Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

“No, no,” he whispered to himself. “This isn’t…” What? His face was twisted in involuntary concern, almost disgust.

Despite his concern, he was drawn back to it. He dropped his rod beside himself and stood looking down. “The fuck is it?”

He crouched again, slipping his knife out, planning to cut the line and kick the weird, hot seaweed ball back into the water. But as he got closer again he saw the weed wasn’t a solid ball, but wrapped around something else. He used the razor-sharp edge of his green-handled knife to slice away some of the suppurating weed, and revealed a hard, leathery, but transparent curve of some mass inside. This was generating the heat and Troy immediately felt an overwhelming urge to take care of it. Nurture it. Some part of his mind rebelled at the thought, but that was buried by the urgency with which his heartbeat and his breath shallowed. This was something special, something unique and valuable and necessary .

A shadow seemed to shift slightly inside it. He pressed at it with one forefinger and the surface gave, but only a little, like pushing against the arm of a leather couch. Except this thing was thicker-skinned, harder. And hot. His fingertip tingled.

He sliced away more of the blistered weed and revealed the entirety of it. About twenty-five, maybe thirty centimetres long, two-thirds as wide, a rough lozenge shape, tapering to edges with short hooks and curls of the same clear, thick, tough substance. His hook had slipped through the bubbled weed and caught in one of these, and he carefully worked it free. Where the point had punctured the small frond, a viscous clear liquid leaked. Frowning, he gently pressed the pad of his index finger against the wound, and held it there for a moment, unable to resist the urge to salve its hurt. When he took his finger away, the wound had stuck together and stopped leaking, barely noticeable any more. His fingertip tingled more, almost burned, where the stuff had touched his skin.

He picked the thing up, marvelling at its weight. It had to be at least five kilos, which given its size seemed incongruous, tricky to hold in one hand as he carried his rod in the other. As the early sun lanced across it, he saw inside. A tight mass of some kind, hundreds, maybe thousands of intertwined pili or flagellum that shifted slightly, languidly. This was a living thing. No, he corrected himself. This would be a living thing. It was an egg, surely. But a massive one. Even the biggest sharks laid eggs a fraction of this size, and this wasn’t a shark egg, though it had similarities to some he’d seen. And even egg wasn’t quite description enough, the way it yearned. It was in part a child too, an infant in desperate need.

Troy looked around, suddenly anxious that no one see him. This was his, and his alone. His to care for. A couple of steps down the rocks had taken him out of Trev’s eyeline, so that was good. No one else around. Time was getting on, he would be late for work, but this was worth it.

He hurried back up to his gear and slipped the egg into his large, plastic catch bag with the two bream. “Sorry, it’s not a very dignified way to carry you,” he whispered to it. It occurred to him briefly that talking to the thing was kind of crazy, but it didn’t feel wrong. His urge to take care of it, to be there for it, was overwhelming. He paused, looking at the lumpen catch bag. He should throw it back, it was too much. An image of launching a surprised and terrified child out into the waves washed over his mind and he balked.

“No, no, I won’t,” he told it. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

The nerves returned, but they were excitement now, a need to do the right thing.

He wiped his hand on his jeans, his palm tingling where he’d held the egg. The finger he’d pressed to the small hook wound still burned slightly. He looked, but saw nothing on his skin, no marks.

He packed quickly and started back up the rocks.

“Quitting time?” Trevor called.

“Gotta go to work. You?”

“Nah, day off. Catch anything?”

“Couple of bream. You?”

Trevor shrugged. “Not really. But there’s time. Clooney’s tonight?”

Troy nodded. “See you there.”

He clambered back up the rocks, rod in one hand, tackle box in the other, catch bag heavy over his shoulder.

When he got home, he had a plan. Not much of one, but enough for the moment. He had a 95-litre fish tank on the dresser in his lounge room. His flat was small, one-bedroom, bathroom, open space for kitchen and lounge, but it was his. One good thing about The Gulp, rent was low because no one wanted to live there. His parents had fronted him the bond and his job at Turner’s paid enough to live on his own.

The dresser next to the TV along one wall held a bunch of junk but was mainly a place for his tank. He kept a simple community aquarium of tropical fish, mostly guppies, platys, and tetras and a few Corydoras catfish. It was a simple pleasure, a pretty, watery ecosystem in his tiny house. It was freshwater, not salt, but he knew somehow that would be okay. The egg needed to stay wet and warm, that was all.

He put his gear down in the hallway by the front door, went to the kitchen corner and put the two bream in the fridge. He’d clean them later. Then he carried the catch bag over to the fish tank. He slid aside one half of the glass covering under the bright LED light bar and carefully slipped the egg from the bag into the water.

The fish started zooming around, expecting food as they always did whenever the lid was moved. Proof, as far as Troy was concerned, that the whole three second memory thing was bullshit. Fish, even little tropical ones like this, were smarter than people gave them credit for.

The egg sank to the bottom and sat on the variegated tan, brown and black gravel, leaning back against a curve of driftwood that decorated that end of the tank. He had a small stand of vallisneria along the back of the tank, a tall thin, flat-leaved plant. The aquarium store in Enden always labelled it ‘vallis/eel grass’. It was excellent in tropical tanks, hardy, easy to keep, pretty to look at. It was pressed back a little as the egg settled against the driftwood, but otherwise the introduction of the large, unusual item seemed to have no adverse effects. Any salt on it would hopefully get cleaned up by the filter without hurting his fish. The egg seemed to glow slightly, no doubt the thick translucency of its skin catching and reflecting the aquarium light. It was beautiful. The fish circled it, searched it, then moved quickly away. They gathered up the other end of the tank, all seeming to agree at once to keep their distance. Troy smiled. More proof they were smart, being cautious about a new introduction to the tank. Although they were usually more curious than that.

He glanced at his watch. 8.28am. “Shit!” He had two minutes to get to work. He was going to be late. He closed up the fish tank and ran out the door.

He got a stern talking to for being late as he stood sweating on the factory floor, but no official warning. Troy was, after all, a diligent and reliable employee. He was rarely late, always did good work, was always polite and agreeable. But despite the lack of reprimand, he was distracted all day. He did his work, went to the fish and chip takeaway just down the road for lunch and mechanically ate a basic serve. The whole time all he could think about was the egg in his tank back home. What was it? Why did it fill him with such… longing? He had a hard time pinning down exactly how he felt other than the overwhelming need to nurture it. At one point he found himself thinking of Cindy Panko again, or more specifically what he’d hoped for with Cindy. Family. Real family.

When he got home, he went straight to the tank. Things had changed a bit. All his fish, some fifteen or so, were still up the far end away from the egg. The vallis growing behind it had twisted a little and small marks marred the smooth surface of the long flat leaves. Looking closer he saw the marks were tiny bumps, like pinprick blisters. He remembered the weed the egg had been wrapped up in when he caught it. Was this tropical plant going the same way? No matter, as long as the egg was safe.