Hammerhead Cove 9

The Shadows over Hammerhead Cove

Published: 11 May 2017

With Takeru clinging tightly to Toby’s shoulders, the boys emerged from the concrete pipe and broke the surface of the water, gasping desperately for fresh clean air. Toby could see the flat sharp stones that formed the bedrock of the foundation that the school was built upon and swam toward them – hoping that with something to hold on to he could keep the two of them above water.

Fixing his long fingers to the rocks Toby stopped and gathered breath. Turning his head to check on his friend he could see Takeru, with his arm still clasped around the boy’s shoulders, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Are you schtill with me?”

“J-j-just about.”

“Hold on jusht a little longer. There isch a beach up to the left.” Toby knew that to their left was another fifty metres of sheer rock and as he edged along the bedrock, the joints in his fingers and toes aching, the stone gave way and his feet hit solid ground to a white and black pebbled beach.

“D-d-dry l-land.” Takeru tried to smile.

Keeping a hold of his friend, with painfully throbbing muscles, Toby carried Takeru up the pebbled beach – the small stones shifting beneath his broad bare feet. Slowly they edged along the length of the school, Toby keeping his eyes right, fixed on the many gothic arched windows, watching for movement or light. Toby sighed with relief on spotting, a few metres ahead of them, a wide flat rock – high enough that it would shield them from the sight of the windows of the school and allow him to keep watch on both the school’s entrance and the looming church across the road.

Toby dropped to his knees and placed Takeru with his back to the stone before sitting next to him.

“A-a-at least it’s s-stopped raining.” Takeru forced as smile as he looked at Toby through half closed eyes.

The night sky above them was half filled with wisps of dark cloud that muted the light of the stars and moon cast the land and ocean with a granite gray glow. Through squinted tired eyes Takeru looked ahead of them: Out to sea, on the small island of jagged rock what he thought looked like a pod of large seals sat stationary on the flat places of it’s surface – Toby knew better.

With breath collected and some small ounce of strength restored, Toby sat up on his knees and placed his hand to Takeru’s forehead.

“If y-y-your’re checking that I have a f-f-fever I t-think that’s s-safe to assume.”

He looked at Takeru’s face – the broken cheek bone had swollen the skin and was close to forcing the boy’s left eye shut, the bruising already darkened a deep purple. While the face would heal, the leg was another matter – the makeshift bandage of strips of Takeru’s wet shorts, still held their position, but were wet and bloody. “Your leg needsch attention.”

Takeru took in a deep gasp of air as Toby removed the strips that acted as a bandage and watched the blood begin to flow from the wound. Toby pulled his wet t-shirt over his head, removed it, wrung it out as much as much as he could and began tearing it in two.

“We would be better with schomething dry. Thisch will have to do for now.”

Takeru looked to Toby, who kneeled over him, nursing his wound – now only in his underwear. “W-w-what was that th-th-thing?” he asked stuttering as Toby wrapped his shirt around the boy’s leg. “T-that c-c-came out of the w-w-water?”

Toby didn’t answer.

“T-T-Toby?”

“It wasch a Deep One.” He didn’t look his friend in the eye.

“A D-D-Deep One?” Takeru sucked in air through his teeth and scrunched his eyes in pain as Toby pulled the wet shirt tight around the boy’s wound.

“They live in the ocean. An underwater schity… called Rh’ahmen-P’jleck. We… Hammerhead Cove… the people of Hammerhead Cove I mean… they are their guardiansch… their worschipersch… their… cattle.”

“C-c-crazy. T-that’s c-crazy.”

“You schaw it. What it looked like.”

Takeru’s mind swam with implausibilities – the nonsense of what Toby was telling him. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Despite the films he’d watched and the books he’d read and the campfire stories he’d told – he never believed for that such things could be real. But neither, in his weak and pained state, could he piece together any other reason for its unlikely existence. “W-w-why did it a-a-attack me?”

Toby tied off the last strip of his shirt around the boy’s leg and looked up and into the boy’s eyes: “The pischina… the water there isch itsch mating pool. It wasch going to mate with you.”

“R-R-rape me. It w-was t-trying to rape me.” Takeru’s stomach turned at the thought of what that thing had tried to do to him. He had seen the size of the creatures erection – felt the urgency with which it had tried to attack him. If it hadn’t been for Toby’s intervention he believed that he would have died during its assault.

“They mate with the people of Hammerhead. Boysch, girlsch… it doesch not bother them.” Toby thought about the stories that he had been told, the whispered talk of the other boys in the school – the vague threats of what punishment bad behaviour warrants. “They mate scho that they can continue to exischt. They have no femalesch of their own scho our women bare their children. The mother… the mother never schurviesch the birth… and the boysch they bare go on to the care of the schcool… and when they are old enough… when the transchformation is complete… they feel the call of Rh’ahmen-P’jleck.”

Had it not been for the fact that Takeru had seen it with his own eyes, felt its breath on the back of his neck or its hands on his skin he would have dismissed Toby’s tale as fantasy without hesitation: “A-a-are you t-t-telling m-m-me..?”

