Chapter 9
Sophia Mackenzie lived in Lynchville her entire life. Lynchville was a quite Canadian town, never any excitement, never any trouble. The kind of town the old loved and the young hated. Sophia was in the later so she loved her town dearly. Even when she was young she was a fan of the peace. That Thursday night she had run out of orange juice and was set for her daily dose of excitement in her trip to the grocery store. She was anxious to speak to the nice young teller Jim and see how the situation with his little girlfriend Jennifer was going. While never a fan of being involved with the drama of dangerous love she certainly did love to hear about it. One time there was an argument that broke out with Jim and his girlfriend when she actually came up to yell at him for hanging out with that dirty slut Brenda. Granted that is not how Sophia would ever describe a person but that is how Jennifer put it, along with a slew of other colorful adjectives. However what she saw that night would be talked about in Lynchville for years to come.
Two men dressed in bright red striped jumpsuits kicked open the door one of which had a pistol the other of which was armed with a chainsaw. The both had red ski masks on and it looked like they had makeshift antennae duct taped to there masks. One of which had long hair in a ponytail hanging out of the back of the mask. The one with the ponytail spoke.
“We are the red claw and we are here to liberate our beshackeled sea brethren.”
Sophia noticed that the long hair one also had a cooler that he was dragging behind him.
“Everyone down on the ground and nobody moves!” The man with the chainsaw yelled. “If anyone of you attempts to flee or alert the authorities then you will get the claw.” With that statement he revved his chainsaw in a frightening display. Sophia dropped to the ground as well as the dozen or so other patrons in the super market. Chainsaw remained at the door on sentry duty while ponytail made his way to the back towards the lobster display.
“Year after year you capture these poor gentle creatures and imprison them, binding by the claw and forcing them to await there doom, by consumption, by you fat lazy inglorious bastards.” The man with the ponytail ripped the top off of the lobster display and started to move the lobsters into his cooler.
“No more will we stand idly by watching you steal our family.” He said dropping a lobster into the cooler.
“No more will we allow you to torture our partners of the sea. No more will we suffer another long sleepless night crying because we have to imagine our aquatic ally imprisoned, waiting for there slow deaths.”
Sophia looked up and noticed that he had emptied all of the lobsters into the cooler he then fired his gun into the tank allowing the salt water to drain into his cooler.
With the anger dropping from his voice and what sounded like genuine remorse he made the comment “Just because the lobsters can’t feel pain, doesn’t mean we can’t feel for them.”
Ponytail then ran towards the door and chainsaw stayed a moment after.
“If there are ever any lobsters imprisoned here again then we will be back, and we won’t be as kind to you…” The next word he said was filled with anger and Sophia was just certain she heard pure hate as well. “Humans.”
Over the next few years this tale would grow and grow, one version is that the one with the pony tail used one of the lobster’s claws to kill the one person who was brave enough to stand against the two. One outrageous story about that night that is in fact truth is what the store manager did. He was there that night and he made it an order that there was never to be lobsters sold at his store again. When asked he never said it was because he was frightened that they would return, he knew that was an empty threat. He said it was because what they said touched him, from that day on he never at lobster again.
Chapter 10
“Did you actually say beshackled?” Dylan asked in between big whooping laughter.
“Yeah, I can’t believe you called them humans at the end. I swear to god if I wasn’t out of the store it would have all been over because I lost it.” James responded while crying tears of laughter.
“Is beshackled even a fucking word?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What the fuck are we going to do now with all these lobsters?”
“There is a salt water lake about half an hour north of here, we need to go liberate our under the sea brethren.”
They both laughed all the way to the lake. Upon there arrival they took out the lobsters cut open there claws and released them into the lake. They took there costumes and burned them in a fire by the lake.
“Did you know that lobsters can live forever?” James asked Dylan.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah whatever it is that makes things age, they don’t have it. So as long as they don’t get sick or eaten or anything the can live forever. They keep growing too. So there could be a lobster the size of a bus on the bottom of the ocean.”
“That is insane.”
James was silent for a long time again, Dylan was comfortable with this time, he was content to sit there and watch the fire. Finally James broke the silence. “If I am stuck here I think I am going to get a pet lobster. Who knows maybe one day it will evolve enough where it can eventually learn to speak back to me.”
