Fossil Lake II: The Refossiling Page 18

  The back of the house was all nettles and spiders and my stick became a machete to attack the greenery with, but I still ended up with stings, and not a doc leaf in sight. I came to the back window which was even more rotten than the front with great trailing globules of slime smeared on it, like a giant had wiped a snotty finger on the wall. I climbed out, knowing from bitter experience that my mum would tan my hide if I came home covered in ‘filth.’ Below the window the ground angled steeply through another patch of nettles down to a lake.

  That’s where the body was. Naked, white, glistening, with a great green tidemark up its back, as if it had been further in the water at one point but someone had dragged it partway out. I thought it was a woman, but it was hard to tell with it face down and the bottom half in the water. It had long red hair and the skin was otherwise hairless as far as I could tell in the green shade. There was just enough room for me to half climb, half scramble round the edge of the small lake. I wielded my ‘machete’ and bravely went forth.

  Closer, it seemed more like a woman, or maybe a young boy, slight and slim. I got as close as I could. There was a gassy, sour smell and flies buzzed around the body. A spider had spun an intricate web joining the hair to a weed growing near, and sat bulbous and contemplative in the centre. I could imagine it watching the flies.

  I poked the body with my stick. It yielded then lifted a little then flopped back into place when I stopped poking. I shuffled round some more until I could see the face. It was a woman, a young one too. I looked around but couldn’t see her clothes.

  I decided to call her Judy. It was a name I liked; I’d told some of the other boys that I had a girlfriend called Judy. I could tell them now we’d found a secret place together. Although her hair was the wrong colour. On the other side of the body one arm was thrown up the bank, like a swimmer mid-crawl. Her nails were bright red against the pale doughy colour of her flesh. Her eyes were closed, I noticed. I’d said that Judy liked to close her eyes when I kissed her.

  I grabbed her hand and heaved, careful not to topple into the water, and turned Judy over. A trickle of green slime escaped her mouth and drooled down her chin. I watched it curve sinuously across her chest, around a medium sized breast. I could just make out a tuft of hair where her body met the water.

  My eyes travelled back to her breasts. My first naked woman. Real one anyway. Her nipples were darker than rest of the flesh, which was white as paper. I felt myself go stiff. That’d been happening a bit recently. Some of the other boys said that if you rubbed it, stuff came out, but I’d rubbed it lots and nothing had come out; I wondered if I was deformed in some way. It seemed wrong to rub myself here, but that made it all the more compelling. I wouldn’t mention the slime when I spoke about Judy watching me rub myself, lying naked waiting for me. I looked all around, although I already knew I was alone, and then dropped my shorts. It’s not as if it was the first time for me to go naked outdoors. I’d done it a lot, always wanting to stay secret but half hoping to be caught. Just rubbing felt good though and I went and brushed the spider off her hair and touched her face, which was of course cold. I watched my hand trace the contour of her cheek, slide down her neck and across to her breast. My heart hammered in my chest and I was shivering.

  I felt something building; it made me rub harder, my thumb and forefinger tweaked her nipple before my hand covered her breast and my dick throbbed in my hand and something came out. Gouts of stringy mucus like stuff. It flobbed off my hand and down Judy’s body, all over her breast. I lifted my hand and sniffed and held out my tongue for a tentative lick. It was like hot mucus to taste, slightly salty. I wiped my hand in her hair and pulled my shorts back on.

  Now I could tell the other boys that I’d cum. That Judy had helped me with a hand job. I wondered if she’d help me lose my virginity too. I looked down to where the hair just poked above the water. I’d need to find a rope first. I decided I’d come back the next day with one from the garage. Best let Judy rest again, so I heaved her back into her swimming pose and walked back to the house. Luckily the bull had wandered off and I was able to make my way back the way I came.

  When I eventually got home my mum gave me a smack around the ear for being late, but my clothes were relatively clean.

  “Where’ve you been till this time? You’ve missed Knight Rider, I know you love that program, I’ve been worried,” she said.

  I just told her that I’d been playing with a friend and lost track of time. She swallowed that lie, just like she’s swallowed all the others. After supper, in bed, I ran through all the things Judy and I spoke about today. I had a lot to tell the other boys. Maybe tomorrow they’d see I was one of them, maybe tomorrow they wouldn’t call me names, maybe tomorrow they wouldn’t beat me up. I’d be able to tell Judy that all my friends were jealous that she was going to take my virginity. That’d make her feel better, I think.

  GODS AND MICE

  Bruce Boston

  Its buildings were like monuments,

  pristine and undisturbed.

  Across deserted city blocks

  not a voice could be heard.

  The kitchens were all stocked.

  The closets full of clothes.

  This world awaited someone.

  Who it was we did not know.

  Beyond the city’s boundaries

  the forest flourished green,

  filled with various flora

  yet no fauna to be seen.

  Then we began to notice

  things that did not jibe.

  The forest was synthetic.

  Its plants were not alive.

