by Scott Taylor
It came from the ocean, and It was not a fish.
“But It’s got scales.” Benny shined his flashlight on It, showing how the light reflected. His words dribbled onto the sand—where the surf washed them away.
Isaac took the flashlight and turned it off. Then he gawked with his big eyes and long, half-open jaw.
Moonlight did the Creature more justice.
It was a lustrous Thing. Even cast up on the beach, It seemed wetter than the ocean from whence it had come. The moon was turned to cream spilling between the endless diamond pattern of Its skin.
Isaac got close. He would have reached down and touched one of Its webbed hands—hooked claws and all—but for Its eyes.
With the flashlight off, Its pupils broadened from narrow slits in the reflection of the night sky to a broad blackness somehow more complete.
“Fish don’t get that big,” Pavel said. Arms of leathery skin and muscle clutched a fisherman’s cap tight against his chest, and he nodded behind his graying beard. “And sharks don’t have scales.”
“They do, actually.” Morgan stood a few yards away, his soft voice barely distinguishable from the seething hiss of a wave across a stretch of small rocks. “Their scales are just too small for us to see.” His jacket had gotten completely soaked when their boat had hit It, so he stood in just a t-shirt. Morgan shared the Creature’s fleshy physique, staving wind and surf off from his bones.
“Right, that’s what I meant.” Pavel sniffled, rubbing his broad nose.
“Well It’s something,” Benny nestled his chin into his puffy blue jacket. “Do we even have a license for… It?”
“It’s not dead,” Isaac said simply.
The Creature’s jaws hung open, but Its long snout shifted in vital rhythm, leaving grooves in the sand. Its gills revealed themselves as dark chasms pulling apart Its flanks.
“No, no, they do this sometimes.” Pavel tugged at his beard, already tangled from the salt. “Looks like they’re alive, but they’re just moving.”
“It’s bleeding,” Morgan looked between the Creature and their boat. Each had a terrible gash in the side, painted dark with blood.
What had they done?
“Who has the license?” Benny asked.
“You don’t need a license to fish,” Pavel answered.
“Yes you do,” Morgan mouthed silently.
Isaac was the first one to look away from the Creature, although the image of Its glossy blood wouldn’t fade. He turned to Morgan and stared until their eyes met.
All at once, the only important question fell on them so heavy that they would have drowned, were they still on the water.
“We could push It back into the ocean, where It belongs.” Morgan gestured, clearly imagining videos of beachgoers helping a forlorn whale.
“It’s not a whale,” Isaac said.
“If we just leave, nobody will know it was us.” Benny shivered, although his dad had spent a whole paycheck on that nice coat.
“We found It,” Isaac said.
“It’s too big to even pick up, I know how much fish weigh.” Pavel shifted his boots to keep them from getting sucked into the wet sand.
“My car could carry It back to the pool,” Isaac said. It watched them from the barnacled rocks against which It lay. “Well?” Isaac demanded. He waited until the next wave hit and grew quiet. “It’s going to take all of us.”
He then put his hands around the Creature’s shoulders and began to lift. Pavel and Benny rushed, desperate to join before the others succeeded without them.
Pavel puffed out his chest. His fingers sunk into the great bank of fat covering the Creature’s side. Its scales made little cuts on his knuckles, even deft as he was.
Benny hemmed and hawed about where exactly on Its vast, serpentine tail he should lift. Ultimately, he struggled to grip anywhere, and so strained with Its weight awkward across his shoulders.
As It was lifted, the Creature murmured something. Isaac was sure Its lolling head was pointed toward him as Its gangly arms draped across his body. The tall, translucent fin along Its back rose in front of his eyes, such that the whole world became a murky and unfathomable green.
It grew silent when Morgan pressed his hands to Its wounded side, saying something about stopping the bleeding.
Isaac doubted It could die.
“Well, this is just great—” Pavel stomped around in front of the car. He lifted the hood, shook his head, and returned to stomping. “What year is this?”
“It’s a 2012.” Isaac had tried to get the engine running again. The guttural sound was awful. But now, Morgan wished he would try again, if only to cover up the wet and painful moans of the Creature.
“Well, that’ll do it!” Pavel asserted, tutting at the slanted asphalt shoulder.
Benny stood far away from the Creature atop the car. “We can’t stay here. What if the police come?”
