2021-11-01 - Revenge of the Escaped Cloned Female Mutant Crayfish

As the French say, Cherchez la femme.

La femme is Vicky Barrett and contrary to the literary tropes, she is not anyone's love interest. Not that she wouldn't like to be; she's seventeen years old and filling out in all the right places while also breaking out in acne in all the wrong ones. She has a crush on Josh Dahl who works at her parents' little greengrocer shop but unfortunately, there's one thing about Vicky Barrett that deters Josh -- and a great deal of other people -- from trying to have a conversation. It's not that Vicky is vegan. It's that she won't stop talking about it.

Vicky's parents are vegan too but they don't obsess about it. While Mrs Barrett will certainly help you out with a good recipe for Jerusalem artichokes (which she prefers to call sun roots or earth apples) she will not berate you for the bag of pork rinds peeking out from your grocery bag. Vicky will. She is a crusader, in a town where strong emotions light up the night like a lighthouse on a dark and stormy night.

However, our story begins not with Vicky Barrett, but with a text to August Roen. Old Jake Farley likes to walk his dogs around the cemetery of St Mary's. Jake's a retired plumber from some small suburb near Spokane, moved to Gray Harbor to be closer to the ocean; he does a bit of gardening to pass the time, and make up for too many years spent not smelling the fresh air of the great outdoors; he's a semi-regular at Branch & Bole. He sends over a cell phone snap shot of a couple of funny little holes in the ground, like something small and clawed scrabbled in there to hide.

(TXT to August) Jake: Not sure what made these weird holes. Definitely not rats. I'm only finding them inside the cemetery perimeter. Mutts are going nuts but of course I'm not gonna let 'em tear up the place. Any ideas what I might be looking at?

Live in Gray Harbor for a few months, that's the kind of inconspicuous inquiry that sets off all the alarm bells. Nothing is ever just weird in Gray Harbor; there is no such thing as a strange but harmless coincidence. This is what August Roen gets for being Gray Harbor's go-to guy for all things plant and wilderness-related and weird. It probably doesn't help to know that St Mary's is one of those Veil hot spots where things inevitably turn awful.

Or maybe our story begins with two guys who share a house on Oak Street. Both are current or former street performers; one of them got written into a bizarre story about an illegal lobster fighting ring about a year ago. There's a knock on the door this afternoon, and there's Keith McGowan from the lumber mill, looking concerned.

"I know what I saw," the mill worker tells the folklorist slash fighting ring manager. "I seen good fighting lobsters before. These? Twice the size, man. And pearly grey, whoever saw a lobster that's pearly grey if it ain't sick? I followed 'em for a bit, figgered they got away from somebody's breeding shed. Handful of 'em, scrabbling along in a line just like that. When they turned into the cemetery that's when I figgered this was gettin' too spicy for me and I bailed, not gonna lie."

Keith McGowan doesn't shine. But he's lived in Gray Harbor his whole life, and everyone knows that St Mary's haunted like all hell. Good enough to go there in daylight but wild horses couldn't drag him there after dark. Ghost lobsters are out of his (fighting) league. And now we have Ravn Abildgaard turning to Aidan Kinney and saying, "I think I better go check that out. You want to come along?"

He too knows how haunted that cemetery is (look, he's had conversations with past residents over the cemetery fence once or twice). Churches, Catholic or otherwise, have entire shelves dedicated to them in any folklorist's library of horror stories, and this is Gray Harbor where every horror story inevitably turns out to be true. He's not afraid but he's also not stupid; if the Veil is about to change the rules on lobster fighting, somehow, or maybe introduce a new, otherworldly player, he doesn't want to deal with it alone. And definitely not when he's got a room mate who can throw fireballs.

It's a beautiful fall afternoon in Gray Harbor; everything seems tranquil and peaceful at St Mary's -- a few people come and go on whatever errands they might have, or visiting grave plots in the cemetery, a small murder of ravens hop around in the grass or perch on headstones watching, and a black cat suns itself on a gravel path; all perfectly normal behaviour for your friendly neighbourhood psychopomps and ghost animals.

And over there, just outside the cemetery fence is Vicky Barrett on all fours, rump in the air, trying to dig something up with her bare hands. Maybe our story does begin with her after all.

