Chapter Text
July 10,1998
N11° 15’, W85° 52’
San Juan Del Sur, Rivas, Republic of Nicaragua
22:57
The night was clear and quiet. Outside, the curved beach could be well seen in the cool hue of darkness, but inside the glare of fluorescent light on the office window obscured that clarity. The sound of soft waves and bobbing hollow boat hulls was practically embedded unconsciously in Santos’ mind, as he was on the last leg of checking document-inventory lists. Glistening pools of humidity gathering in the valleys of his knuckles, rereading a line on the inventory list twice over, forgetful if he’d gone over it already.
‘Yin Shan Shipping LLC. 20 Page Commercial Invoice.. 1,2,3,4,5’
Santos hung his head; he was the last to clock out before night-watch security arrived. His eyes dry from tiredness as he placed the list and the filing folder down. He moved to leave the office, and as he flicked the light off, it made a strange cracking snap. He flipped it back on, no noise, the light turned back on with barely a hint of an electric flicker. He turned it back off, and there was no noise. He shrugged it off and stepped out onto the dock. Despite the night being well on its way, the warmth of the day still lingered on the wooden surface of the docks. A vague smell of sea salt and the remnants of the last food that had been cooked in nearby restaurants, which had been closed for an hour, coursed through the moist air. Santos slowly sank into a squat, arching his head back with a slight popping sound in his neck. Whatever humidity filtered inside seemed to double outside, now dripping from his temples into the soft buzzed edges of his hair, carrying the cooler night temperature welcomingly across his skin. He got up with a soft groan and walked over to his time sheet. He added the extra ten minutes that had yet to pass – his shift was basically over anyway. He walked over to his truck that had been parked on the road just outside the boathouse since the lot itself was pretty small. He popped open the truck door, but then heard a soft, low humming coming from the boathouse before he climbed in. Somewhat perplexed in his sleepy haze, he walked back to the boathouse, the crunch of wayward gravel scraping on concrete, desperately to escape the weight of his boots. Before he stepped in the doorway, the hum all together stopped at once. He peeked around the boathouse, which was attached to but not accessible from the office. He turned the low-hanging bulb on, the incandescent light buzzing and flickering more than the office did. 3 docked trawlers, two forklifts, and all quiet. He tilted his head to the side once, sort of half thought, turned the light off and turned around. Hopping back into his truck, he swiftly opened the glove compartment, pulled out Ricky Martin’s CD album 'A Medio Vivir', and inserted it into the truck’s stereo. The leather of his truck seat was cool yet sticky, the plastic and metal frigid to his command over it, and probably one too many clicking noises at the turning of the steering wheel as he pulled out of his parking spot, and back along the road.
He watched the beach as he slowly cruised by, the waves kneading into each other. Further out, undisturbed water revealed the fin of a blue shark, slowly gliding in the water, perusing the sandy shallows for any fish caught out after sunset. The sputter of Santos’ engine was attempted to be kept to a minimum by his speed, since there were one or two residences along the beachside. He turned right onto an uphill road, sheltered by sparse jungle trees. A low fog crept as high as a cat on the edges of the ground, flowing down unnoticeably like a hazy river. Santos’ home was a 15-minute drive from here, just past El Oro. The jungle got denser and denser, and the air got quieter and quieter. The lull of night pulled Santos further and further into his tiredness. At his last right turn before the stretch to his home, he glanced at the dash radio clock, 23:13, and as he pulled the unwieldy steering wheel, out of the corner of his eye he saw the road vanish. With a startling clunk and jolt, the front of his truck went over the edge of the road and collided with an array of bushes, before stopping clumsily. Santos saw more ground than trees out of the windshield, and with his last defeated sigh, got out of his truck. An orchestra of insects and night birds filled the air, the damp mud absorbing the noise, keeping it overhead and without echo. Santos gave half a look to his truck, which pointed down at the ground and was stuck on an incline, and simply began the trek back to his house, not a 10-minute walk away. He had the weekend to recover his truck and sleepily begged that the damages were only cosmetic. With the scrapping of boots, mud and gravel road, Santos found himself finally back home, the long day wearing his shoulders down more than heat or sweat ever could. Terracotta brick, wooden planks, and scrapped metal sheeting, but well enough insulated to keep temperature control inside liveable, Santos kicked off his boots and put on a pair of slippers and dragged himself back to comfort. He managed to get undressed, the weight of his waders clumping on the floor before he fell unceremoniously into bed. He stared, his head sideways, at the empty crib at the end of his room, and sleep, it seemed, was in no rush to take him.
Blue and gray hues of sleeplessness almost flashed in his vision; sometimes the objects of the room were objects, and sometimes they were just shapes. The noises outside also seemingly pulsated, often in sync with his vision, the birds, wind, insects; loud and the quiet with the blue and gray. Then, in a moment of awakeness, when the crib was a crib, outside was… completely silent. Santos sat up, his mind ringing from the start of a headache. Still, no noise, maybe a whistle of breeze. He peered out his small window, and everything was still, not even a buzz of swarming gnats seemed to disturb. He sat back on his bed. It was weird, but not worth risking an all-nighter over. As he began to let his weight fall back again, a strong smell wafted through the air. It was putrid, musty, and smelled like ammonia. Santos became more alarmed now. He quickly shuffled to his kitchen, but the smell was fainter there. He paused before moving outside, slippers barely still on his feet. If scent was taste, the air was sour and bitter. The quiet and the smell caused an unkindly shiver across his skin. He checked the gas tank at the back of his home, yet as he passed his bedroom window, the smell seemed to move behind him now.
‘Not coming from my house.’ He turned to face the jungle, and a dreaded feeling pitted him. He took a step closer, and the smell got fractionally stronger. Again, and once more, stronger. Then, maybe 15 meters away, a mound of rock seemed to shift, side to side. Santos took a step back. In his mind, reason tried to outpace fear. A gas leak? It would make sense if the animals fled from that, and it would explain the smell. But what would be the source that caused this strong a scent? He couldn’t think of anything.
‘I should go inside’
‘I should go back to El Oro, maybe there’s a landline I can use.’
‘What is that?’
‘There’s nothing I can do to address this, go to El Oro’
‘It’s moving’
‘A dead animal?’
‘It’s huge’
‘Uneven soil’
‘I don’t remember a rock there.’
‘I should go inside’
‘It’s hard to breathe.’
‘Its… breathing’
A soft hum came from the direction of the strange thing. He noticed the shifting becoming greater, and the thing getting bigger.
‘I need to get inside,’ He managed to stir in himself. Slowly, he began to walk backwards. The odd trace of moonlight that tried to slip through the brush only got the edges of the form he was staring at. Santos then heard a deep coarse sound, rhythmically repeating like a saw cutting quickly through wood. It sounded a lot like the Caimans Santos had sometimes seen on his drives into work. Then, with great speed, the animal darted toward him, growing greater and greater in size. Santos stumbled around, the fastening strap of his sandal popping out of the sole by the sudden movement, causing him to fall over. The creature stood over 2 meters tall over him. Santos’ eyes visually scattered as he crawled backwards, trying to at least round to the side of the house where the door was. A hot digging pain caught his throat, and a hoarse scream bubbled from his mouth. He looked down at his hands, his blood shiny and black in the night. In a moment short after, the creature lunged forward, and the last thing Santos saw was the creature’s teeth tearing into his head.