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Miriam’s face dropped as her eyes beheld the Cape Madre City Library. Tucked into the corner of the town square, its width barely accommodated the dirty glass of the front door granting access to its tomes. She should have known that a tiny tourist trap like Cape Madre wouldn’t have an extensive collection of literary and scientific books. Still, it was the best she had at her disposal for the moment, so she marched over, and gently pushed open the door. A bell rang as she did, which she thought wholly inappropriate for the quiet sanctity of a library.
An old, cantankerous-looking woman sat behind the counter, making no move to acknowledge her entrance. No matter. Miriam could find her way around.
She could have done all of this from her phone, or Macy’s laptop, but she enjoyed the thrill of the hunt more when there were physical objects. It was old-fashioned, sure, but also more reliable and tangible. Besides, sometimes the greatest finds were in books and records that no one had ever bothered digitizing.
As she snaked through the claustrophobic shelves, her fingertips grazed the spines. She loved books. Not so much fiction, but she could curl up for hours studying anything that taught her something new about the world. Cornelius had loved books even more than she, though. He had a gift for remembering things, and his careful analytical approach to all problems made him invaluable for correlation and collation. Her heart fluttered as she allowed herself to picture him. She owed it to him. In this place. The library would have been one of the first places he visited if he were still alive to go on this trip with them.
The tears for Cornelius had mostly run themselves dry, but it didn’t stop Miriam from feeling every day that she had lost a part of herself. A full third of herself, she supposed. She, Tanner, and Cornelius had always operated as a unit, but she never appreciated Cornelius’ particular talents until she no longer had access to them. She wished she would have. She loved him and needed him. Of course, it was his death that finally opened her eyes to a lifetime of brainwashing and gave her the strength to walk away from her father, but she would have enjoyed taking that walk with Cornelius at her side.
As she reminisced, her feet and eyes guided her automatically to the non-fiction section, where she landed very near the beginning of the Dewey Decimal System at 001.944 - Monsters and related phenomena / Cryptozoology.
Yes! There was a section specifically dedicated to her craft. Most people would have filed such pages under the occult, or maybe even under fiction, but Cryptozoology was real, and monsters did lurk in the deepest shadows of the earth. They often deviated from the more fantastical elements of the folktales, but the stories always hid a kernel of truth. Usually, the monster was merely a misidentified animal, but sometimes it was more, and those were the times for which Miriam had spent her life training.
She had a hard time separating her love of Cryptozoology from the hatred of her father, but she was drawn to it, nonetheless, and this Emma girl deserved to have someone looking into the real culprit of her near-drowning. Whatever caused the injuries to Emma’s stomach wasn’t natural, and Miriam intended to prove it.
Miriam eyed the entire section, able to take it in all at once. This was where she would begin unraveling the mystery. Her skin tingled with excitement. She needed this. She had to know whether this was something she could still do on her own. Without her father.
And, more importantly, without Cornelius.
***
The library sported only one table. Yet Cape Madre was small, and books were the last thing Spring Breakers were looking for, so Miriam took the liberty of commandeering the entire thing. The selection was lacking, but there were a couple of good general reference books, and of course those had led her into other sections so she could study the geography and oceanography of the Texas Gulf Coast.
Yet another path had her studying pirates, not necessarily for their swashbuckling stories, but for their legends of the sea. From there, she took a gentle turn to the free nation of the pirates of Nassau, and then to the mythical creatures of the Bahamian waters. Every place on earth had a monster somewhere in its history.
So focused on flipping from book to book, Miriam didn’t notice the librarian approaching her table. She jumped as the old lady cleared her throat.
The lady didn’t fit with the image of her job, with a flowered sundress that stretched down to her ankles, and skin more leathery than Miriam’s chair. Her gray hair was pulled up into a bun, tightening her facial features. Tiny spectacles hung on a chain around her neck that jingled when she spoke.
“Trying to catch up on some homework?” she asked.
“Something like that, yeah. Hope you don’t mind.”
The librarian eyed the books strewn about the table, making no effort to hide the fact that she was snooping into the investigation. “Library closes at four.”
