Something In The Water

Flash Fiction - Suspense

NOTE: All flash fiction and stories based on writing exercises/prompts posted to the Talebones homepage are free for everyone to read!

If you like this little story, and you want to see more like it, please let me know with a like, comment, share, or restack!

And for more fiction fun of various shapes and sizes, subscribe for free!

---

Photo by Isai Ramos on Unsplash

Ralph stood in the bow of the small fishing boat, holding his baseball cap against his head to prevent it being whipped away by the wind. The outboard engine roared, a small rooster-tail of spray flying out behind as they left Port Townsend getting smaller and smaller in the distance. The afternoon sun was milky, a cloudy Pacific early-summer day. 

They crossed the open water between the mainland and the island swiftly, avoiding the ferry lane. Ralph checked his watch, gestured to Lou—sitting at the stern with the tiller in his hand, dressed head to toe in old faded Carhartt—and they veered to port, heading toward the first little red and white foam buoy bobbing only a half-mile off the island’s rocky coast.

Lou slowed the boat to a trawling speed, and Ralph looked around. No other boats in sight. It was a weekday. Everyone was at work, and school wasn’t out yet. No families on the beach, no sign of any movement on shore at all. They approached the buoy slowly; the owner had written their name and address on it in thick Sharpie. Ralph leaned out to catch it with his hand. 

“Got it,” he said. Lou cut the engine. It was a race against time as he and Lou pulled the line up, up, up, saltwater dripping onto the deck of the boat. It was heavy. Soon, the ghostly form of a crab pot appeared at the end of the line, rising and rising, until finally it broke the surface with a scuttling and clicking and splashing of at least eight beautiful Dungeness crabs gleaming sullenly in the light, tussling with each other for space in the cage. 

“Cooler,” Ralph said. No time to celebrate. Lou kicked open the big empty cooler with his foot and they quickly unlatched the pot’s gate and dumped every last one of the crabs in. 

They didn’t even bother closing the pot’s door before unceremoniously throwing it back overboard with a splash, letting it sink to the bottom, the buoy bobbing innocently in the waves as if nothing had happened. 

“Nice haul,” Lou said. “Good sign.”

“Great sign,” Ralph agreed, as the outboard kicked to life again and they sped off, rounding the coast toward the next buoy, and then the next after that, and then another, and then another. 

Within an hour and a half the big cooler was half-filled with just over thirty angry crabs, two-pounders the deep dark purple of wet stone, their mouthparts bubbling with consternation as they stabbed at each other and the sides of their prison. 

“It’s nearly two,” Lou said. His voice betrayed little, but he kept nervously checking his watch. “We should head back.”

Ralph’s arms were aching from pulling the lines and he had long since taken off his hat to mop the sweat from his forehead, grimly aware that he wasn’t getting any younger. But he said, “Nah. Few more. Then we’ll be done.”

“Some of those were females. And too small. If anyone catches us with this stuff…”

“They won’t,” Ralph replied. He had done his research. As far as he could tell, the island barely had a Fish & Wildlife office; it was probably just one poor bastard sitting at a desk. As long as they were quick, they would be back in Port Townsend with their haul unloaded well before anyone arrived home from work and headed out to check their pots. At just over forty bucks a pound there were at least a few thousand dollars’ worth of crab clicking angrily in that cooler already. 

Besides, he had heard a rumor. The cliffs off the island’s west side, only just ahead, were the best crabbing spots, perhaps in the whole region. He had heard stories of pots filled to bursting, fifteen to twenty keepers in each, daily. State limit was five a day, but who would be counting out here? 

It was something in the water, the rumors said, an estuary where the island’s stream system drained off into the sea. Marine life positively thrived around it. An impossible ecosystem. 

A few more buoys from the feet of the cliffs and they would be golden. 

The cliffs loomed as they rounded the curve of the island’s western edge. On the shore the rocky beach ended and the towering rocks began, pockmarked with hidden intertidal caves. 

Just ahead of the boat a large red-painted steel signal-buoy swayed in the waves, its light blinking a warning. There was a mustard-yellow metal sign affixed to the buoy, stating in large, shouting letters:

FISHMAID SANCTUARY AREA - NO TRESPASSING

“Fishmaids?” Lou shouted over the outboard as they passed the signal-buoy. “What the hell is a fishmaid?”

Ralph’s brow furrowed. He shook his head. 

“Probably some endangered fish or other crap like that,” he shouted back, but he truly wasn’t sure. That hadn’t come up in his research at all. “Keep going, we’re nearly there.”

But the crabbing buoys had ended; there were no more in sight. Ralph cursed quietly. Here, under the shadow of the cliffs, the light was gloomy and the air off the water was colder than before. Ralph shivered in his t-shirt and jeans. 

“Where are we headed?” Lou shouted. 

