Shifters (4 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
He walked past amidships, his hand trailing along on the tight stanchion cable. The ship continued to toss; he nearly lost his footing several times. Heading to the portquarter, he stalled.
What was it?
He squeezed his eyes shut against the still cold. A scent seemed to flirt with him; he looked down.
#4 HOLD, read black stenciled letters. Ramsey lifted the manway hatch, peering into blackness. Yes, a strange scent wafted from the freightway, something musky, like a warm animal. Sometimes they freighted exotic animals from Japan; to Seattle or San Diego, but not this trip. Just pallets of Japanese beer and auto parts from Osaka bound for Puget Sound. Ramsey’s face lingered at the opened hatch. The scent seemed seductive somehow, pleasant, heady. He stuck his face in and breathed.
Get on watch.
He closed the hatch and took his post.
Captain’ll probably
keep me out here till daybreak,
he pondered, gazing out. From here, the world extended as a hostile, black, freezing scape. Stars blurred whitely overhead, and below, the sea churned within itself, throwing foam around the great plumes from the props. Low on the edge of the world, a full moon glowed.
Captain’ll probably
keep me out here till daybreak,
he pondered, gazing out. From here, the world extended as a hostile, black, freezing scape. Stars blurred whitely overhead, and below, the sea churned within itself, throwing foam around the great plumes from the props. Low on the edge of the world, a full moon glowed.
Yeah…weird night.
He closed his eyes, the moonlight swelled.
He closed his eyes, the moonlight swelled.
He tried to blank his mind. Suddenly he felt invaded. Images assaulted him: the dream, the nightmare. Blood dripping from the huge wolf’s maw…
Then:
Snap!
Snap!
Ramsey whirled. He was sure he’d heard a sound, something metallic, like—
Like a hatch closing,
he realized.
he realized.
The bridge loomed above him as he faced the bow. It looked like some great stone deity, a horned god.
What was that noise?
he asked himself. He walked back toward amidships. The vessel’s old metal groaned through a rise of sea.
What was that noise?
he asked himself. He walked back toward amidships. The vessel’s old metal groaned through a rise of sea.
Ramsey froze in his tracks.
A figure stood by the manway of the fourth hold. Was it Winslow?
No, no,
Ramsey could see. It was a woman.
No, no,
Ramsey could see. It was a woman.
But there were no women on board.
“Hey! You, there!”
The figure didn’t flinch. Cold air blasted Ramsey’s face. The figure, impossibly, seemed to be removing its clothing.
What the hell is this?
Then it occurred to him. A stowaway. It happened sometimes. Abused kids and runaways would sneak on board for a free ride up the coast. But…but…
“What are you doing?” Ramsey commanded. “Put your fucking clothes back on, are you crazy! It’s freezing out here!”
The woman ignored him. Piece by piece, she stripped off her tattered garments and dropped them into the sea.
Then she turned.
Ramsey faced her, speechless, stunned in the silent midnight clarity of what he was looking at. The world seemed to stop as he stared. His heart nearly stopped.
She was beautiful.
Fully naked now, she stood stock-still by the port stanchion. Ramsey, as the ship continued to pitch, could not even conceive of a physical beauty this absolute. Moonlight bathed the flawless white skin and hourglass figure. She seemed to have no body fat at all, yet she wasn’t skinny. Instead she reminded him of a lithe beast—full-formed, muscular, tight. A tumult of dark russet hair hung well past her shoulders, and a plush patch of hair the same hue showed between the sleek, full legs. Big conical dark nipples pointed at him, stiffening in the ice cold.
Then Ramsey looked at her face…
A vertigo stole into him. His vision seemed to shift. Somehow the reality of her face became enlaced with memory: the nightmare. Like flitting a deck of cards. In stark flashes he saw her face, then the wolf, her face, then the wolf—
“Did you dream?” she asked. Her voice dripped with every imaginable desire: hot, dark, penetrating. Her breasts glowed in the still moonlight, her tight abdomen, her firm, creamy hips.
“What?” Ramsey muttered.
He felt adrift like the ship, something tiny in the clutches of something so vast as to be immeasurable. He felt helpless, inconsequential,
meaningless
before the image of her. She was an icon of flesh. She was a testament to an ideal of beauty that ruptured the limits of mere humanity.
meaningless
before the image of her. She was an icon of flesh. She was a testament to an ideal of beauty that ruptured the limits of mere humanity.
Ramsey fell to his knees.
“Are you a sinner?” she asked him. She looked down in a coy, tiny smile.
“Yes,” Ramsey moaned in response.
“We all are.”
He was not himself now. Whatever she was at her heart radiated a power that crushed him. The ice-cold air dried the surface of his eyeballs as he stared at her perfect flesh.
“I could kill you,” she whispered.
“Kill me,” Ramsey said. He was lost. He was inferior before her: total flaw dwarfed by flawlessness. She wasn’t human. He knew that now. She was something more than human.
Something terrifyingly more.
“Did you dream?” she asked again.
He was freezing, his teeth chattered. His face felt like brittle porcelain in the dead night air.
“Yes,” he said.
“It wasn’t your dream.” The woman turned, stepped toward the stanchion cable. “It was mine.”
She looked over the side. The sea misted on her face and breasts. “You never saw me,” she said. “I was never here.”
Ramsey nodded, open-mouthed, numb.
When she looked at him again, the vertigo returned. Her face. The wolf. Her face. The wolf.
The wolf,
he thought.
he thought.
Ramsey blinked.
The woman’s eyes, only for a moment, were blood red.
She placed one bare foot on the stanchion cable. Ramsey’s gaze followed up the long, sleek leg, her rump, her sleek beautiful back. The muscles in her leg tensed. Next she was standing on the cable with both feet.
“Goodbye,” she said.
