Sea of Nightmares

Featured Story: Beast

Written by Katie Chacon.

The sun was cruel and bright on the day of my nephew’s service. They had to call it a service instead of a funeral because, after a year of searching seemingly every corner of the planet, no trace of nine-year-old Jack Greene could be found. 

He had been reading in his room, and my sister Allison in the kitchen looking at nothing of relevance on her phone. When she had gone to check on him, Jack’s room was empty, as though he’d accidentally stumbled through a crack in the world and was gone.

I couldn’t help thinking how disappointed Jack would be at the inappropriately cheery sun, hell-bent on attending his service. Jack had been a boy full of imagination, with an affinity for stories of weird and creepy things. At school, this had the unfortunate effect of painting him as odd to his peers. Kids have a habit of focusing only on what’s in front of them, rather than potential. I think this is why he and I were so close. 

I loved the strange stories of ghosts and monsters that Jack seemed to pull effortlessly from the air. We kept a notebook of these stories which grew whenever Allison asked me to watch him for a weekend, or if we found ourselves at a family party. Jack was never content to tell the kinds of stories that appeal so easily to children his age. It always seemed that his imagination held an infinite space which he was determined to explore the furthest reaches of. 

My eyes swept a collage of photos, each showing Jack as the fun energetic kid he had been, but I found myself unable to look at the pictures directly. Knowing that such a remarkable imagination was lost was a pain without balm.

Allison and I drifted towards each other without trying to. I gave her a futile hug which she accepted anyway. Both of us feeling lost, but trying to appear human.

“He’d have…I’m sure he’s mad about it being sunny.” I offered.

The smile Allison gave back was thin but genuine, “Thanks, Nick. It’s been well over a year. Everyone tells me I need to talk about Jacky in the past tense to move on. But…even if there isn’t anything more that can be done to find him…these uppity bitches don’t have a single fucking clue what they’re talking about.” 

She motioned with her eyes towards the back of the room where a small flock of mothers clucked at each other while their children desperately tried to find loopholes around sitting still.

“Honestly, they’re all just here to keep up appearances. Meanwhile, their kids are the ones who used to call Jacky “the creep” all the time, and their defense was that my boy was too softhearted.” 

“Well…Jack did tell me once that he liked the nickname.” I offered.

Allison gave me a disbelieving look.

“I mean he totally hated that gang of short thugs over there. But he told me once that being called “the creep” at least meant that he was different from them, and he was sort of proud of that.” 

My sister gave me a tight hug, and for the first time that I could remember since Jack’s disappearance, I heard Allison laugh, just slightly.

Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she retrieved a book, which had been sitting on a chair under her purse. 

“This is one of Jacky’s. I’m…not deluding myself, Nick. I know that Jack…I may never have him back.” 

Allison’s voice wavered, but there was a determination in her words too. An effort to show strength for her son.

“But…It won’t ever feel right to talk about him like he’s gone either.” She gripped the cover of the thin green book tightly, “I just think he’d like it if you held onto this for him. He was in the middle of reading it that day. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind loaning it to his uncle for a while.

Allison handed me the book. It was fairly thin with a large cover like many illustrated children’s books. The single word BEAST appeared in capital letters under the striking image of a lurking black form with red eyes. I couldn’t place what fantastic creature it was supposed to be, so my mind simply settled on “bear”.

I held the book tightly to my chest, as though the pages were made of gold. 

“I promise to take good care of it,” I vowed, though there was something troubling.

I was no longer looking at the cover, and yet something still bothered me about the creature on it. I looked at it again. Not truly a bear. But it wasn’t a lion either. I found myself thinking of crocodiles with strong jaws, but also of the sharp talons of predator birds.

“Nick!”

My sister’s voice snapped my attention back to my grim environment and her small smile.

“Thank you.” She said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.

The book remained on the passenger seat of my car for a week, underneath a binder full of work documents. I hadn’t misplaced it there. I knew exactly where it was. Thinking of it made the pit of my stomach thud. After all, this was something Jack had left behind. I was sure that this painful knowledge was what caused the hairs on my neck to rise when I’d spy a corner of that green cover sneaking out from under the binder of monotonous paper.

The book, BEAST, finally made its way into my home about a month after I’d received it. I actually needed something in the binder, and when I dropped the heavy black tome of reference material onto my desk, I discovered that I’d carried Jack’s book in along with it.

I took another hard look at the creature on the cover. Who would design such a thing? I knew exactly why Jack liked it so much. The red eyes and the nightmarish shape of it stirred my own imagination so easily. 