Morgan looked around. There was nobody else on the road, and yet he felt suddenly more alert. A small animal inside him screamed that there were eyes, watching.
“Stop worrying,” Isaac demanded.
“They’ll take our catch, and we won’t see a cent.” Pavel nodded to himself. “You know how the government is.”
“Nobody’s going to take It from us. It’s ours.” Isaac spoke as if that were a fundamental truth and all else would flow from it.
When Isaac went quiet again, there was nothing left to distract Morgan from the bestial clawing at the base of his spine. Morgan didn’t want to look at It. His head turned past Isaac.
The Creature looked back at Morgan. Had been looking, for minutes. Morgan was struck for a moment by how familiar Its gaze was.
While Morgan loved to sit in Pavel’s boat on the waves, it came with a sorry price. He couldn’t help but look at the glassy, ignorant eyes of the fish Pavel managed to reel in. He always felt sorry for them. They couldn’t comprehend the world into which they’d been brought, were left gaping at a strange sky. Morgan used to wonder what his own eyes looked like to them, as he watched.
Now, he knew.
“They’re going to arrest us.” Benny’s worry flowed into a single, clumsy sentence. “Maybe the car would start if we pushed It off.” He waited for someone to agree with him, clap him on the shoulder for the good idea.
Instead, Isaac looked at him with something worse than hatred—disdain. “Benny, it’s only a half hour’s walk back. Maybe you should go home.”
Benny looked at the other men, then silently and urgently shook his head.
The Creature moaned again. Its chest shifted and wound widened, dripping more oily blood onto the window.
“We need to get It to the pool,” Morgan said.
Isaac’s cliffside jaw set. He turned to Benny again, and the hardness in his voice faded, a wave tugging sand and ankles toward the deep, “Actually, you should run back to the complex. Get your dad’s tow truck. You have your own key now, right?”
“Well, I don’t know…” Benny stood pinned to the spot.
Isacc put a hand on his shoulder, drawing Benny closer until the four of them made a loose ring beneath the Creature. “Come on, It needs you. We need you. Right?”
Pavel nodded stiffly.
The Creature was too wonderful to let die on this road. “Get the truck, Benny,” Morgan agreed.
Less than half an hour later, Benny parked the tow truck awkwardly in front of Isaac’s car. Red in the face, he showed the other three how to operate the winch.
The rest of the drive was a tunnel of horrid noise. It moaned as only a Creature unused to air could.
Isaac’s eyes were handsome with purpose. “It’s going to be loud when we push It into the pool.”
Morgan nodded, head between his knees, stomach churning brackish mud.
“I know you don’t like watching Pavel kill the fish.”
Morgan nodded again, afraid to say anything while It was above him.
Isaac’s fingers were warm on Morgan’s arm. “I won’t let them hurt It. Go stand by the stairs in case anyone comes down to see.”
“Yeah,” Morgan murmured, and a thought flowed freely through his teeth. “But, I think It came to see us.”
Isaac’s smile was thin, long, and comforting. “I knew you understood. You’ve seen the look in Its eyes. Like we’re Its children.”
Isaac’s certainty let Morgan relax into the seat and ignore his own memory.
By morning, everyone knew.
West Current Apartments was two stories of thin drywall, crudely-welded railings, and seafoam paint so vibrant and poorly-applied that it could induce headaches in the elderly.
This was the first time that the whole complex had ever gathered together, crowding near the pool. As if to guard its one treasure from envious eyes, the complex surrounded the pool, creating a courtyard of tile and plastic lounge chairs—the entrance just barely wide enough for the tow truck and its cargo.
Morgan stood on the very edge of the pool, with the other three just a bit farther away. They faced the crowd, who had formed an unspoken line of safety some ten feet from the water. Amidst all the strangers, Morgan locked eyes with Diana, a middle-aged woman in her striped one-piece swimsuit, black hair tied above her head. Diana, Morgan, and Maggie-the-nightshift-nurse were the only people who made regular use of the pool.
At first, Diana averted her gaze from It. Behind her, Maggie shuffled apologetically through the crowd, pink flip-flops giving her away.
The crowd murmured, no single thought strong enough to make it out of the surf—aside from the one question, “What is it?”
Isaac’s voice crashed over the murmurings, “It’s a Messenger.”