  The houses had been built

  at exactly the same time.

  The food could not be eaten.

  The clothes were paper thin.

  This world awaited no one

  but some fool it could take in.

  We jumped to our conclusions.

  They may not have been right.

  Yet who would make a mock-up

  on such monumental scale

  but some race of super beings

  that remained beyond our sight,

  who watched our every action

  as if we were laboratory mice?

  We fled that world in panic.

  Let’s face it: Call it fright!

  For across a hundred stars,

  a thousand years and more,

  we had always stood alone

  as masters of the stellar night.

  We know it’s only paranoia

  that stalks within our heads.

  Our ship is safe in subspace,

  just another streak of light.

  Still we feel the eyes upon us

  of gods we took for dead.

  THE SEA IS IN MY BLOOD

  Deborah Walker

  Julia studied the body of the dead fish lying on the marble slab of the work surface. How should she transform this piece of cold flesh? Even before her ministrations, the underside of the ray bore a striking resemblance to a grotesque human face. The fish’s nostrils might be large, blank, empty eyes and the wide-toothed mouth grinned in a silent leer.

  The image came to her. This fish would become a bishop. She took out her steel boning knife and began to carve. There was artistry involved here. As she made her swift cuts, Julia saw the future. She visualised the effect that would occur once the fish dried, the changing and warping that would occur as the moisture dried into the air. Julia fashioned the fish with those changes in mind. She understood the final decorations that time would add to her work.

  She cut the pectoral fins away from the head and moulded them into a headdress that would resemble a mitre. She cut at the ventral fins and pulled them into a shape that might resemble legs. She cut away the ray’s tail; a bishop had no need of a tail. And, finally, she inserted black beads into the nostrils to resemble pupils and pulled at the flesh of the fish, carefully shaping the emerging expression.

  The newly created bishop stared at her with its bead eyes,
but she had no time to study it. She slid it onto the drying tray. Julia had many more monsters to create.

  The old fashioned bell of the door rang. Julia wiped her hands on her canvas apron and walked through the workshop to the front of the shop.

  Two women, dressed in their protective tourists suits, entered.

  “How wonderful,” said the tall woman, twirling around to look at monsters arranged on the wall.

  “How wonderfully old-fashioned,” agreed the small woman, breathing in the scent of varnish in the air.

  Julia smiled at the women. “Please take your time to browse. I can answer any questions you might have.”

  “They’re Jenny Hanivers, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “How wonderful.” The small woman fingered the hard, dried flesh of the Jenny Hanivers displayed on the counter. “Did you make them yourself?”

  “I made some of them. My mother also crafts them, and my father . . . some of the works are my father’s.”

  “Your father, yes, I see.” The tall tourist looked at Julia with a look of understanding.

  Carved and dried, the Jenny Hanivers looked down upon the tourists; mermaids, dragons, basilisks, bishops; the once living creature, harvested from the sea, then mutilated into a new shape to spend an afterlife as a glazed dream. These were souvenirs for tourists with a taste for the macabre.

  “Will the men be at the dock?” asked the tall women.

  This was the reason tourists came to Shipsdown. They came in bus loads, to see the infected men of the docks, to buy their strange shells and to listen to their stories. If it wasn’t for the men of the docks, there would be no tourist industry

  “The men are always at the docks,” said Julia, smiling. “They’ll be glad of your support.”

  “I can’t wait to see them,” said the tall woman. “What’s this one?” She pointed to a Jenny Haniver that had caught her eye.

  “It’s a mermaid,” said Julia. “In old days the Hanivers were seen as proof of the existence of all sorts of strange creatures. Sailors would buy them and take them home, spreading the tales of the sea to the land.”

  “It’s very finely made. Perhaps we’ll call back, after we’ve seen the men.”

  “You’ll be welcome,” said Julia, “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, my dear.”

  Julia sighed. She had felt sure that woman was going to buy a Haniver. The tall woman had looked at the mermaid with an intensity that often preceded a sale. She would have bought it if she’d been here on her own. Perhaps, she would come back, without her friend. But the tourists seldom came back.

  Julia went back to the workshop. The dead fish were slowly transformed into what the tourists called folk art. After a time, rows of rows of Jenny Hanivers were laid out on the drying boards.

  “Mum, I’m finished. I’m going out.” Julia shouted upstairs. No doubt her mother was staring into her silver edged mirror, a wedding gift from Father.

  “Hold on,” shouted her mother. Mother came down the stairs slowly and entered the workshop. She was a hard faced woman, her mouth pressed into a lipstick grimace, a slash of vermillion in stone tinged skin. Mother’s face had been drying and changing, these past two years. Somehow, it always managed to surprise Julia, these changes in her mother. She had seen her mother staring at her image for hours; trying to see something different in the mirror. What was she looking for? Was it something she could ever find?

  Let me see anything, but not this face destroyed by the harsh salt air — desiccated and unloved.

  “Did I hear the shop bell ring?” asked Mother breaking into Julia’s speculations.

