It was January 12, 1952. I was almost eighteen. I’m going to change the name of the town. The ocean always collects its debts. God help me.
The sun was swallowed up by the ocean and I could see the lights of Hadley Bay in the distance. The lighthouse on the point was barely cutting through the weather, and even the sound of the fog horn was muffled. It was raining hard and the waves were slamming into the beaches like they were running scared from something terrible out there coming up out of the deep. It was cold and me and the rest of the crew had just got done getting our boss’s boat ready for the first trip of the season. The guys I worked with weren’t the friendliest bunch of people. They were local and I wasn’t. I didn’t look like them either, which I’m sure didn’t help the gulf between us. But I had found this job and I intended to stick with it. I was from Chicago, and I wanted a new life on the west coast. Old man Gustuffson was kind enough to give me a job on his boat without any fishing experience to speak of. Probably because he could get away with paying me a lot less.
I honestly hadn’t met a whole lot of friendly people in town. I’d only been working on the boat for a little over eight months. They’d started to treat me a little better on the boat, but that wasn’t saying much. The rest of the guys were going to go down to the bar and tie one on before we went fishing the next morning and I was not invited. So I found myself driving home and that’s when I’d seen Mose Bixby stumbling along the highway. Mose was the only local that had been friendly to me right off the bat. Maybe it’s because he was different too. Mose was what the locals referred to as the native halfbreed. That was what the polite ones called him anyway. I won’t bother to repeat the usual nickname I’d heard.
No one knew exactly how old Mose was, but he had always said he’d been in town longer than everyone else. I think that’s why most people spoke about him behind his back. He’d known and been friends with most of their grandparents and great-grandparents, and evidently had been quite the lively character back in the day. Back before he lost his family. Back before the booze had flooded his brains.
Despite being told by most folks to keep him at an arm’s length, I’d struck up a conversation with him one day shortly after I had got to town. Mose said a lot of things; he loved to talk, although it was almost always the alcohol doing the talking. He reminded me of my grandpa, but quite a bit older. Maybe that’s why I had a sweet spot for him. He’d go on about all kinds of crazy things that don’t seem quite so crazy to me anymore.
I pulled up my truck next to him and leaned over my cracked seat and rolled down the window. That wind, man, it just tore into my face.
“Mose! What the hell are you doin’ out here? Are you nuts?”
“Billy?!” He steadied himself against the side of the truck and I can still see that toothy grin. God, I miss that man.
“Get in here before you get swept out to sea you loony!” Mose jumped in real quick and shut and locked the door. He rolled up that window with a noticeable urgency. He was reeking of the booze, but his voice was low and serious. Kinda made me pause a bit before I started back down the road.
“Billy…I was making my way to your place, but I had to come up here to do something first. I fell asleep and I didn’t think I was going to make it back in time. Glad for the rain and wind… lit a fire under my ass and woke me up.” He was fumbling into his ratty old peacoat looking for his cigarettes. I pushed in the lighter for him and pulled out the ashtray.
“Thank you Billy.” I couldn’t help but watch him in the glow from the radio. He was shaking.
“You cold Mose?”
“No I ain’t. Drive Billy. Drive home.” His voice was bothering me, but I did as he said. I had to slow down because of the rain even though Mose was asking me to go faster. After he got a deep drag off of his smoke, he let it all out and sat there for a minute saying nothing. The only sound in the cab of my truck was the rain and my wiper blade that was trying to keep up. Those cigarettes of his, they were just about the worst thing I think I’d ever smelled up to that night.
“I thought you said you was going out of town for a while.” He had an edge to his voice. Just like my grandpa.
“I can’t right now.”
“But you told me you would.”
“I can’t Mose. I need the money, you know that.”
“People make money other places, Billy.”
“That’s true, but I’m starting to get my feet wet here.” At that he started laughing and choking on smoke. I could see his wide smile out of the corner of my eye. Some green slick of spittle was shining off the teeth he had left.
“Getting your feet wet. Yeah. You can surely get your feet wet here.”
“I think I like this kind of life. Get my own boat. I don’t think I ever want to leave the water.”
“Ain’t nothing good out there.”
“Says the man that’s stayed since Lincoln was in office.” He grunted a bit and then took another puff.
“It’s my people’s land Billy. I’m the last one. Everyone else has done moved on. My momma’d come up and take me under herself if I ever left. Huh… yeah… yeah she would.” He chuckled again and shook his head.
