Soulless
by Robert Williams

The soulless creature got her as she ran along the shore.

That night Anne Marie bolted from her father’s little beachfront cottage and ran down the beach, tears streaming from her eyes, tears the wind then snatched off her face and carried away into the moonlit night. She had come home late after a night out with her friends, and her father had screamed at her and accused her of doing all these horrible things. She couldn’t stand to hear all the things of which he thought her capable and had fled the house.

She ran until the Atlantic wind, cold and salty, lined her throat with fire and a stitch stabbed into her side. Finally she lurched to a halt and bent over, her hands on her knees, weeping and gasping for breath. The wind swept her blond hair into her face, casting a moonlight-gilded net of strands over her eyes. She shook her hair away and turned her gaze over the surface of the ocean to the bloated moon, brilliant silver, hovering over the ancient waters.

What kind of person does he think I am? she thought to herself. I was just a little late. How could he call me a slut? She resolved that as soon as she got her driver’s license she would leave home. She couldn’t stand these fights anymore, couldn’t stand her father’s unpredictable rage or her mother’s obdurate silence. She had to get out.

Then she lowered her gaze and saw a pale gleaming form bouncing over the waves, disturbingly close to the shore, close to her.

The thing reminded her of a whale and her throat closed in dread at the thought. A pod of pilot whales had beached along this stretch of North Carolina shore just last year, and Anne Marie had cried for days and days at the suffering of those poor creatures. The volunteers had finally put the whales to death to end their pain and Anne Marie had never really gotten over that.

The thing now drawing near did not look like it moved with a purpose. It looked like the waves had drawn it to the shore, and it tumbled with their motion over the curling and hissing foam. Anne Marie saw a grey hide glittering with moisture, a humped back, and finlike limbs flailing among the foam.

At first Anne Marie wanted to run for help, and she almost did run, thinking she would go back to the house, which she could still see standing on the hill above the ocean with the warm lamplight glowing through the windows. She thought she would run back and tell her parents… what? And then she realized she did not know what kind of creature the waves had brought to shore. She could just imagine bringing her parents out here in the middle of the night only to discover a log tangled in some seaweed. She could practically hear her father say, Why can’t you have more focus, Anne Marie? Why can’t you be more responsible?

No, she had to make sure this thing was alive and needed her help before she went running home. She had to be responsible, she had to act like an adult and handle this on her own. She stood her ground as the thing tumbled over the churning waters toward her.

The thing hit the sand with a loud smacking sound as the waves flung it upon the shore as if they were repulsed by it. A spray of water went up as it hit the beach. The creature lay still and unmoving as the waters rushed in and frothed around the thing’s bulk. It did not thrash or writhe or even move at all, and Anne Marie thought it must be dead. She couldn’t see it breathing, and nothing that still or grey could be alive.

The thing’s humped body lay on top of a tangle of mismatched limbs. Anne Marie could see something that looked almost like an arm, complete with a webbed hand, protruding from beneath the thing’s body. Yet tangled around this arm was an assortment of tentacles, like an octopus or a squid. The creature’s wet hide, a corpselike grey, gleamed in the moonlight. Stretched out on the sand just ahead of the thing’s hump was a thick mass of black strands that looked almost like hair. A rancid stench rose from the body, like something dead for days. She thought again of how the waves had washed it ashore, as if the sea had rejected it.

Now she knew for certain this thing was not just a log covered in seaweed, and most certainly not a whale, and the stench and slime of the creature repulsed her. Yet obviously this thing was unusual and rare. Maybe some of the scientists at the state college would want to look at it. People should know about it, anyway. She would have to go back to the house and get her parents, if they would even listen to her or believe her. She turned to go, but then she heard a hoarse voice speak from the stinking corpselike thing on the beach.

"Help me!"

Anne Marie froze. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. Terror had turned her into a statue. She knew, absolutely-for-certain, she had not just heard that thing speak. She had imagined it. This comforting thought managed to free her legs, and she took another few steps, but the voice came again.

"Don’t go! Help me please!" It sounded like someone talking through a mouthful of mud.

Anne Marie wanted more than anything to bolt towards home as fast as she could run, but for some reason her legs were turning her around to face the creature lying on the beach.

I don’t want to see this, she thought. And yet her eyes were focusing upon it once more, and seeing that the thing had lifted its head, seeing that the sagging face staring from the tangled black locks of the creature’s hair had a disturbing humanity about it, like an evil caricature of a human face.

