Yellow Mama E zine

Ghost Beach

 

by Jim Wright

 

         Waves rose and crested like low hills of green glass. They crashed onto the beach in muffled detonations, then fell away in a hiss of foam. The wet sand gleamed in the early morning sunlight, smooth as new paper. A gull landed near a checkered blanket and eyed the man kneeling there.

He was slightly built, tanned, with a shock of brown hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He wore a crumpled gray suit, silk socks, and calf-skin shoes with fresh water-stains. A cloth bag rested in his lap. The man gazed intently at the churning water. Behind him stood another man, taller and heavyset, with shaved head, and dressed in a black blazer and slacks. He stood with hands clasped at his waist. The standing man looked down at the kneeling man through aviator sunglasses, his face a blank.

          Car doors slammed. The kneeling man looked back over his shoulder.  A diminutive woman and two men in suits exited from a black Cadillac parked by the beach access road and trekked across the sand. The men carried a folding chaise lounge, hamper, and large carry-all bag. The woman glided between them in a sleeveless blue dress and sandals. Her blonde hair was gathered into a long braid under a peach straw hat. She wore oversized sunglasses. The woman smiled as she drew closer, showing strong cheekbones and exquisite teeth.

         Reaching the blanket, the two men set up the chaise and placed the hamper and bag next to it. One opened the hamper, removed a tumbler and thermos, poured a glass of ice-water, and stood as if at attention. The woman eased into the chaise with a sigh and took the glass.

        “Thank you, Tony,” she said. “You and Frank can go to your stations. Stay in position until I call you back.”

        “Yes, Mrs. Bianchi,” Tony said. He started north along the damp sand at the water’s edge while Frank marched south. Each halted at a distance of about two hundred yards to stand sentry on the empty beach.

       Mrs. Bianchi sipped her water and watched the rolling surf for a few moments. “The Atlantic.” she said finally, “Makes your heart beat faster just watching it, right? All that power. It could sweep us away and not leave a trace.”

        She turned her head toward the kneeling man.

         “This is nice,” she said, sweeping her hand in the air. “Private. We can have a real conversation, no interruptions.” A pelican swept low overhead, gliding steady as an airliner through the choppy breeze.

        “You’re Mr. Redbird.”

        He nodded, still looking out at the ocean.

        “Odd name,” said Mrs. Bianchi. “Kind of poetic. You know who I am?”

         “Yes, Mrs. Bianchi,” said Redbird quietly. “I know who you are.”

        “So, let’s get to it, Mr. Redbird.” Mrs. Bianchi tilted her head toward the man standing behind Redbird. “Mr. Serrano tells me you owe us money, A lot of money.”

        “Mrs. Bianchi,” Redbird said in a reedy voice. “I just need a little more time—”

        “You’re out of time, Mr. Redbird. You borrowed beyond your ability to pay. If you were just any deadbeat, you’d already be floating in a canal with the alligators.”

         Serrano delivered a sudden kick to the middle of Redbird’s back. Redbird flopped forward, his face smacking hard into the blanket. A conch shell tumbled out from the cloth bag he was holding. Redbird pushed himself back to a kneeling position and stuffed the shell in the bag.

         Mrs. Bianchi’s smile did not waver. “But you’re lucky, Mr. Redbird. Mr. Serrano says that you have a certain talent we can use. He’s told you what we want from you?”

          “Yes, Mrs. Bianchi,” said Redbird. His tone was neutral, careful.

         “Tell me, Mr. Redbird. What is it you think we want from you?”

          Redbird blinked and licked his lips: “Well, you know I’m a psychic, a medium—I mean, I talk to the dead. I learnt the secrets growing up in New Orleans. Mr. Serrano says you got some guys you want me to contact, people from the other side.”

          “Yes, Mr. Redbird, that’s exactly what we want,” Mrs. Bianchi said.

          She frowned. “But, you know, hearing you talk about chatting with the dead like blah, blah, blah makes me think maybe you’re a fake. Maybe you’re making a fool of me just to save your skin. Might be better to put you down right now and be done with it.” Serrano shifted.

Redbird continued talking as if he had not heard. “…And like I told Mr. Serrano,” he said, “I’ll need pictures of these people and their names.”

        Mrs. Bianchi stared appraisingly at Redbird, her dark glasses reflecting little flares of sunlight. She started to say something, then stopped and put a hand to her forehead.

         “Oh, Christ,” Mrs. Bianchi muttered, as if to herself. “What’ve I got to lose?”

        She reached into the carry-all bag next to her chaise, pulled out a large manila envelope, and tossed it to Redbird. He opened it and fished out three drugstore photo prints.

        “These’re copies?” Redbird asked. Mrs. Bianchi nodded. He examined the first photo, a tall, muscular man with a full head of long dark hair standing on a wharf next to a large boat. His eyes were close-set, with the commanding stare of a hawk. Redbird held up the photo.

         “That’s Iker,” said Mrs. Bianchi. “Good looking, but a real son of a bitch.”

          Redbird presented the next picture, a group standing together outside a bar. One figure was circled in black marker. He was a fat, short man, clean-shaven with sun-bronzed skin and an obvious toupee.

          “Manny,” said Mrs. Bianchi. “Not the brightest. But he always knew how to get into trouble.”

         The last picture showed a person lounging in the booth of a diner. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with a slack expression and a wispy goatee. His blonde hair was parted on the right as if ready for Sunday school.

          “And that would be David,” Mrs. Bianchi said. “He didn’t really have a personality.”

          Redbird slipped the photos back into the envelope. He opened the cloth bag on his lap and laid out its contents on the blanket: battered tin pie pan, incense stick and holder, conch shell, lighter, railroad spike. Mrs. Bianchi watched as he arranged the objects. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the chaise to sit facing Redbird.

          “Ok, professor,” she said. “Walk me through what you’re going to do with that voodoo shit.”

          “My kit?”, Redbird said hesitantly. “Well, first I light the incense, See, the smoke opens up the path that the spirits use to travel from the other side. Snuff out the incense and you hang up on the dead.” Serrano made a low, rattling noise in his throat that may have been amusement or irritation. Redbird hunched his shoulders.

          “Go on,” said Mrs. Bianchi.

          “Well, next thing is I burn each picture while I call an invitation to its spirit,” said Redbird.              “I use the Creole words I learned from Miz Toussaint back in the Big Easy.”

          “And then?”

           “Then the spirits appear—if they want to,” said Redbird. “They run the show…oh, yeah, I forgot the most important part. First before anything I use the spike to trace a sacred circle around us in the sand. As protection…you never know for sure what’s going to come over from the other side.”

           “Wooh, spooky,” said Mrs. Bianchi. “So, better get started. This beach is going to fill up soon.”

          “Just one more thing,” said Redbird. “Tell me about the last time you saw—what were their names?— Iker, David, and Manny.”

          “Why the fuck do you need to know that?” Mrs. Bianchi said.  Redbird’s eyes darted with alarm.

         “It’s like I told Mr. Serrano,” he said hurriedly with a small shrug. “The dead forget.  So, I help—by reminding them of the very last time they saw you. It’s a memory hook…kind of draws them back. To our world.”

         Mrs. Bianchi looked at Redbird with wry amusement. “You wearing a wire?” she said.

          “He’s clean,” growled Serrano. “I frisked him good.”

          Mrs. Bianchi eased back into the chaise and picked up her glass of water.

          “So here’s your deal, Mr. Redbird. You show me my ghosties and I get the info I need, you walk free. You can’t deliver, well, lights-out for you. But I swear, you survive this and breathe one word about what I’m going to tell you, I will track you down and castrate you. Myself. With a dull, rusty knife. Understood?”

         “Yes, Mrs. Bianchi,” said Redbird.

          “OK,” she said, “I’m going to say this once and say it quick. I got word last July—never mind how—that those three shits were looking to double-cross me. With a competitor. So, Mr. Serrano and I threw them a little boat party. Fishing, drinks. It was a one-way trip for them. Boy, were they surprised.” She pointed to the horizon. “We dumped them straight off this beach. About three miles out.”

         “Is that everything?” asked Redbird.

