In past years, I’ve put The Contrarian Corner on hold during the month of November while I work on some NaNoWriMo novel writing projects. This year (due to a small writing slump in my novel-crafting endeavors), I’ve decided to do something different. Each Saturday this month, I’m going to post a new short story for you all, so there will be four in total.
Let’s kick things off!
The New Exhibit
Pietro yawned for what felt like the thirtieth time since his shift had started.
It was hard not to, really, in a job that was so perpetually boring.
Of course, boring wasn’t necessarily bad when you worked security for the night shift at an aquarium. The last thing Pietro wanted to have to do was actually use the thick metal baton hanging on a clip from his belt.
And it paid decently well. He’d been in this position ever since the last guy had quit, or been fired, or something. Pietro couldn’t wrap his head around that decision. Why leave a job that was both lucrative and easy?
But it could certainly be soul-sucking, day after day. Or, rather, night after night. Staring at security cameras, patrolling the halls three times (only twice, if he could get away with it), checking faulty lightbulbs, testing the locks on the exhibit doors. That sort of thing. Each shift played out like a well-oiled machine. Predictable. Easy.
Boring.
Sometimes something unexpected happened, but it never served as more than a distraction for a few minutes.
An overly sensitive alarm going off on the other side of the building, necessitating a quick jog down the hall to shut it off. One of the aquarium’s octopi (those damned slippery things) managing to wrangle itself out of its containment tank and needing to be grabbed and tossed back in. And one time only, some gangly little teen who had stowed away inside of a trash can on a dare from her friends to snap pictures of the aquarium after it closed. He had sent her off with a stern warning, but hadn’t felt the need to be so cruel as to detain her and call the police.
A moment of silence passed.
Pietro shivered.
The octopus prison escape moments, rare though they were, were certainly the worst things he had to deal with during his shifts. The way they were so wriggly, so slimy. All those arms, reaching, grasping, flailing about. It just felt so unnatural.
He scratched at his scraggly beard, and glanced at the security monitors once more. Rather subconsciously, his gaze drifted to one specific monitor, and the exhibit it displayed.
The Ventan Trench exhibit.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, it gave him goosebumps each time he looked at it.
Logically, there wasn’t an explanation for that discomfort, especially when it came to the angle the security camera showed him of the exhibit. It was just a giant tank of water, and a service platform angled above it. Nothing more, and nothing less. Sure, with the lights off, the pitch-black tank looked like it was filled with an abyss of nothing, rather than water. And yes, what lurked under that water was, in a way, scary, when taken together with the darkness of the room after the aquarium closed.
Sharks.
Pietro wasn’t a biologist (or whatever the term for ocean animal study was, he wasn’t sure), but from what he’d heard, it was actually a newly discovered species of shark. The depths of the Ventan Trench were rarely plumbed, and the aquarium’s owner, Harlowe Gaines, had his fingers in many recent ocean explorations and such. Because of his reach, and his money, he’d managed to directly be in charge of a recent venture into the Ventan Trench, and what they’d apparently unearthed were some sharks, and some rocks.
Exciting stuff.
It also felt a bit inhumane, if Pietro was being blunt. Just ripping a creature that had lived peacefully in a trench for however many millions of years, and transplanting it into a San Francisco aquarium, to be gawked at by sugar-charged children, fame-chasing teenagers, and exhausted parents.
Sure, the Ventan Trench exhibit had a large tank. A very large tank, the largest in the entire aquarium. Tons of space, an absurd amount of water, and then entire container’s worth of rocks directly from the trench, so the sharks would feel more at-home. Any other run-of-the-mill fish would live a long and happy life in a tank like that.
But a tank couldn’t be anything other than a tank, at the end of the day, and it certainly couldn’t compare to an entire trench in the ocean itself. No matter how big Mister Gaines had built the damn thing, it surely couldn’t compare.
Pietro rubbed at his tired eyes.