  “Two tourists came in, but they didn’t buy anything.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “They said that they’d be back.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  Her mother inspected Julia’s work. She had only just allowed Julia to work on the fish these past six months. There had been a small ceremony, of sorts, when Julia had turned sixteen. “Now you’re old enough,” her mother had said, as Julia had unwrapped the boning knife that had served as her birthday present. “You’ve old enough to understand what needs to be done, to create the Hanivers.”

  “It’s good work,” said her mother, casting her practiced eyes over the rows of dead fish. “How many have you done?”

  “Ten mermaids, five angels, thirty devils and five bishops.”

  “That’s about the right ratio,” said her mother. “No dragons?”

  “We’ve still got two dozen dragons in the shop.”

  “Good work. I’ll set them to dry and you can have the rest of the day off. This rain will keep off most of the tourists. I can manage on my own this afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” said Julia, wiping her hands clean.

  “Don’t go down to the docks though.”

  “Mum, of course not,” said Julia, striving for authenticity in her lies. She ran upstairs to change out of her work clothes.

  When she came down she saw that her mother was examining her face in a small make-up mirror.

  “Don’t do that, Mum,” said Julia.

  “Do what?” Mother put the mirror into her handbag. “I’m sorry we have to stay here, Julia.”

  “Mum, it’s all right — really.”

  “We make a good living here, don’t we? I just don’t know if we’ll be able to live anywhere else. I’m not ready to move on, yet.”

  It had been two years since Julia’s father had been lost to them.

  “Mum, I like it here. Don’t worry. I understand, you know.”

  “But, I do worry. Sometimes I think that we should get away. I worry, Julia, all the time.” She reached into her handbag again, seeking out her mirror.

  Julia needed to get out of the shop, out of the smell of dead fish, and varnish; the smell of transformation. She just didn’t want to have this conversation again.

  “Mum, it’s okay. I’ll see you later. I won’t be long.” Julia opened the shop door quickly, almost knocking the spring bound bell off its wire.

  “Don’t go to the docks,” said her mother as she began to set out the dead fish to dry in front of the clay oven.

  Julia walked along the edge of the old stone dock. She wasn’t supposed to be here and that was what made it so exciting.

  Her mother had been right; the rain had kept most of the tourists away. But there were a few, walking along the dock, taking in the sights.

  “Hello, Julia.” It was one of the men.

  “Hello, Mr. Crackle. How’s business?”

  “Passing slow.”

  Julia stepped aside as a couple of tourists paused in front of Mr. Crackle. She looked at their foolish tourist suits. Nobody knew how the disease was passed. Some people believed you had to touch one of the infected fish, but that was unlikely. Fishing had been banned for eighteen months now. The boats stood rotting in the harbour, each day bought another layer of decay, and the lichens rose up covering them with a cloth of green, and blue and mustard yellow; and still new cases of infection were found.

  But the tourists were careful, wearing their plastic suits against the threat of sickness. Still, it was one more source of income for this dying town. Now that the fish industry had died, tourism was the only way to make a living.

  Julia was wearing a dress with a bright red flower print. She wasn’t a tourist. She lived here.

  “Will I sing for you?” Mr. Crackle asked the tourists. They nodded, and within their plastic suits Julia made out the form of a man. Julia was surprised, the tourists were usually women, women couldn’t catch the disease — or so the Government said.

  “Sails of silk, and ropes of sandal,

  Such as gleam in ancient lore;

  And the singing of the sailors,

  And the answer from the shore.”

  The threaded reed of Mr. Crackle’s voice came to a halt. The tourists waited for a moment, as if unsure if that was all they would get, but it was.

  “Than
k you,” said the tourist man. He put a five pound note into Mr. Crackle’s tin cup, and they moved away.

  “That was beautiful, Mr Crackle. Did you make it up?”

  “No, love. A fellow called Longfellow wrote it a long time ago. I added it to one of the old shanties, it seemed to fit.”

  “You were never at sea, were you, Mr. Crackle?”

  “No, Julia.”

  He reached out his strange hands to remove the note from the tin. His hands were corrupted by the new infection which merged with the code of a man’s body to produce something new. Or perhaps, the disease resurrected the old data, the messages of the sea that swims in us all, and had been only been forgotten – but was now remembered in the shape of a fully scaled hand.

  “I used to own the coffee house. But nobody wants to buy drinks from the infected. Still, the sea is in my blood now. I remember things, the songs, they come from somewhere.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Julia. She hummed a fragment of the melody. “They are very beautiful, aren’t they - the old songs.”

  “You understand, don’t you Julia, and yet you’re a woman. How very strange.”

  “Am I strange, Mr. Crackle? The world is strange to me,” said Julia, still humming a fragment of his melody. “The seas are poisoned, the fish are dying and changes are all around. The Government can’t control anything, let alone the disease that has grown and multiplied on our coast. Maybe I’m strange, or maybe I’m not.”