“Yesch.” Toby’s face was painted with pain and revulsion.

“S-S-Say it!” Takeru didn’t know if he was angry or disgusted or sorry or some complex combination of the three. “Say it!”

“I am… I will become one of them. In time. My father wasch one of thosche thingsch. My mother died giving birth to me. I do not know when I will become… anything between twenty and eighty yearsch… it isch different for everyone.”

Takeru was at a loss for what to say in the face of something so unreal. Thinking about the litany of nonsense that he had just been told, he had no reason to disbelieve Toby, no reason to doubt the monstrosity that he had just seen with his own two eyes, everything he had felt… but what he was being told, what he was being expected to believe was so outwith the realm of his ken that not only did it sound like high-fantasy, it sounded ridiculous – a tale told for the need of a story. If these things were real what else was out there? He thought. Should I believe in Werewolves and Vampires, Demons and Zombies? Are there Goblins and Leprechauns? He sat, with his back against the rock, and tried to trust what Toby was telling him; that these Deep One’s existed in the ocean, that they were civilized enough to live in an underwater city… But even if he chose to put aside Toby’s unlikely story, he wondered if he could disbelieve his own eyes…

As he opened his mouth and began to talk Toby hushed him. Behind them the crank of the locks that bolted the school’s front door loudly resounded through the courtyard.

Toby shifted next to Takeru and peered from behind the moss covered rock as the heavy doors to the school flew open and Ms Myerscough ran out in panic. Her face paler than white, she muttered in clipped overwrought tones, her gainsboro skirt hitched up in her hands. Toby’s eyes followed the woman as she ran from the school, past the fountain, out the gate and across the road where tripping and falling onto the steps of the church in her hurry, she picked herself up and burst through it’s large oak doors.

“What’s ha-ha-happening?” stuttered Takeru from Toby’s side.

“Msch Myerschcough hasch gone into the church.”

“What d-d-does that m-mean?”

“It isch not good.”

In the space of seconds the church doors flew open as people poured onto the street, their anxious voices carrying toward the boys. Toby could make out Ms Myerscough talking with the High Priest of the Sacred Order of Yuth-R’lech – a tall thin man who hid his bony visage in heavy deep mauve robes that folded around his form as the hem scuffed the roads surface. Toby had never liked him, had never liked sitting through his sermons and had never liked listening to the tales that the man would tell about the ‘glory’ to come. He whispered to two men at his side as Ms Myerscough fanned herself with her hand.

The two men broke from the crowd and ran toward the school, disappearing through the large doors.

“We need to move.” Toby looked at Takeru, if possible the boy was even paler. “We cannot schtay here. They will schtart looking for usch asch schoon asch they confirm that the Deep One isch dead.”

“W-what w-will they d-do?”

“I do not know. Asch far asch I do know, nobody has killed one before.”

“So a p-party and a p-parade?” Takeru tried to smile but coughed – his mouth tasting of copper and sea water.

Toby hooked the boy under his armpits with his hands and lifted him to his unsteady feet. He ducked and allowed the boy to wrap his arms around his shoulders and then lifted him with his back.

As the crowd in the road grew the two figures returned running from the school stopping at the High Priest. The old man’s gaunt face morphed from concern to shock as the men whispered in his ear. He beckoned over a young woman with a tight bun tied in the back of her auburn hair. Her skittering crablike walk parted the crowd, and with a gentle pat on her shoulder, he sent her back into the church.

“There are too many people. They will schee usch if we try to crossch the road.”

At the first ring of the large brass bell the gathered crowd of people all looked to the High Priest as he climbed the steps to the church and turning, gazed out at the faces of the people below. The bell’s hollow chime rang five more times as the crowd rallied around the steps.

“My flock. It isch with a heavy heart that I have to tell you that we have loscht a brother today.” He was a natural speaker, his deep voice carried on the air out toward the ocean.

The crowd murmured with a low hum as a woman among them shrieked in shock. Answering the ringing of the church bell people began to join the crowd from the houses nearby, swelling the puddle of people in size from thirty to fifty or more bodies.

“We have loscht a brother from Rh’ahmen-P’jleck. A gentle schoul, whom many of you knew. He was taken from usch! Taken from usch in an act of violensche scho aboherrent and basche that I would schpare you the detailsch that are known to usch at thisch time.” His look of sadness fed the growling crowd.

“I th-th-think they th-think he was s-someone else.” Takeru whispered into Toby’s ear as the boy’s listened.

“But thisch act of murder… thisch act of Amischicide… Nay… Deischide… was committed by one who isch known to usch.” The priest paused allowing the crowd to rumble and murmur with suspicion. “Yesh! Asch difficult asch it isch for me to believe. it would appear that one of our own was involved in this atroschity. A boy of scheventeen.”

Toby’s eyes narrowed as a great wave of unintelligible shouting voices rang up into the air. Yet more residents of the the town came from side streets and further afield. The puddle had become a pond.

“And he isch not alone. An outschider isch with him.”

More shouting and baying for blood, the crowd turned in on itself with wet whispers dripping death as those that were already there passed on the news to the new arrivals.

