HUGE by Brent Butt

Author:Brent Butt [Butt, Brent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2023-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

24

The deep, green water was all around him. Dale floated on his back, facing an endless black sky scattered with stars that he could see even though his eyes were closed. His arms dangled behind him—below him, really—straight down into the depths of the cool, green water. He tried to leisurely paddle his feet but noticed they wouldn’t move independently. That’s when he realized his lower legs had melded together into one large fish tail. He was a merman, and the idea tickled him. He liked it here in the green water. This made sense. He wanted to arch his spine and knife backward, headfirst into the stillness, flicking his nifty new tail to drive himself down into the cool, green deep. But something kept his back from bending, so he just floated on the surface, smiling up into the night.

Then he heard them. They were shrieking as they carved through the water toward him. The blue bulb-heads had found him again, and they were coming hard and fast, white teeth gnashing at the waves. He tried to roll over so he could better swim away but couldn’t. He was caught in a net, helpless. The bulb-heads breached the surface and landed on him, sinking their teeth into his fish tail. He screamed.

He woke.

His breath didn’t come for a long moment, but slowly he began to pull in air. Tears welled in his eyes. The dream was getting stranger. Freakier. It was getting harder and harder for Dale to pull out of it, to get his bearings. Especially on the road in strange hotel rooms. He couldn’t make out this room at all, it was too dark. He strained his eyes to pan any nuggets of light from the blackness and saw a shape. A face.

“Shit fuck!” he blurted. His pupils widened until he could make out the face. It was Hobie, sitting and staring at him. Oh, right. Reality came tumbling into place. We have to share a room.

“Hey,” Dale said, weakly.

“Hey,” Hobie said. “You were dreaming.”

“Yeah, bad dream.” Dale lay there a moment, clearing the cobwebs. “Same goddamn dream every time.”

“In Mexico?” Hobie asked.

“Mexico?”

“You kept saying nachos over and over.”

“Nachos? No idea what that’s about,” Dale said, while all this slowly began to strike him as strange. “You’re just sitting there, watching me sleep? That’s weird. Go to bed.”

Hobie chuckled. “You’re a little slow on the uptake, eh?”

What the hell does that mean? Dale scowled and tried to wet his dry lips, but his tongue was dry also.

Hobie leaned closer. “You figure you’re all tucked away in your cozy bed?”

The moment he said that, Dale could tell he wasn’t. They weren’t in the hotel room. Where the hell are we? He tried to sit up but couldn’t. He couldn’t move his arms or his legs. He felt the bindings on his wrists and ankles.

“What the fuck?” Dale shouted. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Here he comes,” Hobie said. “Wakey-wakey.”

Dale thrashed, looking very much like a merman caught in a net.

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