Seagull Summer: A Novella

  * * * *

  By the time I make it back to the house, it’s raining pretty hard, and I’m thoroughly soaked. I’m not feeling all that chipper toward the men and women that are paid to serve and protect me. Not after having a gun pointed at me, being dragged to the station, and then being forced to walk all the way back in the driving rain, all because I saved a jogger from killer seagulls. You’d think they’d give me a medal or something. Oh well, guess they’re too busy protecting someone else’s constitutional rights to worry about mine.

  When I left this morning, I’d forgotten to take my cell phone, so as I climb up the porch steps, Samantha and Doug are there waiting for me.

  “Where’ve you been?” Samantha asks, standing.

  I collapse into one of the wicker rocking chairs as thunder booms and makes Doug wrap his arms around Sam’s legs. I begin by telling her about last night, and when I’m done, she’s silent, subconsciously rubbing her head where the seagull had plucked her.

  “You don’t think…”

  I shake my head. “Other than you walking around naked with slippers on your hands last night, you seem perfectly fine to me.”

  She didn’t think that was funny.

  “What do they think it is? Why are they attacking people?”

  I shrug. “No one’s said.”

  “Is the girl gonna be okay?”

  “I think so.”

  She goes silent again, staring across the street. It’s quiet now, the storm keeping everyone indoors. Movies, books, breakfast…

  “The arm…”

  “I don’t know.” I don’t even want to think about it, and I wonder if I should have told her everything. She’s taking the whole thing more seriously than I thought she would.

  “You think we should go home?”

  I blink, shocked by the sincerity of the suggestion.

  “I mean, what if they do have some kind of disease or something?”

  It’s not hard to imagine what’s going through her head. I’ve seen all the same movies. “I think it’ll be okay.” But do I? Why that feeling in my gut last night? And that was even before almost getting shot. Maybe I should Google bird diseases before the CDC comes rolling in and begins quarantining all of Cape May County.

  “Maybe the storm’ll move them out.” I ponder my words, what they could mean. Sam recognizes the implication first.

  “You think it’s a bad batch moving down the coast? A gang of unruly hooligan seabirds just passing through on their way to Miami?”

  “Why Miami?”

  “Who cares? It’s not normal, right?”

  “Birds flying to Miami?”

  “Jeff.”

  I sigh. “I don’t know. Seems like it could be normal from what I read last night. Seagulls have been known to attack people.”

  “Killer seagulls.”

  “Sounds like a Syfy original.”

  Douglas has moved away from Samantha and is back to driving Matchbox cars around on the porch, crashing them into each other and having a blast.

  “What do you wanna do today?” I ask her, moving the conversation away from blood and feathers.

  “Just relax.”

  The prospect of doing nothing comes as a wave of relief. It’s been so long since I’ve had a whole day with nothing to do.

  “Movie, order out, a little…” She dances her eyebrows up and down and moves her T-shirt down a little on one shoulder. “…While Doug takes his nap?”

  It’s been forever since we’ve been able to spend a stormy afternoon in bed. The prospect thrills me. “I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, I’m reading this really good mystery novel that takes place in 1975 Cape May.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess I could put it down for a little bit.”

  “Just a little bit, huh?”

  “How long you think he’ll sleep?” I nod toward our son, who is mumbling to himself while inspecting a miniature school bus.

  “Long enough.”

  I frown. “That’s what they all said.”

  She shakes her head at my immaturity, and I get up to go inside. I never did get to finish my coffee.

  8

  It’s about noon when I climb out of bed and pad across the dark room in my bare feet. “In my bare feet…” Why do people say that? It makes no sense. Anyway, rain is whipping against the windows. I stretch, enjoying the music the weather is making with the old house. Samantha sits up in bed.

  “Wanna bring me a drink and a book?” she asks.

  I pull on a pair of boxers. “Sure. What are you in the mood for?”

  Now she stretches, the sheets slipping away. “See if there’s any Lee Child or John Grisham.”

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “Grab me a Pepsi.”

  “Did we bring Pepsi?”

  “I did.”

  “What about those reports we read about—”

  “We’re on vacation.”

  “Oh.” I forgot that anything goes on vacation, that the universe grants a free pass to all behavior. I go down the stairs, check on Doug, and go to the bookshelf in the living room. Worn paperbacks cram the shelf. Too much Patterson, some Sparks. I don’t see any Child and the three Grisham books that are there I know she’s already read. There’s two Stephen King books, some Koontz and Saul. I spot a Jeremy Robinson book I’ve been eyeing for a while and make plans to read it once I finish A Cape May Diamond. I keep scanning the tattered spines and ultimately pick two. A Lisa Gardner mystery and a Mary Higgins Clark story. Is Mary Jack’s wife? I’m not sure, though I’ve always wondered. I go to grab my e-reader, which I left on the porch in my haste to get to the bedroom once news came that our son was sleeping. I hope it didn’t get wet. Book in hand, I push open the door and step onto the porch.

