Four

Estelle Boyet

As September's promise wound down, a strange unrest came over the people of Pine Cove, due in no small part to the fact that many of them were going into withdrawal from their medications. It didn't happen all at once - the streets were not full of middle-class junkies rocking and sweating and begging for a fix - but slowly as the autumn days became shorter. And as far as they knew (because Val Riordan had called every one of them), they were experiencing the onset of a mild seasonal syndrome, sort of like spring fever. Call it autumn malaise.

The nature of the medications kept the symptoms spread out over the next few weeks. Prozac and some of the older antidepressants took almost a month to leave the system, so those people slipped into the fray more slowly than those on Zoloft or Paxil or Wellbutrin, which was flushed from the system in only a day or two, leaving the deprived with symptoms re-sembling a low-grade flu, then a scattered disorientation akin to a temporary case of attention deficit disorder, and, in some, a rebound of depression that dropped on them like a smoky curtain.

One of the first to feel the effects was Estelle Boyet, a local artist, successful and semifamous for her seascapes and idealized paintings of Pine Cove shore life. Her prescription had run out a day before 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.

Estelle was sixty, a stout, vital woman who wore brightly colored caftans and let her long gray hair fly around her shoulders as she moved through life with an energy and determination that inspired envy from women half her age. For thirty years she had been a teacher in the decaying and increas-ingly dangerous Los Angeles Unified School District, teaching eighth graders the difference between acrylics and oils, a brush and a pallet knife, Dali and Degas, and using her job and her marriage as a justification for never producing any art herself.

She had married right out of art school: Joe Boyet, a promising young businessman, the only man she had ever loved and only the third she had ever slept with. When Joe had died eight years ago, she had nearly lost her mind. She tried to throw herself into her teaching, hoping that by inspiring the children she might find some reason to go on herself. In the face of the escalating violence in her school, she resigned herself to wearing a bullet-proof vest under her artist smocks and even brought in some paintball guns to try to gain the pupils' interest, but the latter only backfired into several incidents of drive-by abstract expressionism, and soon she received death threats for not allowing students to fashion crack pipes in ceramics class. Her students - children living in a hyperadult world where play-ground disputes were settled with 9 mms - eventually drove her out of teaching. Estelle lost her last reason to go on. The school psychologist re-ferred her to a psychiatrist, who put her on antidepressants and recommen-ded immediate retirement and relocation.

Estelle moved to Pine Cove, where she began to paint and where she fell under the wing of Dr. Valerie Riordan. No wonder then that Estelle's painting had taken a dark turn over the last few weeks. She painted the ocean. Every day. Waves and spray, rocks and serpentine strands of kelp on the beach, otters and seals and pelicans and gulls. Her canvases sold in the local gal-leries as fast as she could paint them. But lately the inner light at the heart of her waves, titanium white and aquamarine, had taken on a dark shadow. Every beach scene spoke of desolation and dead fish. She dreamed of le-viathan shadows stalking her under the waves and she woke shivering and afraid. It was getting more difficult to get her paints and easel to the shore each day. The open ocean and the blank canvas were just too fright-ening.

Joe is gone, she thought. I have no career and no friends and I produce nothing but kitschy seascapes as flat and soulless as a velvet Elvis. I'm afraid of everything.

Val Riordan had called her, insisting that she come to a group therapy session for widows, but Estelle had said no. Instead, one evening, after finishing a tormented painting of a beached dolphin, she left her brushes to harden with acrylic and headed downtown - anywhere where she didn't have to look at this shit she'd been calling art. She ended up at the Head of the Slug Saloon - the first bar she'd set foot in since college.

The Slug was full of Blues and smoke and people chasing shots and running from sadness. If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased - all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch. It was dog sad in there, and Catfish Jefferson was the designated howler. The moon was in his eye and he was singing up the sum of human suffering in A-minor, while he worked that bottleneck slide on the National guitar until it sounded like a slow wind through heartstrings. He was grinning.

Of the hundred or so people in the Slug, half were experiencing some sort of withdrawal from their medications. There was a self-pity contingent at the bar, staring into their drinks and rocking back and forth to the Delta rhythms. At the tables, the more social of the de-pressed were whining and slurring their problems into each other's ears and occasionally trading hugs or curses. Over by the pool table stood the agitated and the aggressive, the people looking for someone to blame. These were mostly men, and Theophilus Crowe was keeping an eye on them from his spot at the bar.

Since the death of Bess Leander, there had been a fight in the Slug almost every night. In addition, there were more pukers, more screamers, more criers, and more unwanted advances stifled with slaps. Theo had been very busy. So had Mavis Sand. Mavis was happy about it.