A strange fascination had overtaken Anne Marie almost against her will, the same kind of fascination that takes children who see for the first time a dead human body. The same kind of fascination that makes a success of cable television shows in which men do obnoxious and disgusting acts. The fascination that draws one to something repellant, like a moth to the fire that destroys it.

"Come closer," rasped the creature. It had drawn itself onto the elbows of its armlike appendages and its tentacles writhed upon the sand like a mass of snakes. It seemed to beckon her with its clawed hands.

To her horror, Anne Marie saw herself take a step closer in obeisance. Gathering her will, she forced herself back another three steps. She stood on the sand just out of reach of the creature lying in the foaming waves.

"Won’t you help me?" said the creature, tilting its head to the side. Its flat grey eyes contrasted with its plaintive plea, and all the while its tentacles turned over and over in the sand, like the drumming fingers of an impatient man.

Anne Marie tried to speak, for the creature’s tone seemed to demand reply, but she did not know what to say. Her mouth shaped words but made no sound. The creature’s eyes seemed to entrap her, and suddenly she had to stop herself from dropping down and crawling on her hands and knees to the thing’s waiting claws. She tore her eyes away from the thing’s gaze.

God, what is it doing to me? I have to get away! But she couldn’t get away. It took all of her will just to remain in one spot. The creature seemed to draw her in like gravity.

"Wuh- what are you!" she shouted suddenly, in a burst of will and focus she had desperately hoped would break the thing’s hold on her. It did help, a little, but still she could not run away.

"You come here every night, Anne Marie," said the creature, its tone suddenly sympathetic and understanding. "You come out on the beach and walk at night. I have watched you for days as I hid in the cold waves and I have searched for you for ages." By the way it spoke Anne Marie felt that this being alone, out of everyone in the world, understood how she felt. This being alone understood her pain and frustration, her fears and hopes. This being alone…

"No!" Anne Marie cried, and scrambled back a few more steps, only to discover she had moved closer to the creature somehow without knowing it. She flung herself towards the house, trying to tear away from the creature’s hold on her, but only succeeded in falling face-first into the sand.

"But I need your help, Anne Marie!" cried the creature in a heartbroken tone, yet its eyes seemed as blank as a fish’s eyes gazing at a worm. "I have nothing and soon I will die, and after I die everything will end!"

The creature suddenly let out a horrid, belching groan. Its upper and lower lips bent at a sharp angle at their centers as the creature widened its mouth, and from its neck Anne Marie saw the dark slits of gills spread open like a Venetian blind. A narrow tongue lolled in its misshapen, fishlike mouth. Slime glittered over its face and hair and the revulsion Anne Marie felt grew enough to slightly overpower the fascination, and mustering all her will she tore her eyes away from it and looked down at the sand, trying to regain her feet somehow. Her trembling hand felt something sharp in the sand. She looked down and saw she had touched a thin abalone shell. She clenched her hand around it and felt its sharp edges cut into her palm and fingers until she felt her hand grow wet with blood. But the pain cleared her mind a bit and she could think a little better.

"What do you mean?" she said. "How will everything end?"

"Everything in my life will end," said the creature, "for you have something I don’t have!"

"What?" Anne Marie gasped out, clutching the shell. Her legs kicked in the sand but would not dig in enough for her to regain her feet. "What don’t you have?"

"I have no soul!" said the creature, like a starving child begging for food. "And I am afraid!"

Anne Marie’s mind raced. She could not fight the strange attraction drawing her to this monster. She felt like she was clinging to a steep cliffside and at the bottom of the cliff lay this creature with its mouth spread wide. It reminded her of a fish she had read about in biology class, a fish that lived deep under the ocean. This fish had a luminescent organ inside its mouth, and it would lie on the ocean floor with its mouth spread open, waiting for smaller fish to come towards the light in its jaws. Did those smaller fish feel the same kind of irresistible attraction Anne Marie felt for this horrible soulless thing? She struggled to think, to analyze what the creature had said.

"How can you be afraid," asked Anne Marie, "if you have no soul? I think a soulless creature couldn’t feel fear. You would not have to fear death."

"How can I not be afraid?" it said. "After I die, I will cease to exist. I will become nothing. But you, after you die you will go on to whatever life comes after. It is you who need not fear death, not I." The creature’s body pulsated like a lung inflating and deflating.