“And what isch more… It isch a boy… From Halpin Hope!”

“I’m a c-celebrity.” Takeru whispered into Toby’s ear.

“We all recall well the tragedy of last schummer pascht.” The High Priest cast low his gaze as he remembered. “Hisch glory was upon usch! We were scho closche Brothersch and schischtersch. Scho, scho closche.”

“Heretics!” called a voice from the crowd.

“Indeed!” The priest responded. He allowed the voices of the crowd to ripple and whirr as they talked amongst themselves while with long thin brittle fingers he straightened the cuffs of his robe. He played the crowd like the conductor of an orchestra with expert timing. And he relished in his performance.

The woman with auburn hair and three men in deep mauve robes, that mimicked the HIgh Priest’s, emerged from the church. One carried a fold away table and he snapped its legs into place as set it down beside his superior. The second and third men carried a large wooden crate between them and with great effort lifted it onto the tabletop and pulled off the lid.

“Go! Find the hereticsch amongscht usch. Bring them to the church. The crime committed cannot go unpunisched…”

One by one the crowd stepped forward up the steps and reached into the box. Each hand pulled out something different: A shotgun, a revolver, a bowie knife, a machete… a lucky dip of pain.

“Tonight! Tonight we will offer thesche hereticsch… thesche murderersch to Yuth-R’lech… tonight we will schow our devotion to He who liesch dead, dreaming!”

The shouts and screams of the crowd rose up into the air and smashed like glass against the walls of the buildings about them.

The High Priest bowed his head and clasped his hands in front of him. The crowd grew quiet and followed suit. “Ia ia Ph’nkalgn nafal ai hrii. ia ia ooboshu nmanh li’hee hupadgh. Ia ia Y’ai’ng’ngah gotha ebumna ebumna.” He called out.

Toby reached to the sides of his friends head and covered his ears with his large hands.

“Ia ia nnn-ron nilgh’ri ph-shugg. ia ia shogg sll’ha stell’bsna ooboshu fhtagn R’lyeh!” the crowd returned in answer.

Takeru’s stomach twisted at the sound of those words, even muted somewhat by Toby’s hands. “W-w-what w-was that?” he asked.

“They are offering a prayer. The language isch Aklo. If you hear it, cover your earsch.” Toby shivered as the bodies began to disperse – hooting and hollering and waving their newly acquired weapons in the air above their heads. Some made their way into the school, some back into town and others filed along the narrow alleyways and side streets that spindled away from the road like spiders legs. The pond of people had swelled to an ocean that in turn had risen to become a crashing wave that broke upon the streets of Hammerhead Cove.

As the High Priest turned back to the church and made his way through the large wooden doors Toby stood, his hands holding tight beneath Takeru’s thighs and ran across the then empty road.

“You know w-where w-we’re going?” asked Takeru as he bounced on Toby’s back.

“Home. I am going to get you home.”

With silence on the road in front of them, Toby jogged forward and ducked into a close built between two houses to the left of the church. The buildings on either side of them sat silent but Toby kept his footsteps light as he ascended the path leading upwards into the town.

Nearing the far lip of the close he hovered – peered around the corner to check that the road ahead of them was clear and ran across the poorly lit street – his bare feet slipping on the wet cobbled road. He didn’t like that they were so visible in the open. If the street lights had been burning it would have made him feel naked and exposed – but those cast iron gas lamps were so rarely lit that he was prepared to take the risk. A twenty metre run East and he dove left again into alley between two two-storey brownstones.

In making his way to the North West of the town, Toby kept close to the walls wherever possible and made sure that he and Takeru remained bathed in shadow. He knew that the wide eyes of the town’s residents were sharp and it wouldn’t take much for them to see him even in the murkiest of light. He had often thought, having been born and raised in Hammerhead Cove and with little to do most days but wander the streets of the near abandoned borough, that with eyes closed he could find his way from one end of the town to the other. He knew the labyrinth of alleys and closes well – which led to another, which were blocked by piles of uncleared rubble and which of those just led only to a dead end. He knew which streets were still occupied by residents and which had long been forsaken. He knew those roads that would open to squares and those that would end in cul-de-sac’s. In the many times he had planned his escape from the town. should the need arise, plotting routes around expected roadblocks and where he believed the town’s residents would naturally gather – he had considered what the best map would be to take him from the cursed town and lead him to that long awaited and hoped for freedom.

At the mouth of the alleyway he came to a halt on hearing the voices of others. Staying to the shadows he tightened his grips around Takeru’s thighs and lifting the boy further up onto his back he peeked around the corner: two figures, knives gleaming in their hands, were whispering to one another as they sat upon the stoop of a two floor brownstone building a few metres to his right.

“W-what’s happening?” asked Takeru in his ear.

“Two people. Talking.”

“C-C-Can we get b-by them?”

“Not if they do not move.”

A loud crack from behind them, followed by a soft burr in the sky above. Toby turned his head and saw an orange flare explode in the night sky. The two figures noticed it too and standing looked to one another, Toby could see their wide flat narrow teeth as they smiled, before they ran down the street and turned right.

“That c-c-came from the school.”