Curiosity won me over, and I read the book. It was short, only about 15 pages or so. The story resembled a simple fable, though surprisingly there were no illustrations, except for the strange creature on the cover. 

A boy just barely glimpsed a shadowy beast outside his window one night. Night after night, the boy searched for the beast but could not find it. Though he couldn’t find it, the boy always felt as though he was being followed. He would keep thinking he saw the beast in all kinds of places. His own shadow. Reflected in a mirror. In the depths of a dark room that he was reluctant to enter. The story ended with the boy finally entering the dark room.

It was a chilling story. Fables usually end with a lesson learned. The protagonist has gained something that ties a neat little bow around the story where parents nod knowingly and children roll their eyes. The unfinished ending of this story was simply haunting. No proper conclusion. No way of knowing what, if anything awaited the boy in that dark room. The story just stopped. 

That night my dreams were filled with words written in a cryptic, unknowable language. Words that seemed vaguely familiar, like a forgotten name on the tip of your memory.

The day was no better. I found myself completely distracted. At the office I was asked repeatedly if I was alright, with little memory of where my mind had been before the question had been asked. I couldn’t stop thinking of the story. I couldn’t stop thinking of the book. The creature on the cover. The title, BEAST. The title was BEAST, wasn’t it? I tried to think of the exact letters on the cover but was shook out of my thoughts by loud honking and found myself holding up traffic at a green light. Green. Like the sickening color of that book.

I focused my thoughts entirely on arriving home safely. I couldn’t put my hands on the story fast enough. I stared at the cover. BEAST. It was right there with that image of the…badger on the cover. But the moment I opened the cover and turned to the first page, the letters on the cover became jagged confusing script in my mind. The snout of the badger was replaced in my memory with a massive gaping mouth. I returned to the cover. BEAST. It was very clearly written. However, when I focused on a single letter, it felt as though the other letters blurred slightly. The creature on the front was a faceless ghoul, all teeth and puckered skin. No. It was a bear…a shadowy red-eyed bear. 

I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and tried to focus. Slowly my thoughts stopped spinning, but I could still feel my curiosity being tugged at by those strange letters, and that odd image. The feeling was less intense, but all the more menacing. Like hearing bad news in a whisper. 

I opened the book again, this time with my eyes closed. Determined to focus more on the story inside and less on the cover. I opened my eyes and began to read. The boy glimpsed at the beast outside his window. I turned the page, but as it turned, I thought for sure that I saw the lettering change. I turned back. The words were clearly printed. Simple, neat, nothing strange. But the moment I turned the page I felt for sure, like a flicker, those words changed into something wholly unknowable. I pressed on. But each page felt the same. The moment I turned my attention to them, they were nothing more than simple sentences in a child’s book. The moment I looked away, they were long and jagged things. 

I turned the pages back and forth franticly, but the moment I glimpsed the bizarre script, it would vanish and become mockingly mundane writing. All the while, that THING on the cover, burned its way into my memory with its red eyes and long thin arms, ever reaching towards me. No. It had red eyes to be sure, but it was cloaked and lurking. Or had it been crouched on evil claws, readying itself to spring? But the words! Where were those strange words? There one moment, then spirited from my eyes. Like fish under murky water. I was certain they were there, but the moment that each terrible long angry letter was right in front of me, it was torn away. Replaced by childish simplicity. I turned the pages faster and faster. Spurned on by those terrible eyes. Red and burning above row after row of grinning, terrible,

UNCLE, STOP!

The book fell from my hands with the same speed as the hairs on my neck stood to attention, and all of my blood iced over. I was sure of it. There was no question. It had only been for a moment, but the face that had broken through my cacophony of thought had been Jack’s, and the strange writing had become just two words. Uncle. Stop. Now these were the only things my mind could focus on. 

I burned the book, thanking my dear nephew, knowing that whatever means he had used to save me would be forever as mysterious as the means that had stolen him away.

This is what I had hoped desperately. I realize that this account re-tells everything while truly explaining nothing. I find myself now and again glimpsing strange jagged lettering in the pages of magazines. I’ll pass a billboard and feel the presence of red eyes glowering out from it, before discovering nothing more than the vacant gaze of a model selling promises. It has become increasingly frequent. Whether this BEAST will trot behind me licking its fangs, or suddenly overtake me some night is unknown. Before I am dragged to a place beyond reach, my hope is that these writings will be what remains of Jack Greene.

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