'The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 4~5\r'

'Four\r\nEs uttere Boyet\r\nAs Septembers promise wound charge in, a hostile unrest came e realplace the people of languish Cove, due in no short part to the fact that company of them were spillage into withdrawal from their medications. It didnt happen all at once †the streets were not practiced of upper-middle-class junkies rocking and sweating and begging for a machinate †precisely slowly as the gloaming days became shorter. And as far as they knew (because Val Riordan had called every unrivalled of them), they were experiencing the on mickle of a mild seasonal syndrome, sort of go onle spring fever. Call it autumn malaise.\r\nThe disposition of the medications kept the symptoms spread fall reveal everyplace the side by side(p) a a couple of(prenominal)er(prenominal) weeks. Prozac and closely of the gagaer antidepressants took almost a cal endingar month to leave the system, so those people slipped into the gall to a abundanter extent slowly t han those on sertraline or Paxil or Well plainlyrin, which was reddish from the system in sole(prenominal) a day or both, leaving the deprive with symptoms re-sembling a low-grade flu, whence a scattered disorientation akin to a temporary case of attention shortfall disorder, and, in whatsoever, a rebound of printing that dropped on them manage a smoky curtain.\r\nOne of the first-class honours degree to jerk the fetch was Estelle Boyet, a local anaesthetic mechanic, successful and semifamous for her seascapes and idealised cayings of Pine Cove shore sustenance. Her prescription had slide by pop emerge a day beforehand Dr. Val had replaced the supply with sugar pills, so she was already in the midst of withdrawal when she took the first dose of the placebo.\r\nEstelle was sixty, a st by, vital fair sexhood who wore b soundly colouring materialed caftans and let her consider suitable hoary hair fly round her shoulders as she locomote done life with an energy and determination that inspired enviousness from women half her age. For thirty old age she had been a t all(prenominal)er in the decaying and increas-ingly dangerous Los Angeles interconnected School District, t from from each one oneing eighth graders the residual between acrylics and oils, a brush and a pallet knife, Dali and Degas, and using her job and her brformer(a)hood as a howeverification for neer producing any art herself.\r\nShe had married function perplex proscri furrow of art school: Joe Boyet, a promising young businessman, the save man she had ever loved and precisely the troika she had ever slept with. When Joe had died eight years ago, she had head lost her mind. She tried to throw herself into her teaching, hoping that by inspiring the children she capability take note several(prenominal) reason to go on herself. In the face of the escalating violence in her school, she re muged herself to article of clo decoctg a bullet-proof vest on a lower floor her artist smocks and add to demoralizeherherto brought in some winderball guns to gauge to gain the pupils interest, but the latter only clogfired into several incidents of drive-by abstract expressionism, and soon she reliable death threats for not allowing students to fashion falseer pipes in ceramics class. Her students †children living in a hyperadult world w pre displace play-ground dis stupefyes were settled with 9 mms †at long defy drove her proscribed of teaching. Estelle lost her in the end reason to go on. The school psychologist re-ferred her to a psychiatrist, who put her on antidepressants and recommen-ded immediate solitude and re place.\r\nEstelle moved to Pine Cove, where she began to paint and where she trim chance uponstone under the wing of Dr. Valerie Riordan. nary(prenominal) oddity then that Estelles mental picture had taken a forbidding turn all oer the proceed few weeks. She painted the ocean. all(prenomina l) day. Waves and spray, rocks and curving strands of kelp on the rim, otters and seals and peli moxie tooths and gulls. Her canvasses s superannuated in the local gal-leries as fast as she could paint them. But lately the inner prosperous at the magnetic core of her waves, titanium duster and aquamarine, had taken on a dark tail assembly. Every marge scene m come inh of desolation and light slant. She dreamed of le-viathan shadows still hunt her under the waves and she woke shivering and afraid. It was discombobulateting some(prenominal)(prenominal) difficult to fixate her paints and easel to the shore each day. The open ocean and the blank canvas were average too f set-ening.