August has had weirder calls. Mostly his own fault: there was that fig of Conner's, which made all the little fig wasps, which would be fine except it was a Veil fig and these were Veil fig wasps and let's just say he has been waiting for that shoe to drop. He can feel the laces loosening, smell the rubber sole hovering over them all. It's coming.

This isn't that. Well, it's probably not that; he would expect fig wasps to result in weird plants, more than anything else, as they're pollinators. Vicky Barrett is not, despite how she's digging a hole into the ground and a known Paladin of the Most Noble Order of the Vegan (Ulli's desription), a plant. She's a teenager with more than her fair share of enthusiasm for not eating animal products. Probably not August's fig wasps.

But the fact that she's doing this in the Cemetary (ho boy) which Jake Farley said it's perforated like a lawn assailed by starlings and drove his dogs to distraction is two bad things that go bad together.

So that's why he's wandering up to Vicky, dressed in a heavy, black corduroy jacket lined with flannel, gray waffle Henley, denim jeans, and black work boots. "Hey, kid," he says, trying to sound casual and failing. "You okay?"

Vicky looks up from scraping a hole in the ground with her hands and a smile of recognition warms her face. "Good afternoon, Mr Roen! I'm digging for lobsters!"

Might be one of those when you ask a silly question moments except asking if someone's okay shouldn't really qualify as silly. The girl sits up on her haunches and nudges a tuft of grass aside. "See these holes? They hide down there. Big, grey ones. Never seen anything like them -- they're not even on Wikipedia. Ghost lobsters, I call them. I'm trying to find one so I can prove that they're real and the animal cruelty has to stop." And that, of course, is the narrative moment of perfection for Ravn and company to stroll up. Vicky's eyes narrow as she adds, "I don't know what anyone thinks is going to happen in this town, when we murder wildlife for fun and profit. This place is haunted."

"It certainly is," Ravn murmurs with a glance to the cemetery and heaven only knows what he sees in there; the man claims he sees ghosts on a regular basis after all. "Wait, what, ghost lobsters?"

"Ghost lobsters, Mr Abildgaard," Vicky Barrett confirms, voice a little triumphant. It's not personal for her. The Dane was a driving force in the hurricane shelter this summer when Storm Cimaron hit the coast, and she appreciates that. He's also the guy who runs the most murderous form of animal mutilation for entertainment in Washington State, and she does not approve. The glare Ravn earns says everything; Gray Harbor is haunted by undead crustaceans, and it is his fault.

The Dane tucks his gloved hands deeper into the pockets of his leather jacket; he's only had it for six months but one sleeve and the back already shows signs of heavy wear and tear the kind you get in this town where being dragged by the feet down the pavement is just Wednesday and so are sixteen tons dragons or carnivorous mermaids. "McGowan told me there's strange, grey lobsters hiding here," he volunteers, mostly to August. "Thought I'd come take a look, nothing's ever just... coincidence, here."

"Thought you'd come see if you can catch them for your fighting ring," Vicky inserts.

"Well, assuming they're not clawed balls of ectoplasma," Ravn returns, unbothered. He spent a week locked up with Vicky Barrett. He's immune.

Of course Aidan wants to come along. Are you kidding? "Lobster paraaaade!" he sings quietly to himself, broadly to the turn of 'Easter Parade', as they head to the cemetery, "....pearly grey. You think they're maybe zombie lobsters? Or I guess maybe ghosts, but ghosts mostly aren't grey, are they? Not the ones I've seen anyway. Though, I guess I dunno why a zombie'd be grey either..." Hm. "But if they're hanging out in a graveyard, they've gotta be something dead, right? Or lobster goths, I guess..."

There's a break from such theorizing while he parks the van, and it takes him a handful of extra strides to catch up with Ravn afterward, head tilted as he spots Vicky Barrett digging. At least she's doing it outside the cemetery fence, right? Cuts down on the odds they crossed over and she's some weird necromantic Dream thing. Right? Right.

The weather's not quite cold enough yet for him to have gloves too, so the hands tucked into his leather jacket lack those, but it is cold enough for the fluffy white polar-bear hoodie to be worn underneath it right now, the eared and nosed hood hanging down over the back of the collar. It contrasts quite strongly in concept, albeit not hue, with the unbuttoned aqua shirt covered in bright pink flamingos that he's wearing beneath it and atop a t-shirt printed to look like a bright cloudy sky. Today's jeans are as pink as the flamingos, though the shoes are just the old black Docs. Someone might not be entirely ready to give up on Summer for the year. Why not just bring it along?

