THE SHARK CHRONICLES: 39TH POSTCARD- RHODE ISLAND

THIS TOO TOO SOLID FLESH

            Sarah smiled at the receptionist at the front desk, and was rewarded with equal warmth. At the silent query of the receptionist’s eyebrows, Sarah nodded quickly.

            “My name’s Sarah Amberly,” she informed the receptionist, opening up her wallet to display her driver’s license. The receptionist smiled, and turned her attention to the computer monitor before her. Suddenly, her smile faltered.

            “I’m sorry, I need to clarify the dates you plan to stay, there may be an error in the system.” the receptionist told Sarah, her eyebrows now slightly furrowed.

            Sarah nodded to augment her certainty. “I’ll be staying through Saturday. The twenty-seventh.”

            The reception paled slightly. “You-you will be staying through Com-communion Night? That’s Friday.”

            Sarah shook her head in puzzlement . “ I don’t know what that is,, but yes I will be staying through Friday. Is the hotel booked full for that night?”

            “No, no, quite the opposite actu-“ the receptionist abruptly fell silent, typing  on her keyboard for a few moments, then she picked up a keycard and swiped it. Inserting it into an envelope, she handed it to Sarah with a shadow of her former smile.  “Room Fourteen twelve. Elevators are back through the lobby and to your right.”

            Sarah nodded, taking the envelope in hand and grasping the extended handle of her baggage, she turned away from the desk.

            “Stay in on Friday,” the receptionist blurted behind Sarah.  Sarah glanced back over her shoulder at the receptionist, who was busy shuffling papers on the counter, completely engrossed in her task.

            Sarah continued towards the elevators puzzled, but she dismissed the subject from her mind as soon as she entered her room and began her unpacking.

            Sarah had succeeded in parlaying her work trip into a short vacation- bookending her work time with an entire day on either end. She needed just a little time to herself, to try and begin the whole process of moving on. She needed to get on with her life without Fred.  When she was working, she could pour herself into her taskmaking without allowing herself to be distracted by her own mind. But when she was all alone, like now, then she would find herself growing tearful. 

            She still missed Fred, still wanted him, still wondered if she should have forgiven him, five weeks after she’d gathered the courage to tell him she could not be in a relationship with someone who lied to her and cheated on her and stole money from her.

            Fred had acted so wounded, so confused that Sarah had felt like the most evil bitch in the world for not understanding Fred was human, that he made mistakes. Yet she knew that there were mistakes and there were deliberate betrayals, and she had had enough of these. The last straw pretty much had been when Fred accused her of her own philandering; the very idea was anathema to her entire core of values

            But she also remembered his touch, his kisses, his tenderness , his generosity (although that had dwindled after the first few months of their two years plus together) and his dazzling smile.

            That night, while Sarah lay all alone in the darkened room, she wept until she fell asleep.

            Sarah woke up earlier than intended, so with the extra time she had before she needed to be at the meeting with the company partners that were locally situated, she decided to get some breakfast. This was a luxury she rarely allowed herself at home, usually getting by on a latte and a bagel until she could grab a quick lunch.

            A quick search using one of the apps on her phone revealed the location of a decently reviewed diner nearby the hotel. Sarah walked the short distance in casual clothing, since she’d have time to  change into her professional outfit.

            Once seated in one of the booths, Sarah immediately ordered a coffee, figuring she could find a Starbucks for her daily latte en route to the meeting.

            The waitress who took her order and poured out her coffee with a polite smile wore a nametag that said MIKE. Sarah was curious enough to inquire about the nametag, asking if the waitress was subbing.

            “Oh no, that’s my name. Short for Michaela, but everybody’s always called me Mike, “ the waitress replied cheerfully. “You’re not from around here, yeah?”

            “That’s right- I’m in town for business, I’m actually from South Carolina.”

            “Is that right? I got cousins there- what part of South Carolina you from?”

            The two women continued to chat for several more minutes, warming up to each other. Then Sarah remembered something from the previous night, something the receptionist at her hotel had said.

            “Could you tell me about Communion Night?” she asked the waitress. Mike jumped at the question, enough to cause the coffee inside the pot she held to spill out and scald her hand. With a pained hiss, Mike quickly lowered the pot to Sarah’s tabletop, dropping it an inch above the surface, causing a loud impact which drew a lot of glances from the other patrons.

            “Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Sarah exclaimed, “I didn’t mean to-“ she faltered as she realized she didn’t really understand what kind of reaction she’d evoked in Mike- if it was surprise, fear, or something else. “-make you do that.”

            Mike glanced at her own hand, studying the reddened skin for a moment. “It’s fine,” she said dismissively. “Hazards of the job. Listen, you’re not actually going to be here for that, are you? “

            Sarah nodded, her face wrinkled by a puzzled frown. Mike shook her head, pressing her lips together as one might upon seeing a dog that has just jumped upon the couch, knowing full well it’s not allowed. “Listen, if I were you, I really wouldn’t be doing that. If your business is done before then, you might be better off leaving town before then.”

            Sarah noted that Mike seemed rather reluctant to even utter the words ‘Communion Night’. What was this event all about, if it had a name and a date, but no one seemed to even like talking about it? “If my business isn’t done by then?” she ventured.

            Mike sighed heavily.  Picking up the coffeepot with her unscalded hand, she locked gazes with Sarah. “Then be sure to stay inside,” she warned, before turning away and striding into the kitchen.

            A different server came out to clear Sarah’s table and bring her check.

            Back at the hotel, as Sarah was changing her clothes, Fred appeared unbidden in her thoughts and she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, God, she felt so alone. Shaking her head to rid herself of the unwanted memories, she continued dressing.

            Once she arrived at the meeting, she was able to throw herself into the minutiae of the business at hand, and for the next few hours, she was sufficiently distracted.

            The depression began once again, however, when one of the men at the meeting invited Sarah out for drinks afterward.  She had had enough of dating, the entire process of the tentative development of a bond with someone else was just too exhausting to think about.  She had not had enough of men, though. 

            She made a desultory attempt at masturbation back in her room, but she could only conjure up images of Fred and she didn’t want to give Fred even that much credit; to be featured in her fantasies.  Grunting with frustration, she lay back on her bed, trying to think how she would fill the evening as it ticked by all too slowly.

            While she lay there, avoiding thoughts of her ex-boyfriend, Sarah fell asleep. As a result, since she hadn’t set the alarm, Sarah overslept the next day and didn’t even have time to grab a latte from Starbucks as she rushed to her meeting.  This was the most important one; the one she was presenting at and the primary reason for her trip.

            She managed to pull off the presentation rather well, and in her self-congratulatory after-glow, she accepted the invitation extended to her a second time by the same man from the previous meeting, one of the local executives.

            Sarah regretted the decision before she even finished her first drink. Derek, as he was called, had a rather high opinion of himself. So high, that he preferred to discuss only this particular topic: his opinion of himself. He evidently thought he was quite the suave man, since he was actually astonished at Sarah’s polite refusal of his suggestion they both go back to his place.

            “But you’ll be leaving tomorrow after the wrap-up,” he exclaimed, as if that were sufficient reason she should acquiesce that very moment.  “There won’t be another opportunity tomorrow night!”

            “I’m staying through Communion Night,” Sarah informed Derek. She took some quiet satisfaction in the way he spluttered into his drink, splashing alcohol into his eye.

            “Well, if you need a place to stay inside for that evening,” Derek retorted, recovering his self-perceived suaveness as he wiped his face with his napkin.

            “Why does everyone say that?” Sarah demanded, nettled. Derek ignored the question, returning to his favorite topic.

            Soon after, Sarah begged off the rest of the evening, claiming a sudden bout of exhaustion (his ego WAS tiring) and after rejecting his offer of a ride, she took a taxi back to the hotel.

            As soon as she stepped into her room, she could already feel the crushing weight of loneliness threatening to bear down upon her. To forestall the burden, Sarah called her mother, something she rarely did willingly.

            An hour later, Sarah jabbed the disconnect icon on her phone, a sourness in her mouth. She’d already known the outcome of her call, but it was still frustrating to have to deal with her mother’s indifference and lack of interest. Ever since she’d left Fred, her mother had treated Sarah as if she was an imbecilic cold shell of a human being, unable to love. Her mother wanted grandchildren, and she perceived this breakup as the final clang of that window of opportunity crashing shut.

            That night, Sarah’s dreams were filled with vague impressions of skin upon skin, of flesh coming together, of fluids warm, slick and sticky. She awakened the next day simultaneously repulsed and horny.

            She avoided contact with Daniel at the wrap-up meeting, but he still managed to corner her during one of the coffee breaks for one last attempt to seduce her, but she left him in no state of uncertainty as to his lack of success.

            “Your loss,” he sneered, “and we’ll just see if you get through tomorrow night too.” This last barbed comment he shot at her before going back into the conference room to sulk.

            Sarah decided she was determined to discover the entire history behind this mysterious event.

            A cursory visit to the public library turned up nothing in the way of books upon the subject, and the archived newspapers on the date she assumed Communion Night held no mention of the event either.  However, upon broadening her search of the newspapers published a few days before and after; she discovered a number of advisory notices to remain indoors prior to the annual date, and then afterwards, a spike in obituaries. These held no pattern; all ages and types of people appeared to die on Communion Night, but the cause of death was not printed.

            No more enlightened than before, Sarah decided t o to try another tack. She took a taxi to the local university, surmising that the university library might have more older and less mainstream resource books.

            Upon entry in the university library, she made a beeline for the Resources and Archives department. This wing of the library appeared to be an older structure; the part of the library that she had entered through seemed to be a newer addition.

            She approached a young man slouched over his own iPad at the counter. He looked to be a student himself, earning a few dollars for minding a very little-frequented wing. When Sarah stepped up to the counter, the youth peered at her through his long disheveled bangs. He blinked rapidly a few times, jerking his head up as if astonished at seeing a patron.

            “Yes?” he inquired in a voice incongruously high for his stubbled, above-average looks.

            Sarah smiled, and cut to the chase. “Communion Night. What do you have on that?” The youth blinked even more, nearly losing his grasp upon his tablet, grabbing for it before it slid off his lap onto the floor beneath his stool.

            “Commun- why? What do you know about that?” the youth stammered, his voice unfortunately rising even further up the scale.

            Sarah gave him a look of annoyance. The last few days had been chipping away at her patience, and she wasn’t going to bestow much more of it on this guy. “Nothing. That’s why I’m asking,” she said, her voice weighted with sarcasm.

            “Um, yeah. Okay,” the student spluttered. “Well, we don’t, we don’t really have any books on that. It’s just kind of a local thing. Have you tried the public library?” he offered with a shrug and a smile mean to be disarming.

            “Already been there.  So there’s nothing on Communion Night whatsoever? Fine. Then tell me about it,” Sarah demanded.

            The youth’s mouth resembled that of a fish; slowly opening and remaining agape then quickly closing before repeating, as the youth clearly spun his mental wheels searching for a reply. Sarah simply stood with her arms crossed, eyebrows raised.

            “You know what?” the flustered student exclaimed, “I think there might be something that will help you out. But,” he added, holding up his index finger in a (overdramatically so, Sarah thought) gesture of admonishment, “whatever you want to know or learn, don’t be too curious. If you’re here tomorrow night-“

            “-Stay inside,” Sarah interrupted. “Yes, I’ve heard.”

            The youth shrugged, and then slid off his stool, slapping his iPad upon the countertop as he wandered off into the stacks behind him.

            Several minutes later, he returned holding a large leather-bound book that had seen better centuries.

            “You can’t check this out, and technically it can’t even leave this counter, but you can take it over there to read if you want,” he said, gesturing towards a cluster of reading booths with the book.

            Sarah took the book to read the title, but there was none, not on the cover or the spine. She flipped it open and was mildly surprised to see that it was handwritten. A diary of sorts, apparently.

            “There’s a description in there by the writer, some guy who lived here hundreds of years ago. But it hasn’t really changed since, so what you see in there is still pretty much about right,” the youth volunteered.

            Sarah rewarded him with a genuine smile of appreciation, and walked briskly over to the nearest booth.

            After wasting perhaps half an hour searching to and fro through the pages, she finally found the entry she sought. Sure enough, the date corresponded to Friday’s date, but roughly two hundred years and change years earlier.

            The entry made, by the author, a Nathaniel Merick, gave a brief history of the meaning behind Communion Night- the meaning was literal- partaking of the flesh of God to become one with Him.

            But the God Merick wrote about was not a Christian one. It was what Merick called an Old One, a God from the farthest reaches of space that came to Earth long before humans were even a possibility in the protoplasmic soup. When the stars shifted, this God lost much power and went to sleep underneath the sea. But when the stars were right, when certain planets were in conjunction, then events like Communion Night were made possible.

            “It be Persones of Character quite Depleted,” Merick explained, “which do decide to Partake of this Communion moste Dreadful. The Desolate, the Unloved, the Mad, and those whom Wish to quit this Mortale Coyl.”

            Merick’s description of the actual ritual or ceremony or festivities was frustratingly amiss, though. Sarah searched further for more details, but all she could really glean was that these whom participated, didn’t survive. But they did indeed become joined with this Old One.

            Sarah closed the book, her curiosity at once allayed and piqued. She handed the book back to the student and made her way out of the library, her thoughts in a tangle.

            The next day was Friday, the day of Communion Night. She spent the day as a tourist, browsing the local boutiques and seeking out the best options for a leisurely lunch. tacitly avoiding any reference to Communion. She did note that as the day wore on, the places of business all closed up earlier than their posted hours, and the people who passed by her kept glancing at the setting sun as if to determine how much time before it sank below the horizon.