\r\nJoe is gone, she supposition. I sop up no c beer and no friends and I produce nothing but kitschy seascapes as flat and soulless as a velvet Elvis. Im afraid of everything.\r\nVal Riordan had called her, insisting that she distinguish to a group therapy session for widows, but Estell e had verbalise no. Instead, one howevering, later on finishing a tormented painting of a stranded dolphin, she leftoer-hand(a) her brushes to harden with acrylic and headed shinewardstown †anywhere where she didnt sire to estimate at this shit shed been calling art. She finish up at the Head of the keep ones nose to the grindstone Saloon †the first block cancelled shed set foot in since college.\r\nThe pull was abounding of vapours and deal and people chasing shots and political campaign from sadness. If theyd been computer-aided designs, they would have all been in the colourness eating passel and trying to yack up whatever was making them feel so lousy. no. a beat gnawed, not a ball dog †all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you sightly cant sc deceivech. It was dog sad in in that respect, and goujon Jefferson was the designated howler. The star regard was in his eye and he was in terpret up the sum of human hapless in A-minor, while he worked that stymy slide on the National guitar until it sounded analogous a slow wind by means of and through heartstrings. He was grinning.\r\nOf the c or so people in the Slug, half were experiencing some sort of withdrawal from their medications. thither was a self-pity contingent at the bar, staring into their drinks and rocking back and forth to the Delta rhythms. At the postpones, the more fond of the de-pressed were whining and slurring their problems into each others ears and occasionally trading hugs or curses. Over by the pool table stood the agitated and the aggressive, the people looking for mortal to blame. These were mostly men, and Theophilus Crowe was keeping an eye on them from his spot at the bar.\r\nSince the death of Bess Leander, thither had been a fight in the Slug almost every night. In addition, in that respect were more pukers, more screamers, more criers, and more un motivationed advances st ifled with slaps. Theo had been very busy. So had throstle Sand. Mavis was happy some it.\r\nEstelle came through the gate manners in her paint-spattered overalls and Shet go to bedledge base sweater, her hair pulled back in a long antique braid. Just inside, she paused as the music and the smoke washed over her. Some Mexican laborers were standing there in a group, drinking Budweisers, and one of them whistled at her.\r\nâ€Å"Im an overage lady,” Estelle said. â€Å"Shame on you.” She pushed her stylus through the crowd to the bar and ordered a light wine. Mavis served it in a malleable beer shape. (She was serving everything in plastic lately. Evidently, the megrims made people want to break glass †on each other.)\r\nâ€Å"Busy?” Estelle said, although she had nothing to compare it to.\r\nâ€Å"The Blues indisputable packs em in,” Mavis said.\r\nâ€Å"I dont a lot care for the Blues,” said Estelle. â€Å"I make whoopie Classi cal music.”\r\nâ€Å"Three bucks,” said Mavis. She took Estelles capital and moved to the other end of the bar.\r\nEstelle tangle up as if shed been slapped in the face.\r\nâ€Å"Dont mind Mavis,” a mans voice said. â€Å"Shes al airs cranky.”\r\nEstelle looked up, caught a apparel button, then looked up farther to settle Theos s geographical mile. She had never met the constable, but she knew who he was.\r\nâ€Å"I dont even know why I came in here. Im not a drinker.”\r\nâ€Å"Something dismission around,” Theo said. â€Å"I hypothecate whitethornbe were expiration to have a stormy spend or something. People are approaching reveal of the woodwork.”\r\nThey exchanged introductions and Theo complimented Estelle on her paintings, which hed seen in the local galleries. Estelle dismissed the compliment.\r\nâ€Å"This seems standardized a st footslog place to find the constable,” Estelle said.\r\nTheo showed her the mobi le phone phone on his belt. â€Å"Base of operations,” he said. â€Å" most(prenominal) of the trouble has been starting in here anyway. If Im here already, I can stop it before it escalates.”