Estelle came through the doors in her paint-spattered overalls and Shetland sweater, her hair pulled back in a long gray 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.

"I'm an old lady," Estelle said. "Shame on you." She pushed her way through the crowd to the bar and ordered a white wine. Mavis served it in a plastic beer cup. (She was serving everything in plastic lately. Evidently, the Blues made people want to break glass - on each other.)

"Busy?" Estelle said, although she had nothing to compare it to.

"The Blues sure packs 'em in," Mavis said.

"I don't much care for the Blues," said Estelle. "I enjoy Classical music."

"Three bucks," said Mavis. She took Estelle's money and moved to the other end of the bar.

Estelle felt as if she'd been slapped in the face.

"Don't mind Mavis," a man's voice said. "She's always cranky."

Estelle looked up, caught a shirt button, then looked up farther to find Theo's smile. She had never met the constable, but she knew who he was.

"I don't even know why I came in here. I'm not a drinker."

"Something going around," Theo said. "I think maybe we're going to have a stormy winter or something. People are coming out of the woodwork."

They exchanged introductions and Theo complimented Estelle on her paintings, which he'd seen in the local galleries. Estelle dismissed the compliment.

"This seems like a strange place to find the constable," Estelle said.

Theo showed her the cell phone on his belt. "Base of operations," he said. "Most of the trouble has been starting in here anyway. If I'm here already, I can stop it before it escalates."

"Very conscientious of you."

"No, I'm just lazy," Theo said. "And tired. In the last three weeks I've been called to five domestic disputes, ten fights, two people who barricaded themselves in the bathroom and threatened suicide, a guy who was going house to house knocking the heads off garden gnomes with a sledgehammer, and a woman who tried to take her husband's eye out with a spoon."

"Oh my. Sounds like one day in the life of an L.A. cop."

"This isn't L.A.," Theo said. "I don't mean to complain, but I'm not really prepared for a crime wave."

"And there's nowhere left to run," Estelle said.

"Pardon?"

"People come here to run away from conflict, don't you think? Come to a small town to get out of the violence and the competition in the city. If you can't handle it here, there's nowhere else to go. You might as well give up."

"Well, that's a little cynical. I thought artists were supposed to be idealists."

"Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed romantic," Estelle said.

"That's you?" Theo asked. "A disappointed romantic?"

"The only man I ever loved died."

"I'm sorry," Theo said.

"Me too." She drained her cup of wine.

"Easy on that, Estelle. It doesn't help."

"I'm not a drinker. I just had to get out of the house."

There was some shouting over by the pool table. "My presence is required," Theo said. "Excuse me." He made his way through the crowd to where two men were squaring off to fight.

Estelle signaled Mavis for a refill and turned to watch Theo try to make peace. Catfish Jefferson sang a sad song about a mean old woman doing him wrong. That's me, Estelle thought. A mean old worthless woman.

Self-medication was working by midnight. Most of the customers at the Slug had given in and started clapping and wailing along with Catfish's Blues. Quite a few had given up and gone home. By closing time, there were only five people left in the Slug and Mavis was cackling over a drawer full of money. Catfish Jefferson put down his National steel guitar and picked up the two-gallon pickle jar that held his tips. Dollar 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 down there, and Catfish dug in after it like a kid going for a Cracker Jack prize. He carried the jar to the bar and plopped down next to Estelle, who was gloriously, eloquently crocked.

"Hey, baby," Catfish said. "You like the Blues?"

Estelle searched the air for the source of the question, as if it might have come from a moth spiraling around one of the lights behind the bar. Her gaze finally settled on the Bluesman and she said, "You're very good. I was going to leave, but I liked the music."

"Well, you done stayed now," Catfish said. "Look at this." He shook the money jar. "I got me upward o' two hundred dollar here, and that mean old woman owe me least that much too. What you say we take a pint and my guitar and go down to the beach, have us a party?"

"I'd better get home," Estelle said. "I have to paint in the morning."

"You a painter? I never knowed me a painter. What you say we go down to the beach and watch us a sunrise?"

"Wrong coast," Estelle said. "The sun comes up over the mountains."

Catfish laughed. "See, you done saved me a heap of waiting already. Let's you and me go down to the beach."

"No, I can't."

"It 'cause I'm Black, ain't it?"

"No."

"'Cause I'm old, right?"

"No."

"'Cause I'm bald. You don't like old bald men, right?"

"No!" Estelle said.

"'Cause I'm a musician. You heard we irresponsible?"

"No."

"'Cause I'm hung like a bull, right?"

"No!" Estelle said.

Catfish laughed again. "Well, you wouldn't mind spreadin that one around town just the same, would you?"