The crowd was arrested by their new question, silent in the hopes it would be answered.
Maggie reached the front, and the dark lines of exhaustion under her eyes were spread thin with sheer wonder. She tried to take another step forward, but Diana held out an arm.
“Morgan,” Isaac said, turning all attention to him. “Tell them.”
Morgan swallowed until his throat was wet again. “It came to see us.” He steadied himself with a glance at Isaac’s unburdened smile, then extended a hand to Maggie and Diana. “It’s okay, come look.”
Maggie pulled Diana past the line, to stand on the edge. With Morgan also dressed in his swimsuit—at Isaac’s request—it was almost as if the three were just about to jump in on a normal morning.
But in the light of day, The Messenger’s incredible nature was undeniable. Its webbed hands drifted back and forth, keeping It afloat. Its tail swished, though there wasn’t nearly enough room for It to swim. Its crest rose above the water, which Its wound had turned to a warm black.
Morgan and Maggie looked into Its eyes, searching.
Diana asked, “Is It dying?”
Troubled voices rippled through the crowd.
“No.” The softness of Isaac’s words made them stark amidst the worry. “It delivered Itself to us. Chose to beach Itself on our shore.” Isaac drifted a gracious hand to Benny. “We were chosen, and Benny did what It asked of him, brought It here so we could all be seen.”
Near the front of the crowd, Benny’s father went stiff with alarm. But Benny didn’t seem to notice him, not with his puffed chest and reddened ears. Not with all eyes on him, impressed.
“What does It want to say?” Maggie asked, as she leaned over the precipice.
“It spoke to me last night,” Isaac began. “We all came from the sea. The sea still feeds us, nurtures us, and some of us can feel its call.” He looked pointedly at Morgan. “The Messenger waited for a very long time, until It found those who would understand.”
Where before, most murmured questions had been between those who already knew each other, the gathered people suddenly seemed to recognize their neighbors for the first time.
“What are we supposed to do?” Diana asked, fingers gripping tight to her crossed arms.
“It needs the three of you,” Isaac said, “to help us accept Its gifts.”
Maggie turned to Morgan and Diana with such excitement that her red ponytail struggled to keep up.
Diana tore her eyes from the water to beseech Morgan. “Its teeth…”
“It won’t hurt us.” Morgan looked again into Its eyes, and convinced himself he was right.
Isaac picked up a cardboard box at his feet and revealed a set of glass cups. He put one in Morgan’s hand, and nudged him into the pool.
The water embraced Morgan’s body, wrapping around his thick limbs and middle just as it did those of the Messenger. It moved Its head, just slightly, as he swam to It. Behind him, Morgan heard one splash, then another.
The water was so warm near the Messenger. Its massive hand brushed against his leg. Its great tail sent wavering currents through the pool, making Morgan kick harder to keep afloat. When, for a moment, the water rose above Morgan’s ears, he heard. Its moribund groaning on land was just the perversion of a song. Far deeper than a whale’s, it sat just on the edge of his hearing. His chest ached with its resonance.
Morgan returned to the surface, momentarily shocked by the silence but for the paddling of his two friends beside him. Diana peered close at the murky contents of her glass, while Maggie cradled hers reverently. They waited.
Morgan lifted his glass and turned to face the gawking crowd. Isaac grinned. Pavel acted as if this was nothing new. Benny had adopted his dad’s worry, but looked at Isaac and swallowed the lump in his throat.
Morgan supported his back against Its flesh, vast and soft beneath glossy scales. He brought the glass to his lips. It tasted of the ocean. Maggie was second, Diana a reluctant third.
They swam back and forth to the edge of the pool, and Isaac took their glasses to the crowd. Each time, another three people hesitated to drink, but followed the example of their neighbors.
Benny struggled to finish his glass. Pavel showed him how to tip it back as if it was his first beer. Isaac went last, with a look of utter satisfaction.
Eventually, the crowd dispersed, looking more comfortable beside each other than they had when they arrived. But as Benny left with his dad, Isaac’s brows furrowed until all beneath them was shadowed. He stared at where Benny’s dad had been standing.
A little puddle of dark water remained.
A few days passed.
Each morning, Isaac would deliver another sermon of the divine Being that had come to find Its children. They would drink. Each time, fewer people hesitated. Benny’s dad stopped pouring out his glasses after Pavel spoke with him alone.