What am I doing? It’s just a bunch of sharks. They might not even be smart enough to know they aren’t in the trench anymore.
He couldn’t help but chuckle.
Though theoretical moral arguments about the living conditions of sharks is still a good way to pass the time, I suppose.
Pietro cracked his neck, and settled more comfortably into his chair.
He’d just finished his first lap around the aquarium for the night, and he wouldn’t need to do another loop until a few more hours had passed. The small clock beside him flashed as 1:35am. His phone played some gentle jazz music at a low volume (the only technological distraction Mister Gaines would allow him). And the security cameras continued to display the same boring–
“Wait.” Pietro muttered under his breath, leaning forward in the creaky old office chair.
One of the security screens had changed. Not by much, but just visible enough to notice, thanks to the soft glow of an EXIT sign illuminating the hallway in the camera screen.
It was the hallway that connected the Crabby Cove children’s area of the aquarium with the Ventan Trench exhibit.
On the floor, trailing in the direction of the Crabby Cove, was a patch of water, and what almost seemed like a small strip of seaweed.
Had Pietro noticed this a few hours earlier in the shift, it absolutely wouldn’t have been an issue. An aquarium employee being sloppy during closing procedures, tracking water with their boots. But Pietro had been down that way before, just fifteen minutes ago, in fact. And that spot of water had not been there. Which meant only one possible thing.
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“The only good octopus is a fried one…” He muttered, under his breath.
With a groan, Pietro lazily flicked his eyes around the rest of the security cameras, trying to suss out where the offending octopus had gone. They were slippery nuisances, but not Olympic sprinters. There wasn’t a huge rush to locate it, and it would reduced the slowly-growing headache Pietro was experiencing to determine where the runaway sea creature was before leaving the security booth to go get it.
The immediate next hallway? No, nothing there. One more corridor down? Another wet splotch, but no multi-limbed culprit in sight.
All of these damn cameras start blurring together.
A shadow moved. Pietro’s eyes dashed over to the camera that showed the movement his peripheral vision had caught.
He froze.
Between two informational posters about starfish, something…lingered.
The octopus? No, couldn’t be. It was too big, too mishappen, too unnatural. Crouched between the posters like it was trying to stay hidden, but its grotesque bulk was too wide to conceal.
“What in the…” Pietro said aloud, leaning forward in his seat, blinked once, and then tried to–
It was gone.
The shape had vanished. The security camera now showed what it was supposed to, what it was assuredly showing all along. Two informational posters, a tank of fish in the background, and nothing else. Well, nothing except for a splotch of water on the floor.
He ran a hand through his hair.
Wow, I need more sleep. What did I think that was, an octopus monster? It was just a shadow, or something.
The words repeated in his head so many times, Pietro wondered if it was still his natural subconscious inner monologue, or a repetitious refrain trying to trick the rest of him into believing it.
Still, weird shadows aside, he wasn’t paid to sit around when an octopus got lose. Slimy as the little buggers were, he needed to track it down, grab it, and toss it back into its tank. The longer he let it roam around the aquarium, the more taxing the clean-up would be.
With a stretch, and a pop in his knee that he probably should ask a doctor about, Pietro rose from the chair and exited the security booth, wandering in the direction of the exhibit where those two informational posters were. Clearly, the escaped octopus had been there, so it seemed as good a place as any to start looking.
His footsteps echoed down the empty, dark halls of the aquarium, and Pietro quickly found himself whistling a tune, compelled more by the desire to drown out the melancholy of the footsteps than actually being in a jaunty mood. One hand used his flashlight to illuminate the path before him (the low-power overnight lighting was often insufficient for tracking down a tentacled escapee), and Pietro was mildly surprised to find his other hand was, almost on its own, tightening around his baton.
He didn’t let go of it after recognizing that fact.