“I think that they have found the banagesch I left there.”

Again Toby ran across the road, stopping when out of the corner of his eye he saw a white towel draped from a window ledge. He let go of Takeru’s leg briefly and with his left hand snatched it, tucking it into the front of his underwear, before returning his grip to his friend on his back.

Running along the street he paused at the cross-roads knowing that they would never be more exposed than they would be there. Voices from towards the shore drifted into his ear, still more up toward his left. He could swear one of them was calling his name. He hiked Takeru further up on his back once again – the boy’s weight seemingly becoming heavier with every step he took and ran as fast he could across the cross roads while his friend clung tightly to his shoulders – softly mumbling in pain in his ear. Behind him, North and South he could hear the shouts and cries of the residents of Hammerhead Cove as they called his name and damned him with every breath. If they’ve found the bandages, he reasoned, they could follow the path that he was taking. The buildings never looked so tall to him as they did then – the windows never more so like glinting bedevilled eyes watching his every step.

Diving left again and into another narrow alley he saw a short rotund figure standing midway between their entrance and possible exit, the handle of a pitchfork in his right hand, its four rusted teeth pointed toward the ground. In his left hand he carried a small flashlight that was cast ahead of him as he searched the ground..

In slowly stepping backward Toby’s foot knocked a stray glass bottle – the sound of it rolling away from them, as it clinked and sung like a soprano over each cobble, had the figure spin around and cast his light on the two boys.

“Well, well, well…” The man’s smile was wide and wicked. Takeru could barely keep his eyes open enough to see the points of his teeth beneath thick rubbery lips. “Looksch like you two made it further than schome of the othersch thought.”

“Pleasche..” pleaded Toby. “We meant no harm… We juscht want to…”

The man dropped the torch to the ground and lifted his pitchfork, holding it in both hands pointed toward them. With a quick strike, he leapt forward – swiping the teeth of the fork low – the rusted edges slicing at Toby’s bare midriff. At the shock of the pain he let go of Takeru, who fell from his back with a howl as he hit the floor.

Toby looked at his stomach – the gash wasn’t deep but enough to cause a thin trickle of blood to drip down to the waistband of his undershorts. He looked up at the man whose toothy leering grin seemed more than a little suggestive. “Gonna gut you boy… Your little friend too.”

He launched the fork forward but Toby stepped right and snatched at the pole – trying to tug it away from his attackers thick hands.

The man lifted the fork and Toby with it, throwing the boy’s back against the wall. Toby felt a jagged stone tear at the skin on his right shoulder blade. The man raised the handle and pushed the splintered wood against the boy’s already red raw throat.

“Thinking that you could run huh?” his breath was foul, the reek of hot shit on Toby’s face. “Thinking that you won’t have to pay for what you done? Themsch Deep Onesh isch our people… They’re Hisch people… !” He ground the handle against Toby’s Adam’s apple, sneered and smiled as he watched the boy’s eyes roll back in his head. “You got a mighty fine punischement comin’ your way for what you did… murderer.”

After his struggle with the Deep One in the cave beneath the school, the effort that it took to swim to freedom with Takeru on his back and the still more that was consumed carrying his friend across town – Toby’s strength had been all but sapped from his body. Try as he might, his arms may as well have been wet noodles as he tried to push back against the man’s bulk.

“Yeah…” The man licked his fat lips with his red wet tongue. “Imma goin’ to have schome real fun with you boysch.”

When reviewing the situation it is difficult to stay who was more surprised when the bottle smashed on the side of the man’s face – shattering into many tiny pieces. It may have been Toby, who snapped from being moments away from passing into unconsciousness to a sudden sharp alertness of his surroundings – all things became clear and as the fork handle eased from his throat, with a sudden rush of adrenaline, his strength returned with avengence. It could have been the man who, on feeling the hard slap on his temple followed by the sharp sting of multiple shards of glass embedding themselves into the soft blubbery skin of his cheek, took a moment to realize as he blinked and gawped and stepped backwards, dropping the fork to the ground, that he had been blinded in his right eye. Or it might have been Takeru – who had found the strength to stand. His left shoulder leaning hard against a wall – supporting all his weight – his right hand stinging from the impact of where he had smashed the bottle on the man’s head.

The man stepped away blinking – his back landing hard against the wall opposite. Toby lunged forward and with a balled up fist punched the man on his left temple. A second quick hit landed on his nose. Both boys heard the crack of bone as Toby’s wide fist made contact with the bridge. The man groaned and fell to his seat on the ground with a thump, thick red blood dripping over his lips and chin.

Quickly Toby scooped up Takeru on his shoulders and ran for the end of the alley as the man’s outstretched fingers tried to grab for the boy’s ankles.

It was only after crossing the road and managing to scurry halfway down another narrow alley that the boys heard the flare in the sky. The loud crack followed by a burst of orange light had come from only a few metres behind them.

“H-he h-had a flare g-gun?” asked Takeru lifting his head from his friend’s shoulder.

The cry of voices, at distance, around them.

“We need to keep moving.” Toby shucked Takeru further up onto his back and ran as fast as he could.