Each evening, Morgan would swim with the Being, and Isaac would speak about what Its moaning revealed to him, waiting for Morgan to agree. It wanted to welcome them to a more profound existence than the banality of their faulty, terrestrial bodies. That was why It bled for them. It communed with Morgan because of his kindness to the fish of the sea. Isaac couldn’t speak to It without him. Morgan was showing everyone else the beautiful world he saw out on the waves.
Each night, Morgan heard an argument from the apartment next door, where Benny and his dad lived. Benny was getting quieter.
A week after the Being came to them, Morgan shared a special sacrament with Diana and Maggie. Pavel, being the building manager, pulled a great bag of rock salt from the supply room and left them to it.
The moon was waning, such that the three of them could only barely make each other out in the pool. The Being was a dark shape, endless beneath the water. As he rubbed wet salt against the Being’s skin, Morgan had to be careful not to cut his hands on Its scales. But Its flank held him up while he treaded water. Across the courtyard, one of the second-story windows lit up.
“I still don’t understand why we have to drink,” Diana said, intruding carelessly on the silence. She rubbed salt around Its frill.
“It’s changing us, uncovering our true primordial selves,” Morgan repeated Isaac’s words, resting his body against the Being. Was the fat on his sides not like Its blubber?
Diana swam around to where Its crest dipped beneath the surface so she could see the other two. “Are we supposed to feel something?”
“You don’t?” Maggie kept rubbing diligently around Its wound. “I used to be so tired all the time.”
“You cut your hours to help with It,” Diana said.
Movement in that window caught Morgan’s attention. Isaac stood, backlit, as Benny approached him with slumped shoulders.
Morgan put some more salt into Diana’s hand. “Maybe you could talk to Isaac tomorrow night? He’s better at explaining things than I am.”
Diana let the salt drip on Its placid body. “It doesn’t seem to be doing well in the pool.”
“It chose to make these sacrifices for us,” Morgan said. He moved to rub along Its open snout and around Its eyes.
“Yeah,” Maggie agreed eagerly. “It’s only hurt because It needs to be, for us.”
Morgan heard raised voices, faintly, above them. Isaac reached a hand out to Benny, who sunk away. Benny’s eyes widened when Isaac stepped closer to him. He hurried to leave, shouting something over his shoulder.
Isaac was still for a long moment, then let out a harsh breath and reached for his phone.
An hour or so later, Pavel came to collect the salt. He didn’t say a word.
Benny’s dad was waiting in the hallway early that morning. He clearly hadn’t slept, short hair unkempt, wearing the same clothes he had yesterday.
“Have you seen Benny?” he asked, stepping in front of Morgan on his way to the pool. “It’s just, he went out somewhere last night and never came home.”
“Right.” Morgan’s lips were numb. “He’s young. Maybe he went out with some friends.”
“Benny doesn’t really have friends like that.” Benny’s dad spoke slowly, reluctant to speak something into being. “He never stays out past dark.”
Morgan didn’t answer. He glanced to the side, wondering if he could just slip past him. There was a great, dark shadow looming behind him, and he had to get away from it.
“Please, he won’t answer his phone.”
Morgan didn’t look at his face. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Isaac, maybe he’s seen him.”
He could barely keep from running down the hallway.
The morning sermon was much like those before. But the water was a deeper and warmer dark. It tasted sharper.
“Our God has bled more for us, in celebration!” A vibrant smile nearly erased the dark lines beneath Isaac’s eyes.
Morgan thought Its wound looked like it was healing. He must have been wrong.
“Some of you have noticed that Benny is not here.”
Benny’s dad shoved himself desperately to the front of the crowd.
Isaac continued, “Our God chose for him to go first, as reward for his service.” He paused, letting the curious murmurs die down. “He is returned to the primordial source. He swims as he was made to. Let us rejoice!”
Maggie was the first to cheer. Then, it was a cacophony, as each voice scrambled to not be left behind.
Benny’s dad struggled to stay on his feet. He turned to all the neighbors beside him as they gathered around in congratulations. He made the motions of shouting, mouth agape, but nothing came out. They held him up, as his legs failed.
Morgan only realized that he hadn’t been cheering when Isaac looked at him with tension in his jaw. He joined with an eruption of harsh sound and glanced to the side, to be sure Diana was cheering too.