"How would I know how you're hung?"

"Well," Catfish said, pausing and grinning, "you could go to the beach with me."

"You are a nasty and persistent old man, aren't you, Mr. Jefferson?" Estelle asked.

Catfish bowed his shining head, "I truly 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. "Let's have us a party on the beach."

Estelle felt like she'd 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 surf?

She took his hand. "Let's go to the beach."

"Ha!" Catfish said.

Mavis pulled a Louisville Slugger from behind the bar and held it out to Estelle. "Here, you wanna borrow this?"

They found 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.

"That was a sneaky old wave."

"I told you to take off your shoes," Estelle said. She was more amused than she felt she had a right to be. A few sips from Catfish's 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.

"Never did like the ocean much," Catfish said. "Too many sneaky things down there. Give a man the creeps, that's what it does."

"If you don't like the ocean, then why did you ask me to come to the beach?"

"The tall man said you like to paint pictures of the beach."

"Lately, the ocean's been giving me a bit of the creeps too. My paintings have gone dark."

Catfish wiped sand from between his toes with a long finger. "You think you can paint the Blues?"

"You ever seen Van Gogh?"

Catfish looked out to sea. A three-quarter moon was pooling like mercury out there. "Van Gogh...Van Gogh...fiddle player outta St. Louis?"

"That's him," Estelle said.

Catfish snatched the pint out of her hand and grinned. "Girl, you drink a man's liquor and lie to him too. I know who Vincent Van Gogh is."

Estelle couldn't remember the last time she'd been called a girl, but she was pretty sure she hadn't liked hearing it as much as she did now. She said, "Who's lying now? Girl?"

"You know, under that big sweater and them overalls, they might be a girl. Then again, I could be wrong."

"You'll never know."

"I won't? Now 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 wet shoes, running low on liquor, and a wind that chilled right to the bone. Estelle closed her eyes and swayed to the music. She realized that this was the first time she'd felt good in weeks.

He stopped abruptly. "I'll be damned. Look at that."

Estelle opened her eyes and looked toward the waterline where Catfish was pointing. Some fish had run up on the beach and were flopping around in the sand.

"You ever see anything like that?"

Estelle shook her head. More fish were coming 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. "There's something moving out there."

Catfish picked up his shoes. "We gots to go."

Estelle didn't even think of protesting. "Yes. Now."

She thought about the huge shadows that kept appearing under the waves in her paintings. She grabbed Catfish's shoes, jumped off the rock, and started down the beach to the stairs that led up to a bluff where Catfish's station wagon waited. "Come on."

"I'm comin'." Catfish spidered down the rock and stepped after her.

At the car, both of them winded and leaning on the fenders, Catfish was digging in his pocket for the keys when they heard the roar. The roar of a thousand phlegmy lions - equal amounts of wetness, fury, and volume. Estelle felt her ribs vibrate with the noise.

"Jesus! What was that?"

"Get in the car, girl."

Estelle 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.

"Wait, your shoes are on the roof."

"He can have them," Catfish said. "They better than the ones he ate last time."

"He? What the hell was that? You know what that was?"

"I'll tell you soon as I'm done havin this heart attack."

Five

The Sea Beast

The great Sea Beast paused in his pursuit of the delicious radioactive aroma and sent a subsonic message out to a gray whale passing several miles ahead of him. Roughly translated, it said, "Hey, baby, how's about you and I eat a few plankton and do the wild thing."

The gray whale continued her relentless swim south and replied with a subsonic thrum that translated, "I know who you are. Stay away from me."

The Sea Beast swam on. During his journey he had eaten a basking shark, 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 diminish to almost nothing. The leak at the power 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 he'd left his volcanic nest. But there was a buzz reaching his predator's senses from shore, the listless re-solve of prey 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 near the edge of the sea. He stopped out past the surf line and came to the surface in the middle of a kelp bed, his massive head breaking though strands of kelp like a zombie pickup truck breaking sod as it rises from the grave.

Then he heard it. A hated sound. The sound of an enemy. It had been half a century since the Sea Beast had left the water, and land was not his natural domain, but his instinct 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 ocular membranes slid back from his eyes like electric car windows. allow-ing him to see in the bitter air. He thrashed his tail, pumped his great webbed feet, and torpedoed toward the shore.

Gabe

It had been almost ten years since Gabe Fenton had dissected a dog, but now, at three o'clock in the morning, he was thinking seriously about taking a scalpel to Skinner, his three-year-old Labrador retriever, who was deep in the throes of a psychotic barking fit. 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 smell of romance.