Eventually, he approached the exhibit he’d seen on the security camera, and the presence of wet splashes on the floor increased. It was almost crazy to think that a single octopus had retained that much moisture after escaping its tank, to leave so many prints on the floor.
Prints that…that…
Pietro forced a loud laugh, shaking his head like all of him was in on the joke, not just a single, desperate piece.
Those don’t look like footprints at all. It’s water, for crying out loud! Just weird-shaped puddles.
Pietro stepped into the exhibit area, a present darkness seeming to suck up even the faint illumination from the overnight lights. His tiny flashlight felt like it barely pierced the oppressive darkness, and he had to blink a few times to get his eyes accustomed to the low glow. Once his eyes adjusted, he noticed the two informational posters, and the fish tank, and the–
“God, what the?!?” Pietro exclaimed, jerking his flashlight back right as the beam passed over a hulking shape in the corner of the room.
At that moment, the wheezing cough of the maintenance-deficient HVAC system kicked in, and Pietro was struck by the illogical-yet-terrifying idea that, should that amorphous shadow lunge at him, he wouldn’t even hear it over the breathy rumble of the HVAC.
The entire incident took a single half-second, before Pietro steadied himself and shone the flashlight back on that spot again…and of course there was nothing. Just a cartoon whale painted on the wall, big grinning smile and googly eyes almost taunting Pietro’s momentary panic.
And, of course, another puddle of water in that spot too. A rather large one, at that.
The HVAC also shut off as well, in record time. What had that been, three seconds? It was clearly on its last legs.
“I need a new job…” Pietro grumbled, strolling further into the room, scanning his flashlight on an almost ineffectively-quick swivel to try and light up as much of the room at one time as possible.
As he walked further into what he rationally knew was a small room meant for kids to look at some cute fish, Pietro felt as if the shadows of the room were swallowing him whole. Like if he turned off his flashlight, the darkness around him would just consume him and never let him leave. Like Mister Gaines would just find his body on the floor, unharmed by empty, the next morning.
Pietro gripped the flashlight tighter, until his knuckles burned. His other hand held the baton in a vice-like grip.
Reaching the corner where he’d seen that shadowy form (or had imagined it, of course, since that was the only rational explanation), Pietro examined the puddle of water. Blobby. Dark. Definitely water from one of the main exhibit tanks, not just something spilled from a bottle or water fountain. And, again, those weird shapes trailing away from it. Not thin and gangly marks, like one would expect from an octopus. Larger. Purposeful. Inhuman.
“Of course it’s not a human, it’s a damn squid.” Pietro swore. “Get a grip, man.” He clenched his jaw and tried to steady his shaky breathing.
After a second, the HVAC kicked back on again, a wheezing, breathy groan that caused the whole room to tremble, yet also sounded as if it was coming directly from behind–
“Oh god.” Pietro gaped, his heart seizing in a chilling grip of terror.
That’s not the HVAC.
That’s actual breathing!
An infinitesimal moment of horrific indecision crawled its way under Pietro’s skin and through his entire body, like the entirety of his life was flashing before his eyes. A million possibilities spun their way through his mind, and in all of them, Pietro couldn’t bring himself to do anything but turn around as fast as he could, and shine the flashlight behind himself, at what had been, a moment ago, a cartoon dolphin painted on the wall.
The dolphin was still there…but something stood in its way, between the wall and Pietro, no more than a few feet away.
That blobby shape, that indecipherable shadow, the one he’d seen on the security camera and in this very room a minute ago…it had taken concrete form before him. No plausible deniability, no second-guessing…and no running, now that it was between him and the only exit out of the room.
Pietro’s eyes widened in terror, his mind launching into overdrive, examining the shadow, and also any possible chance to escape.
Shockingly, impossibly, it was more like a shark than anything else. A shark, but wrong.