Over the next few days, Mundane concerns could barely hold much attention. Some people followed Maggie’s example, cutting their hours or quitting their jobs entirely to avoid missing a sermon. Pavel had locked the building’s dumpster, printing out a vague announcement about issues with the trash collection company, and everyone just started dumping their trash in the back alley without complaint.
Maggie spent more time with the God. She was sure It would choose again soon. Diana asked when, during a sermon, but she wasn’t looking at the God when she did it. Only at the dark water.
Isaac insisted that they all be patient.The complex obeyed, though in each meeting in the hallway, there was simmering excitement. People smiled. Sometimes, Morgan caught envious looks, sure that he would be chosen next.
One evening, Morgan floated alone in the pool.
Isaac had started to hold court in his apartment, as their neighbors came to him to ask advice on matters of spirit, family, or anything else.
Without Isaac there to sculpt his feelings into words, Morgan found that they sat heavy on his chest. Above him was the vastness of night. Below him, the endless fathoms of the God. Inside him, the face of a nervous young man hiding in his coat.
Morgan kicked, keeping his head above water, and held himself against the God. It watched him. He knew he shouldn’t ask it. But he was weak. He stared into the God’s eyes, touched Its scabbed wound.
“Where did Benny go?”
It came from the ocean, and It was not.
The soles of Morgan’s feet slapped wetly on the hallway cement. Warm black blood clung sticky to his torso.
By the time he reached apartment 202, he nearly fell against the door, pounding with his fist. The loudness of it made that small animal inside him whimper for a hidden den.
After a few agonizing seconds, the door opened, just until it caught on the chain-latch.
Diana’s expression shifted like a breaking wave—suspicion, surprise, dread. “Morgan,” she breathed. She was fully dressed, her eyes were puffy, and behind her, on the floor, was a large and nearly-packed suitcase.
Morgan nearly couldn’t get the words out. If he turned around and left, he wouldn’t have to admit what he knew. But this was his only chance. Because Diana knew it, too. “I don’t know what’s in our pool.” He licked his lips to keep them from scarring together. “I don’t know where Benny is.”
Diana inched the door closed, but Morgan could feel her stare, just behind it.
They stayed that way for minutes. Morgan waited for someone to find him in the hallway. To tell Isaac. Better than trying to sleep after what he’d said.
The chain-latch slid. Diana stepped out. “You do know.”
Morgan trudged behind her. It was only good luck that he didn’t step on broken glass in their trash-strewn alley. He couldn’t bring himself to approach the dumpster, but thankfully, Diana had the bolt cutters.
Morgan flinched at the yelp of snapping metal, and again as a padlock clanged against the asphalt.
Diana dug through the dumpster with fervent energy, desperate for the truth, awful as it was. It didn’t take her long.
The coat betrayed her shaking hand as she held it in the paleness of her keyring flashlight. She barely managed to blink back the wetness in her eyes.
As it turned the night around them to pitch, the light showed a paltry version of the coat’s colors. Its familiar blue contrasted sharply with the drops of warm black spattered on the collar.
“Oh God—” the words caught in Diana’s throat, as if she just realized what she held.
Morgan couldn’t bring himself to speak. But in the quiet, they both heard voices from inside the building, and a window lit up above them.
While Diana looked down the alley with the eyes of prey, Morgan reached for the coat. His fingers brushed against a flaky black stain and he struggled to keep the bile from rising up his throat. But he found the pocket, and the set of truck keys inside.
Diana grabbed them, dropping the coat without hesitation. She started sprinting down the alley.
But Morgan came to a staggering, knee-aching stop at the pool’s entrance. He bleated out, “Wait. We have to take It…” he trailed off, and pointed at the dark shape.
Diana spun around to look up at the apartment complex, too many dreadful thoughts racing in her eyes for the few breaths she took. She gave the briefest nod, then disappeared into the darkness of the parking lot.
Morgan limped into the pool courtyard, and Isaac’s window filled with light.
Diana didn’t get out of the tow truck, even as it screeched to a halt at the pool’s edge.
Morgan struggled through the steps Benny had showed them to operate the winch, vision wet and blurry. The growing lights in the windows swam like jellyfish across his eyes.
