u/Ashamed_Rips

For the last few months my dog has been making weird faces at me when I turn to face him, a sickly confused expression. Well, yesterday I recorded him and he's biting the air with my back turned, teeth snarled and face twisted. I turn back and he stops, looking at me with that odd expression as if he were about to vomit.

One day I just saw him staring, staring at me as I did things, in still silence. His eyes following my every move, the mirrors I set up showed me him staring at my back, every day all day long.

Well today he attacked the back of my head, and I screamed…but before I did, someone else did too.

I looked to my wound, thinking I'm hearing things until I pull my hair back to examine the damage and reveal a face, stray long hairs remain as they cascade down the lumps and ridges of a wrinkled scowl. The eyes empty sockets, skin pulled over leaving it blind with a mouthed gouge of gnashing teeth, chomping and talking as I look at it in the mirror in utter disbelief and horror. I feel the back of my head and the skin is tough and bristled like a mans 5 o'clock shadow, I linger too close and it bites me, hard. I yelp and it manages a dry and broken cackle, chomping endlessly as my blood drips from its jagged bone-teeth. A nose sticks out from it, cooked and scaly, broken and bloody now from being thrashed around.

Sitting down I cry, sobbing hot tears as my dog licks them away from my face whining. I see the knocked over knife block beside me. Upon grabbing the largest knife, I begin to slice. 

I slice, and slice, the wet squishing and warmth of the blood a stronger feeling than the pain, it was like it wasn't apart of me. The whole time my sweet boy sits in my lap, licking me as I go, his eyes back to the loving glance he always gave.

For the last few months my dog has been making weird faces at me when I turn to face him, a sickly confused expression. Well, yesterday I recorded him and he's biting the air with my back turned, teeth snarled and face twisted. I turn back and he stops, looking at me with that odd expression as if he were about to vomit.

One day I just saw him staring, staring at me as I did things, in still silence. His eyes following my every move, the mirrors I set up showed me him staring at my back, every day all day long.

Well today he attacked the back of my head, and I screamed…but before I did, someone else did too.

I looked to my wound, thinking I'm hearing things until I pull my hair back to examine the damage and reveal a face, stray long hairs remain as they cascade down the lumps and ridges of a wrinkled scowl. The eyes empty sockets, skin pulled over leaving it blind with a mouthed gouge of gnashing teeth, chomping and talking as I look at it in the mirror in utter disbelief and horror. I feel the back of my head and the skin is tough and bristled like a mans 5 o'clock shadow, I linger too close and it bites me, hard. I yelp and it manages a dry and broken cackle, chomping endlessly as my blood drips from its jagged bone-teeth. A nose sticks out from it, cooked and scaly, broken and bloody now from being thrashed around.

Sitting down I cry, sobbing hot tears as my dog licks them away from my face whining. I see the knocked over knife block beside me. Upon grabbing the largest knife, I begin to slice. 

I slice, and slice, the wet squishing and warmth of the blood a stronger feeling than the pain, it was like it wasn't apart of me. The whole time my sweet boy sits in my lap, licking me as I go, his eyes back to the loving glance he always gave.

Any good treat recommendations?

My brother Anthony and I loved to collect crabs on the beaches during low tide, we would name the type with glee, smashing invasive green crabs with rocks. I would relocate the sweet ones while he took care of the invasives. It was just like how Daddy showed us, he told us all about them and the destruction they did to the native crabs and their ecosystem in the land we lived and depended on. We would pretend to be him, off on his boat with his testing machines, open seas, and lots and lots of crab and lobster. 

I don’t see much of Anthony anymore, he graduated college a few years ago, following Dad in his sea endeavor. They've had some pretty crazy stories over the years, like pulling in a heavy net thinking its a large catch just to see a sealion sitting on top, or hearing a woman screaming in pain out in the still nothingness of the ocean at night. Sometimes they were eery, other times they were funny like when Dad looked into a trap to see an octopus vibrating in red, he got a face full of ink as the octopus flopped out and over the side of the boat. 

Not long ago, instead of a story to bring, they brought something, a crab shed I think, they had it taxidermied and mounted on the wall. Its huge, with a violently dark hue throughout the crooks and crevices of each shell and appendage. They said it isn’t typical, and what a find for them, that unfortunately it was already ripped apart, and someone pieced it together from their description the rest of the way. I hated it. Its eyes stare into my soul when I sit with them to watch movies, the few fleeting moments I have had with them, ruined by the beady dots of unblinking madness. Dad loves it, I have heard him talking to it about his day, like he would with Mom when I was a girl. 