She dove off the cable, into the water.
(iv)
“What the bloody hell?”
Winslow ran to the stern. He knew he wasn’t imagining things: he’d heard a splash. Goddamn Ramsey must’ve fallen over the side on that last pitch.
His feet pounded the steel deck. He tore past the main cargo holds, the cold burning his face. He was about to shout “Man overboard!” when he saw Ramsey on the portquarter, looking over the side.
“Goddamn!” Winslow yelled. “What happened? Is someone overboard?”
Ramsey blinked at him. “What?”
Winslow leaned over the cable, scanning the sea at the waterline. “I heard a splash! Is someone overboard?”
“No, it was just a porpoise or something,” Ramsey said.
Winslow relaxed.
Thank God,
he thought. The sea churned below him, relentless, terrible.
Thank God.
Thank God,
he thought. The sea churned below him, relentless, terrible.
Thank God.
A person wouldn’t last a minute in that chop.
(v)
I think I was actually afraid for a moment. The water is black, endless, frigid. It’s like death. I felt consumed, I felt swallowed up and digested by its depths. Yes, I think I was actually afraid for a moment. But that’s silly, right? What do I have to be afraid of?
I’m purged. I’m free!
At least for a little while, anyway.
The ocean excites me now. Its deadly cold gives me life! It seems to shape my body in its great formless hands, remaking me in purity, in absolution. The awful cold makes me hot inside. It makes me feel passionate, loving, sincere, even crudely horny. It makes me feel a lot of things. Oh, how I love to just feel.
I’m dead.
It’s so nice to be able to feel when you’re dead.
I’m swimming now. I’m changing. I’m gliding through the black awful water—sleek, fast, nimble. I’m a shark. I’m a portent. I’m a destroyer.
I’m fine. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going, and that’s the only way I can feel safe. Because if I don’t know where I’m going, then maybe he won’t either.
FOUR
Malefactor
(i)
Locke awoke with tears in his eyes. When he couldn’t write, he slept. He’d been sleeping a lot lately. It was dusk now. The sun looked like blood in the window.
He got up, coughed, and went to the desk.
REFRACTION by Richard Locke
I always got less than
the least from you.
Now I hope that the rats come
and feast on you.
Was that how he felt? Bitter? Vengeful? These were useless emotions. They were false. He knew why he’d written it: because he thought that was how a man was
supposed
to feel when summarily rejected by a woman.
Asshole. You’re supposed to write about
how you feel, not about how you’re supposed to feel.
The senselessness of the observation seemed to make perfect sense. What else could poetry be except for the re-creation of an emotion into an image, via black and white words?
supposed
to feel when summarily rejected by a woman.
Asshole. You’re supposed to write about
how you feel, not about how you’re supposed to feel.
The senselessness of the observation seemed to make perfect sense. What else could poetry be except for the re-creation of an emotion into an image, via black and white words?
To be a true poet, he must reflect truth in his poems. The truth of how he saw things. The truth of how he felt.
How did he feel? How did he feel really?
I still love her,
he answered.
he answered.
He cranked the four-line poem out of the typewriter and tore it to shreds. It was phony, a lie. Bitterness and spite often eased the edges of sorrow—Locke wished he could feel bitter. But he didn’t. He purely and simply
didn’t.
In all the time that had passed since she’d broken up with him, he still loved her. He still wanted her. He still wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It would be so much easier to hate her for the inexplicable and expeditious manner in which she’d ended their relationship. But that would be false too. He didn’t hate her, he couldn’t. Even now, after over two months, Locke loved her as much as he ever did.
didn’t.
In all the time that had passed since she’d broken up with him, he still loved her. He still wanted her. He still wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It would be so much easier to hate her for the inexplicable and expeditious manner in which she’d ended their relationship. But that would be false too. He didn’t hate her, he couldn’t. Even now, after over two months, Locke loved her as much as he ever did.
The emotion was a lie. Hence, so was the poem. He dropped the shreds of paper into the wastebasket, which sat full with many, many more shreds. The garbage can of his muse.
He stood in the middle of the room. He felt desolate. He wiped the crust of his tears from his eyes, and felt ashamed.
Grown man,
he thought.
Bawling like a baby.
He’d even cried in front of her once, on that last night. He’d begged her, he’d pleaded with her, he’d cried at her feet. What must she have thought about that? Had she been disgusted? Repelled? Locke had no idea. He had no idea about anything anymore. When Clare had told him that she no longer loved him and that the relationship was over, he’d begged her to give it one more chance. He’d assumed complete responsibility for her sudden unhappiness even though he was certain he’d done nothing to make her unhappy. He’d felt last-ditched. He would do anything to save the relationship that she’d already decided was over. It was useless.
Grown man,
he thought.
Bawling like a baby.
He’d even cried in front of her once, on that last night. He’d begged her, he’d pleaded with her, he’d cried at her feet. What must she have thought about that? Had she been disgusted? Repelled? Locke had no idea. He had no idea about anything anymore. When Clare had told him that she no longer loved him and that the relationship was over, he’d begged her to give it one more chance. He’d assumed complete responsibility for her sudden unhappiness even though he was certain he’d done nothing to make her unhappy. He’d felt last-ditched. He would do anything to save the relationship that she’d already decided was over. It was useless.
And today? Just now? He’d been asleep, he’d been dreaming of Clare. Of course he had—he always did now. It didn’t seem fair, that his own mind should conjure memories of their past, back when her eyes were bright with love for him. Locke felt betrayed by
himself
. Each dream unreeled as slow torture: their first kiss, their first date, the first time they’d made love, and the first time she’d said
I love you.
It was terrible.
himself
. Each dream unreeled as slow torture: their first kiss, their first date, the first time they’d made love, and the first time she’d said
I love you.
It was terrible.
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