"Hey," he greets both Vicky and August with that same level of brightness, which finds its way into a grin as well, though a relatively brief one; it fades to a more furrowed brow as Ravn gets accused of intending recruitment and Aidan glances around at the ground. "Can lobsters live out of water?" suddenly and finally occurs to him, along with, "Also I dunno ghosts can dig a lot of holes even if they can throw papers and push forks around and stuff. Maybe zombies is right."

August takes in Vicky's explanation with narrowed eyes and a wincing expression. He's weighing how much of a problem this is going to be. It's just lobsters. That can't be that bad, right? As these things go, well, lobsters are edible, at least, and a known quantity in the overall.

Except, she's calling them ghost lobsters, and now Aidan's postulating on why they'd even be gray if they were zombie or ghost lobsters. And somehow, Ravn is to blame. August blinks, slow and owlish. "But if they're ghosts, is it really animal cruelty?" This is probably the wrong question for him to ask. Fortunately, we also have a relevant question from Aidan on aisle two.

"Yeah, a lot of the crustaceans like crabs and lobsters can live on land. Dig a hole down to where it's wetter, it's not that different than being on a shallow river bank." He eyes the holes. "Seem to recall some even breed like this." Which is hopefully not what this is.

He crouches down next to Vicky. "So, how big are we talking here? Like, a foot? A few feet? Or..." No need to specify 'or'. Around here 'or' means 'if I say it out loud it will happen'.

Then a glance up at Ravn. "Do you actually do that, or is that just," he gestures, meaning the Revisionist.

"I want to say no," Ravn murmurs. "But somehow I keep finding myself on the marina at the appropriate time, and things just happen regardless of what anyone does or doesn't try to do about it. By now I just hang out with the rest of the boys and help eat the losers. None of us would be able to explain why this is a thing, and every single one of them will swear that lobster fighting has always been a thing in these parts, and the reason the foreign guy keeps tally is I don't have any breeding line of my own in my garden shed, so I'm impartial."

Because obviously, lobsters have bloodlines and prize ... stalliobsters? ... like race horses(1). And like any other kind of competitive animal breeding, lobster breeding is serious business. Gray Harbor likely has at least one vet who slips steroids to lobster breeders under the counter.

(1) A male and a female lobster respectively is referred to as a cock and a hen. Ravn does not know this. He has asked himself why Zapatero and Martínez from the lumber mill call their prize fighters los gallos but he figures it's a Spanish joke he doesn't get. It is.

Vicky Barrett scoffs. But she respects her elders, and she respects that Ravn helped keep things together during the storm. Just this once, she will refrain from mentioning that usually, when she talks about the lobster fighting ring, she refers to him as the Crustacean Killer, the Lobster Loco, the Mollusk Murderer. Just this once.

"The ones I saw were -- big, but not, you know, supernaturally big," the girl says instead. "About twice the size of a regular one? Dug in fast here when they spotted me. I was trying to dig one back up so I'd have some kind of evidence." She actually sounds a little relieved that the men have turned up; maybe because in the world of Vicky Barrett, a lot of what she says gets dismissed right away by adults. And here's three of them, looking equally concerned, which means for once in her somewhat preachy life, Vicky Barrett might actually get believed. Or at least listened to.

Lots of little holes along the cemetery fence might also be considered evidence. Unless the rats in these parts are making a very coordinated effort, a substantial number of creatures decided to get down and under that fence very recently for reasons unknown. Maybe it's just that the soil is dark and damp and wet -- Gray Pond is in close proximity and all. Maybe it's because the ground in there is a buffet as far as lobsters are concerned.

"They're carrion eaters," Ravn observes almost as an afterthought. "But that can't be why, can it? American burial customs -- you practically mummify bodies and seal them in lead coffins. They can't be going in there for the, ah, food supply, can they?" He doesn't comment on the expressions on the faces of a couple of time-lost shades leaning on the cemetery fence to kill a bit of eternity by watching the living. Worms, bugs, bacteria, lobsters -- it's all nature recycling in the end. "I guess we do need to dig one up and find out if they're... well, alive."

