The Stone Cat (2023)
Prequel to Deathless Creatures (in publication, 2024)
I turn into another curve on Highway 101. A fog rolls low off the Pacific Ocean and reaches its soft fingers through the dark spruce forest to stretch across the road.
My knuckles are tired. I’ve been driving nonstop from Seattle for nearly three hours with the music turned high but it still isn’t loud enough. The screams and voices repeat in my head like cruel punishment. Of the fifteen unlucky souls on that waterfront sidewalk, everyone had drowned. Everyone including me.
When they took me to the hospital I told them it was just headaches, not the constant screams on repeat. They kept me overnight anyway until I finally went home and hid in my apartment until the voices grew so loud I had to leave.
A reflective blue and white sign glows in the headlights. I slow and turn right down a manicured drive, past a comically oversized Adirondack chair, and into a Disneyland-like version of a coastal town. The streets are empty. The tourists are sleeping.
I turn the music down and park in front of the grocery store housed in a modern interpretation of a turn-of-the-century corner shop. Gold-lettered glass promises “Fine Provisions.” My stomach growls.
With only ten minutes left until closing, I head to the liquor section, passing a cooler of only champagne and cava, to grab a bottle of Hendrick’s. From the deli I choose the last bag of day-end cold fried chicken and quickly pick from the display of high-end cured meats and cheeses. On the way to the register I take a party-size bag of Doritos. The Beach Boys are playing faintly in the background.
I stand at the counter for nearly five awkward minutes, waiting for someone to pause their restocking and usher out their final customer.
“Hello?” I call.
I am answered only by the harmonious voices playing from the overhead speakers. I gaze through the windows into the vacant street with its faux antique lampposts and crisscrossed string lights. An oversized chessboard is painted in the middle of the street waiting for tomorrow’s players.
A numbing tingle forms in my fingers like they have fallen asleep. I shake them out but the sensation spreads heavy up my forearms. Even flexing my elbows doesn’t restart the circulation.
I step closer to the window, trying to see through the reflection of the aisles behind me.
My heart leaps into my throat and my tingling hands become clammy.
I slowly reach.
My fingers touch the window where my reflection should be.
No….
No, no, no, no, no….
A rustling behind me. “Hello? Is somebody there?”
I snap back into reality and jump. An involuntary gasp escapes my lips.
Behind me stands an elderly woman waiting at the register with a startled look.
“Oh, I didn’t see you there!” she exclaims. “It’s been a long day. Here, let’s ring you up.”
I spin back to the window and my frightened face stares back. No. Just sleep. I just need sleep and it will all be better.
“Yeah, hi, thanks,” I mutter and set my basket on the counter. “Hey, did the lights just flicker? Is the power going out?”
She frowns and shoots a look at the gin bottle. “No, town’s got good electricity, even in a storm.”
I pinch the brow of my nose. “Right, yeah, of course.”
The woman smiles gently and holds out the bag. “You get home safe now, you hear?”
I nod weakly and climb back in my car, angling the rearview mirror to see my exhausted face staring back. I gently slap my cheek and feel a reassuring thud. I am here. I am still here.
I readjust the mirror and do a U-turn out of the annoyingly perfect resort to continue north on the highway. The chicken is tough and the breading flakes down my clothes and sticks in my hair, but I devour three wings and two legs as fast as I can.
A carved wooden sign reads The Oceancrest and is adorned with a faded, paint-chipped medieval crest. I turn into the parking lot of the 1940s seaside hotel. No windows have been wasted on the highway side, leaving only a grey fortress of angled wood paneling to welcome guests.
The lobby interior walls are clad in warm cedar paneling and decorated with large watercolor paintings that celebrate waves, seagulls, and sandy beaches. I tap the metal bell on the countertop. There is a rustling from a back room and a thin man with greying hair steps out, tucking in his dress shirt and brushing his shoulders.
“Good evening, how may I help you?”
“Hey, yeah, checking in. Sarah Woodward. I called earlier today and you said you had room.”
He nods. “Yes, of course. Welcome to The Oceancrest! Let’s see here, I just need an ID and credit card, please.”
I slide my cards out from my wallet with greasy fingers and set them on the lacquered fir counter. The man clicks away at his computer, producing the only sound in the lobby. I wipe my hands on my jeans and brush fallen chicken breading off my jacket. My legs ache to move. Moonlit waves crash beyond the dark windows. Soon. Soon it will finally be loud enough.