Anne Marie’s mind reeled. She suddenly felt that rising to her feet, going to the creature, and touching it with her hands would solve all her problems. All this fear and frustration would vanish if she would just do that one simple act. The creature’s flat eyes gleamed in the harsh moonglow and seemed to promise comfort and security in their cold depths. The wind coming off the Atlantic seemed colder and harsher, and the bloated thing lying in the surf offered warmth and shelter from it. She could just lie down next to it, where its body would shelter her from the wind.

She cried out inarticulately and flung out her hand towards the house shining on the hill like a lighthouse. Her hand slammed back to the ground and her fingers dug furrows through the sand. With slowly dawning dread, Anne Marie felt her arm begin to push her backwards against her will, backwards toward the creature. She heard it behind her sucking in air like a bellows, seeming to draw her in, and she fought the force drawing her nearer and making her own limbs betray her.

"But- but a soul does not give you security!" Anne Marie struggled to make words, but it seemed the force of speaking took away from her strength to resist the creature’s attractive influence. "You always have to act right, behave a certain way… you have moral obligations! Without one, you wouldn’t have to follow those obligations. You could do what you want! You’re free!"

"Oh no, oh no," said the creature. "A soul has no such obligations. Only a body has those, to keep the health of itself or a group to which it belongs. Only a soul is truly free and alive. Without it, I am only animate flesh."

A sob tore through Anne Marie’s throat and she pressed her face into the sand. She felt exhausted, defeated, overwhelmed. She couldn’t think of any more arguments and knew that all the arguments in the world wouldn’t mean a thing to this creature. It was mindless and purposeful, yet it had defeated her with logic. The only question that remained was how it would get what it wanted.

The light from the house grew brighter, and as Anne Marie looked up, she saw that the front door had opened and a figure stood in silhouette against the rectangle of golden light.

"Anne Marie!" her father’s voice called out. "Come back here!"

"Daddy!" Anne Marie screamed. "Daddy help me!"

Something wet slapped against the back of her legs and then slithered around them, tightening with sudden persistent strength. Anne Marie screamed. Then the creature’s tentacles were swarming over her legs, wriggling against them like a wet mass of snakes. The tentacles flung her onto her back and dragged her across the sand toward the monster.

"Anne Marie!" Her father’s voice, closer now and sounding concerned.

Anne Marie’s screams poured from her throat like molten lava from the mouth of a volcano. The creature swelled in front of her, sucking in air in long whooping gasps, its body swelling up like a puffer fish. Its claws fastened around her waist as the tentacles wriggled to her face, and then fastened to the sides of her screaming mouth, forcing it to remain open as the creature brought its gaping toothless maw to her face. She tasted the sour muck of the creature’s slime.

And as the creature fastened its rotten mouth over her own mouth, she realized she still clutched the abalone shell she had found in the sand, and thrusting her arm up through the swarm of tentacles enveloping her, she stabbed at the creature’s neck with the shell. But at the same time, the creature inhaled, sucking air and something more out of Anne Marie through her mouth. Anne Marie felt a great pressure seeming to draw her out of herself, as if all her flesh and bones were being pulled out of her skin through her mouth.

And then the moonlight seemed to expand and flood her vision. She felt the tentacles around her melting away as water washed over her, and the creature’s weight began to rise off her. Through the white-silver glow of the moon, she saw the creature above her, melting, changing…

Her father found her lying in the surf on her back, staring at the night sky.

"Anne Marie!" He gathered her in his arms and lifted her. "What’s happened? What’s wrong?"

She managed to stammer something out. "It took…" she murmured. "It took…"

"You’re freezing," her father said, lifting her out of the surf and carrying her back to the house as fast as he could. She wasn’t as light as she used to be. "And look at you, you’re as grey as a ghost!"

Through her glazed eyes, Anne Marie saw a world drained of color, and over the suddenly uninteresting ocean, she saw a glittering form breach into the nighttime air.

"Whale!" she whispered.

Her father heard her and looked in the direction of her gaze.

"Was that it, Anne Marie? Did a whale run onto the beach and you wanted me to help you get it free? Well, the tide must have done it for us. Look at it jump, its certainly full of spirit. Now we have to get you back to the house before you freeze!"

But as he carried her away, Anne Marie realized she did not feel the cold. In fact she felt nothing at all.

©2002 Robert Williams

Check out Robert William's novel: Remembrance : http://www.geocities.com/theremembrance_novel