Physically, in one sense. It was tall, taller than Pietro himself, and that height came from it standing. Instead of fins, it was as if a nightmarish approximation of human legs had attempted to burst out of the shark’s body and grow. The knees were backwards, the skin hung in limp, flayed strips, the bones were jagged and serrated, like a shark’s teeth. Hands, likewise, had seemingly tried to form, but they were even worse. Disfigured stumps, like rotting appendages that were forced to stop growing before they’d even begun to take true shape.
The head was the worst. Rows and rows of teeth, but flat human molars were mixed in with the sharp spikes customary in a shark’s mouth. The jaw was wide, partially unhinged, hanging open in an expression that almost seemed to be mocking laughter, or perhaps a silent scream. That wheezing breath, it rumbled forth from the shark’s lungs, escaping as an unceasing hiss through the shark’s maw.
And its eyes…the shape of a shark’s, but the color of a human’s. A pained, tortured expression, tinged with mania. Like someone or something that knew it was cursed, that didn’t want to keep living, but was too far gone to do anything but attack the world around it was a response.
But aside from its physicality, it was also wrong in a different sense. Something unknowable, something Pietro couldn’t place, but he could feel. In his very soul, just looking at the shark made Pietro feel small. Weak. Hopeless. Mad.
It’s wheezing breath hitched, and the shark took a jostling step towards Pietro.
He screamed, backed up a step, and brandished his baton.
“Stay back! Stay back!” Pietro yelled as loudly as he could.
The only response was another droning, grumbling cough, the shark taking another wet, slimy step forward. It sounded, even moved like it was in constant agony.
His entire body shaking, Pietro let out an angry roar more for the sake of centering his focus than anything else. Bringing his body forward with as much strength as he could manage, he swung down with the baton, aiming right for the horrific creature’s mangled face.
The baton connected…and slid right off of the shark’s rubbery, moist skin, falling feebly to the floor as Pietro’s arms went limp from terrified exhaustion.
And the shark, now closer than ever before, its odorous breath reeking of rotten flesh, clicked and popped its jaw, teeth clamping down upon Pietro’s chest.
The flash of pain was so powerful that Pietro’s own scream was cut off by his consciousness slipping away.
~~~~~~~~~~
When Pietro’s eyes fluttered open again, his entire body ached. Darkness was all around him, and it was agonizing trying to get his vision to stabilize, trying to get the numbness to leave and sensation to return to his body.
Sensation returning wasn’t exactly a good thing, as Pietro began to moan in pain due to how horrible he felt, like a potent burning of his insides. The shark creature tearing into his chest flashed back into his mind, and Pietro was aware that that hadn’t been some sort of accursed hallucination. A gaping wound was now in his chest, blood pooling down the sides of his torso at a steady bubble.
Something cold, hard, and metallic continued to dig against his back, and Pietro realized he was lying on the ground, and he was being dragged by something. The shark creature, most likely. Why it hadn’t just killed him, Pietro had no idea, but any hopes of summoning the strength required to seize this chance to fight back were for naught. He was drained of all hope. Even aside from his chest wound, continued exposure to the shark’s mere presence, it’s unnaturalness, was eating away at his humanity.
A sliver, a spark, did ignite when the glow of an emergency exit sign revealed where the shark creature had dragged Pietro to: the service platform that overlooked the massive water tank for the Ventan Trench exhibit.
Pietro twitched, kicked his leg, and screamed through the pain, trying to grapple for the disfigured half-human and half-shark hand that held his leg. The creature didn’t even seem to notice his struggles. It merely let out another choking wheeze as it pulled Pietro to the edge of the service platform.
“P-Please, don’t–” Pietro, cried, pleading with the horrific entity.
It responded with an almost dismissive kick, sending Pietro tumbling over the side of the platform, and splashing down into the Ventan Trench tank.
He immediately began sinking, his heavy security uniform weighing him down, combined with his hampered ability to keep himself afloat due to the extreme pain in his chest. Still, Pietro tried to float back up to the surface, ignoring the freezing chill of the water, the agony in his chest, and the all-consuming darkness…
…until two pinpricks of red appeared before him. And then four. And then six.