“You going to tell me what the hell you’re doing out here in this? You’re lucky you weren’t swept out. I swear I saw a swell almost reach the road.”
“I told you I needed something. It can only be found up the creek.” He opened his coat and pulled out a mess of moss and sticks doubled over onto each other in a weird pattern and the whole thing was lashed together with some fresh bits of seaweed. It looked like four tuning forks making an x and a couple of thin wisps of weed making circles around it. “I figured you wasn’t going to listen to me. Why would you? I’m just a drunk old man. So I made this.”
“Well, that’s…that’s really nice Mose.” He smiled at me and took another drag and blew it toward me.
“No…it ain’t. It’s…what’s the word I’m looking for…it’s a necessary evil. I ain’t got time, we ain’t got time. I’ll have to tell you later. Just drive to your place. Mind if I bunk with you tonight?” I’d already let Mose stay over on a couple of occasions, and both times it took me a week to get the smell of his cigarettes out of my shack. But it was raining too hard for me to want to drive him up to his place. I figured the road had maybe washed out anyway.
“I suppose that’s fine.”
I lived in a little shack on The Row just outside of town proper. All the hired hands did. The shacks formed five cramped rows running parallel to the ocean. Maybe about seventy some odd shacks; I can’t recall exactly. Town was just under a mile away. The whole thing together wasn’t that big, nothing like it is now. Hadley’s Stone sat right out on the bay; a volcanic plug that was millions of years old. Huge sucker. Towered over the whole town. It always gave me the creeps.
I had the shack on the end of the row, furthest from town, and the view from my little porch was nothing but sand and water and that huge stone covered in moss and birdshit. I parked and ran to my porch as fast as I could. I was going to be wet and cold for the next two weeks; I wanted to stay dry as much as I could before then. Mose ambled over to the porch, holding his cigarette close as to keep it dry. I let myself in, but Mose was looking at the front of the shack.
“You coming inside or what? Close the door.”
“Just give me a minute. You got a hammer?” I gave him the hammer out of my tool box and I watched him hang that thing he made from a nail just above my door. He took the hammer and bent the nail up on itself. “That ought to keep it there from the wind.” He ran to both the windows on the front of the shack and threw the shutters closed and latched them. He pushed down on the hooks as if he wanted to bury metal into metal. He took one last look at the front of my shack and then back out into the darkness of the ocean before he came inside.
I started a small fire in the stove and I put some soup on. Mose took no time making himself comfortable. He’d already smoked two cigarettes by the time I got some supper. He refused to talk to me at all about whatever it was that had him worked up until we’d eaten and he had a snort. During that time I only heard the rain, the crackling of that nice fire, and that lonely fog horn out on the point. When he finally spoke, he opened the door of the stove and then just stared at that fire.
“At some point tonight, a debt has to be paid. That debt is paid every hundred years. My mother’s people paid it a long time. They got this land, good land. In exchange, they offered up some of their own. Every hundred years. I’m sure it happens all over the world. I’m sure it happens every year. But this year is when our bill comes due. This land was taken by people who ain’t got a clue of what a real debt is, but they’re going to after tonight. I wanted you to leave but you’re too damned stubborn, just as I knew you’d be, so I’m staying here. And that thing above your door. That stays there all night. No going back outside until morning. We got plenty of wood to keep that fire hot, plenty of drink to smack us stone drunk enough as to not hear anything that happens outside these walls. Have I made myself clear, Billy?”
I didn’t know what to say. I was only eighteen and he had scared the living piss out of me. I nodded like an idiot and he nodded back. That was the end of talking. We kept on drinking, but I nursed my drinks to the point of pointlessness, and I had stayed awake and sober long after Mose had passed out on my bed.
It was around three in the morning when the rain stopped. All the other hands had stumbled back to their shacks over an hour before, and everything was quiet outside except for the foghorn. The water was quiet. I couldn’t sleep. After a while I grabbed one of his cigarettes and went to my door. I hesitated for a bit and then shook my head and stepped on my porch for a cigarette.