          “Yeah, that’s all of it,” said Mrs. Bianchi with a scowl. “Except we found out later that the bastards had lifted a big stash of gold Krugerrands from me. Untraceable. Money I was counting on. Money I can’t replace. So your job is to uncover the one secret they took to the grave—where the fuck is my gold?”

           “OK,” said Redbird. He removed his suitcoat. Then, he slid the incense stick into its holder. He flicked the lighter, cupping it in his palm over the incense to ignite the tip. A thread of smoke rose and vanished on the breeze. Redbird picked up the spike, plunged it deep into the sand, and dragged it around the perimeter of the blanket to trace the shape of a rough, closed circle. Serrano kept a hand in his blazer pocket as he watched Redbird make his circuit.

         Redbird returned to the blanket. One by one, he pulled the pictures from the envelope. He held the lighter flame against a corner of each photo until it was in full blaze and dropped it into the pie plate while chanting a stream of Creole words. The pictures curled into ash. When he had finished, Redbird sat with a look of concentration, like a musician counting down to his next part in a symphony.

         “What happens now?” asked Mrs. Bianchi.

         “Now we wait.”

         Time passed with no visible change. Flying seabirds skimmed the water. At his sentry station up the beach, Tony shooed away a young woman walking her dog.

           Ever so gradually, the air congealed into a light mist. The sky grew opaque, a milk-colored scrim backlit by the white spot of the sun. Mrs. Bianchi and Serrano looked around quizzically as the fog slowly thickened to blot out the beach and all but the nearest surf. The sky darkened, curdling overhead into a deep gray-green, as though a great storm were gathering. At the same time, the breeze vanished, leaving the air warm and stale. Outside noises fell away. The blanket became hushed as a closed room.

          Redbird studied the foaming fringe of surf still faintly visible through the murk of the fog. After some time, a glimmer of movement appeared through the gloom. Something was approaching. Redbird knew, even before the motion resolved into identifiable shapes, that it was—or had once been—human. The pendulum plodding of legs, the leaden swing of arms, the lazy bob of heads. Four figures came into focus and stumped up the beach, pausing at the boundary of the circle. They peered through the dim light at Redbird, Mrs. Bianchi, and Serrano, who all looked back from inside the sand ring surrounding their blanket.

         Redbird recognized three of the four spirits. Manny and David flickered in and out of view, blurred and indistinct. Iker stepped to the front, a solid apparition. His face was a peeling mask that only vaguely resembled his photograph. Puffy skin sagged in mottled patches of white and gray. Hair streamed from his shoulders in dank, stringy locks braided with tendrils of seaweed. Iker’s once-dark irises had faded to a shiny pearl. His clothes shimmered with kelp-green highlights as if underwater.

         Iker pushed up against the invisible barrier of the circle. He fastened his eyes on Mrs. Bianchi, his bloated face leering. Mrs. Bianchi lay on the chaise, looking back at him.

          “Jesus, Iker, you look like shit.” The glass of water trembled slightly in her hand. Serrano stood almost head-to-head with Iker, flexing his hands into fists. His face was tight.

The last visitor shambled to the circle’s edge. It had once been a young woman. Even the ravages of the sea could not hide that she had been a beauty, with an oval face, large eyes, and raven hair. She gaped at Mrs. Bianchi with a sad and sullen gaze.

         “Who’s this?” asked Redbird.

          “Ohhh, Luisa,” said Mrs. Bianchi, shaking her head with a sigh. “We had to bring her onto the boat. To lure Iker. He was always so clever, so hard to trick. It worked…but of course we couldn’t leave her as a witness. Luisa, honey, I’m sorry, I really am. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Redbird picked up the conch shell. “We need to work quick. We could lose this connection at any moment,” he said. He wiped sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve. “Mrs. Bianchi, what do you want to say to Iker?”

         “Ask that water-logged prick what he did with my gold coins,” Mrs. Bianchi said.

Redbird held the conch shell to his mouth and spoke softly into its opening. Iker turned his head toward Redbird, as though listening. Then he spoke, lips moving soundlessly. Through the conch came a hollow croaking, hacked into harsh syllables. Redbird closed his eyes in concentration.

