his fist as Vanessa crawled underneath the bed.

The thing brought him to the window. It was an undersized window, no more than a foot high, and it pulled Anderson through screaming, his bones crunching and his ligaments and tendons tearing as his legs folded behind his head and flesh scraped from his body as he was hauled through the miniature opening.

Vanessa was shaking so badly she couldn’t stop. She put her hands underneath her to try and stop them and looked up to the window, praying that it wouldn’t come back as tears streamed down her face. She looked to the door. It wasn’t more than ten feet away. Slowly, she made her way out from underneath the bed.

She ran for the door and heard something behind her but she didn’t stop. The door was locked and she unlocked the bottom one but the top one needed a key. She pounded it with her hands and screamed, “Help me!”

Then, there was only pain.

*****

Pamela Kolkowski danced to a Lionel Richie song with some guy from IT she didn’t know and then went back to the wet bar and ordered a sex on the beach. She guzzled it and ordered another. These company retreats were the best part of her job. Everyone wanted to get drunk and get laid and most of the men didn’t bring their wives.

It had been her idea to choose Chile as this year’s location and she didn’t regret it. She and Anderson had gone on safari yesterday and stopped the jeep, laying out a blanket and having sex not a hundred feet from a tourist bus showing a group of at least twenty the sights. It was an experience she wouldn’t forget.

She looked around and wondered where Anderson was. Then she remembered how he’d offered for Vanessa to go down to his own cabin . . .

Son of a bitch
.

This had happened a lot since she had been separated from her husband. She would meet a man and the man would be attracted to Vanessa and, though Pamela would know about it, she would wait to see if something overt happened. Then she would lose the man and have to find another.

She knew right when she gave him a blow job in the office that first time that dating your boss was not a good idea. How was she supposed to dump Anderson if he was trying to fuck her daughter?

She stormed down the corridor, checking every door. She got to the last one and it was locked. But she knew where the master keys were. Pamela ran up to the upper deck and got the set that Anderson kept there and then ran back down and unlocked the door.

The cabin looked like the inside of a slaughterhouse. Bits of torn flesh lay on the floor and was stuck to the walls; blood coated the entire room like paint. There was something laying underneath a window and she could make out what it was: a severed arm, with pink nail-polish on the nails. Her daughter’s favorite color.

It was nearly dark when Patrick left the beach and walked back into the city. A day of surfing and windsailing and sipping margaritas and beers had relaxed him and eased the heavy gray feeling he had in his guts. He missed Andrew. Many times, they were all they had.

He would call Andrew from whatever location in the world he happened to be and they would talk about Andrew’s schooling, the girls he was dating, the problems he was having with his father and how he would run the company differently. They rarely spoke of Patrick’s life, Andrew having learned that it was a topic he would quickly change.

After his time in Iraq, he didn’t want to talk about himself anymore.

Many tourists were out now on patios and in bars, enjoying the company of women being pimped by local drug lords. There was one in particular that Patrick had heard of long ago. It was difficult to find any information on him other than gossip as many of the locals believed he was in contact with evil spirits and may hear their conversations. But Patrick had picked up bits and pieces.

He was a murderer with every policeman and politician in the city on his payroll. He was also a sadist and many had told Patrick in late night drunken conversations that the man had killed more people than anyone else in this country’s history. He would purchase prostitutes for a night and then they would never be heard from again. Some people said he used them for blood magic to speak with the devil. Some said the man was the mayor, or the governor of the province.