My eyes adjusted back to the darkness after I wiffed out the match and I just stood there on my porch, looking out towards the water. The lighthouse was giving me a view every few seconds. The waves had receded and the air outside was warm. Then a smell hit me, and I almost heaved up my guts. It was a sweet smell with a helping of rot. The light swept over the beach, and I saw a quick glimpse of something big down on the beach. From the smell of it, I figured something had washed up that had been dead for a while, but when the light swept across again, that big thing on the beach looked as if it had moved. I stepped off of the porch and focused my eyes at the darkness. I took a long drag off of that rancid cigarette, trying to sober myself out of whatever dream I was in and I waited for the light to sweep my direction. I heard thunder in the distance as I held all that nasty smoke in my lungs. When the light swept by again, that large thing on the beach was gone.
The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention and I exhaled. That smell was getting so strong that I was starting to taste it, completely obscuring the smell and taste of the cigarette. The air around me felt alive and I got the feeling that I needed to be anywhere but where I was. That thing that Mose had hung over my door was slapping against the shack in a small wind that had picked up, and I can say that somewhere deep down inside of my brain was yelling at me to get back inside my shack.
I ran back inside and the door swung closed behind me. I ran over and I shook Mose hard. He wasn’t waking up. I figured I was just gonna have to heave him onto my shoulder and carry his ass to my truck. I was going to leave, but he was coming with me. I pushed him up to a sitting position and threw one of his arms around my shoulder, but that’s as far as I got. Something was on my porch.
I looked at the latch on my door. I didn’t have a lock; just a hook that would set inside a metal eye on the jam. I quietly lowered Moses back down and crept toward the wood stove and grabbed my hatchet, which felt so small in my hand once I realized that noises weren’t just coming from the porch, but from everywhere outside. I took two more steps and turned the latch on my door. It wouldn’t keep anything from coming inside if it really wanted to, but it was the only thing I could think of to do. That’s when I heard them outside.
Guttural barks and clicks. Some would call from the front of my shack and then others would answer from other directions. It was more than an animal sound; it was a language that spoke of something ancient and evil.
“It’s a terrible sound, ain’t it?” The volume of his voice shocked me, and I cried out in spite of myself. I wheeled around and Mose was sitting on the edge of my bed. I put my finger over my closed lips and Mose laughed. “They know we’re in here, it doesn’t matter how loud we are.” The language outside fell to a whisper, but it continued.
“Hear them? They’re trying to be quiet now. Don’t want to spook the herd. It’s terrifying if you let yourself think about it. The thought of being slaughtered by a dumb animal is a terrible thing, but it’s nothing compared to the thought of being preyed on by something that’s smarter than you. Something far older than any man that’s walked the earth. I’ve never forgotten what they sound like. That’s the words of old things that decided to let our ancestors crawl out of the ocean and thrive. Cruel things that allowed us to live and herded us into certain spots all along the coasts. To the good grazing spots. Fatten us up.”
Everything went quiet outside and my skin crawled at the terrible silence.
“They’re getting ready. All hands on deck. They won’t start the culling until they’ve made sure nothing can get out.” I could hear whispers around my shack and I took a step away from the door. “See the ones around us, they know they can’t come in, but they’re going to make sure they’re ready in case we decide to come out.”
There was a mad barking from outside that almost sounded like a bunch of seals. It was coming from all over The Row. I could hear the angry grumblings of fishermen yelling as they got up and out of their shacks to investigate and then I heard the screaming. Some gunfire started outside further down The Row and all hell broke loose outside of my shack. Mose lit another cigarette and walked to the stove and held out his hands. I was shaking, but Mose was calm. I heard the men outside; some were begging for their lives, some were praying, while others were making a run for it. Mose gently took the hatchet out of my hand.
“This isn’t going to help anything Billy. Just stay inside. I’ll keep the fire going.” I listened for a good hour while everyone in The Row was rounded up by the unseen things outside. The storm had come back in and the pounding of the rain had covered some of the pitiful cries outside. All the while, I swear I could hear things on my roof. I knew that things were waiting for us out there.
“They’re almost done out there I should think. Just getting all the stragglers. By the morning, there’ll be nothing left. Town will wonder what happened, but pretty soon, Town will get hungry and it needs hired hands. Town will forget about all of us down here who just vanished like a fart in the wind, and life will go on, but there will be a feeling. Something they and their kids and grandkids will feel that will tell them it’s best to keep this place set aside for their debts. Only the lowly ones will live down here. And so it’ll be everywhere. I always wondered how many are taken on these nights all over this cursed world. I heard about a town ninety miles north where it happened thirty or so years ago. Happened south of us five years ago. In another hundred years, it’ll happen here all over again.”