Ralph scanned the water desperately. There were no red and white crabbing buoys out here at all. But this is the best spot, he thought, mind racing. They have to be here. This is supposed to be the best spot. There’s something in the water, they said. Something good. 

The outboard slowed, the motor cut, and Ralph whirled around. “What the hell are you slowing down for?”

Lou scowled. “We need to head back,” he said. “We got more than we bargained for already. If we stay out here much longer someone is gonna catch us. Endangered fish or not, no trespassing means extra trouble, and we don’t need that.”

Ralph opened his mouth to say something he would probably regret later when something struck the side of the boat, nearly knocking him off balance. 

Both men lurched, but the boat stayed upright. 

“What was that?” Lou said, peering over the edge of the boat. But in the shadows of the cliffs the water was inky black and inscrutable, lapping innocently against the fiberglass. 

Ralph sat down in the bow. His hands trembled, but he kept the shake out of his voice. “Yeah, okay, let’s head back. We got a pretty damn good haul.”

Lou nodded, his face pale. He pulled the cord on the outboard and the engine coughed, sputtered. 

“Uh…”

He pulled it again. And again. The engine groaned, wheezed. 

Bam. Something hit the boat, again, rocking it side to side. 

“Shit!” Ralph looked all around, tried to see through the waves, but there was no sign of anything. No dorsal fin of a porpoise, no frantic wake of a territorial sea lion. The water above was calm, unbothered. 

“What is that, Ralph?” Lou asked. “What keeps doing that?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably a seal or something. Just keep trying the engine.”

Lou tried and tried, his attempts becoming more and more frantic. 

“It’s dead!” he shouted, and his voice echoed off the impassive cliff faces and shivered over the waves. “How is that possible?”

Ralph turned in his seat, looked out past the bow of the boat. They hadn’t brought oars. Thought they wouldn’t need them.

“Can we call for help?” Lou asked, his voice sounding very small, all of a sudden.

“And tell them what? That we’re out here stealing crab?”

“Screw the crab! Let’s dump the damn things overboard and call for help!”

Ralph stared at the line where the shadow of the cliffs ended, like hope was just out of reach. It was only a quick cruise to collect some Dungeness crab, let the saps with the big boats and the money for a crabbing license do all the legwork for them. Was three thousand dollars too much to ask? Some of those desk-job chumps probably made that much in an hour. 

Bastards.

Lou had quit trying the engine. Ralph said, over his shoulder, “Let’s not panic. The tide is going in. If we wait a bit, we might be able to drift in toward shore. We’ll figure it out.”

A splash, then silence. 

Ralph turned around in time to see that Lou’s seat was empty and there were only telltale ripples in the water at the back of the boat as evidence that Lou had ever existed at all. 

“Lou!” Ralph shot up off the bench, tripping over the big cooler as he fell to the stern, leaning over the edge to look for Lou. But the water was infinite, like space. He could see nothing. Emptiness. 

“Lou! Dammit! Lou!”

Ralph’s heart was beating in his throat. Suddenly alone in the shadow of the cliffs with three thousand dollars’ worth of crab clicking and popping, restless. 

I can just drift toward shore, he thought, his hands shaking as he clutched the sides of the boat. If I can just wait it out, I can drift toward shore. It’s no problem. It’s no problem. 

But even as he said it, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as an instinctual fear—the panic of a prey animal—seized him. There was something scuffling under the boat, feeling its way along the length from bow to stern. 

The boat lurched again, the scuffling intensifying.

Looking over into the mirror-blackness of the water, Ralph was suddenly aware that what he thought was his own shadowy reflection was actually the shape of an unfamiliar face, drifting slowly out from beneath the boat. It was too gloomy to see anything clearly, but big black eyes—like a seal’s eyes—gazed up at him from just below the water, a misshapen face, wide mouth, and dappled gray skin. 

Ralph and the unfamiliar face regarded each other for a long moment in the quiet. Those big black eyes were wild and deep, somehow intelligent. Searching. If Ralph had been sitting across from those eyes on land, he would have confessed everything, every single solitary sin. Three thousand dollars’ worth of stolen crab, along with everything else. They would have drawn that out of him. The very eyes of God. Something holy in the water, and terrible. A baptism.

But before Ralph could confess, could move, could make a sound, a clawed gray hand encrusted with barnacles reached up, grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt, and pulled him into the water. There was no struggle. 

In the silence that followed, the little boat bobbed and wobbled, drifting listlessly in the shadow of the cliffs. 

Then, three pairs of clawed hands—emerald seaweed rooted deep and young mussels clinging tightly to the scaly skin—reached up to the edge of the starboard side of the boat and, working together, they pulled it over to capsize it. 

As it sank, nimble fingers unhooked the lock on the big cooler, and thirty apoplectic crabs drifted down, down, down, back to the eerie softness of the sea floor at the foot of the towering cliffs. 

Thank you for reading!

Want more Talebones flash fiction? Try this: