The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII

FISH HARBOR by Paul Pinn

“You sleep to escape.”

I pulled the sheet up to my navel and would have fallen asleep immediately had Marjory not chosen that precise moment to exercise her penchant for ill-timing.

“You were bored of my company so you fell asleep on the sofa,” she said as she sat up and glared spitefully at me. “Or perhaps it was just a way of avoiding a night out with me.”

With her beaklike nose and the icy myopic stare she favored at moments like this, I sometimes thought my wife would have made a good hanging judge. What had upset her, if indeed she was upset and not just nit-picking, was that I had fallen asleep for three hours after dinner.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked as I adjusted my pillow.

“I did.”

And she certainly had, at an hour too late to seek entertainment, at least for people like us, too old for trendy discos and noisy bars full of brash youngsters. I wished she had left me sleeping on the sofa; it had been comfortable and dream-free. Now I was beginning to lose my sleepiness.

“I don’t understand why you’re so tired,” Marjory complained. “You haven’t done anything today except allow us to get dragged off by those awful timeshare touts.”

They hadn’t been so awful and my resultant chat with the main representative had been interesting. Not that I would seriously consider investing in Lanzarote. The volcanic island reminded me too much of Marjory, except her grumbling was audible.

“We got a bottle of gin out of it,” I countered.

She grunted and craned her neck at me, her eyes as cold and blue as the early morning water in our apartment complex swimming pool.

“If I hadn’t been there, you would have signed on the dotted line.”

The rep. had never come that close to sealing the deal. Marjory’s haughty silent stare had seen to that. Not that I had needed her support. Still, she had already made good use of the gin, and now she would sleep soundly, filling the still warm air with a flurry of snoring while I tossed and turned, too much awake to follow.

“Turn your light out,” she ordered. “It’s in my eyes.” Then, as I reached for the switch: “But first, give me a good night kiss.”

Her tone was a shade sweeter, the difference between a lump of sugar and a lump with an extra grain. The request took me by surprise, then I remembered the gin.

I leaned over and gave her a brief kiss; brief because she always seemed to move away before I felt I had finished it. Had we been teenagers, it might have been interpreted as a tease. In the twilight of middle-age it was a remnant of faded affections, the closest we ever came to physical intimacy.

“Good night,” she said as I filled the room with darkness.

I didn’t bother to reply.

The next hour passed slowly as sleep kept its distance. I ended up thinking of our activities since arriving in Lanzarote four days earlier. The memories aggravated me.

Lanzarote, or Puerto del Carmen to be more precise, had been Marjory’s idea. Our three children had more adventurous things planned for the Christmas break than staying with us in cold wet Orpington. As for myself, I did a lot of foreign travel in my job as an Export Manager, so staying at home and pottering about would have been, in its own quiet way, most appealing.

However, Marjory had decided that she couldn’t be bothered cooking for just the two of us (but would have been only too happy to have done so for the whole family) and that a holiday “away from it all” was just what she needed. After a brief perusal of a few brochures, and without consulting me, she made her choice: one of the Canary Islands. It only remained for me to go and book it and pay for it.

Due to work, it was a few days before I got round to it; during that time I tried to coax her into trying somewhere really different, like the Dominican Republic—“Too far away, wherever it is”—or Gambia—“Africa! You must be joking!”—or Thailand—“You know I hate Indian food.” And so, running late with only a week to Christmas, I had wandered into the local travel agent, seen a “cheapie” advertised for half the price of the one Marjory had picked, and had booked it there and then: same dates, same island, same resort, apartment unknown but promised to be up to the company’s usual high standard.

“The money I’ve saved will enable us to spend even more when we’re there,” I said triumphantly on my return.

Marjory was unimpressed. “I’m surprised you haven’t joined the local synagogue,” she replied sourly.

Our apartment in the Villas Verdes was more than adequate. It was modern, bright and comfortably furnished in that typically simple aesthetic style the Spanish are so good at, a style that makes the British seem a cluttered lot. It had a south-facing balcony with a sea view and was positioned above Tinosa, the old part of Puerto del Carmen, just a ten minute stroll from the sea front with its little harbour, double that to the main Playa Blanca beach with its promenade of bars, discos and European restaurants. It was just right, or so I thought.

“It’s too small,” she croaked as soon as she had stepped inside. (It wasn’t).

“It smells.” (Sea air with a trace of fish from the harbour).

“The bed’s hard.” (As soft as her own back home).

“The beach is miles away.” (Marjory hates beaches because of the sand or pebbles or people).

And then, after her initial shock: “Damn it! Our neighbours are fat Germans.” (Very pleasant couple).

“Everything’s so expensive.” (Except what she buys).

“Too many foreigners here.” (She, of course, wasn’t one of them).

“The pool’s too small.” (Marjory can’t swim).

Can’t swim. A horrible idea had rushed through my mind then. Silly idea, really; I had no need to dispose of Marjory to make my life happy. A perk of my job was the discreet young ladies provided by my foreign hosts: an enjoyable dalliance on a quiet evening away from it all. Another perk was visiting interesting countries. In comparison, Lanzarote was sterile without any discernible character. Still, it didn’t matter. I suppose in a way I was living a double life and Marjory was not only the reason why I was living it, but also the price I had to pay for it. I could handle it. But then again, why should I?

It was a thought I had had many times, but it had never lingered long enough to make an impression. Until Lanzarote. In four days it had come and gone so many times on a daily basis that it seemed almost a preoccupation.

Marjory can’t swim.

I looked across to her bed, her narrow shoulders in my direction. Her emerging suntan made her skin look less pale in the dark. Usually it was visible even when the bedroom light was out. Now it looked almost foreign. Pity it wasn’t.

We did our sunbathing on the balcony, Marjory smothered in creams and lotions. It was a sun trap, and a trap of another kind, a place where Marjory honed her impeccable skills of ill-timing or chattering irrelevancies.

She would talk nonsense just as I got to an engrossing part of a paperback, or deposit a cold unwanted beer on my chest just as I was dozing off in the sun. Or she would fill my ears with valuable comments:

“I can see a cloud,” or,

“It’s hot today,” or her favorite,

“Are you asleep?” (If so, then I shall bloody well wake you up, because that’s what I’m like).

With increasing frequency, I would stand on the balcony and gaze across the old town—which wasn’t particularly old—and sense the attraction of the dazzling white-walled buildings with their blue and green doors and frames. Yet something was missing. The resort was vacuous and clinically clean. Perhaps this was a result of it being originally discovered as a tourist spot by Germans and Scandinavians twenty years ago. I wondered if anything truly old and Canarian remained, apart from an old wrinkled woman in black sitting on a doorstep that I had seen one morning when I was going to the supermarket. She had the strangest eyes I’d ever seen, like those of a dead fish.

Marjory was temporarily off fish. On our second night we had strolled around the old town and ended up by the harbor, appropriately called Fish Harbor. It was a landfill, a large rectangle bordered on the west by a stone quay and small fishing boats, on its seaward side by a wall of volcanic rocks, and on its east side by a restaurant. Near the quayside stood a stone table. On it had been a small pool of blood, fresh, dark, unmistakable in the light of a large moon. A strange odor had filled the immediate area, neither sea, fish or sewage, but rather a combination of all three.

Marjory came over for a look, her eyes narrowing at the sight, her large nose twitching with the smell. “Yuk,” was all she said.

As she walked back to the road I inspected the fishing boats; they bobbed, empty, none showing signs of recent use. No one else was at Fish Harbor then, which I suppose was understandable, it being after midnight and on the road to nowhere. With a cool breeze blowing in from the sea, I had hastened after Marjory and caught her up.

“Probably blood from fish being gutted, the evening catch of a boat long gone.”

“What?”

“The blood on the stone.”

She had looked at me as if I was stupid. “Well, of course it’s fish; it’s Fish Harbor, isn’t it? What did you expect it to be? Some sacrificial altar like those Inca Aztecs you were once so infatuated with?”

I wondered what I would have done had it been Marjory’s blood on that stone table.