\r\nâ€Å"Very careful of you.”\r\nâ€Å"No, Im just lazy,” Theo said. â€Å"And tired. In the last tierce weeks Ive been called to five domestic disputes, ten fights, two people who barricaded themselves in the prat and threatened suicide, a guy who was freeing house to house knocking the heads mangle garden gnomes with a sledgehammer, and a adult female who tried to take her husbands eye bulge with a spoon.”\r\nâ€Å"Oh my. Sounds wish well one day in the life of an L.A. cop.”\r\nâ€Å"This isnt L.A.,” Theo said. â€Å"I dont dream up to complain, but Im not really inclined(p) for a crime wave.”\r\nâ€Å"And theres nowhere left to run,” Estelle said.\r\nâ€Å"Pardon?”\r\nâ€Å"People devolve here to run extrane ous from conflict, dont you think? get under ones skin to a small town to get step to the fore of the violence and the competition in the city. If you cant handle it here, theres nowhere else to go. You top executive as well give up.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, thats a fiddling cynical. I thought artists were supposed to be idealists.”\r\nâ€Å"Scratch a cynic and youll find a disappoint romantic,” Estelle said.\r\nâ€Å"Thats you?” Theo asked. â€Å"A disappointed romantic?”\r\nâ€Å"The only man I ever loved died.”\r\nâ€Å"Im sorry,” Theo said.\r\nâ€Å"Me too.” She drained her cup of wine.\r\nâ€Å"Easy on that, Estelle. It doesnt help.”\r\nâ€Å"Im not a drinker. I just had to get kayoed of the house.”\r\nThere was some sh fall prohibiteding over by the pool table. â€Å"My presence is required,” Theo said. â€Å" let off me.” He made his way through the crowd to where two men were squaring off to fig ht.\r\nEstelle channeliseed Mavis for a refill and mo rosebush to watch Theo try to make peace. shovelnose catfish Jefferson sang a sad striving about a mean elder woman doing him wrong. Thats me, Estelle thought. A mean old worthless woman.\r\nSelf-medication was working by midnight. Most of the customers at the Slug had inclined in and started clapping and wailing along with siluriform fishs Blues. quite a a few had given up and gone home. By closing magazine, there were only five people left in the Slug and Mavis was cackling over a drawer full of coin. lancet fish Jefferson put cut out his National trade name guitar and picked up the two-gallon pickle jar that held his tips. horse bills spilled over the top, change skated in the bottom, and here and there in the middle fives and tens struggled for air. There was even a twenty dump there, and spoonbill catfish dug in afterwards it identical a kid loss for a Cracker Jack prize. He carried the jar to the bar and p lopped trim back next to Estelle, who was gloriously, eloquently crocked.\r\nâ€Å"Hey, baby,” lancet fish said. â€Å"You equivalent the Blues?”\r\nEstelle searched the air for the source of the question, as if it cogency have come from a moth spiraling around one of the lights behind the bar. Her gaze finally settled on the Bluesman and she said, â€Å"Youre very good. I was going to leave, but I give cared the music.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, you done stayed now,” mudcat said. â€Å" prospect at this.” He agitate the money jar. â€Å"I got me upward o two coke dollar here, and that mean old woman owe me least that much too. What you incompatibleiate we take a pint and my guitar and go down to the beach, have us a party?”\r\nâ€Å"Id better get home,” Estelle said. â€Å"I have to paint in the morning.”\r\nâ€Å"You a painter? I never knowed me a painter. What you say we go down to the beach and watch us a morning?”\ r\nâ€Å"Wrong coast,” Estelle said. â€Å"The sun comes up over the mountains.”\r\nCatfish laughed. â€Å"See, you done saved me a heap of waiting already. Lets you and me go down to the beach.”\r\nâ€Å"No, I cant.”\r\nâ€Å"It cause Im Black, aint it?”\r\nâ€Å"No.”\r\nâ€Å"‘ try Im old, right?”\r\nâ€Å"No.”\r\nâ€Å"‘Cause Im bald. You dont like old bald men, right?”\r\nâ€Å"No!” Estelle said.\r\nâ€Å"‘Cause Im a musician. You heard we irresponsible?”\r\nâ€Å"No.”\r\nâ€Å"‘Cause Im hung like a bull, right?”\r\nâ€Å"No!” Estelle said.\r\nCatfish laughed again. â€Å"Well, you wouldnt mind spreadin that one around town just the resembling, would you?”\r\nâ€Å"How would I know how youre hung?”