Was is that late? How could she have spent so much time pouring over so few tomes? Miriam didn’t wear a watch, so she slipped her phone out of her pocket and saw that she only had a little over an hour to complete her search. She wouldn’t be done by then. Cornelius would have been. And he would have taken notes so that they could refer to them later. Miriam hadn’t written down a single thing, instead allowing the facts to swim and mingle in her head, trusting that all the information would cook itself together into some palatable soup of truth. This was no way to run an investigation at all.
Miriam nodded at the librarian. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be done. I just have some friends meeting me here to go over our project.”
The librarian pursed her lips and emitted a low mmhmm before shambling back to her desk. Miriam realized she’d been holding a breath, and exhaled. She had never been much of a people person, and she hated having to lie. But it was a project, of sorts, and even though she hadn’t texted them yet, she really did intend to have her friends meet her. Time was wasting, though, so she used the phone in her hand to summon Macy and Tanner to the library.
***
“This is what you’ve been doing all afternoon?” Macy shouted in a hushed whisper. “This is a vay-cay-shun. Let the police take care of it.”
Macy wore a bikini top, worn out jean shorts, and sandals. Her normally pearlescent skin was approaching the color of boiled lobster, save for the strips of white skin protected by yesterday’s top. She looked beautiful, of course, but it was hardly appropriate attire for the library.
Miriam shook her head, gave Macy the best shh look she could, and then whispered, “They won’t be looking from this angle. And, besides, it’s fun.”
Macy rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless, girl.” And then, motioning to Tanner. “Are you gonna talk some sense into her?”
Tanner looked towards the ground sheepishly, choosing not to answer the question. Surely, he was as interested. Or maybe he just knew that he couldn’t dissuade Miriam from her quest.
Macy sighed and folded her arms across her chest. “Fine.”
It was only a matter of time, Miriam calculated, until Tanner and Macy coupled off. They were both attractive and fun-loving, and their time together was only increasing. Miriam had caught Macy’s eyes trailing down Tanner’s sinewy muscles more than once, and Tanner, though always a gentleman, had stolen a few glances as well, sometimes at the more unmentionable areas of Macy’s body. Neither of them knew it consciously yet. But it was inevitable, and Miriam worried what their coupling would do to the social dynamics of their group.
There was no time for that now, though. Right now, it was time to present her hypothesis and see if it held weight. Or, at least, see if Tanner thought so.
“So, we have to start in the Bahamas,” Miriam said, holding up a book with a picture of clear blue water. A beach sat in the distance, but down lower in the picture was a giant circle, also blue in color, but of a much darker shade than the surrounding water.
“A blue hole?” Tanner asked, arching an eyebrow and leaning forward on the table.
Miriam nodded. “Right. Huge depression in the sand, leading down to a network of underwater caverns.”
Macy wasn’t quite onboard yet, but she was paying attention. “Looks dangerous.”
Miriam felt a surge of excitement shoot through her. “Exactly. They are. People go missing in and around them all the time. There’s a lot of theories as to why. Undercurrents and maelstroms caused by the differences in elevation and temperature, et cetera.”
Macy seemed confused. “So, you think Emma got sucked down into a blue hole? That doesn’t make sense. She was flying through the air like Superman.”
Miriam pushed on. “Well, there’s no evidence that the Gulf of Mexico even has blue holes. But, in the Bahamas, there’s a creature said to live in them. A creature that attacks and eats humans on occasion, if the reports are to be believed.”
Tanner’s lips curled up just barely, a look that Miriam instantly recognized from years of presentations exactly like this. Of course, usually it was Cornelius doing the presenting while Miriam sat on Tanner’s side of the table making the exact same faces. Would Cornelius be proud of her for putting this all together on her own? She liked to think so.
Tanner jumped in, forgetting entirely to whisper. “Right. Right. Lumba. Or something?”
Miriam smiled and pulled up another book with an artist’s rendering in it. “Lusca.”
Macy laughed. That outburst coupled with Tanner’s excitement warranted a shushing noise from the cranky librarian, who turned in her old rickety chair to give them a look of warning. Tanner held up his hands as if to apologize, and Macy cupped her mouth to contain the giggles. Miriam believed in the traditions of library etiquette as much as the next girl, but the librarian’s insistence on quiet seemed absurd given that they were the only patrons.
