This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?
They ran from the log flume, Janet riding the creature’s thigh while holding onto his waist. In the sun he looked a little bluer than red, and for the first time in good light you could see a raggedy loincloth over his midsection, his legs were more human than anything else, though still covered in patches of hard armor, and his face, out in the sunlight was larger than a man’s but had armor plates across his cheeks and forehead. His mouth appeared human, wide in a roar as they bounded through the park, people jumping left and right as they ran.
Around his mouth, what looked like a shaggy beard coming through the cracks in the armor was closer to feelers. They twitched as they ran, smelling the air. Nearby there was popcorn warming up, cotton candy being freshly spun, and the smells of fresh caramel and salt were everywhere.
A mane of shag behind him flapped in the breeze. You could call it hair when it wasn’t a wet mess, but it was closer to blue than any recognizable color.
They bounded through the kid’s section of the park where there was a large picnic field surrounded by rides, dairy food stands, and a grandstand where they were playing something relatively patriotic.
On one side of the field was a spinning hat ride, three or four people per spinning top hat. As they bounded past, then through, people tried in vain to get a look at this monstrosity running through the ride. The ground already had a swirly pattern on it, and that mixed with the whirling heat made it impossible to focus on them. They were a blur of bluish-red, leaping through the psychedelic color palette. One child screamed while her mother sat next to her.
Another hat full of kids tried to get a look at him, leaned just the wrong way, lost their equilibrium in the worst fashion and all of them threw up at once in a spiral pattern. The ride operators all called it the open blender. Imagine a blender full of milk and your favorite fruit, maybe some pomegranate juice for good measure, and it’s time for a smoothie. You hit the button, but where is the top? Soon the smoothie is all over the counter, the blender, you, anything you own, and these kids looked like that, but it was total vomit lunch, the amalgamation of all things cotton candy, corn dogs, and a healthy amount of chips, and queso dip, with jalapeños, in all directions like a spinning top.
Janet and the creature were bounding through and could not see the carnage clearly, but she turned and saw some of it as it exploded out. The trouble was, as fast as the hats go, a kid can cover a lot of ground with a single or double hurl, and this would certainly mean they’d have to shut the ride down. Already the second hat exploded with vomit, and then a third, spinning and flinging vomitus muck in every direction.
Janet could hear them screaming, and varying how just over the sides of their hats as she and the creature bounded out into the field.
They ran through people hanging out, through packs of teenagers trying to be cool, and families attempting to give picnics that they had dragged coolers full of stuff into this park to eat. The father was already thinking of just tossing the coolers here because he was tired of carrying them.
They ran through the grass, his clawed feet digging into the dirt, and he felt free for the first time since he’d met Janet. His face was full of cheer. His smile was wide. He ran through a patch of butterflies, headed for the pond in the center of the park.
“No, not the pond!”
“It’s fine,” he said, and jumped into the pond, touching a series of rocks that either jutted above the water or he could see we were just under. He bounded left and right, then onto a statue fountain of a horse spewing water back into the pond, climbed it for a look, and found patches of people all around him, staring at the two of them, Janet riding his thigh as they bounded off into the Park.
People scattered like ants in little, almost telepathic groups to avoid them.
Janet was too busy holding on for dear life, but she wondered, was this what it would be like, to love a monster? “I need a name for you,” she said.
“Wen.”
“When?”
“Just Wen.”
“Well Wen, when will we get there?”
“I’m too busy being free!”
They bounded to the end of the park, jumped the fence, and crossed into an avenue where people were watching a bunch of pirates play a sing-a-long with the crowd. They were clapping and singing with vague accents. One of them holding a fake metal hook over one hand dropped it. It thunked to the floor as he flubbed his line. Another balancing on a peg leg just fell over. All the rest of them reached up and lifted their eye patches, complete with little ruby-eyed skulls on them, so they could see properly. About this time, Wen and Janet bounded through.
The kids screamed, and one pirate said, “bloody hell!”
“Just as folk, Janet, and the sea monster here,” she said.
“Wen.”
“Right, Wen, the mega crab!”
They bounded through.
“I’ve seen nothing like that,” said one pirate.
“I once saw a mermaid,” said another. “She guards me treasure, flowing hair and fins you couldn’t…”
“Darby, that’s just Esmeralda from the mermaid show you dolt.”
“What?”
“I think the thing was real.”
Janet and Wen ran back in, jumped clear over the pirates, still struggling to keep their audience, and grabbed the thick roles that were part of their stage, which was already designed to look like a ship, climbed the mast, and together they swung behind the building and vanished from sight.