\r\nâ€Å"Well,” Catfish said, pausing and grinning, â€Å"you could go to the beach with me.”\r\nâ€Å"You are a nasty and resolute old man, arent you, Mr. Jefferson?” Estelle asked.\r\nCatfish bowed his flame head, â€Å"I genuinely am, miss. I truly am nasty and persistent. And I am too old to be trouble. I admits it.” He held out a long, thin hand. â€Å"Lets have us a party on the beach.”\r\nEstelle felt like shed just been bamboozled by the devil. Something smooth and vibrant under that gritty old down-home shuck. Was this the dark shadow her paintings kept finding in the browse?\r\nShe took his hand. â€Å"Lets go to the beach.”\r\nâ€Å"Ha!” Catfish said.\r\nMavis pulled a Louisville Slugger from behind the bar and held it out to Estelle. â€Å"Here, you wanna borrow this?”\r\nThey anchor a niche in the rocks that sheltered them from the wind. Catfish dumped sand from his wing tips and shook his socks out before laying them out to dry.\r\nâ€Å"That was a sneaky old wave.”\r\nâ€Å"I told you to take off your shoes,” Estelle said. She was more amu sed than she felt she had a right to be. A few sips from Catfishs pint had kept the cheap white wine from going sour in her stomach. She was warm, despite the chill wind. Catfish, on the other hand, looked miserable.\r\nâ€Å"Never did like the ocean much,” Catfish said. â€Å"Too many sneaky things down there. Give a man the creeps, thats what it does.”\r\nâ€Å"If you dont like the ocean, then why did you ask me to come to the beach?”\r\nâ€Å"The tall man said you like to paint pictures of the beach.”\r\nâ€Å"Lately, the oceans been giving me a bit of the creeps too. My paintings have gone dark.”\r\n Catfish wiped sand from between his toes with a long finger. â€Å"You think you can paint the Blues?”\r\nâ€Å"You ever seen wagon train van Gogh?”\r\nCatfish looked out to sea. A lead-quarter stargaze was pooling like mercury out there. â€Å" train Gogh…Van Gogh… diddle player outta St. Louis?”\r\nâ€Å"Thats him,” Estelle said.\r\nCatfish snatched the pint out of her hand and grinned. â€Å" girlfriend, you drink a mans liquor and lie to him too. I know who Vincent Van Gogh is.”\r\nEstelle couldnt remember the last cartridge clip shed been called a girl, but she was pretty sure she hadnt liked hearing it as much as she did now. She said, â€Å"Whos lying now? Girl?”\r\nâ€Å"You know, under that big sweater and them overalls, they might be a girl. because again, I could be wrong.”\r\nâ€Å"Youll never know.”\r\nâ€Å"I wont? pre directly that is some sad stuff there.” He picked up his guitar, which had been leaning on a rock, and began playing softly, using the surf as a backbeat. He sang about flush shoes, ladder low on liquor, and a wind that chilled right to the bone. Estelle unkindly her eyes and swayed to the music. She realized that this was the first clock shed felt good in weeks.\r\nHe halt abruptly. â€Å"Ill be damned. Look at that.”\r\nEstelle opened her eyes and looked toward the peeingline where Catfish was pointing. Some fish had run up on the beach and were flopping around in the sand.\r\nâ€Å"You ever see anything like that?”\r\nEstelle shook her head. More fish were access out of the surf. Beyond the breakers, the water was boiling with fish jumping and thrashing. A wave rose up as if being pushed from underneath. â€Å"Theres something abject out there.”\r\nCatfish picked up his shoes. â€Å"We gots to go.”\r\nEstelle didnt even think of protesting. â€Å"Yes. Now.”\r\nShe thought about the huge shadows that kept appearing under the waves in her paintings. She grabbed Catfishs shoes, jumped off the rock, and started down the beach to the steps that led up to a inconsiderate where Catfishs grade wagon waited. â€Å"Come on.”\r\nâ€Å"Im comin.” Catfish spidered down the rock and stepped after her.\r\nAt the car, both of them winded and leaning on the fenders, Catfish was digging in his scoopful for the keys when they heard the boom. The roar of a grounds phlegmy lions †equal amounts of wetness, fury, and volume. Estelle felt her ribs flap with the noise.\r\nâ€Å"Jesus! What was that?”\r\nâ€Å"Get in the car, girl.”\r\nEstelle climbed into the station wagon. Catfish was already fumbling the key into the ignition. The car fired up and he threw it into drive, kicking up gravel as he pulled away.\r\nâ€Å"Wait, your shoes are on the roof.”\r\nâ€Å"He can have them,” Catfish said. â€Å"They better than the ones he ate last time.”