The man returns my cards with a real key on a black plastic diamond keychain.
“Here you are, Room 109. Excellent view. Breakfast starts at seven o’clock and goes until eleven. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
I open the door to Room 109 and drop my duffle on the musty, brown shag carpet. Yellowing vertical plastic blinds cover a glass slider that I drag open. Saltwater air rolls over me. I close my eyes and sigh in relief for the first time in the last forty-eight hours.
Below is a wooden staircase zig-zagging down from the hotel through the creek valley. It disappears into the dark trees. In the distance beckons the sandy moonlit beach. The white waves roar. They have to be loud enough to silence these memories.
I take my chicken grease hands to the bathroom and flick on the light. I run the hot water, unwrap the round lemongrass hand soap, and begin to scrub vigorously. My fingers start to tingle again and I pause. The water splashes into the shell-shaped sink.
I lift my head up to the mirror.
It is empty.
My mouth is open to scream but nothing comes.
I lift my wet soapy hands to my eyes. They drip and tingle, but not in the mirror. I grip the vanity and look down fighting the urge to throw up.
I force myself to look again.
My sweaty twenty-seven-year-old face is there.
As I reach for the glass my face flickers in and out like a dying lightbulb.
“What the fuuuuuck….” I utter.
I back away and race into the hallway. The door to Room 109 shuts loudly behind.
***
The wood is slippery. I grip the railing with soapy hands and rush into the patchy fog. With each breath the numbing and nausea subsides. Soon I will stand at the water’s edge, completely alone, and the violent sea will overpower whatever is happening to me.
I pause on the last switchback landing. Two overdressed people stand in the dunes at the bottom of the staircase.
“Where is it?” he shouts at her. He wears a greyish suit with a pocket square.
“It must be here somewhere.” She stands barefoot with hand on hip and holding white pumps in the other. “The clasp must’ve broke. It must’ve slipped off somewhere around here.”
I look past them to the expansive beach with desperation.
“How could you be so careless? It was your anniversary gift. It was an antique! It cost me sixty whole dollars!”
I continue down the stairs.
“You don’t think I know that by now?!” she shouts back. She wears a 1950s style cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline and cherry pattern. “Look, we’ll find it, I know we will, we just have to keep looking. Oh, it was just so exotic, and you know how much I like cats,” she mutters and surveys the sand around her feet.
I halt on the last stairstep within feet of the bickering obstacles.
He throws up his hands. “The lady said it was really old and I should be lucky to have it. Of the finest Italian marble, she said.” His pocket square is pink with cherries to match her dress.
“We’ll find it. Don’t worry. It must be here somewhere.” The woman’s green eyeshadow shimmers and her ruby red lips are perfectly lined. Her cheeks are pink from the cold wind which has undone a few tendrils of her old-fashioned updo.
“Excuse me, can I get by?” I say loudly.
They turn their heads slowly and stare, unmoving.
“We’re in your way?” the man asks with a puzzled look. His eyes are dark and his square jaw is cleanshaven. He wears horn-rimmed glasses.
“Uhh, yeah. So can you move?”
They exchange confused expressions but step aside.
My throat turns cold under their odd stares. I hurry past to sit on a log by the mouth of the creek. I unfasten my Docs and carry them by the laces to finally stand at the water’s edge. Cold wet sand presses against my feet. The unending churn consumes my thoughts like medicine, until there is only a body, water, land, and night sky.
***
My eyelids are crusted shut. I wipe them open. My head is pounding. A half-empty bottle of gin sits on the round wood veneer table. I push myself vertical off the bedspread and try to smooth my coarse hair. Everything hurts as I pull on fresh clothes and move my body to the restaurant. Golden sunlight is beating through the windows.
“Hello,” a woman greets me with a positive smile and professionally overlooking my disheveled state.
“Hey, yeah, just here for breakfast.”
“Oh, I’m sorry but breakfast ended at eleven. But if you’d like, we’re serving dinner now?”
I frown and look to the ocean and a very low, setting sun. “Oh. Right, yeah, dinner. Okay. Yeah. Just me.”
She leads me to a window table and gives me a tender, motherly look before walking away. I order a steak and loaded baked potato with a side of popcorn shrimp. The sun disappears below the horizon as I plow into my food and try to tamper the images of those strange people on the beach last night. Their conversation replays in my head, word-for-word, nagging at me.
