Jigsaw World by JD Lovil Page B

that people lost all kinds of
things on a beach. If you could lose your lighter, your phone or
your book at the beach, why not a finger?
    While Bailey chewed on his finger beside the
fire, Tom brought out a package of franks and some buns, and using
a couple of green branches, he began the process of cooking hot
dogs over the fire. George had fished up a case of beer from
somewhere, and they settled down to a night on the beach eating hot
dogs and drinking beer. This seemed a decent recipe for a good
night to the two of them. Only the addition of females could have
improved the situation, and to do that, they would have had to take
the finger away from Bailey.
    George had gone down to the beach a few
moments ago, and he now returned, carrying a plastic bag and a
cooking pot. He proudly poured the contents of the bag into the
pot, and the contents stood revealed as a dozen or so shellfish, a
mixture of mussels, oysters and clams, and with one oversized snail
that Tom wasn’t really sure what to do with.
    George took all of the guesswork out of the
cuisine for Tom by producing butter and a gallon of water, which he
proceeded to pour into the pot until the shellfish was half
submerged in it. He then took the pot and placed it in the middle
of the campfire. A few minutes later, he produced a set of tongs,
with which he first removed the pot from the fire, and then removed
each of the shellfish from the water, placing them on a plate. He
then divvied up the shellfish into three different plates, and
offered Tom a plate and the butter.
    Tom accepted the plate, and placed the two hot
dogs that he had just cooked on the plate. He buttered the seafood
on his plate lavishly, and put the extra plate down for Bailey to
eat. Bailey decided to temporarily abandon his finger in favor of a
more substantial meal. Tom tried the first tidbit, that being a
mussel.
    “ This ocean may be in the wrong
place, and maybe delusional.” Tom said. “Even so, it provides some
very tasty illusions.”
    Bailey finished off his plate of seafood,
waited for and received a cooked wiener from Tom, and walked back
over to where his gnaw finger was waiting patiently. He started to
toy with it, mouthing it and throwing it into the air, and catching
it in his mouth on its descent. Suddenly, he stopped and allowed it
to fall to the sand, and went down on his stomach in a way that
suggested that he was minimizing his profile. He began to whine
softly.
    As Bailey did this, a series of shadows which
were not associated with any moving objects that could be seen
flitted across the face of the nearby trees, rocks and embankments.
This was accompanied with a noticeable drop in temperature of the
air. Then the earth shook, gently at first, and then with rising
intensity, cycling through a quaking interval on a roughly five
second cycle.
    Tom and George retained their seats while the
earth was quaking. After something between one and two minutes, the
quaking stopped. The air retained its chilly character, and the
gulls, which had been disturbed at the same time as Bailey, had
taken advantage of their ability to fly to flit off over the
horizon, and were no longer to be seen.
    The campfire was crackling from the
disturbance of the quake, with embers rising and floating on the
thermals off into the night. Just when the men were about to
conclude that the oddities were over for the night, they heard a
faint chanting in the distance. Somewhere up the beach, somebody,
several somebodies, was chanting strange words in an unknown
language.
    Tom looked toward the chanting, and realized
that they could crest the next small outcropping, and probably
would be able to see the source of the chant. There was a small
trail along the beach upon which they could take the RV, if they
deemed it necessary. Tom and George discussed the plan for a
moment, and Tom felt the pockets of his trench coat for the knife
and the pistol. Finding both of them where they were supposed to
be, the two men