Shark Beast (3 page)

C'mon, no getting around it--
I'm a great looking dude.

Not to be bigheaded or anything, but he didn't even really have to play the game to get girls. He was practically the kind of guy who could snap his fingers and they'd come running, certainly when it came to waitresses, chicks of that nature. Let's get real--he was the type of guy girls like that took those types of jobs to get! Hunks, man. Hunks with a headful of sunny blonde watercurls and muscles till Tuesday rippling under those baggy-but-sporty tube tops, and just a wink of those baby blues and his buttery Moviephone voice wasn't bad either--

Nah, he played the game for their benefit. You know, so they wouldn't feel like sluts for going out with a dude they just met.

Which is just what Cherry did.

He was waiting after her shift, and you should have seen those chipmunk eyes blow when they got a glimpse of Jo-Jo on his primo motorbike. If she wasn't a done deal before, she sure was then. So much so, she hardly put up a fight when he started making out with her on the bike, right there in the Hooters parking lot--

Hey, no, wait, I could get fired
--

Or some blah-blah like that, about it being a wholesome family restaurant (was she kidding? If you're Howard Hefner or whoever, maybe) so he just felt her up a little and then said,
okay, we'll be cool, we'll take it back to my place for some toke and some poke,
or words to that defect, and then laughed and she laughed back and then they left but not after first talking her into buffaloing his chicken wing there in parking lot, just to keep things in perspective, nobody was looking, and she was like
sure, that's a compromise--

Yeah, Cherry, she was an all right kind of girl. So he took her back to his loft, there on the beach, or nearbouts, took the long way, showing off a bit, letting her get all hot and bothered riding on his hot machine, her plump arms around his tight abs--enjoy
my
ribs, little waitress--why not, give her a treat. Then, finally, after a quick snack run, took her back, and they got high, and he had sex with her right on the fouton, he asked her to keep the Hooters uniform on while they did it, the shorts were so silky and whatnot, you could just push the crotch-part to the side, and she said sure, cool, I get that a lot, and he thought about that for a second, but a second goes by real fast when you're high and hot and horny, so zoom, went real fast, and so did he, so they sat around, watching "From Dusk To Dawn" with either Cheech or Chong being all vampire and such, and then, she buffaloed his chicken wing again, just for something to do, and fell asleep, and he decided, how to round of a sweet day of toke and poke...?

Hey, how about some Midnight Boogie-Surfing?

But Cherry was worn out and high and pretty much satiated in every plump direction, so he was like, hey, cool, and decided to go out in the moonlight boogying by himself.

All this replayed in his mind underwater.

Now, he wasn't unconscious, or drowning, no--he could hold his breath a long time--he just liked floating, it was cool, soothing, it was like flying or something, like being high all over your body. But he was in control, even as wasted as he was, even as submerged as he was, even as totally yow-wow-wiped out as he was, he knew to let his body bob up until he could take a nice deep breath of fresh air, and let himself sink and float back under.
I'm like a submarine or something,
he mused, thinking about Cheech or Chong turning into a vampire.

Which is why he missed seeing Cherry blink awake, sleepily, and suddenly realize she was alone--took her awhile, but she figured it out--saw a note, that said,
yo gal, out boogin.
She didn't know what that meant, or was supposed to spell exactly, but she noticed his fine Darth Maul surfboard was missing--he'd made quite a show about it, kinda boring actually--but it was gone, and so, even a Hooters waitress could put two and two together...sometimes...she might not get four exactly, but she could narrow it down...

Then she had a naughty thought.

Then another, somewhat conflicting thought, but what eventually came about, is she slowly took off the Hooters uniform--first the tight shirt, and-- oh yeah! there they are!--and even though the initial plan was just to go topless, hey, why not, you know, let's have a bit of play--

So off came the orange shorts, and the white socks with the orange marshmallow fuzzballs, and this and that...

And out she streaked, into the night, across the glowing sands of the late night beach.