By the time Morgan leapt into the pool, jerking his legs wildly to stay afloat with a metal hook weighing down his arm, there were footsteps and rising voices coming down the complex stairs. The Creature shifted Its tail just as Morgan reached Its wounded flank, pulling him under.
His fingers were sliced open as they raced across Its scales, but the pain drowned in swelling panic. As soon as he felt the depression of Its wound, Morgan drove the hook into it with all the strength of an animal. Through thick clotted scabs. Deep into the Creature’s rubbery fat.
In the water, Its bellow crashed against his skull, spilled a blood vessel into his eye, filled his ears with a barren ringing. The Creature jerked wildly, but Morgan had to hold on. Those awful scales tore blood from his chest. But he couldn’t let go. He was a small creature of land, of air, and he would drown. He sputtered out a scream, only able to tell it by the shake in his throat.
He and the Creature alike were dragged, wet and wretched, up the pool’s edge. Its weight nearly broke his shins. Until, finally, both of their backs were raked across the metal truck bed. Morgan couldn’t tell who left more skin behind.
The air filled with acrid rubber. A truck’s engine shuddered. Through the Creature’s limp frill, Morgan could see shapes, almost human, amassing behind them.
It came from the ocean, and It would take all of them.
Diana drove hard to shore.
The roar of waves was the first sound to cut through Morgan’s ringing ears as the truck slid half of the way down the beach. Weight fell from Morgan as Diana released the winch. The Creature landed on wet sand with a moan, and Morgan crawled across the truck bed until he could join It. Then, he struggled to his knees and began to push. His palms slipped on blood, whosever it was.
“H-help, Diana.” Morgan felt out the words against his teeth, but his croak was no match for the tumult of frigid waves.
When he looked back at the cab, he saw the crowd gathering above them.
Diana’s eyes appeared in the side mirror, to offer an apology, as the doors locked.
Morgan thought he should have been angry. But there was just relief.
“You’ve carried our God back.” After everything, Isaac’s passionate voice still tried to give shape to the chaos in Morgan’s chest. But he sculpted from mere sand before the surf.
Isaac stood in front of so many faces, reduced to frightened and confused impressions in the headlights. Isaac clung to the fire in his eyes. Even as he beheld his God. Morgan, for once, knew what Isaac was going to say. No God could be rendered such a limp Thing, cast upon the sand, against Its will.
“Thank you, Morgan.”
Isaac walked forward, stepping out of his shoes, so that his footprints were left on the sand. The others began to follow. There was Pavel, standing stiff as always. Maggie, blissful with gratitude. Benny’s dad, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else.
So many hands emerged to push the Creature. Morgan tried to wriggle out of those that wrapped under his arms and lifted him, but Pavel was strong, and nobody would look at Morgan’s feet kicking at the sea foam.
They all walked into the water. Then, they swam, as much as each knew how. Morgan’s head was pulled under the surface, his neighbors holding his body below their own.
The Creature’s song was faint and strained, barely audible in the rushing waves. Salt stung Morgan’s eyes and his lungs tried desperately to fill with water.
The sea surged beneath them. It churned to froth as the Creature was finally deep enough to thrash and flee. Morgan recognized the sudden current of Its tail whipping through water just a moment before it struck him, tearing his body from the hands and consciousness that gripped it.
He came from the ocean, and he was.
From the black, animal feelings returned first. The horrid chill of the surf striking his back. A breath, wetter than it should have been.
Any movement promised salt in his open skin. But he had to lift his head. And as he blinked sand from his eyes, there was the truck. Casting the dark ocean in its brake lights.
That red-flecked sea showed in the side mirror, alongside a pair of shaking, white eyes. They were familiar, like the fish at the bottom of Pavel’s boat, in the moments just before.
Morgan didn’t understand why they stared at the reflected water. His aching head couldn’t quite figure out what those shapes were, floating out just past the waves.
Scott Taylor (he/him) is a short story and novel writer most interested in speculative and surreal fiction. He works as a fiction editor and lives in Bellingham, Washington with his family and a decisive black cat. With a fascination in the hidden wonders and terrors of the world, he explores multiple media of art, from prose to playwriting to music, finding that each medium feeds into the others.
Scott’s short story “Laws of Attraction” was featured in Autumnal Equinox: Hearth Songs and “The Stoneshaper” was featured in Summer Solstice: Life Expectancy.