Dylan looked over to James who was staring out into the lake. Dylan didn’t know if that last statement was said as a joke or not so he decided not to comment.
“Let’s crash here tonight.” James said.
“I don’t know man if any cops are looking for us this is probably the first place they will go look.”
“We will be fine. I got that badge, remember.”
“Oh shit yeah. Yeah we can crash here.”
It was late summer so the weather was very pleasant, both of them laid there smoking and talking. Dylan fell asleep first and James stayed up the entire night watching the lake and reveling in its beauty. When Dylan woke up James had cooked up a mighty fine breakfast. They both ate hardily and were on the road again. James fell asleep against the window and Dylan drove the rest of the way in silence, he didn’t wake James up until they were within a mile from Sam Deckon’s house.
When James awoke and he saw how close he was he seemed to get nervous. He made a futile attempt to comb back his hair with his hands, he started chewing on some gum and gargled some of the bottled water they had in what could only be the poor mans mouth wash.
“Do you plan on asking this guy out?”
“Nope.”
“Then why are you getting all gussied up Cinderella?”
“What we are doing, is very much so against the rules. This guy could very well tell us to fuck off as soon as we step up to his door.”
“Do you think he will?”
“No, but I don’t want to risk it.”
“Why do you think he won’t just kick your ass to the curb?”
“Two reasons actually, first he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to brag about himself two people that would actually understand it and secondly he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to hold something as big as this above my head.”
“This guy sounds like an asshole.”
“Oh you have no idea.”
The two of them pulled up the address they had found, the house defiantly fit the description of a house that would be owned by a cocky asshole. The building was three stories and had an elaborate entrance with the typical Greek columns which generally signified wealth. The yard was huge Dylan guessed it was easily fifty yards from the gate to the house. The entire house was fenced in and the front cast iron gate had the name Ishmael Deckon. For some reason the gate didn’t look quite right to Dylan. After closer inspection he realized that the A the M in the name had been reversed. That’s when he knew James’s description of the man had to be spot on; he couldn’t even keep his real name off of the gate.
“Alright now if he asks you are a potential new recruit.”
“Okay, is there anything else I should know?”
“You should be fine, just don’t try and impress him with your knowledge or anything.” James got out of the car and walked up to the intercom system.
“Can I assist you?” The intercom squawked.
“Yeah my name is James; I’m looking for Mr. Deckon.”
“Is Mr. Deckon expecting you?”
“No one expects me, yet somehow I am always there.”
“Well I’m sorry but this is a private residence…”
“Look just march your happy ass to Ishmael and tell him his old buddy James is out here. Tell him I have done some research for him back in the day.”
“I’m sorry sir but without and appointment you can not speak with Mr. Deckon.”
“Look I’m the kind of guy he is going to be pissed off about if he misses. Trust me I know the guy. As a matter of fact he is probably in there right now listening to Bach, eating calamari and nursing a 1988 Clicquot Vintage.”
The intercom had no response to that and was silent. James turned around raised both hands in the air and shrugged his shoulders. Almost as if in response to that motion the gates opened up. James pumped his fist in the air and ran back to the car. The two of them drove down the long drive way and up to the oversized house. Two men in security uniforms were waiting at the front door to greet them. When they stepped out of the car one of them stepped into it and drove around the side of the building and out of site. The other approached the two men and spoke.
“How the fuck did you know the year?”
“What can I say, I’m the shit.” James responded in a non answer.
“Yeah, well Mr. Deckon is waiting for you inside.” The guard replied.
The guard led the two of them throw the lavish arrogant house towards a study. Dylan wondered if this Sam Deckon character actually even picked out the artwork that was hanging in his home or if some paid assistant did all that leg work. Dylan also noticed that the Mona Lisa was hanging up and that made him wonder if there was some poor time line out there that was missing theirs. He then wondered what great treasures had been stolen from his own time line and decided it would be best not to think too hard on the subject. The guard walked them into the study where Sam was sitting in a chair just as James had descried him, with Bach loudly in the background. Sam was wearing a well tailored dark blue suit. He was an older man Dylan guessed probably in his early sixty late fifties. He had all white hair which was slicked back and had a news paper in his lap. When the three of them entered he folded his newspaper and placed it at his side.
“Well I can’t say I am happy to see you, but all the same, welcome to my home.”