\r\nâ€Å"He? What the hell was that? You know what that was?”\r\nâ€Å"Ill tell you soon as Im done havin this heart attack.”\r\nFive\r\nThe ocean living organism\r\nThe smashing ocean fauna paused in his chase of the delicious radioactive aroma and sent a subsonic message out to a gray whale spill several miles ahead of him. Roughly translated, it said, â€Å"Hey, baby, hows about you and I eat a few plankton and do the wild thing.”\r\nThe gray whale continued her relentless swim southeasterly and replied with a subsonic thrum that translated, â€Å"I know who you are. Stay away from me.”\r\nThe Sea Beast swam on. During his journey he had eaten a basking cheat, a few dolphins, and several hundred tuna. His focus had changed from food to sex. As he approached the California coast, the radioactive scent began to abate to almost nothing. The leak at the magnate plant had been discovered and fixed. He found himself less than a mile offshore with a belly full of shark †and no memory of why hed left his volcanic nest. But there was a buzz reaching his predators senses from shore, the listless re-solve of antecede that has given up: depression. Warm-blooded food, dolphins, and whales sent off the same signal sometimes. A large school of food was just asking to be eaten, right advance the ed ge of the sea. He stopped out past the surf line and came to the scrape in the middle of a kelp bed, his large head breaking though strands of kelp like a zombie pickup transport breaking sod as it rises from the grave.\r\nThen he heard it. A hate sound. The sound of an enemy. It had been half a atomic number 6 since the Sea Beast had left the water, and land was not his natural domain, but his reason to attack overwhelmed his sense of self-preservation. He threw back his head, shaking the great purple gills that stood out on his neck like trees, and blew the water from his vestigial lungs. Breath burned down his cavernous throat for the first time in fifty years and came out in a horrendous roar of pain and anger. Three of the protective optical membranes slid back from his eyes like electric automobile car windows. allow-ing him to see in the harsh air. He thrashed his tail, pumped his great weave feet, and torpedoed toward the shore.\r\nGabe\r\nIt had been almost ten yea rs since Gabe Fenton had dissected a dog, but now, at three oclock in the morning, he was thinking bad about taking a scalpel to mule driver, his three-year-old Labrador retriever, who was difficult in the throes of a psychotic barking arrest. Skinner had been banished to the porch that afternoon, after he had taken a roll in a dead seagull and refused to go into the surf or get near the hose to be washed off. To Skinner, dead bird was the sense of romance.\r\nGabe crawled out of bed and padded to the door in his boxers, scooping up a hiking bitch along the way. He was a biologist, held a Ph.D. in animal behavior from Stanford, so it was with great academic credibility that he opened the door and winged the nurture at his dog, following it with the behavior-reinforcing command of: â€Å"Skinner, shut out the fucking up!”\r\nSkinner paused in his barking fit long enough to confuse under the flying\r\nL. L. Bean, then, true to his breeding, retrieved it from the wash stand that he used as a water dish and brought it back to the inlet where Gabe stood. Skinner set the soggy bang at the biologists feet. Gabe closed the door in Skinners face.\r\nJealous, Skinner thought. No wonder he cant get any females, smelling like fabric softener and soap. The sustenance Guy wouldnt be so cranky if hed get out and sniff some butts. (Skinner always thought of Gabe as â€Å"the Food Guy.”) Then, after a quick sniff to confirm that he was, indeed, the Don Juan of all dogs, Skinner resumed his barking fit. Doesnt he get it, Skinner thought, theres something dangerous coming. Danger, Food Guy, danger!\r\n in spite of appearance, Gabe Fenton glanced at the computer sieve in his living room as he returned to bed. A thousand piddling green dots were working their way, en masse, crossways the defend of the Pine Cove theatre. He stopped and rubbed his eyes. It wasnt possible.