  And freeze.

  There, perched on the railing, is the biggest seagull I’ve ever seen. It’s staring at me, eyes dark red.

  My heart starts pounding. The way the thing is looking at me, unblinking… Then it opens its scarred beak and roars. Not like a lion’s roar, but whatever the bird equivalent is.

  The noise just pisses me off, though, and I snatch the broom that’s leaning against the blue siding. I take three steps toward the creature, intending on a repeat performance of yesterday’s bird whacking, when three other gulls fly up through the rain and land beside it. Now four seagulls are staring at me. I stop my charge and instead move slowly back to the bag that holds my reader. Without taking my eyes off the birds, I reach down and grab it, holding the broom out like a sword in my other hand, ready to bludgeon whichever bird wants to attack first. But they don’t attack. They just stare.

  I back into the house and close the door, shivers raking my flesh. I don’t think they’ll try coming through the windows, so I go grab a Pepsi from the fridge and return to the bedroom. The house is not only cozy now, but suddenly has the reassuring feeling of a fortress.

  I give Sam her choices and climb back in bed beside her. Before she makes a decision on which author to commit to, however, she asks me a question.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Should we?”

  “Should we what?”

  “Have another baby?” And the sheet is down again.

  What the hell. I roll on top of her. But as I kiss her, I can’t take my eyes off the windows, sure that red eyes are watching.

  9

  The next day greets me with blinding sunlight, and I stumble to the window, moving the curtain aside and searching the skies. No clouds anywhere. People are already streaming down the sidewalks, heading toward the beach. I check the clock. It’s past 8. After Doug went to bed last night, we watched two movies and ate way too much food. But, after falling asleep at his normal time, I find it hard to believe that our son is still sleeping. So I leave Samantha to go check on him and discover that sleeping he is not. He’s sitting in the center of his room and staring up at the TV. It’s true
, my two-and-a-half-year-old son can work a television, DVD player, a smart phone, his Leap Pad, and a digital camera. I’m not sure if I’m proud of these early feats or not. In any case, he’s managed to find a cartoon I don’t recognize.

  “Hey, buddy.”

  “Hi, Daddy,” he answers without looking.

  “How long have you been up?”

  “You and Mommy sleeping.”

  “Yeah, have you been awake for a long time?”

  He nods, and right now I don’t care if he’s watching Showgirls. I’m just relieved he isn’t lying in an intersection somewhere.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Shark.”

  “Shark?” I don’t see any shark.

  “I hunngy.”

  “Okay. You want some cereal?” I realize at this moment that perhaps I should be teaching my son how to speak proper English, but after imagining myself doing so, I decide that we’re just not that family. My apologies to every English teacher I ever had, and to all the ones Douglas will have.

  He nods.

  “Okay, then turn off the TV, and let’s get some Cheerios.”

  He’s up at my side instantly, the TV off.

  I ruffle his hair. “You are hungry, huh?”

  “Supa, supa, supa hunngy!”

  I sweep him into my arms and fly him into the kitchen.

  When we’re done eating, bowls in the sink, I ask him, “Wanna go to the beach?”

  He jumps and throws his fist into the air. “Yeah!”

  “Okay, come on. Let’s get you in your bathing suit.”

  When we’re in his room, I offer three different pairs of trunks before he settles on a camouflage one.

  “Put them on while I go check on Mommy, okay?”

  He nods.

  I walk into the bedroom, and the shades are down, the room darker than when I left it.

  “Hey,” I whisper. “You okay?”

  “That sandwich was bad,” she moans.

  “Which one?” She had eaten a cheese steak, twenty wings, and the rest of Doug’s parmesan sandwich. I hadn’t seen her eat that much since she was pregnant.

  A hand with an extended finger rises forth from the mountain of sheets.

  Laughing, I wish her well, offer her a trash can, and tell her we’ll be at the beach. She’s miserable and doesn’t seem to care if I take Doug to the beach or North Korea. “I have my cell. Let me know if you need anything.”

  I feel bad for leaving her, but I know she just wants to be left alone. I finish getting what I need from the room and head out.

  “Hey,” she says before I finish closing the door behind me.

  “Yeah?” I answer through the crack.

  “I could be pregnant, you know.”