What a sight--too bad Underwater Jo-Jo missed it--but what. a. sight. That plump little waitress, that tasty little titbit, in all her plump chipmunk glory--she was amazingly put together, helium voice or not--and she just ran like nature's little naked unicorn, practically leaving little Tinkerbell sprinkles in her wake. She hopped, and frollicked, and thanks to the eerie glow courtesy of the bashful moon, she looked like a nude female astronaut on some delightful sandy lunar surface.

She didn't notice, and probably wouldn't have been able to "two plus two" it together even if she had--that that glowing lunar surface was, in select spots shifting in little rolling dune trails, undulating and rushing with a sudden frenzied rabidness
straight for her.

~ ~ FOUR ~ ~
In The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:
The Splintery Stairs

He kicked open the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

Roxy balked. "What? Upstairs? I didn't know we were doing this upstairs."

"Were you not informed about any part of this evening?' D. J. grinned.

Hoagie, frustrated, said, "Where did you
think
we were going?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she said nonsensically, as she led the way into the badly-lit back office.

"Why don't we just do it down here?" asked D. J., gesturing vaguely at the messy piles and cartoons of unpacked books.

"No, we have to do it upstairs," said Luna. "It's more harmonic up there."

"That's where the homeless beach man lived," Roxy warned vaguely, with a grumble.

D. J. responded with "Homeless beach man? There was a homeless beach man?"

"He was here before you got hired," Roxy said. "Stayed up there a week. No showers or anything."

"So?" Hoagie said, trying to change the subject.

"So? So what!" Roxy gave him a dirty look. "So he was
up there.
A whole week and everything."

"But he's not up there now," Hoagie said dismissively. "It's not like he was a haunted homeless man." He turned to D. J., said, "It's just upstairs. A bunch of deserted offices. You been up there."

"Apparently, so has a haunted homeless beach man," D. J. nodded.

Hoagie shot D. J. another
you traitor
look.

"It
has
to be upstairs," Luna said, decisively. "No phones, no electricity -- no interruptions. At least not...
mortal
ones."

Before everyone else could stop rolling their eyes, Roxy came up with what she thought was a sure dealbreaker, which in turn would allow this whole nonsense to be over with so she could spend the rest of the night with Hoagie being a ballbreaker.

"Well,"
she said, like Perry Mason wrapping up a case, "if there's no
electricity
up there--how are we all going to see?"

She enjoyed a moment of total smug before Luna suddenly turned around and--

--produced four candles.

Four extremely weird-looking candles.

"Got a match, anyone?" she asked, with a victorious grin.

~ ~ ~

Upstairs, up those splintery stairs.

"Could these candles be tinier?" Roxy grumbled, holding hers out in front of her like it was radioactive.

"Oh, man," Hoagie said suddenly.

"What?"
Roxy seemed instantly suspicious.

"What?"
Luna repeated, in a mock-nag voice.

Hoagie said, in a totally manufactured tone, "Dudes, I've got to--seriously, I like totally forgot--I got to fax something."

He grinned, shrugged, gave that sheepish look of his, and quickly headed back down the splintery steps.

"Be
riiiight
back," he called out as he disappeared around the corner.

"Lame," everyone said in unison after he disappeared.

"Fax something?" D. J. chuckled. "What is this, 20 years ago?" Nodding shrewdly, he added: "I detect treachery."

"Off setting up one of his stupid practical jokes," Roxy muttered. "Special Halloween idiot edition."

D. J. nodded:
ahhh, that explains why he agreed to stick around tonight.

"Whatever he does, don't fall for it or act surprised," Roxy muttered. "He'll be crowing for days."

They all stood there on the splintery steps, nodding, agreeing not to fall for anything.

Then: they all continued up the stairs, guided by the erratic candlelight.

~ ~ ~

Hoagie scurried to the front of the store, chuckling to himself. He pretended to set up the fax machine, but when he was sure no one from upstairs had followed, he picked up the phone and dialed.

"C'mon, Dickie, pick up." He waited, still checking over his shoulder. "C'mon... Oh, man, Dickie. What's the point of a cell phone--"

Grumbling, he hung up the phone, and checking his watch with the clock on the wall, then checking again, he pressed his nose against the front window, peering out into the dark, past the painted hermit crab claw, the boardwalk, the long beach, out into the soft moonlit waves.