Once she had gotten control of herself, Macy uncovered her mouth and whispered, “That looks like a sharktopus.”
Miriam and Tanner both turned to her, asking for more information without actually saying anything at all. Macy looked at them both like they were stupid.
“The movie?” said Macy. “There’s like three of them. About a giant half-shark, half-octopus. Like the one in your picture there.” Macy looked to each of them and didn’t seem impressed with their reaction. “Whatever. It’s a funny movie. You should watch it.”
Miriam studied the picture again and felt the slightest tinges of humor well up inside of her. It did look a little like a half-shark/half-octopus. Sharktopus. Clever. But no, this thing was not something out of a bad science fiction movie.
Miriam flipped the page to another drawing, this one grounded more to reality. “This is from another eyewitness report.”
The picture took up the entire page of the book, and, despite the absurdity, was quite well drawn. Miriam could almost feel the sliminess of its skin. The bulbous, saggy, body stood in the center of the illustration, with its terrifying sharp-toothed beak open towards a boat on the surface of the water. Four tentacles anchored it to the bottom, three were wrapped around the boat, and one waved a person just above the water.
This was what happened to Emma. Miriam was sure of it.
Miriam said, “Some reports say it’s up to 200 feet. Others closer to forty. But either way, it’s big. And dangerous.”
Tanner filled in the rest. “And capable of picking up a hundred-pound girl like a sack of potatoes.”
Miriam nodded. “Exactly.”
Macy remained quiet, studying the picture. If not for the sunburn, she might have gone white. Her big eyes looked wet and fearful, and a bit incredulous, framed in by wisps of red hair. After a lifetime of chasing monsters just like this, Miriam had long forgotten what it felt like to fear the unknown.
Miriam sat the book down as if to rest her case. She felt confident in her hypothesis. There were still unknowns. Without blue holes, where could this thing possibly even live? And if it existed outside of the Caribbean, why had it not been reported before in the Gulf of Mexico?
She needed more library time, but for now, the book research would have to be over. She needed to get out into her element, studying the environment, looking for clues, and hunting the great big kraken that lived in the waters. But how? She had no resources. Her father had cut her off, or rather she had cut herself off. She no longer had access to his equipment, or research, or (though she was loathed to admit it) experience.
Tanner said, “This is really cool, Mir, but you can’t go chasing this thing. We don’t have the resources. Promise me you won’t.”
Surprised, Miriam averted her eyes away from Tanner. She thought for sure that he would be on board. She thought he’d feel the same pull to discover whatever it was out there in the waters.
Across the library, the librarian rose from her seat. Was it four already? Miriam tapped her phone to check. They still had ten minutes. That would be enough time to put all the books away, especially with Tanner’s help. He knew the Dewey Decimal System as well as she did.
As the librarian approached, she did so almost cautiously, glancing around as if someone else had snuck into the library when she wasn’t paying attention. Miriam noted something different about her now, less dangerous and more inviting. The old lady leaned on the table and looked at each of them slowly, seeming to gauge their worth. Before the librarian even uttered a word, Miriam had a strong premonition of what would come next.
When the librarian talked this time, she didn’t whisper, but her voice cracked just slightly as she began. She stopped and started over. “Last year. October. Joe Hampton. That’s all I can say.”
The librarian spun quickly and rushed past her desk and into a room marked “Employees Only,” as if she would get in trouble if someone saw her talking to the patrons. Miriam turned the information over in her head.
There was only one explanation. This had happened before. Here. In Cape Madre. It wasn’t reported in the news, though. Miriam could be sure of that. Cryptid sightings did not escape her; not with the internet at her disposal, set to email her whenever a news article popped up anywhere in the world. That could only mean that the attack was covered up, by someone, for some reason.
Miriam shot a glance to Tanner, trying to gauge whether he felt as intrigued as her.
Macy sighed, whirled a finger around, and deadpanned. ”Woo. Let’s hunt monsters instead of boys.”