            One local finally broached the subject of Communion Night to Sarah. He was an elderly man driving a pickup truck that was so old and worn it looked like it was made of tin foil. He slowed down to a crawl to keep pace with Sarah as she walked down the sidewalk.

            “Miss, you want to be getting inside soon,” he called out to her. “It’s not safe to be out after dark tonight. We got what you might call a local tradition and-“

            Sarah turned to smile at the driver. “Communion Night, right?” The driver blinked, flustered.

            “Yes, miss. And I’m sorry to say, there’ll be mischief tonight. Best for you to stay indoors.” He smiled in what was probably supposed to be an innocuous manner.

            “If I don’t?” Sarah inquired airily. The man’s face underwent a rapid transformation, and Sarah wasn’t sure if she saw sorrow or anger before he pasted on the smile again.

            “I wish you would. But,” the driver added, wiping his brow with his shirtsleeve, “if you do stay out after dark . . . at least try to keep out of the rain. You take care, miss.” With that the driver nodded once at her and drove ahead.

            Sarah stared up at the clear skies. Rain?

            The streets were nearly empty at dusk. The only other two people she saw was a very depressed looking man with thick glasses walking along with his hands in his pockets and head down, and a woman who was clearly homeless. The woman gesticulated and muttered in wild spurts as she slowly spun on her feet barely encased in tattered shoes.

            The Desolate, the Unloved, the Mad, Sarah recalled. Were these two going to participate? She wanted to observe, to satisfy her curiosity. She had no desire to perish, but surely if she remained a passive bystander, she’d avoid the fate of these who partook of the Communion?

            She wasn’t sure if the homeless woman actually had a plan in mind, so she began to follow the doleful man.  After several blocks, Sarah realized that there was someone walking a short distance behind her. As casually as she could, Sarah glanced behind her and saw a teenage girl clutching a photograph in her hand, stony-faced.

            A boy pedaling his bicycle furiously in the other direction nearly lost control of his bike as he darted his eyes continuously between the vestiges of the setting sun and the group of stragglers amongst whom Sarah walked.  At the last possible minute, the boy wrenched his handlebars around and continued rapidly down the street. A cacophony of screeches and indecipherable yelling informed Sarah that the homeless woman was indeed keeping pace with the other walkers, which now also included a middle-aged woman with tears running down her face, and two men in their twenties holding hands.

            Sarah slapped her arm as a mosquito bit her. But when she lifted her hand, she saw no crushed insect, dot of blood , or swelling on her arm. She saw instead a circle on her flesh about the size of a dime, sizzling and smoking slightly. She frowned, wincing as the delayed reaction of pain hit her. She gingerly poked the afflicted area, which felt spongy and also sent further jagged streaks of pain out from its center.

            She looked up to see that the others were now removing their clothes, in the jaundiced glow of the streetlights now coming on. Then she felt another bite, on her exposed neck. Yelping, Sarah clapped a hand to her neck, and felt a new wound identical to the one on her arm.

            She stared at the others, who ignored each other completely (except the two men who were helping each other undress.)  She could see small wisps of smoke appearing on their bodies, but the others remained stoic. Then something fell upon her eyelashes and burned them off.

            It was raining, Sarah finally realized, and this rain was literally acid rain. It didn’t seem to do much to her clothes, but wherever it touched her skin and hair . . .

She swept an horrified gaze across the vista before her- the naked people in various poses allowing the rain to eat away their skin drop by drop. The rain started to get heavier, and Sarah ran.

            She ran for the hotel, but she wasn’t fast enough to avoid the deluge. The rain poured down on her and melted her.  The pain was indescribable and Sarah was unable to breathe, so stunned was her body system at the agony, but then soon it was over, Her nerves had been burned. Sarah couldn’t see what was happening any longer, her retinas long turned to bubbling, sizzling liquid.  But she could feel her mass moving, her flesh flowing down the street. She somehow retained her awareness, a consciousness of who she was and where she was going.

            Eventually, her liquid matter merged with that of the others, and she knew them intimately. She knew their identities, their thoughts, their despair. And they knew hers.  They had achieved Communion with each other. Now the only thing left to do was to partake in the final Communion, joining as one with their God, that ancient denizen of the deep, underneath the sea.

            As the seething, liquefied flesh made its way to the docks, to sink into the water, to congeal into a creature never imagined by any human mind, to then swim down further into the crushing depths to seek the Old One, Sarah felt joy, because she knew now she would truly never be alone again.