Chapter 3 - the beginning of this strange little tale starts on 11-24-09 and is titled "What Joshua Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him"

Here's the third installment of the Joshua/Stewart story.  I am beginning to see where this might go, though only time and the writing of it will tell if my inkling is correct.  Comments?  Thoughts?  Concerns?  I promise not to send you to the hunting rock if you're brave enough to post.  :)



Chapter 3 - Shadows and New Water


There was a loud echoing clang, deep and round. Stewart opened his eyes and looked at the edge of the shelf he was resting on. Another deep metallic clink rang out and then the familiar sound of water moving away. He looked towards the surface. The shadow was there. The one that helped the beyond rock hunt.

Stewart moved to the back wall and followed it to the surface. The water moved here, too, but he could easily out swim the current. Through the green ceiling of algae he watched the shadow shift. He could hear the muted growls it made, low and irritated. He allowed his eyes to slip past the surface’s edge, to break the connectedness of the green film and peer out from behind the hanging grass at the edge of the pond.

The shadow was orange. It had legs before and behind and a head with a strange single, giant eye. There was no tail. Something near it rattled off a series of insistent, infuriating clicks and snaps. They made Stewart’s head hurt with their constancy. The shadow turned and looked at him. He froze. Stopped breathing in the water. Didn’t move. Not a muscle.

The eye was filled with a face. There were two more eyes and a mouth. The inside eyes were not looking at him, though the giant eye seemed to see past the grass and right into him. Stewart wanted to sink back into the water, slide below the green layer and hide on his shelf. But he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t move.

The orange shadow moved along the far side of the pond dragging its behind legs, pulling a stick, long and mean, with it’s before legs, grasped in its claws. Then it growled. Against his best thinking Stewart lifted his head just a bit more above the surface and his ears popped as the water ran from them. The growl became clearer, meaner, sharper.

“John, clear the outflow pipe. The suction’s building, but we’re getting very little water.”

The shadow hit its shoulder.

“Copy. Give me a sec.”

It leaned on its before legs and crept close to the water’s edge. The giant eye peered into the green slime and then it pulled the long stick in front of itself. Stewart’s legs grew tense, the claws on all his feet dug into the wall and he made himself ready to bolt. The shadow pushed the stick into the water and stood up. Stewart ducked back into the pond and stared at the stick as the end of it disappeared into the darkness beyond. It was headed straight for the hunting rock.

The stick stopped descending and instead began to move from side to side, back and forth. Stewart could hear the distant slurp and suck of the rock and his skin twitched in remembrance. The water around him began to move faster and down. The stick began to rise and he stared at the great clump of things that had been held tight to the rock and been killed in the beyond. The wire was there, caught between dead leaves and twisted bodies.

He surfaced as the stick was pulled out. The shadow banged the mass against the ground; all the lost, dead things fell away. That was how it had happened with the carp. Too close to the rock, caught and unable to escape. Couldn’t even breathe well trapped that far down for so long. The shadow had come. Had growled and shoved its nasty long stick into the water and stabbed the old carp clean through. Stewart had seen it. He had felt the pain of the piercing.

When the stick rose that time the water had swirled towards the beyond so rapidly, so furiously, that Stewart was sure he would die in the jaws of the hunting rock. He had clung to the walls at the back of his shelf and hoped that it would stop. He had watched the surface of the pond creep towards him, his entire home being drawn into the mouth of the nasty rock below.

Before the surface had reached him, before it had left him helpless and obvious above the water and beneath the hanging grass, the water had stopped moving down. The shadow had roared and then the water had stilled. Stewart hadn’t understood anything that had happened. Moments later the water began to rise and he was surrounded by a cooler, thin, faster water. Water he hadn’t felt in a very long time. The next day he had felt more knowing than the day before. He had felt more aware. And he knew, somehow, it had been the new water that had done that.

Now he watched the shadow beat the dead things off the end of its stick and glance around itself. Stewart raised his ears out of the water again and he listened.

“Hey, Rob.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell Mason he’s got to do something about the damn fence. Kids been in here again.”

The shadow moved to the carp’s rotted body.

“How do you know?”
“There’s a dead fish. A big carp from a previous clean out…it’s been beat to hell.”
“How? The gate’s locked ain’t it?”

The shadow looked away and then back at the carp.

“Yeah, it’s locked. But you don’t need to use the gate if there’s a hole in the fence.”
“John! This is Mason. What hole?”

Stewart watched the shadow move off toward the woven wires that surrounded the pond. It leaned down and yanked on the wires.

“The one at the bottom of the west panel.”
“How big is it?”
“Kid sized.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. And there’s a boy playing in the park.”
“Shit.”
“John, it’s Rob. How many kids?”
“Just one.”
“Adults?”
“Ah, no. I don’t see any.”
“Okay. I’m sending Natalie out to get him. Stand by.”
“Copy.”

The shadow stayed still beside the woven wires. It clung to it with both before legs, sat on the haunches of its behind legs, facing away from the pond. It was very hard to see. Stewart raised himself up every so slightly and blinked once to clear his eyes. Somewhere beyond the woven wires there was a yell and another. The shadow stood up on its behind legs and gripped the wires.

“John, she got him?”
“Yeah. He’s fighting her though.”
“Damn it.”
“He’s bit her! Now he’s trying to run.”

There was another series of yells, the distant banging of metal on metal. Stewart’s heart began to beat faster though he didn’t know why.

“Mason?”
“Yeah!”
“Rob’s got the kid. He and Natalie are headed back inside.”
“Thank God. Finish your work and get the hell back in here, too.”
“Yeah, alright.”

The shadow turned and headed for the far side of the pond and the annoying clicking thing. It grabbed it up and headed towards a high white wall.

“John?”
“Yeah.”
“Lock the door. You got that?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Out.”

Stewart watched the shadow disappear inside the white wall through a sneaky hole that was hard to see. First it was not there, then it was there, then it was gone again. Only a subtle hint in the wall told you where it was hidden. He narrowed his eyes and shuddered. Around his lower legs he could feel the swirling cool water that always followed the shadow’s departure. In the morning he would understand more. He had come to accept that. In the morning the new water would gift him with more knowing. He sunk back into the pond and let the new water bathe him.


~  Peace and portents