Two days later and I was still wondering. Wondering, wondering, wondering… She can’t swim.

I illuminated my watch. One-thirty. Wide awake. Lying in bed was becoming unbearable. I decided to get up and go for a walk, do some serious thinking. I fumbled quietly for some clothes, bundled them together and crept carefully to the door. Unfortunately I was not careful enough and bashed my toes against one of Marjory’s bed legs. With muttered curses I limped on, reached the door and—

“Ha! That’ll teach you to creep about when I’m asleep.”

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I’ve been awake since I got into bed. My mind’s too active.” The gin, I thought, as I hobbled into the lounge and flicked on a light. “What are you doing up at this hour?” she continued. “Are you going out?”

“Yes. Thought I’d get some fresh air. Bit stuffy in here. Maybe a good walk would tire me out.”

“Doesn’t sound like you at all.” Her pause was one of suspicion, and I had a horrible feeling that—“Sounds a good idea. Think I’ll join you.”

Damn the bloody woman.

The streets were deserted as we strolled past the shops, Marjory looking in the windows and complaining about the prices. And if it wasn’t the shops it was the restaurant menus. Her presence was beginning to annoy me far more than I would have expected. Eventually we came to the sea and took a path that ran parallel to it. Soon we found ourselves approaching Fish Harbor.

Much to our surprise we saw some figures moving in the darkness. They hadn’t noticed us so out of caution I took Marjory’s elbow and guided her to a low jutting wall by the road. She was about to protest when I hissed for quiet and motioned for her to crouch behind the wall. Peeping over the top we watched what was going on.

There were four men standing around the stone table and another by the quayside. One of the four stepped away and I glimpsed something large before he moved back. Marjory saw it, too.

“Is that a fish on the table?” she whispered. “It looked too big, too… unfishlike.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered back, then: “Sshh, they’re talking.”

Their conversation was faint and I didn’t catch all the words, but what I did catch was enough.

“You speak Spanish,” said Marjory. “What are they saying?”

“Something about better fishing at night,” I lied. Had I told her the truth she would have found fault with my ability to translate.

What had really been said was bizarre. One of the men had referred to whatever was on the table as a “poor sacrifice.” Another had said it was too small, too young, wouldn’t sate the appetite of the God-fish. A third said it would have to do, that it was too late to find a better gift. I must admit I did wonder if my translation abilities were as good as I thought they were.

Marjory nudged me. “What’s he holding?” She was referring to the man by the quayside. He was moving to the others with something in his hand. When he handed it to one of the others, I saw that it was a knife. And then I smiled as the obvious hit me. They were cutting up bait for a night’s fishing. Probably had a special fish in mind they wanted to catch. Something fussy and difficult to hook. I started to chuckle. For a moment there I thought they’d been talking about something sinister.

“What are you giggling at?” asked Marjory.

“Us.”

She looked offended and stared along her big nose at me. Then in a loud voice she said, “Huh. You can be such a bloody fool at times.”

Abruptly she stood and stuck her chin out at the men round the table, as if aiming the tip of her nose at them. Her lack of discretion startled me and I glanced nervously at the men. They were staring at Marjory. I looked up at her, saw her mouth open and her eyes widen. I looked back at the men. One had moved a few steps forward, and between him and another I saw an arm hanging over the side of the slab.

I don’t know what I thought or felt when I saw that small arm. The sight simply stunned me. It was a few seconds before I heard Marjory’s strained voice.

“Do something, Jack.”

Stand up, I thought, but before I could do so a bony hand pressed down on my shoulder. I sprung up, turned and stumbled back against the wall. Before me was the old woman in black with the eyes of a dead fish. I stared down at her wrinkled face, dark and mottled like a brown trout. Her mouth was a thin, wide line, and when the lips parted I saw she was as toothless as a… But it was her eyes that hooked me. Hooked me. Like savage barbs in my heart. Not inappropriate for I thought I was on the verge of a heart attack with the hammering in my chest. Those dead fish eyes bored straight into mine. It was like coming face-to-face with a shark and thinking: this is it, my time’s up. Except it wasn’t. Marjory’s voice broke through the background of my perceptions.