“Iker says that in death, he has forgotten many things,” said Redbird. “He says he doesn’t remember what happened to your gold.”

           “Bastard!”, Mrs. Bianchi hissed. She breathed deeply.

           “Tell Iker that his wife Katrina and son Trevor miss him,” she said in a more measured voice. “I promise that they’ll be taken care of – but only if he tells me where to find the gold.”

Redbird murmured into the conch shell while Iker swayed back and forth, eyes hooded. Again, the spirit answered, his dry, choking croaks emerging from the conch.

           “He says that he no longer remembers his family,” Redbird said. “He says that he remembers only you, Mrs. Bianchi. He says he wants to take you with him. Into the restful sea—to show you where he has hidden the gold.”

         “Oh, yeah, now the son of a bitch remembers the gold,” Mrs. Bianchi said, her voice rising. “Tell that motherfucker he better tell us where the gold is. Or maybe we take it out on his kid.”

          “Mrs. Bianchi,” said Redbird. “Are you sure—”

“Just tell him.”

          Redbird hesitated, then spoke in low tones into the shell. Iker glared at Mrs. Bianchi and seemed to swell in size. He opened his mouth and wriggled his thick spotted tongue as if it were some unnamable sea creature. Iker spoke and a rapid staccato of metallic barks streamed from the conch.

          “He says that you betrayed him, Mrs. Bianchi.” Redbird looked at the ground. “That he has waited long for his revenge, that he will put hands on you, and…”

          Redbird stuck a finger behind his collar and tugged. “No, these are things I cannot say.”

          Mrs. Bianchi flushed. “Enough!” she said. “I don’t have to listen to that pile of rotten spam threaten me. Mr. Redbird, we had a deal—you were to find my gold. You didn’t deliver. Well, too bad for you…this séance is over.”

          Redbird saw Mrs. Bianchi reaching with her water glass to douse the smoking incense stick. He heard a metallic click behind him and knew that Serrano had pulled out his gun and released the safety. Redbird threw himself on the ground, desperately flung out an arm, and rubbed away a section of the sand circle.

         A blast of wind burst in and howled across the blanket. Redbird cowered in the sand, burying his head in his arms. He heard a heavy flapping and was buffeted by something sticky and membranous.  The air grew fetid with the smell of decay. Mrs. Bianchi screamed a warbling note of terror. Serrano made strangled gurgling noises.

          An enormous wave crashed over the blanket and fell back, carrying Redbird tumbling into the ocean. He spun in a maelstrom of seawater and foam, struggling to find his footing. Flailing, he managed to push his head above the water. Through the near-darkness, Redbird saw the face of Mrs. Bianchi surface just a few feet away, silent, pale, with a look of pleading. She swept swiftly past and out to sea, dragged by something shapeless that looked back at him with bleached eyes.

Redbird treaded water, drifting with the breakers back to shore. As he stumbled onto the sand, the fog dissolved to reveal again the tranquil sunny morning. He looked up and down the water’s edge, but the sentries had vanished. Redbird limped across the beach, slipped through a hedge of seagrape, and was gone.

***

          The next day, an old man walking the beach in search of sea-glass came upon the skull. It lay in the lapping water like an exotic shell. The lower jaw was missing, but the man saw that the skull had prominent cheekbones and perfect teeth. It was picked clean.

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      Jim Wright (he/him) lives and writes in central New York State, USA. He enjoys crafting short stories (realistic and speculative fiction) and draws creative energy from Ivy, his parrot and life coach. Jim has worked as a school psychologist, school administrator, and educational trainer. He is a past member of the Downtown Writer’s Center in Syracuse, NY.

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      J. Elliott is an author and artist living in a small patch of old, rural Florida. Think Spanish moss, live oak trees, snakes, armadillos, mosquitoes. She has published (and illustrated) three collections of ghost stories and three books in a funny, cozy series. She also penned a ghost story novel, Jiko Bukken, set in Kyoto, Japan in the winter of '92-'93. Available in  Paperback and eBook on Amazon.