The interlaced labyrinth of alleyways, closes, lanes and backstreets that weaved through the last six blocks of buildings before the edge of town had been walked by Toby many times over the last few years. He knew them as well as he knew any of the streets in Hammerhead Cove, even if he didn’t know why they had been constructed thus. If he were an outsider – if it were Takeru that had been forced to carry Toby as he slipped in and out of consciousness on his back – he would have found himself lost in a maze of ever narrowing, queerly sloping pathways that seemed to lead nowhere in particular. Steps would lead upward only to stop at a wall, others would lead down and seemingly run perpendicular to the path that they had begun on. Closes intersected closes and opened into alleyways that would lead to doors that opened onto back streets that ran parallel to closes… No markings or names, only the ever rarer chance that a recognizable road may be discovered.

Satisfied that they had distanced themselves enough from the place of confrontation with the pitchfork wielding resident, Toby found a small alcove on the left, deep enough to provide a moments sanctuary, and lit only by the stars above. Awkwardly he leaned back, resting Takeru against the wall and lowered him to the ground.

“P… pitchforks and t-t-torches…” stuttered Takeru trying to smile.

“Schorry?” Toby leaned over his friend trying to examine the boys leg. When his fingers touched the calf Takeru howled in pain. “I am schorry Takeru. I need to schee your leg.”

“P-pitchforks and t-torches…” the boy said again. “L-Like in F-F-Frankenstein!” Takeru coughed, a small amount of blood trickling over his bottom lip. “The V-V-Villagers chase the m-m-monster…”

“You are not the monschter here!” Pulling away the blood soaked strips of his t-shirt, he could see that Takeru’s leg was still weeping – the wound was deep and had quickly become ringed with yellowed pus. Toby’s stomach turned to look at it. He took the towel from the front of his underwear and ripped it into three pieces. Having balled up the first strip he dabbed at the wound. Takeru whimpered.

“S-s-sorry… It… h-hurts.” The boy seemed paler still. His usually dark tanned skin almost a ghostly white. Toby cleaned away the yellow pus and threw the makeshift bandage to the ground. With a better view he could see that the blood pumped from the wound in time with the boys heart beat – thick and red – almost black in the poor light. He folded the second strip of towel and placed it to the wound, with the third he wrapped Takeru’s calf and pulled it tight – tight enough that it caused Takeru to wince at the pain.

“Schorry… I need to schtop the bleeding.” Toby’s hand went to Takeru’s forehead – cold and clammy – the boy’s entire body was coated in a fine film of sweat. He knew that he needed to get him out of Hammerhead Cove and back to Halpin Hope, that he needed to find his friend medical assistance as fast as he could.

“Can you schtand?”

“Help m-me up an… and I c-can t-try.”

Toby reached under Takeru’s armpits with his oversized hands and helped his friend to his feet – supporting his weight by leaning into his friend’s chest with his shoulder.

“On my back again?”

“H-Hi Ho Silver!” Takeru tried again to smile but feeling faint with the loss of blood, instead coughed.

Toby carried the boy from alley to close to backlane and sidestreet – sticking to the shadows wherever possible. The collective voices of the town’s residents continued calling out his name, they banged their sticks and bats against walls, trees and railings and the sounds grew ever louder and ever closer. Voices a hundred metres or so to his left – somewhere far enough away that if he didn’t know that they were looking for him and Takeru he would have assumed that they were talking amongst themselves. Others were much closer. A few feet to the left… a forty metres to the right… he could feel their malice in the air prickling his skin like an electrical current.

He knew exactly where he needed to go. If he could cross this street and dive left again he and Takeru would find themselves at the foot of the wide flat steps that led up toward the three ft. stone wall that surrounded the north end of the town – and the bedraggled mess of Juniper bushes that sat on the outskirts.

“Y-Y-You’re strong…” whispered Takeru in his friend’s ear. “I’d-doubt that I c-c-could c-carry you.”

Toby turned his head and smiled at Takeru, the boy’s cheek resting on his shoulder: “Luckily you do not have to.”

Peering from the corner of the alley to find the street, unlit by street lamps, empty, Toby ran across the road and turned left at the last of the diseased Dogwood tree’s. He sighed with some small relief as he stood at the bottom of a set of gradual steps – the brick walls on either side of him narrowing with the climb. What would have been a gentle slope on any other given day now looked daunting and treacherous. Breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth – taking the stone steps of the close one by one, with Takeru on his back, cost Toby every last reserved ounce of strength – and only once he had reached a few steps shy of the top did he stop and lean his shoulder against the wall to his right.

It was as they were about to break from the unnamed close and find themselves at the stone wall on the North Western edge of the town that he saw the girl. Maybe a year or two older than Toby – her large eyes gleamed in the darkness when she spotted them.

Toby stopped dead in his tracks as she looked right at him. Takeru lifted his head and opened his eyes.

“The g-g-girl from the sh-shop.”

Pretty in an unobvious way – her hair still tight in a bun at the back of her head – a shotgun in her hand pointed toward the ground, she hesitated – her eyes not moving from the boys position at the edge of the alley. She stood between them and a break in the wall through which Toby could just see the twisted branches of the Juniper bushes.

