Green Inferno: The World Celebrates Your Demise by Alex Woodroe

Author:Alex Woodroe [Woodroe, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781105710339
Google: 32-QzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2021-05-22T18:30:00+00:00

***

“What do we do next?” Taylor asked. Kendra wondered how many small children had parents who would buy them clothes that didn’t conform to a rigid girl or boy theme and let them perform mad science experiments with their hair. Certainly not her own “it’s just a phase” birth-parents. Anyway, it was better than exploring her nightmarish epiphany.

“Next?” Kendra said. “Right, next up on the lesson plan.” She tried to think. She picked up her printout of the agenda.

Nautical Stargazing: learning how sailors guided themselves with the heavens, with a note about alternatives for bad weather. A voice in her mind whispered that she needed to act like nothing was wrong, or worse things would happen. Maybe it was one of the oceanic gods she didn’t quite believe in; maybe it was just experience.

She looked out the window. The hail had stopped and the rain settled into a spray rather than an assault. The platform for oyster tonging had an outdoor roof over it. She stepped out under the sheltered roof and motioned the children to follow.

“Does anyone know the history of this building?” Kendra thumped her hand on the reassuring wood. Old oak could be tougher than stone, and more flexible. It was a good thing to have between yourself and a serial killer-haunted night. You know it’s not a serial killer, her hindbrain whispered.

Kendra pointed to Fareeda’s raised hand, overlooking Thomas’s jumping up and down and Adriana’s frantic wave.

“Um, this was the dock for sailors who caught oysters?” she squeaked.

“Very good,” Kendra said. “They used giant tongs to scrape up oysters off the seabed.” The orange light made even the shallows look like red wine.

The Agwe’s Hand smacked against the dock. Kendra helped Sophie into a nautical oilskin. Why did children always have such sticky hands? She stepped up to the barnacle-crusted steel and oak pier.

Kendra gripped the smoothed wooden handles, then levered the creaking iron tongs. Thomas acted bored while Adriana showed unashamed fascination with the giant limbs of steel. Kendra demonstrated, scraping up a pyrite chunk she’d tossed in there earlier with the claw-like tong teeth.

While the kids took their turns, Kendra rummaged around the site. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for.

Nevertheless, she found it.

Tucked into a dark corner, beneath piled nets and life vests, was something like a big lobster shell. It was flexible, like plastic, and hot pink on the inside. Instead of eyestalks and mouthparts, it had a ragged pink hole.

Kendra knew lobsters shed their old shells; this was nothing like that. It looked like a jellyfish’s lobster costume. Octopi and sea slugs attending a fancy costume ball in the court of Olokun danced in her mind’s eye. She pinched herself hard.

She didn’t want to believe what this floppy lobster suit implied. She’d watched footage of the mimic octopus and she’d seen a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers on her fourth date with Trisha.

Taylor stared at her as the other kids tried to spot fish in the water or gathered around the tongs.

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