"Okay, buddy, I assume you're on your way. Don't leave me hanging."

He kept looking for a moment, then, chuckled out loud.

"Man, this is going to be
sweet.
The sweetest punk-prank ever." Another chuckle. "I'm going to be crowing about this one
for days."

He considered dialing again, but--nah. He's on his way. He wouldn't miss a primo prank like this. Not ol' Dickie.

"Prepare to reach, my friends," he whispered, whipping out a little air guitar, "the Prank Island of Rock--!"

Looking over his shoulder again, he hurried over to the double doors, fiddled with his key chain and--

Click
--

Left the front doors to Hermit Crab Used Books totally unlocked.

And scurried back to the festivities.

This is going to be...

...
sweet.

~ ~ ~

They were all on knees and crossed legs, huddled underneath exposed pipes, ragged wires, peeling walls, circled around the Ouija board. The candles had been stuck-waxed onto the corners of the board. Shadows flickered over bored faces, annoyed faces, nervous faces, and Luna's wide-eyed talking-mystical-again face.

"Let the night
begin,"
she intoned, melodramatically. Wriggling her overly-painted fingernails-- and her overly-penciled eyebrows --she puckered and eyed everyone ominously.

Roxy sighed, and offered, under her breath, "Whoopie."

D. J., smirking, wondered aloud, "You know what would be scary?"

"Yes, and I don't want to talk about it," Roxy warned.

"Let's
play
this thing," an annoyingly chipper Hoagie suggested, clapping his hands.

"You don't
play
Ouija," Luna corrected. "You
experience
it."

"What-
ever,"
Roxy grumbled. "D. J.'s touching me."

"I am not. I'm over here."

"What-
ever,"
Roxy grumbled.

"Hey, I got an idea," Hoagie said suddenly. "We should draw a pentagram."

"No, no, no--no pentagrams," D. J. protested. "None of that 666 stuff."

Hoagie sniffed. "Pentagram's hardcore."

"Yeah, well, save it for the next seance, there, Professor Snape..."

"CAN WE, LIKE, JUST DO THIS ALREADY!" Roxy bellowed.

Luna nodded, completely unruffled. "Yes. Let us...
begin."

"Okay, okay, already," Hoagie said. "So. What should we ask?"

There was a long pause in the room.

"How 'bout ask it if it's okay to ask it something," D. J. suggested.

"What? That's stupid," Roxy said.

"Why? Maybe nobody wants to talk to us." D. J. shrugged. "I know I wouldn't."

"That's stupid," Roxy snapped. "You're stupid. This whole thing is stupid."

D. J. said, delicately, "Maybe you're stupid."

"What! Excuse you!"

Appalled, Roxy and D. J. began shooting middle fingers at each other. D. J. grabbed Roxy's middle finger to stop it; she shot him one with her other hand. D. J. said, "Oh, that's how it is, then?" then he shot her a middle finger back. She returned fire, and suddenly they were flipping and poking each other with their middle fingers.

Hoagie: "Oh,
id
-
iots..."

They ignored him, fingers flying.

Hoagie: "...don't make me sic the haunted homeless man on you two."

Bug-eyed, D. J. and Roxy abruptly stopped, crossing their arms nervously in front of their chests. They shot pouty looks at each other, and a couple of one-for-the-road somewhat discreet middle fingers at each other. (Roxy stuck out her tongue for good measure.)

Luna, very calmly, asked, "Can we start, please, thank you."

"That's not a bad question, really, though, asking if we can ask. No harm asking permission, right?" said Hoagie. Now he was the nervous-seeming one, all of a sudden. "Probably a good idea, huh?"

"Asking permission," Roxy snorted. "How hardcore."

Ignoring her, Hoagie nodded. "Get us off on the right foot. Spirit-wise. And whatever."

Luna smiled discreetly. "Fine with me."

With that agreed, everyone slowly glanced around at each other, questioningly. After a shadowy pause, Luna asked, in that still very overly calm voice. "So ... who wants to ask?"

~ ~ ~

A few jumbled moments later, D. J. and Roxy were sitting across from each other, shadows flickering over their faces, as they stared at each other with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The Ouija board was between them.