Today the stupid thing is gone. I walk into the kitchen to get some breakfast, didn't notice it right away, but when I did it startled me so badly I dropped the jug of OJ and let out a gasp as the liquid spills everywhere. The board it was mounted to made of purplish velvet stayed where it had been for the last 412 days it has been here. They have been gone for two weeks, one more to go and they will be back. 
But… it’s gone. 

Before I can really begin to panic, the phone rings, Dads satellite number flashing up at me. I answer it hastily, nearly dropping my phone as my hands are shaking now.

“Dad? Hello?” 

Static. 

“…Hello?” 

“Honey, c–me t– th– –ock.” I can barely hear through the buffering static.

“What? Dad, please, I-“

“W— are back, some—s –appened…come — — dock.” His voice was firm but something else was there as well. Its struck fear into me as I heard him, Is Anthony ok? I wonder as I grab my coat.

“Is everyone ok? I'm leaving now.”

“Take the Jeep.” He says flatly, without static, hanging up and leaving me standing there, staring at the empty plaque on the wall.

I grab the keys and drive to the docks about 15 minutes away, to see no ship, no single person around, and the sky darkens around me, the smell of a storm coming in lingers in the air. Walking down the docks, I look around me, nearing the office besides the docks, where a dim light flickers within.

The door creaks open in protest, whining shut as I go in. I have gone inside hundreds of times, but the feeling now was as if I was trespassing on sacred ground. My chest feels heavy, and I look down the meekly illuminated hall to see someone there, standing just enough out of the light I could only see their shape. 

"My Dad called in saying The Celeste was coming in early?" 

The figure twitches at my voice, I hesitate, and it steps into the light to reveal Anthony there, bruised and pale, drenched to the bone. I scream and step forward to him out of pure instinct, thinking of the day he rolled the fourwheeler and broke his arm, a gash on his head gushing blood in thick streams as Dad ran to him. Now, there was no blood, just water, the smell of salt filled the air and all I could taste was that and seaweed. 

Closing our distance between us, he backs from me like a scared dog back out of the light. I pause, and cry out, 

"What happened to you?!"

The response I received chills me to my core. 

Wet snapping pops crinkle across my ears like a dirty secret no one should ever hear. I see Anthony's figure bend forward, like he was kissing his knees, then in a fluent motion, he grabs his legs and his head splits open, thin bits of skull split in two. I realize now his skin is…crabs, nothing but crabs some big but most small, minuscule crabs crawling around each other. His neck splits down as his shoulders bend back and his legs go out to his sides in a low squat. Small crabs fall from him as he splits, I watch him-it crawl towards me, leaving more small crabs scurrying off as it moves sideways into the light. The horrors of what I witness reach deep within me, ripping out a scream in such a way my lungs ache from the force, leaving me breathless as it tears from my throat. I but manage a squeak as Anthony's crab-brains fall from his face, I watch in frozen terror as they crawl towards me. Just as I turn to run, I'm grabbed from behind to see Dad, tears down his face.

"I thought we killed a God,"

He cries pulling me into him with a hug, something I realized in that moment, hasn't happened in a long time. For a second I melt into him like a little girl again, until I feel the scuttling crabs going up my leg. I squirm and try to run past him, but his grasp is like cement. He turns me to face it, eye stalks now functionally working and now black tinted edges of the crawling crab flesh, vibrating with movement in the fragments of light streaming in from the full moon. Hot tears fall down my face as he holds me firm, his hands forcing me to face it.

"I must repay the errors of my ways, I must atone!"

It crawls closer, I shriek and cry, thrashing and pulling at his arms, begging to my father as he refuses to budge, during my struggle he continues, 

"Take my other child, forgive me for my transgressions!" 

Millions of feet tickle across my body, a wave of pressure across me and behind, I hear Dad screaming and his grip loosens. Dropping to my knees, I hear the screams muffling with the scuttles coinciding. Instead of looking behind, I run ahead to the back door of the building, opening it to see The Celeste in the sea once more, crabs overflowing the deck and falling into the sea, never ending. 

Waves hit my feet, salt fills my nose once more, and I think about Anthony, and the sun on the shore. 

I hear clicking like a large typewriter behind me, now imagining the warm sand as I step into the frigid water. 
Shells on the beach, the sun on my skin, 

and the crabs.