Gabe crawled out of bed and padded to the door in his boxers, scooping up a hiking boot 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 boot at his dog, following it with the behavior-reinforcing command of: "Skinner, shut the fuck up!"

Skinner paused in his barking fit long enough to duck under the flying

L. L. Bean, then, true to his breeding, retrieved it from the washbasin that he used as a water dish and brought it back to the doorway where Gabe stood. Skinner set the soggy boot at the biologist's feet. Gabe closed the door in Skinner's face.

Jealous, Skinner thought. No wonder he can't get any females, smelling like fabric softener and soap. The Food Guy wouldn't be so cranky if he'd get out and sniff some butts. (Skinner always thought of Gabe as "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. Doesn't he get it, Skinner thought, there's something dangerous coming. Danger, Food Guy, danger!

Inside, Gabe Fenton glanced at the computer screen in his living room as he returned to bed. A thousand tiny green dots were working their way, en masse, across the map of the Pine Cove area. He stopped and rubbed his eyes. It wasn't possible.

Gabe went to the computer and typed in a command. The map of the area reappeared in wider scale. Still, the dots were all moving in a line. He zoomed the map to only a few square miles, the dots were still on the move. Each green dot on the map represented a rat that Gabe had live-trapped, injected with a microchip, and released into the wild. Their location was tracked and plotted by satellite. Every rat in a ten-square-mile area was moving east, away from the coast. Rats did not behave that way.

Gabe 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.

Gabe hit a key and a tiny 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 controller. Rat 363 hadn't 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.

Anomalies are both the bane and bread of researchers. Gabe was excited 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 total fool. He cross-checked the data three different ways, then tapped into the weather 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 fog was settling on the shore, totally normal. He could just make out the lighthouse 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.

He 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.

"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. "Excuse me?" she said.

"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."

"Pine Cove? Can I get a longitude and latitude?"

Gabe gave it to her. "I think I'm looking for something offshore."

"Nothing. Minor tremor centered at Parkfield yesterday at 9 A.M. Point zero-five-three. You wouldn't even be able to feel it. Have you picked something up on your instruments?"

"I don't have seismographic instruments. That's why I called you. This is a biological research and weather station."

"I'm sorry, Doctor, I didn't know. I'm new here. Did you feel something?"

"No. My rats are moving." As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn't.

"Pardon me?"

"Never mind, I was just checking. I'm 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.

"You think your rats are predicting an earthquake, Doctor?"

"I didn't say that."

"You should know that there's no concrete data on animals predicting seismic activity."

"I know that, but I'm trying to eliminate all the possibilities."

"Did it occur to you that your dog might be scaring them?"

"I'll factor that in," Gabe said. "Thank you for your time." He hung up, feeling stupid.

Nothing seismic or meteorological, and a call to the highway patrol confirmed that there were no chemical spills or fires. He had to confirm the data. Perhaps 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.

"Skinner, you want to go for a ride?"

Skinner 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.

Inside the house, ten green dots were moving away from the others toward the shore.

The Sea Beast

The 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 diminished now and hunger was upon him in re-sponse to the effort of moving out of the ocean. An organ at the base of his brain that had disappeared from other species when man's only living an-cestors were tree shrews produced an electric signal to call food. There were many prey here, that same organ sensed.

The Sea Beast came to the fifty-foot cliff that bordered the beach, reared 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 broad neck extended to its full height. His rear feet were wide and webbed, his front talonlike, with a thumb that opposed three curved claws for grasping and killing prey.

On the dry grass 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 blissful 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 smacking together like two wet mattresses, and a flash of neon color ran across his flanks with the pleasure.

He 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 splashed 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.

The 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.

She purred, taunting and teasing him from the front of the deserted Texaco station. That come-hither rumble. That low, sexy growl. Those silver 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 magnificent maleness. He fanned the gill trees on his neck, sending bands of color and light into their branches.

The Sea Beast sent her a signal, which roughly translated into: "Hey, baby, haven't seen you around before." She sat there, purring, playing coy, but he knew she wanted him. She had short black 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.

The Sea Beast turned himself silver as well, to make her feel a little 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.

Estelle

Estelle 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.

"You have some explaining 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 she'd already had her dose for the day.

"Leave me be, woman. I said I'd tell you. I needs me some nerve medicine."

Estelle released his hand. "What was that at the beach?"

Catfish splashed some whiskey into Estelle's tea first, then into his own. He grinned, "You see my name wasn't always Catfish. I was born with the name of Meriwether Jefferson. Catfish come on me sometime later."

"Christ, Catfish, I'm 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 definitely not herself, swearing like this.

"You wanna know or not?"

Estelle sipped her tea. "Sorry, go ahead."