“Pleasche?” mouthed Toby.

She raised her shotgun and pointed it toward the boys. Reaching behind her back she pulled a flare gun from the back of her trousers and smiling wickedly at the boys raised it to the air and fired. While Toby didn’t take his eyes off of the girl in front of him, Takeru watched the flare shoot up through the sky before erupting with an orange crack in the darkness above them.

“There is nowhere to go.” she smiled wickedly at them.

“Pleasche?”

It was only as she was opening her mouth about to speak that she jolted forward. Coughed with a wet gurgle. And fell face first to the ground.

Toby’s jaw dropped.

Standing behind her – crossbow in hand and a red rage woven across the fabric of face was Pappa John.

He was quick to reload the bow with another bolt and pointed it directly at Toby’s chest. Toby looked at the girl lying dead on the ground – the wooden bolt seemingly growing from her back.

“No! I am helping him! Pleasche!”

Keeping the bow trained on Toby, John Kirk lowered his chin to his chest and pulled his spectacles down to the end of his nose: “What did I warn you?” his voice was venom.

Takeru looked up from Toby’s shoulder and weakly smiled: “P-P-Pappa John?”

It was the shouting of a chorus of voices from the bottom of the steps behind them that shook Toby and John from the moment.

“My truck! Come on!”

Hesitantly, Toby followed John through the broken gap in the wall and into the dense brush of Juniper Bushes – the dead and dying branches scratching at his bare skin. The voices behind them grew louder and like a wave crashing on a rock cried with an almighty howl: they had found the girl’s body – the bolt in her back.

The thick mass of bushes provided no clear path as Toby followed John Kirk away from Hammerhead Cove. He ducked and weaved, tripping on stray twisted roots and cutting his arms and legs on the prickly brambles. He dared a look back as they neared the road. The town’s residents were gathering at the break in the wall, their mumbled cries reaching across the lake of tangled shrubbery.

Reaching the vehicle, John opened the side of his truck, holding the door while Toby carried the boy and lay him down on the carpeted floor. No sooner had he done so than he heard the door slam and felt John grab him by the throat in one of his meaty hands – thrusting him hard against the side of the truck.

“I warned you what would happen if any harm came to him, little squid!”

Toby couldn’t believe the force that the old man possessed – an unlikely strength in those old hands. “I… I…”

“H-H-He s-saved me.” Takeru spoke from the floor, his hand reaching for John.

“What happened?” John released the boy and looked toward Takeru, cursing himself for not noticing the makeshift bandage around the boys leg.

“I told him not to come.” The relief of escaping Hammerhead Cove came out of Toby in panicked tears. Someone else was here now. Someone who would help. The need to remain as calm and strong as he could muster had passed.

John peeled at the bandages on the wincing Takeru’s leg and saw the damage. Covered in blood and a fine yellow pus, the wound was deep and angry looking. Half of the boy’s calf muscle had been torn from his leg and the red would not stop flowing.

The old man reached into a cardboard box behind the driver’s seat and pulled out a couple of t-shirts: “What did this?” He looked to Toby while rebandaging Takeru’s leg.

“I… I…” Toby was stuttering, his pale face now sheet white and hands shaking.

“What did this?” screamed John.

“It… It…”

John spun back to Toby and slapped him with an open palm hard across his face – stinging the boy’s cheek. An act of kindness and an act of urgency disguised as violence.

“What was it?”

“A Deep One… It wasch a Deep One!” Toby’s tears were flowing like water from a faucet – his cheeks flushed red, his large brown eyes wet and pleading. “Pleasche! Help him!”

Pappa John had already wrapped Takeru’s leg in one tie-dye t-shirt and began wrapping round a second.

“He’s lost a lot of blood! The wound looks infected. How old was the Deep One?”

“I… I do not…”

John grabbed a fistful of the the boy’s hair and pulling him in close, screamed in his face: “HOW OLD WAS IT?”

“Three maybe four…”

“That’s no so bad.” He let go of Toby, looked at the festering wound on Takeru’s leg and fought the urge the vomit. Gathering his composure he pulled the t-shirt tighter around the deep flowing wound.

“…hundred.”

“What?”

“Three or four hundred yearsch! It wasch big and old!”

“Jesus Christ!” John could feel a sickness building in his chest. “We need to get him to the medical centre fast!” John looked to the front of his truck and then back to Toby. “You stay with him! Keep this shirt over the wound to stem the bleeding.” He grabbed Toby’s hand and held it over Takeru’s wet red leg. “Hold it tight! Stop the blood flow!”

John hoisted his large frame and indelicately clambered over the seats, into the front of his truck. He started the engine: “Where is it? The Deep One? How did you get away?”

“I… k-killed it.” In his voice hid a sorrow – whether it be for the taking of a life, even in defence of his friend, or that his action had exiled him from Hammerhead Cove – he couldn’t identify.

Pappa John turned his head to the boy in disbelief: “You what?”

“I killed it.”