“For God’s sake, Jack, do something,” she screeched. “Get that awful woman away, she—she smells disgusting. And those men, they’re coming, Jack.”

But the old woman held my attention. And she spoke, her voice muffled, like underwater noises. Her Spanish was unlike anything I’d heard before. I understood only part of it, but it was enough to guess the rest.

She asked me if I wanted to be free. Free of life’s mundane burdens. Free of the octopus with an eye and a mouth in every tentacle. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. She continued, asking if I was understanding enough to give, understanding enough to take, understanding enough to know why one must give and take. I mumbled that I didn’t understand. She turned her head slowly to look at Marjory, and that simple movement sent a current of fright right through me, because her eyes stayed fixed at the same angle, as if eye movement was impossible. It was unnerving. Marjory must have thought so too, because she fell silent.

When the woman turned her face back to me, I understood what she had said. I looked at Marjory, glanced over my shoulder at the men, now gathered by the wall, and looked at Marjory again.

“What is it, Jack? What’s going on?” Her voice was shaky, her expression fearful. I continued staring at her, on the one hand enjoying her discomfort, on the other being troubled by mine. She turned to the men. “Do any of you speak English?”

They didn’t move a muscle.

She looked back at me, a new fear in her eyes. A deeper fear. “For God’s sake pull yourself together,” and she grabbed my arm. “I think they’re going to rape me.”

I burst out laughing, repeating in Spanish what she’d said, the men adding laughter to mine. Even the old woman smiled. But Marjory didn’t. Oh, no. She took a step closer and without warning slapped me across the face.

“You despicable bastard,” she said with great enunciation. “How dare you act like this in front of strangers. How dare you!” There was true anger in her voice. “How can you—my husband of thirty years—humiliate me like this? How?” Her eyes brimmed with hatred. She glanced quickly at the others. “I suppose this is your idea of a sick joke, is it? Scaring me like this? Well, Jack-the-big-I-am, you can go to Hell,” and she lashed out again.

This time I caught her wrist and held it tight.

“Let go of me,” she growled. “Let go before I scream the place down.” I kept my grip. “I will, you know, you stupid little man.” The condescension in her voice inflamed me. She started to rant. “How I’ve put up with you for so long I don’t know. But rest assured that when we get back home there are going to be some tough changes for you. It’s time you started showing me some consideration. Now let go!”

I let go and in that instant knew I detested her. Totally. I watched her rub her wrist and it reminded me of something.

“Have you forgotten what’s on the table?” I said.

She stopped rubbing and looked up at me, then slowly scanned the others. A vague awareness seemed to creep across her face. One of the men made a clicking sound with his tongue. I looked at him and he raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

The old woman asked me again if I was understanding enough.

“The table? The God-fish? These I don’t understand.”

She said a name and one of the men began to speak.

“Our family blood is in the soil of this island. It burns even now in the volcanoes that slumber beneath the lava fields. It struggles for life in the sap of twisted trees. But nowhere does it struggle more than in the sea. In no other place have more lives been lost. The sea stanches the flow of lava. It surrounds this island. It must be treated with respect. It must be appeased.”

“Why?”

“With the decline in fishing and the increase in seaworthy boat designs, the sea goes hungry.”

“And the God-fish?”

“The link between the sea and us. A messenger. A very old messenger.”

“A fish?”

“More than just a fish. A creature of the deep.”

A second man stepped forward. “A creature as happy in deep waters as it is happy in the dark depths of the human mind.”

“What?”

“Dolphins and whales have intelligence, can communicate. The God-fish also, but with us.”

“You?”

“Humans.”

“Me,” said the old woman.

I turned and looked at her. “Telepathy?” I must have sounded incredulous, for the woman’s mouth puckered.

“Possession,” said a man.

The old woman muttered something in a language new to me. The men stiffened.

“Come,” said one. “I will show you.”

I glimpsed Marjory’s eyes. They were cold but curious, the earlier fright gone. She glanced at the stone table. “Wait here,” I said to her.

If looks could kill I’d be dead. I turned my back on her and walked round the end of the wall.