\r\nGabe went to the computer and typed in a command. The mathematical function of the area reappeared in wider scale. Still, the dots were all pitiable in a line. He zoomed the map to only a few form miles, the dots were still on the move. Each green dot on the map represented a rat that Gabe had recognise-trapped, injected with a microchip, and released into the wild. Their location was tracked and p ringted by satellite. Every rat in a ten-square-mile area was moving east, away from the coast. marks did not convey that way.\r\nGabe ran the data backward, looking at the rodents movements over the last few hours. The exodus had started abruptly, only two hours ago, and already most of the rats had moved over a mile inland. They were running full-tilt and going far beyond their normal range. Rats are sprinters, not long-distance runners. Something was up.\r\nGabe hit a key and a petty green number appeared next to each of the dots. Each chip was unique, and each rat could be identified like airplanes on the screen of an air traffic get wordler. Rat 363 hadnt moved outside of a two-meter range for five days. Gabe had assumed that she had either given birth or was ill. Now 363 was half a mile from her normal territory.\r\nAnomalies are both the bane and bread of researchers. Gabe was unrestrained by the data, but at the same time it made him anxious. An anomaly like this could lead to a discovery, or make him look like a issue forth fool. He cross-checked the data three different ways, then tapped into the run station on the roof. Nothing was happening in the way of weather, all changes in barometric pressure, humidity, wind, and temperature were well within normal ranges. He looked out the window: a low daze was settling on the shore, totally normal. He could just make out the pharos a hundred yards away. It had been shut down for twenty years, used only as a weather station and as a base for biological research.\r\nHe grabbed a blanket off of his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders against the chill, then returned to his desk. The green dots were still moving. He dialed the number for JPL in Pasadena. Skinner was still barking outside.\r\nâ€Å"Skinner, shut the fuck up!” Gabe shouted just as the automated answering service put him through to the seismology lab. A woman answered. She sounded young, probably an intern. â€Å"Excuse me?” she said.\r\nâ€Å"Sorry, I was yelling at my dog. Yes, hello, this is Dr. Gabe Fenton at the research station in Pine Cove, just wondering if you have any seismic activity in my area.”\r\nâ€Å"Pine Cove? Can I get a longitude and latitude?”\r\nGabe gave it to her. â€Å"I think Im looking for something offshore.”\r\nâ€Å"Nothing. Minor tremor touch on at Parkfield yesterday at 9 A.M. Point zero-five-three. You wouldnt even be able to feel it. Have you picked something up on your instruments?”\r\nâ€Å"I dont have seismographic instruments. Thats why I called you. This is a biological research and weather station.” \r\nâ€Å"Im sorry, Doctor, I didnt know. Im new here. Did you feel something?”\r\nâ€Å"No. My rats are moving.” As soon as he said it, he wished he hadnt.\r\nâ€Å"Pardon me?”\r\nâ€Å"Never mind, I was just checking. Im having some anomalous behavior in some specimens. If you pick up anything in the next few days, could you call me?” He gave her his number.\r\nâ€Å"You think your rats are predicting an earthquake, Doctor?”\r\nâ€Å"I didnt say that.”\r\nâ€Å"You should know that theres no concrete data on animals predicting seismic activity.”\r\nâ€Å"I know that, but Im trying to guide all the possibilities.”\r\nâ€Å"Did it occur to you that your dog might be scaring them?”\r\nâ€Å"Ill factor that in,” Gabe said. â€Å"Thank you for your time.” He hung up, feeling stupid.\r\nNothing seismic or meteorological, and a call to the highway guard confirmed that there were no chemical substance spills or fires. He had to confirm the data. maybe something was wrong with the satellite signal. The only way to find out was to take out his portable antenna and track the rats in the field. He dressed quickly and headed out to his truck.\r\nâ€Å"Skinner, you want to go for a devil?”\r\nSkinner wagged his tail and made a beeline for the truck. About time, he thought. You need to get away from the shore, Food Guy, right now.\r\nInside the house, ten green dots were moving away from the others toward the shore.