“Shit! They’ll be trouble coming now if you’re telling me the truth.” turning back to the cab, John switched on the ignition: “We can worry about that after we’ve seen to Taki.” He looked out of the side window and saw that the crowd of residents had taken the decision to follow. Many were nearing the truck as they fought against the knotted brush of Juniper bushes.

“Isch he going to be OK?”

As John put the truck into drive he willed it forward. “I don’t know!” John shook his head. “So much blood…” His hands were slick with red as they gripped the wheel. “If he dies… If I lose another kid…” he bit his tongue.

Weakly Takeru’s eyes opened to see Toby’s face streaked with tears looking down at him. He tried to smile at the boy but as the pain in his leg intensified all he could offer was something somewhere between a lopsided grin and a pained grimace.

In contrast Toby’s smile was full of warmth and pity. With both hands he gripped hard below Takeru’s knee, holding the tie-dye t-shirt – sopping wet with blood – in place.

“FUCK!” John smashed his fist against the wheel and with wet eyes looked into the rear-view mirror – at Toby – at Takeru – at the boy from Hammerhead Cove cradling his friend and crying.

“Pleasche be OK. Pleasche OK… Pleasche…”

It was there – hearing those last words ringing in his ears as the truck hurtled over the dirt road toward Halpin Hope that Takeru finally blacked out.

Construction of the Halpin Hope Medical Centre was completed in late July 1971. The architect, Wallace Baum, had designed a simple building over one floor and a basement level to look, from the air, like a Red Cross on the landscape. While the intention was, initially, to use only materials that were local to the island or could be made in Halpin Hope – the lack of a steel works or factory capable of producing the plastics and polymer required meant that a large portion of the materials had to be shipped over from the mainland United States. The stone used, however, the concrete mixed and the glass produced was all sourced from the natural environment of the island.

Over the years, as the population of the town grew and with the need more for space, the Medical Centre had seen a number of extensions; a dedicated burns unit, a small children’s wing, an extension of the onsite pharmacy and a small physiotherapy centre for those recovering from physical trauma. These extensions allowed the centre to treat more serious problems on site rather than requiring an emergency airlift to the nearest hospital on the mainland, or the six hour ferry ride to San Francisco, and were welcomed by everyone who lived in the town. Little thought however went into the placement of these extensions and if Wallace Baum were alive today to see what had become of the building he had designed specifically to represent the grit and dedication of the small staff who were running it, he would find himself fighting the desire to burn it to the ground.

Unnoticable from eye level it wasn’t until, in 1999, Abbey Feldstein, who at eighty-three years-old was as sprightly and daring as they come, was blown off of the course set by the local Paragliding club. A sudden strong gust of wind had the woman lose control of her glider and rather than circling the pillar of Jet Lignite stone that locals had named Raven Rock – a pillar that seemed to grow from the ocean floor and towered nearly four hundred metres above the surface of the water – she instead flew over the Medical Centre just West of the town. Shocked at what she saw, at an altitude of six hundred metres above sea level, she suffered her first and only heart attack. The glider carried the little old woman’s body out to sea around thirty nautical miles from the island before crashing to the water. A nearby tourist, who had hired a fishing boat for the day, rescued her from the ocean’s surface and gave her first-aid before returning her to the Island. What Abbey Feldstein had seen was not by design – instead it was one of those crass coincidences that the universe has a habit of throwing up. Through sheer accident – the Halpin Hope Medical Centre, with it’s four recent extensions, had been transformed from a Red Cross, an emblem of neutral protection recognised throughout the world… to a swastika.

It was this that had earned the centre, with a long and well earned history of dedicated patient care, the unfortunate nickname of: The Hitler Hospital.

Takeru awoke slowly to a steady close electronic bleeping in his ears and a sharp pain in his left leg. Opening his right eye to a wash of white he squinted and blinked. His mouth was parched and he wondered how long it had been since liquid had passed his lips. Wondering why he couldn’t open his left eye he reached up to feel the side of his face – swollen and painful to the touch.

“He’s awake!” It was Hinata’s voice that he heard first.

“Oh! Thank God!” His mother called out rushing from the window to her son’s side.

“Taki? You there son?” His father.

Turning his head on the pillow his face ached with a dull pain. The boy could see his brother sitting by his side, his parents both standing behind him – concern, relief, love: all etched on their faces.

“H-hey g-g-guys!” His voice was slight – his head groggy. “What’s ha-happening?”

“Honey go get a nurse or a doctor!” His mother tapped Hinata’s shoulder and the boy nodded, smiling at his brother before leaving the room. She reached out and grabbed her son’s hand – bringing it to her face and kissing it.

“M-M-Ma?”

His father stepped forward and ran his hand into his son’s hair and smiled – that smile more a sudden sigh at the release of stress in seeing his boy’s open eyes. Trying as hard as he could to be the stoic man his family needed took it’s toll on the usually emotionally open Dr. Yuya – and now that his son was finally awake, release came in tears that ran down his cheeks in rivers.

“D-Dad?”

Hinata came back into the room flanked by a portly nurse.

“What’s ha-happening?”

“‘Bout time you woke up butt munch! You’ve been sleeping for like two and half days.” Hinata grinned wide and toothily at his brother.