“Where are you going?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”

“Shut up and wait,” I snapped back over my shoulder as I followed the man.

We walked to the sea wall and climbed over the enormous stones to the top. He sat down and lit a cigarette. I glanced back at the others and sat down beside him.

“The old woman has called it,” he said without looking at me. “It will come soon.”

I studied his profile. He was weathered, his face stubbly, his dark cropped hair greying. His jaw was square, the cheekbones solid, his nose slightly flat with a touch of Africa in it. He was a solid man, tough, not one to argue with.

“Watch the sea,” he said.

It was as dark as the clouded sky. The moon I hadn’t seen since we left the apartment. Small swells rolled over the lowest stones of the wall. The sound was strangely comforting.

“When you see, you will understand,” said the man.

“And then what? My wife?”

“It is up to you. The sea always acknowledges our gifts.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, a nippy breeze plucking at my sweater. And then it came, a hundred feet offshore, huge and fleshy, scaleless but not finless. Its back broke the surface, revealing thirty feet of almost glowing pink skin topped by a long spiny dorsal fin. And then it was gone.

I craved to see more. The sight had excited me more than anything else I’d ever seen. My wish was fulfilled.

It broke the surface closer this time, head first, and rose above the water, up and up, like a rocket, its mouth and teeth alarmingly close to human, its eyes that of the old woman’s. I saw large fleshy gill covers, pectoral and pelvic fins, and as it touched the sky, long soft dorsal and anal fins, then runs of finlets and finally its tail fin, wide and thin like a Marlin’s. For a second it seemed to hang motionless, a grotesque and profoundly fascinating Dali creation, over a hundred feet long, human-hued with a trace of eel in its delineation. And then it did something I’ve never seen a fish do. It bent in the middle, like a diver, and—before disappearing into the water with a minimum of splash—it turned its head in my direction, in the same manner as the old woman had done, but with its dead fish eyes suddenly imbued with a dreadful yearning that impaled me like a stake of ice. I sat shivering and stared at the spot for a long time after it had vanished. And still I craved for more.

“Now do you understand?” asked the man after a respectful wait.

“Yes,” I whispered. Oh, yes. Those eyes had soaked me with what I had lost over the years. Missed opportunities, friendships and love. They had also soaked me with the absolute mindlessness I had had to put up with, the quagmire of triviality and deceit. “Take her,” I told the man, and he stood and moved back down over the stones. A few seconds later I heard Marjory, but her scream was cut short. Very short.

I stayed staring at the sea, having no wish to know what they were going to do with her, my wife of thirty years. Thirty years, damn it! Not so much wasted as retarded. Now I would be free.

“You wish to see her before she goes?” It was the man who had sat with me. His voice was deliberately soft.

“Tell me more about the God-fish.”

“You have seen it, felt it. What more is there to say?”

I stood and stared at him. “What is it? Where does it come from? How long has this business been going on? That’s what I want to know.”

“Then you must be disappointed. For we know no more.”

“The old woman?”

He shook his head.

“What happens if no gift is made to the God-fish, the sea, whatever?”

“Always a gift is given when required. There is no choice. The call of the God-fish will be heard, the desire to comply imbued, the action guided, the victim found, the gift given. And acknowledged. This is the way it has always been. Since time immemorial.”

“You say acknowledged—how? When it looked at me I felt something, saw something, my life, mistakes, things lost. Is that it?”

“Yes, but there is more.” He started to move away. “You will see.”

“When?”

“Soon,” and he made his way to the others by the table. Something larger than before was on it. I followed after him but stopped at the foot of the sea wall. The men carefully removed the body from the table and carried it to the quay. I looked across Fish Harbor and tasted the air. It was fishy, invigorating. The men gently placed the body into a fishing boat. Already I was swaying with the swell of the sea. I moved to the table, saw traces of fresh blood on the smooth slab. Good-bye Marjory. Good-bye.

One of the men approached me. “We go now,” he said. I nodded. “When we return, you can stay at the old woman’s house. Perhaps there you will learn more.” I nodded again. “You must come with us. You know?” I nodded and walked with him to the quayside.