\r\nThe Sea Beast\r\nThe Sea Beast crawled up the beach, roaring as his legs took the full weight of his body and the undertow sucked at his haunches. The urgency of killing his enemy had lessen now and hunger was upon him in re-sponse to the stew of moving out of the ocean. An organ at the base of his brain that had disappeared from other species when mans only living an-cestors were tree shrews produced an electric signal to call food. There were many antedate here, that same organ sensed.\r\nThe Sea Beast came to the fifty-foot cliff that bordered the beach, farmed back on his tail, and pulled himself up with his forelegs. He was a hundred feet long, nose to tail, and stood twenty-five feet tall with his unsubtle neck extended to its full height. His rear feet were wide and webbed, his drift talonlike, with a thumb that opposed three curved claws for avaricious and killing prey.\r\nOn the dry shutout above the beach, some of the prey he had called already waited. Raccoons, ground squirrels, a few skunks, a fox, and two cats ca-vorted on the grass †some copulated, others dug at fleas with happy abandon, others just rolled on their backs as if overcome by a fit of joy. The Sea Beast swept them into his great maw with a flick of his tongue, crunching a few bones on the way down, but swallowing most whole. He belched and savored the skunky bouquet, his jaws relish together like two wet mattresses, and a flash of neon colourize ran across h is flanks with the pleasure.\r\nHe moved over the bluff, across the Coast Highway, and into the sleeping town. The streets were deserted, lights off in all the businesses on cypress Street. A low fog dabbled against the pseudo-Tudor half-timbered buildings and formed green coronas around the streetlights. Above it all, the red Texaco sign shone like a beacon.\r\nThe Sea Beast changed the color of his skin to the same smoky gray as the fog and moved down the center of the street looking like a serpentine cloud. He followed a low rumbling sound coming from under the red beacon, broke out of the fog, and there he saw her.\r\nShe purred, cod and teasing him from the front of the deserted Texaco station. That come-hither rumble. That low, toothsome growl. Those silver-tongued flanks reflecting fog and the red Texaco sign called to him, begged him to mount her. The Sea Beast flashed a rainbow of color down his sides to display his first-class maleness. He fanned the gill trees on hi s neck, sending bands of color and light into their branches.\r\nThe Sea Beast sent her a signal, which more or less translated into: â€Å"Hey, baby, havent seen you around before.” She sat there, purring, playing coy, but he knew she wanted him. She had short unrelenting legs, a stumpy tail, and smelled as if she may have recently eaten a trawler, but those magnificent silver flanks were too much to resist.\r\nThe Sea Beast turned himself silver as well, to make her feel a exact more comfortable, then reared up on his hind legs and displayed his aroused member. No response, just that shy purring. He took it as an invitation and moved across the parking lot to mount the fuel truck.\r\nEstelle\r\nEstelle placed a mug of tea in front of Catfish, then sat down across the table from him with her own. Catfish sipped the tea and grimaced, then pulled the pint from his back pocket and unscrewed the cap. Estelle caught his hand before he could pour.\r\nâ€Å"You have some explai ning to do first, Mr. Bluesman.” Estelle was more than a little rattled. When they were only half a mile away from the beach, she had been overtaken by a sudden urge to return and had fought Catfish for control of the car. It was crazy behavior. It frightened her as much as the thing at the beach had, and when they got to her house she immediately took a Zoloft, even though shed already had her dose for the day.\r\nâ€Å" perish me be, woman. I said Id tell you. I needs me some nerve medicine.”\r\nEstelle released his hand. â€Å"What was that at the beach?”\r\nCatfish splashed some whiskey into Estelles tea first, then into his own. He grinned, â€Å"You see my name wasnt always Catfish. I was born with the name of Meriwether Jefferson. Catfish come on me sometime later.”\r\nâ€Å"Christ, Catfish, Im sixty years old. Am I going to live long enough to hear the end of this story? What in the hell was out in the water tonight?” She was unquestionably not herself, swearing like this.\r\nâ€Å"You wanna know or not?”\r\nEstelle sipped her tea. â€Å"Sorry, go ahead.”\r\n'