“How do you know all this? How do you know about that thing you made on the door? Why does it keep them out?” Mose walked over and unlatched the front door and threw it open. “What are you doing?!”
“Settle down Billy, they aren’t coming in. That latch was for your own piece of mind and nothing more. Go on, look out there. Go on, it’s alright. People like me have more than a feeling. People like me know because they were the lucky ones who was spared. They understand that a debt has to be paid. That thing above your door is an agreement between them and the shepherds who are left behind to make sure the herd stays where they’re supposed to.”
I stepped to the door. I could see nothing but darkness and the occasional sweep from the lighthouse. The deathly stench of the things was still strong through the rain.
“My mother knew it… debts… sometimes you have to pay whether you like it or not. You know how old I am Billy? Almost ten over a hundred. Almost ten when my mother made one of those things that’s hanging over your door now. She showed me how. To pass on the role she had found herself in. I never forgot. A hundred years tonight. I know she loved me. I know she was supposed to be the one, but when it comes down to it, she got scared.” The energy changed inside my shack. It was full of anxiety and anticipation. I turned to Mose. He was standing right behind me, holding my hatchet. “It’s one of those things Billy. You understand your role, but you get cold feet. My mother came at me with panic in her eyes. She couldn’t do it, so she grabbed me. I was no longer her son, you see? I had become the debt. but before I was thrown out, she tripped. I didn’t push her. She tripped, and I watched her fall out the door. And I watched, and I watched, and I watched. And all these years I’ve understood. I’m old. The debt should be mine, but I ain’t brave enough, and I’m not going that way.”
He stepped toward me and raised the hatchet.
“Mose.”
“I’m sorry Billy.” He lunged at me and swiped down with the hatchet. He was fast. Too fast for someone his age. The hatchet glanced off my thigh. He grabbed a hold of me and tried to push me out of the door. He was about as strong as anyone that I’d ever tussled with who was my own age. He kept apologizing while he was inching me closer and closer out of the door. I was finally able to overpower him and spin him around. His back was now to the open door. I can’t say that I wanted to push him out, but I felt that I had to.
He rolled over a few times in the wet sand until he was able to get back to his feet. I backed away from the open door. He ran at me like a wild man and I closed the door and pushed the latch. Mose was trying to pull it open, but I was pushing it closed. There was a chorus of that mad barking all around my shack. Mose was begging for me to open the door, and then they took him. I listened to his fingernails scraping and breaking all the way down my porch as the things dragged him away and down to the ocean. He was screaming the whole way, begging for help from a God and a friend, neither of which was willing to give him any. I just stood there with all my weight against my door until at long last, I couldn’t hear Mose anymore.
I wrapped my wound and sat on my bed until the morning. After the light had come, I ventured outside and I grabbed the thing off of my door that Mose had made. I carried it around with me as if it was an amulet that might keep me safe in case any more of those things were still around. The rain had lightened as I walked down The Row. Some of the shacks had been partially burned and all the doors were open. Seventy some odd empty shacks. Broken glass and guns and all manner of things that were used as weapons were littered on the ground throughout, but there was not a single person left dead or alive in The Row.
I walked down to the beach, but there was nothing but a faint stench on the wind that spoke of what happened just a few hours before. Mose had predicted the exact path of denial that everyone in town took towards what happened that night, and I didn’t feel the need to enlighten any of them. I had been taken at my word that I had been down and out with the whiskey flu and had no story to tell. After all this time, I’ve questioned myself about it all. The only thing that keeps me from dismissing it altogether is the scar on my right thigh. I’ve never told anyone this story. I’m not long for this world, and I suppose this is the way I try to make it right with God. Maybe some of you will take me seriously. The ocean, and all the foul things in it, are owed a debt. Unfortunately, most of us lowly ones end up footing the bill.
I moved up from The Row a long time ago, but I can still see where it used to be from my front yard. I made a name for myself and I’m respected in this town now. People have no idea how old I am, but they joke about it. They have no idea I’ll live long past them. I have something inside my head that keeps me from moving on from this place. Something evolution put deep in my brain and those things triggered. I wonder if, when the night comes, I’ll be able to walk out into the night and pay the debt, or if I’ll do what’s been done twice before. My great grandson will be almost thirty years old when the bill is due, and I’ll pass the debt to him.