“Look, it’s the best of the seven seas, Darby,”
“Oy, I See it, Ned. We have been too many days out there on this ocean to see something like that.”
“Did you see what e fad round his waist?”
“It looked like our fair maiden Janet it does!”
The crowd cheered.
“Three cheers for Janet and the monster!
“Hip hip!”
“Hooray!” went the crowd.
“Where’ve they gone?”
“He’s climbing the mast, I thought.”
Janet and Wen swung back into view at the top of the mast. Everyone cheered for them again.
“There they are! No doubt looking across the See for our next port.”
“You see any of them?” she said.
“Not yet,” said Wen.
“They’ve gotta be close. Can we keep running?”
“I don’t know.”
Wen held his great claw up to block the sun and could see them. “There they are.” Cops and a handful of other people were swarming in their direction.
“I don’t know how long we’ve got,” he said.
She kissed him, climbing up to his face. He cradled her body with his over-sized crab claw hands.
“I love you.”
He smiled, smirked, smiled, and waved his feelers around.
The crowd sheered. The outages cheered,
“I don’t show what’s going on, do you, Darby?”
“Not I. Maybe the park’s introducing a new character?”
“I never heard of him.”
“You remember Blueberry Falls?”
“The creature?”
In ran the police. They were in blue and were already drawing a crowd. One of them looked a little more official than the others.
“It’s the Authorities!” Both of the pirates went face down on the deck.
“Are they gone yet?”
“No.”
One of them peaked. “No?”
They stayed down.
The lead offers came forward. He had a grizzled grilled face with too many lines on it and a big, bushy mustache. He called up to them with a megaphone as the cops spread out. Some of them herded people away, and others pulled their guns but kept them down. They were ready, just not threatening.
“They haven’t gone around the back,” said Wen.
“What about the…”
“Let’s find out what he has to say.”
The creature sat down on one timber and clamped on with his legs. Janet stood up beside him. We crossed his claws and watched the men on the ground; he pointed down. “Look, the pirates are playing dead.”
“There are people on the way,” said the officer into his megaphone. “It’s best if you just come down.”
“What people?” said Janet.
“People,” said the officer. She looked at her man, her crab god, in this world, this day, this age. Certainly, she couldn’t keep him to herself. Could there be peace? She’d sure try for a couple of hours of it until humanity came for her. For them. She’d be studied as well. Where would they take her?
She imagined being taken to a white basement room with bright lights tied to a heavy table in the middle while government types across the room behind darkened glass asked her questions, to which she didn’t know the answers.
“Where’s your boyfriend from?”
“How’d he get here?”
“What were you going to do for money?”
“Do you have a little island paradise set aside?”
The lights snapped off, and she was in the dark. She opened her eyes and was in the same place, looking at the police below.
“It’ll be better if you just come on down.”
“Why?”
His voice was low. You could hardly tell where it was coming from.
“Because It’s best for her. Turn yourselves in, and we’ll make sure she doesn’t come to harm.”
“So, what you mean, is that someone is out to take us both in,” said Janet.
“Who?”
The officer opened his arms wide, then brought the megaphone back to his mouth. “Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is it is over the top. The security we don’t even know about.”
“Then how come a bunch of rent-a-cops is the fest thing cornering us now?”
“We’re here just to observe, contain, and follow you, as best we can.”
“Then you have no proper authority,” said Wen. “That’s What I wanted to know. You have nothing.”
He stood up, gathered Janet in his arms, then chose a rope that the performers often used to get down to the stage. They swung down, flying, and he landed carefully on the stage, next to the cowering pirates.
“Get up, my friends,” he said, gathering them up around them. The pirates got to their feet to rousing applause, while two-hundred nearby people were all streaming them live on YouTube, Facebook, or somewhere else on their phones, if they weren’t tweeting about him or screaming so loud. #crabman! The authorities stepped forward, and Wen jumped over them, kicking the leader in the chest. He went down.
“Come with the pirates!”
The crowd cheered. They laughed and rallied around him, blocking the authorities and hindering them as Wen and Janet bounded. Down the way and over to the front of a giant mermaid cave.
“See, there are mermaids!” said one pirate. A mermaid was sitting on each side of the entrance on a rock, with a couple of people standing by if they need to move or anything.
He stopped, and Janet stood by his side.
“Hi Janet,” said one mermaid.
“May we pass?” said Wen.
“Of course!” said the other mermaid.
They entered the cave as the crowd behind them closed off their camera phones.
Wen and Janet ran into the cave of wonders.
The officers burst through, but they lost Janet and the rest in the dark.
