The Haunting of Shandy Bay Part V
My name is Sunny Alexander. And I’m Henry James and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Conclusion
If you’ve never experienced the aftereffects of fifteen hundred volts of electricity surging into your body we both can honestly state it’s not something you ever want to try.
Even worse is when you wake up with your hands cuffed behind your back, propped up against a cave wall with a couple of shop lights gleaming halogen light in your face.
“Henry.”
“Henry!”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Oh thank God, I thought you were dead.”
“You okay?”
“I don’t think either of us are okay James.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Those skeletons coming inland from the ocean?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re not skeletons and they had tasers. Look around.”
The empty cave which earlier had been filled with little more than shadows and gentle waves of water was now sporting a sleek looking, charcoal black speed boat. It was tied to one of the two pylons at the back of the cave.
A group of men and women, the hoods of their skeleton costumes pulled back, were performing a bucket brigade transfer of white squares to a line of people still fully clothed in their respective costumes.
Each of them took a package then walked past us, none of them bothering to glance in our direction as they headed for the mouth of the cave.
The harsh sound of wailing continued to ricochet off the cave walls and the flickering intensity of a light wheel at the back of the cave spun slowly, then picked up speed as it whirled about, casting eerie staccato shards of light about the cave.
“The haunting of Shandy Bay. It’s a cover. Sunny, you recognize any of the faces of those people?”
“Yeah, several of them were at the diner. See the dude handing out all the goodies?”
“Yeah, it’s Bosley. Looks like he got called up to play in the big leagues. If I miss my guess that’s cocaine in those bundles.”
“I agree. I don’t know how long you’ve been out, but I’ve counted almost fifty packages being transferred from that boat.”
“Holy shit. If those things are five pound bricks of coke, the street value is somewhere in the neighborhood of, of…”
“You really suck at doing math in your head don’t you?”
“Alexander? Now is not the time for you to be ragging on my ass.”
“It’s over two hundred million dollars Henry.”
“Oh holy shit. That’s some serious money. This ain’t kindergarten class young lady. You know we’re dead folks walking right?”
“I know Henry. I never thought I’d go this way, a bullet in my brain, my body dumped in the middle of the ocean. I’ve got…”
“So much to live for?”
The silence between us said more than our words ever could. The old saying about curiosity killing the cat seemed appropriate right about now. We both knew unless a couple of miracles came our way it was done.
We were done.
“Ya know Alexander it’s really been a pleasure working with you.”
“Aw Henry. That’s a really nice thing to say. You know, when I first met you I thought you were nothing but an old, crabby, privileged white man used to getting your way.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re just a crabby old white man used to getting your way.”
We both chuckled. Sometimes facing imminent death has strange effects on people. Hell, we all have to go sometimes. At least when death decided to take us neither of us would die alone.
We stopped talking when someone cut the feed supplying the sound effects. From somewhere directly behind the shop lights, someone turned off the black light.
We both tensed.
A slender man, his upper lip and chin covered with a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, his head a collection of dark brown hair slicked back on both sides, stepped between the shop lights and knelt on one knee in front of us.
For several seconds he stared at us, his chocolate brown eyes examining us with a look of mild curiosity.
“It is unfortunate we meet this way yes?”
Articulate and well spoken. his accent seemed Central American, maybe Colombian. Quite possibly Mexican.
“I find it interesting we would stumble upon a viejo hombre blanco and a muy bonita mujer negra on the very night we must perform our business.”
“Mr. I have no idea what you just said…”
“He said an old white man and a very pretty black woman Sunny.”
The man smiled and nodded.
“Ah, you speak Spanish old man?”
“Yo entiendo más de lo que hablo.”
Again the man offered us a gentle flash of brilliant white teeth. Once more he nodded.
“You speak little but understand more. Excellent. Now I must ask you both. Why would my men discover a black woman and old white man trying to climb the embankment of this bay? More important is, why would the two of you have no identification on you?”
He reached behind him and pulled out a pistol. It wasn’t just a pistol. It was a Glock. He waved the pistol between the two of us casually.
“And you me amigo,” he said aiming the pistol. “Why is it you would have the need to carry this around?”
“Snakes.”
“Snakes?”
“Yeah, the two legged kind.”
For a brief second the man seemed surprised at the answer and then he laughed.
“We’ve already contacted the local authorities. They should be here any second. If I were you I’d let us go and get the hell out of here while you can.”
“Ah Senorita, I would if that were indeed the situation, but you see the policia, they are already here. In fact, they, along with the people in this town have been very pleasant to work with.”
“Uh, what?”
The man nodded and again flashed us both a toothy grin.
“Our arrangement is simple senorita. The story of the haunted bay is of course, created to keep people away. The shops take my wares, distribute them, collect the money. When the time is right, they take their cut, pay me what is owed for more of my product and the cycle begins anew.”
“The whole damned town is in on this?”
“Yes. Those who wished not to partake of this endeavor have,” he held up a free hand and made a gesture of an explosion, “poof, mysteriously desaparecido.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s means disappeared Sunny. Just like we’re about to.”
This time the Spanish gentleman wasn’t smiling.
“Lo siento mucho old man, but the time has come. It has been my pleasure to speak with both of you. Under different circumstances we could perhaps have been camaradas. I am not a monster. I have no heart for killing two wonderful people who have been my guest for the night. Perhaps we should let nature and fate take its course. We will return in three weeks. By then you both should be with God.”
With that he stood, snapped his fingers then said, “ponlos en el auga.”
Four men yanked us up and led us to the two pylons. While two of the men held us the other two undid one of the cuffs from our wrists.
“What did he say Henry? What are they about to do to us?”
“He said put them in the water. Oh holy Jesus Sunny, I think I finally figured out what those pylons are for.”
READ ON THE HAUNTING OF SHANDY BAY PART VI
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