I pay and walk to the reception desk. The same tall man is straightening the tourist brochures.
“Hello again, how may I help you?”
“Yeah, hi. I was just wondering if those people ever found their necklace.”
“What people?”
“The couple staying here last night, youngish, retro-looking. He’s got horn-rimmed glasses and she has, umm, like platinum blonde hair, wrapped up like this,” I draw a swirly whipped cream dollop with my finger over my head, “and she was wearing a dress with cherries?”
The man shakes his head, confused. “No, the only guests we have right now are a few older couples and you.”
“But I saw them last night on the beach. They were pretty upset about it.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“Isn’t that staircase just for guests?”
“Yes, guests only.”
I frown. “Huh. Okay, well thanks anyway.”
***
The sky is dimming as I walk down the stairs. The headaches are back. The air is chill and a pattering of rain begins bouncing off the waxy green salal leaves. I step off the last stair onto an empty beach. The wind is picking up and I sigh with relief.
I walk to my log and unlace my boots.
In the sand before my feet is a small grey carving, no more than an inch. I pick it up and turn the polished marble over in my hand. It is a seated cat. The body is plain and there are chiseled, hollow eyes. A hole has been drilled through the head to hold a gold chain.
A calmness warms me and my headaches lessen. My back straightens involuntarily as I stroke the little cat’s back. Something about it calls to me, but I know it isn’t mine.
I look to the staircase.
The woman and man are standing there again, gesturing at each other. I frown. The wind must be muffling their voices.
I rise, the necklace hanging from one hand and my boots from the other, and walk over.
The woman turns her head at my approach. She smiles widely, almost too much.
“You,” she calls out. “My husband and I were wondering if you might help us. You see, I’ve misplaced my necklace. It was a very important gift and I’ve lost it here in the sand. Maybe you could help us look for it?” Her eyes are piercing.
The man looks at me with eager eyes. “You saw us,” he states in an odd tone.
“No one else has been able to help us,” the woman explains.
I stop a few feet away and hold it up before their hopeful faces. It sways in the wind. “Is this it?”
They lock their eyes on the small charm and strange guttural sounds fill the wind.
“You found it!” the woman shrieks with joy and hops up and down clapping. I look down and realize the sand is not moving under the weight of her hops. The sand is not moving at all.
I step back and instinctively thrust the little statue in my pocket.
“Here, I’ll take that now.” The man’s eyes are no longer friendly.
I step back again.
“We’ve been searching forever,” he continues. There is a fervor in his eyes that was not there before. “Give it to me. I bought it. It belongs to me.”
“No, give to me!” the woman directs in a deep voice. “I wore it. It belongs to me.” Her eyes are now wild.
Their faces are wrong. Their voices are wrong. I look to the stairs, only a few feet behind them.
I swing my chunky leather boots at them and watch in horror as they slice through the space where their bodies should be.
Ghosts? I’m talking to ghosts?
The displaced air reforms. They glare at me.
“Now why would you go and do that?” the woman scolds.
From the corner of my eye, I see a driftwood log rise and fly through the rain to hit my shins.
“What the fuck?!” I cry out and reach for my leg.
They laugh with dark enjoyment. “Give it over now,” the man commands.
I rush at them, hoping to float through their unreal forms and race up the steps but instead, my body collides with their shoulders in a very real thud.
All three of us gasp and I shove them out of the way and rush up the slick wooden stairs.
They reappear in front of me, blocking my escape.
The man hovers only inches from my face. “How did you do that?” he hisses.
I grab his shoulders and spin, throwing him down the stairs.
The woman shrieks and pushes me down after. I scramble off the man’s now lifeless body as if it were a pile of dead rats. It disintegrates into the air.
I killed a ghost?
The woman howls and hundreds of driftwood pieces rise from the sand behind her. They hover in wait. She flies at me and they follow like violent pets.
I lunge and meet her midway, pulling her to me like a shield. She shrieks and pries at my arms to untangle herself, but it is too late. The logs pummel against her back instead of mine. The force pushes us down the empty stairs into the sand.
Her shrieks fade to whimpers and eventually stop. The wind blows away her impossibly reanimated body like grains of sand.
I dig my way out from under the wood pile.
I am alone.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the necklace. I look around again. They are gone.
I study the little grey cat and realize it cannot belong to anyone.
I lift the chain and fix the clasp at my nape. With shaking hands I climb my way up from these once deathless creatures to the warm lights of the hotel.