Before I got down into the boat I looked across to the wall where Marjory and I had first crouched. A street light eased the darkness behind it, revealing the road and path, but the wall cast a shadow on its harbor side, adding a blacker density to the night-sprung darkness along its length. As I stared at the wall, I became aware of an indistinct figure moving in front of it, as if searching the ground for something. I wondered what the old woman’s house would be like. Wondered what she was looking for.

I turned and got into the boat, the body beside me, covered with tarpaulin. I put a hand on the cover, felt a surge of guilt and tried to resist the thoughts about what they had done to her. I failed and succumbed to an overwhelming need to see.

As the boat moved off, I lifted a corner of tarpaulin; heard my name shouted from the quayside; saw bloody eye sockets in an old woman’s face, a child by her side; saw Marjory looking down at me, rubbing her head; saw her face change from anger as she shouted “They attacked me, Jack. They hit me on the head,” to shock as her eyes met mine and she screamed “Your eyes, Jack. What have they done to your eyes?” and realized then how horribly, horribly wrong I had got it all.

I touched my eyes, rubbed them; they felt normal. What had Marjory meant? Panic-stricken, I looked at the men.

“You said you understood,” said one.

“You will like my mother’s house,” said a second, glancing at the old woman’s body.

“My sister lives there,” said a third. “She is understanding and will make a good wife.”

“You have nothing to fear,” said a fourth. “You are amongst friends. We will always help you.”

And then the oldest man, the one I had sat with on the sea wall, looked up, his hard dark eyes transfixing me.

“The old woman was getting beyond her years. She wanted peace with her maker. I thought you knew this.” He looked back to the quayside, to Marjory. “You thought the gift would be her?” he said, looking back at me.

Marjory’s voice screamed out into the darkness. “Jack, you bastard. You wait until you get back. I’ll have the police here waiting for you and your murderous friends. You just wait, I’ll have you in jail and divorce you. You won’t get away with this.” Her voice took too long to recede into the distance.

“She’ll get the police,” I muttered.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied the oldest man.

“Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter? She’s a witness. Maybe one of many. The restaurant on the other side; the owners probably live in it. The buildings along the road. Someone could have looked out of the—”

“Do not worry yourself.”

The other men started to chuckle.

“What do you mean—don’t worry? When she calls the—”

“It will be no problem for us.”

“Why?”

“Because I own the restaurant,” said one of the men.

“And I own the buildings on the road,” said another. “They are offices and always empty at night.”

“And I am the Chief Administrator for the island,” said a third.

“And I am the Harbor Master,” said the fourth.

I looked at the oldest man. “And I suppose you’re a policeman?” I said.

His face lit up with a warm smile. “We have not been formally introduced,” and he held out his hand. “My name is Vicente Montero. I am the Chief of Police for Lanzarote, and I see no problems for us. No problems at all.”

And he was right. And so was Marjory, in part. She spent the rest of her holiday in a police cell on a trumped-up charge, conveniently dropped two hours before her plane was due to take off. I saw her once before she left, at a time when the darkness is as comforting as the deeper depths of the sea.

When I removed my sunglasses, the dull light in her cell screamed into my eyes. (They say my eyes will slowly adapt to light, but it will take time). When Marjory started to scream I put my sunglasses back on, but her screaming continued. I left, unable to bear her noise. Besides, I had nothing to say. My eyes said it all, though I doubt she would ever be able to understand. Anyway, I really only wanted one last look at her.

When she returned to England, she divorced me. My children flew out to see me, but my new friends took me to a small fishing village in Tenerife until they had returned home. They write, and I reply, but never with an invitation. They wouldn’t understand either. And they certainly wouldn’t understand my new wife.

I don’t miss them, for I have other children now. Sometimes at night I lie in bed and swim with them. Their life is a free life, and what they give me is so much more than what I can give them. Which is to be expected, for they are older than the oceans and have never been caught by net or hook, and the blackest depths they inhabit are so much more illuminating than the harsh glare of the other world, your world.

God-fish; their name was not ill-chosen.