The tank’s other sharks. The Ventan Sharks, as Mister Gaines had taken to calling the newly-discovered species.
The small corner of Pietro’s mind that still stubbornly clung to the idea that this was all some nightmare he’d soon awaken from was almost impressed by the knowledge that the shark’s crimson-hued eyes could glow in the dark.
But the rest of Pietro knew that those eyes, and the blood trailing from his chest, could only mean one thing.
As the sharks swam closer, Pietro couldn’t believe how he’d never acknowledged the terror in those beasts before. How he’d been so blind to ignore the obvious signs that they weren’t right, that they didn’t belong in the human world, in the light of day outside of the trench they’d been discovered in.
They looked like normal sharks, but the eyes. It was the eyes that told the story, the eyes that showed that these creatures had lived for dozens of human lifetimes, had perhaps taken forms before a shark, and would take forms after a shark as well. The disgusting half-human hybrid was, perhaps, the Ventan Sharks evolving into the forms of those that had kidnapped them from the depths they’d resided in peacefully.
Or, maybe it had always been a matter of time before these unknowably ancient and horrible things walked upon the Earth and claimed it as their own. Maybe Mister Gaines greed had just accelerated the process.
Pietro didn’t know.
And he suddenly realized that didn’t care to know.
He didn’t care…about anything.
What was the point?
As one of the Ventan Sharks, a malicious glint in its all-seeing eye, clamped around his leg, another around his stomach, and the final around his head, Pietro’s mind was an empty void of apathy.
A delicious void of apathy…
~~~~~~~~~~
Sandra shivered, watching the dark-colored sharks swim around in their tank. Jaws notwithstanding, she’d always found sharks to be a bit off-putting, and these ones were especially odd.
Her son, Leo, couldn’t get enough of them, however.
“Mama, mama, look!” The precocious seven-year-old shouted, loud enough to draw looks that ranged from annoyed to sympathetic from the other nearby parents. “Aren’t they cool?”
“Y-Yes, sweetheart, they sure are.” Sandra managed a smile, at least until her son had turned back around. She couldn’t wait to get back to the room with the cute starfish, or the exhibit with the happy octopi.
Leo’s voice pitched even higher. “Wow, mama! A skeleton!”
Sandra’s brow furrowed, and she turned her attention to where her son was excitedly pointing. Sure enough, a few strangely detailed bones were scattered around the bottom of the tank, occasionally drifting a bit as the sharks sawm by. Additionally, what appeared to be a flashlight also floated amongst them.
Sandra felt her skin prickle with goosebumps. It was almost uncanny how realistic the bones looked. It felt a bit much for an aquarium Halloween display.
Leo was ecstatic. “Those sharks are gonna eat us, mama!” He giggled, a laugh tinged with just a hint of actual terror, his childlike imagination no doubt imagining the sharks somehow sprouting legs to climb out of their tank and chase after him.
Sandra put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Yes, yes, dear. Tell you what, remember how the gift shop had that ice cream pop shaped like a dolphin?”
Leo’s eyes lit up with delight, and he rushed off before Sandra even confirmed exactly what she was promising him.
She sighed, then chuckled softly.
What did it matter? It got her, and him, out of this weird trench exhibit room, which was what she’d wanted all along.
She made a mental note to mention the flashlight to another aquarium employee (probably dropped into the tank by a careless security guard), peeked inside her wallet to make sure she had enough cash for the ice cream, and then left the room without any further thought.
Sandra had never noticed that, for all the time she’d been in the room, the Ventan Sharks’ eyes had been firmly, hungrily, on her.
And that’s the end of this story.
Unlike some people, I actually don’t have a fear of sharks, or think of them as some sort of bloodthirsty creature. It was really the random chance of what my fingers chose to type when I was deciding on the creature this story would focus on.
See you for a new story next week!