“Hinata don’t talk like that to your brother!” their mother scolded as Hinata dodged a swipe from her hand to his hip.

“If you could just give me a little space…” The nurse brushed aside the family as she began checking Takeru’s vitals.

“What ha-ha-happened?” asked Takeru, his voice, weak but clear. Seeing an intravenous drip was attached to his left arm he moved his right hand across to pull at the needle embedded in his skin but the nurse brushed it aside.

“John Kirk found you by the side of the road two nights ago…” his father answered.

“He and that boy brought you to the Medical Centre!” his mother continued.

“T-Toby?” parts of the events that had led him to his bed in the medical centre began to clear in the fog of Takeru’s memory.

“Tall weird looking kid!” smiled Hinata. “He’s been here the whole time checking on you…”

“Is T-T-Toby here?”

“Nah! Pappa John made him go back to his for a shower and some sleep.”

An image as clear as day of the tall oddly handsome boy he had become fast friends with, whom he had in such a brief amount of time come to see as far more than that.

“You guys fucking or something?” Hinata said with a bedeviled smile inserting the index finger of his right hand into a ringed hole he’d formed with his left.

In unison, as if eighteen years of marriage had allowed them to become so connected that they could simultaneously be possessed with one thought, Dr Yuya cuffed the back of Hinata’s head while his mother reached from her place at Takeru’s side and slapped his leg.

“Language!” said Dr Yuya.

“Don’t be so crude!” said the boy’s mother.

Hinata rubbed at both points of contact and smiled. “Sorry Ma… Your friend is staying in a spare room above Pappa John’s store, he’s gonna be helping them out. I think he’s supposed to be a nephew or something. They said that they found you caught in a bear trap.”

“A what?”

“Poachers apparently trying to get wild boar…”

As Takeru tried to sit up in the bed the nurse held his shoulders and pushed him back down: “Stay down for now please. Doctor Benway is with another patient but he’ll want to come in and see you as soon as he finds out you’re awake.” She stood and smiled at the boy. “I’ll get you a cup of ice chips. Just stay down and don’t move about too much.” Putting her hand on Mrs Yuya’s shoulder she looked to Takeru’s parents. “Can I see you both outside for a moment?”

Dr Yuya nodded solemnly and held his wife’s arm – lifting her from her place beside her son’s bed.

“We’ll only be a couple of minutes honey.” she said to Takeru. “Don’t agitate your brother!” she warned Hinata.

As they left the the room, the brothers Yuya watched the door close before turning to one another.

“A b-b-bear trap?” asked Takeru.

Hinata placed his hand on his brothers above the sheets: “What’s with the stutter?”

“I d-d-don’t know.”

The look on Hinata’s face at that moment was enough to make Takeru aware of how weak he must have looked in his brother’s eyes. “The bear trap? That’s bullshit! When John dropped you here at the Hitler Hospital he’d said that he and that kid were out bird watching and found you with your leg caught…” Hinata sat on the bed beside Takeru. “Do you remember what happened? Anything at all?”

Takeru searched his mind for a recollection of the events that has led him to this bed he found himself in. There were snatches: Riding his brother’s bike into Hammerhead Cove, a woman in black and gray leading him down a seemingly endless corridor, another corridor – no a tunnel – the walls covered in a children’s drawings… A door… A sound… A large dark wet figure emerging from a pool of black water… A claw around his leg… Sharp points digging into the soft muscle of his calf… It’s erection probing at his backside… Sharks teeth… Blood… So much blood…

My leg! Takeru threw the blanket aside and stared in horror at the bandaged bloody stump just below his left knee raised on a pillow. “What the f-f-fuck!”

Hinata’s face dropped and he made a move to comfort his brother but Takeru pushed him aside: “The infection… they had to…”

“What the fuck ha-ha-happened? Where’s my fucking le-le-leg? WHERE’S MY FUCKING LEG?”

The door flew open with a crash and the three adults returned. On seeing the boy’s panicked state, the nurse ran back down the corridor as Takeru’s mother immediately threw her arms around her then crying son while his father stood firm as Hinata sought solace in his father’s chest.

“Where is it?” Takeru struggled to speak through the tears. His hoarse voice a broken croak: “What ha-ha-happened to my leg? P-p-please? What ha-ha-happened?”

Doctor Benway burst through the door followed by the portly nurse.

“Nurse. The Propofol!”

“Takeru, you’ve suffered a trauma…”

Takeru pushed his mother from the bed only to be held down firmly by Benway and the nurse.

Thrashing under the weight of the medical professionals, his mother reclaimed her place by her son’s side while Doctor Benway prepared the syringe.

“Is that really necessary?” Dr Yuya’s eyes widened while Benway ignored him.

“Shush baby… It’s going to be OK! I promise… It’s going to be OK…”

“Hold him still!”

“It’s OK baby… It’s OK…” While she fought back her own tears, it was to the soft soothing whispering of his mother voice in his ear that Takeru, his eyes red and face wet with hot angry tears, passed into sleep while the Doctor injected the sedative into his veins.

END

Let me know what you think of my story:Ellio