He purses his lips and adds, with a slightly amused glance towards Vicky, "If they do turn out to be here for the cemetery I don't think they'll be much use in the ring. We eat the losers, after all, so their diet is a matter of some importance."

August takes in Ravn's explanation with his patented, flat 'this would sound insane were I anyone else and were this anyplace else, but it's here and I'm me, so that's logical and all makes sense, and somehow this is my life' expression. "Well...as long as it's not a problem, I guess." He looks askance at the holes in the fence, the holes peppering the churchyard.

...right. Vicky might be on to something.

For better or for worse, Vicky is getting listened to. But she's also getting the Face. "Well if they are ghost lobsters, you definitely need to be careful about digging any up. I mean, I've never dealth with one that didn't have its claws bound, but I assume they do that for a reason." A painful one.

He gives Ravn a sidelong look. "Some of us do that. That's kind of a Christian thing. Cremation's what my family does." Not that this is why, but he can and will add it to the list. 'Do not bury me. Embalming and burial is a waste of resources, it's gross, [now penciled in] and I don't want lobsters to eat my corpse.' He frowns. "I wouldn't...think they'd be after those. But, since this is, you know," Gray Harbor, "maybe that's it."

The part where losing lobsters get eaten makes August blink. Well, why is he even surprised. He decides not to think too hard on it. "Yeah, I guess we should...figure out how to do that." He eyes the holes in the fence, the holes in the ground. "I guess you or I could try commanding it."

This is a comment meant for Aidan and Ravn; Vicky won't know what August means. Ravn's no doubt seen either of them do it, though: mind Artists can tell animals to do something, and very often, they will. If they are more lobster than ghost, it should work. Maybe. And if not, well, Aidan and August might piss them off enough they just pop out on their own. Foolproof plan.

Foolproof! And certainly Ravn's seen Aidan do the Doctor Dolittle thing before. "Huh," the magician says, giving the holes a somewhat dubious look at the revelation that not only do lobsters dig holes out of water, they might be mating in there. "...at least if they are mating they're probably not ghosts or zombies? I mean the undead are pretty, uh, focused on other stuff, right? Plus the logistics kinda get really weird..."

The remark about them being carrion eaters is a bit of a surprise, too (point in the zombie column?) but the bits about the lobster fighting? That doesn't appear to surprise him at all. Maybe that's the sort of thing one discusses while deciding to be housemates with someone. "If they aren't ghost lobsters the claw thing's prolly still kinda an issue," he says, squatting down to peer into one of the holes and see what he can see. Aside from dirt. Dirt seems inevitable. "Might as well see if we can maybe coax 'em out though, yeah..."

He closes his eyes a moment, brow furrowing faintly, then eyebrows lifting a touch just before his lids lift again. "I think there's a lot of them down there. I'm getting like... enough it's hard to say, like, seventy-five or a hundred maybe? And they pretty much feel, um, lobster-y. Like, not super-intelligent or ethereal or hungering for brains or anything. Just kinda... like lobsters." This should be reassuring. It would probably be more so if there weren't a suggestion of a 'but' in the tone and expression. A small pause before it emerges, "Feels a little weird, though. I mean, not them, exactly? Just, something's kinda off. And I dunno what."

It is apparently not 'off' enough to prevent him moving on to focusing his attention more firmly on the hole before him, and addressing the occupant. "So, hey. Would you mind coming up here, please?" What motivates a strange grey lobster thing? Do they have the kind of emotions he thinks in terms of? He gives eliciting 'friendly and cooperative' a go; at least that's got a decent overall track record for him with 'higher' creatures. And maybe it's a decent choice: after a moment or two, there's a soft sound of movement from inside the hole, and then a tiny pearly-grey face peeks out, antennae quivering as it does its part to establish whether crustaceans can pull off 'cute'.

"The idea of the undead screwing generally exists only in bad vampire fiction," Ravn agrees, and decides to spare his audience the lecture on how certain passages of Carmilla, The Vampyre, Varney the Vampire, and Dracula all disagree very strongly with that statement, provided you squint and read between the lines as a Regency or Victorian era reader very well would know how to do. Lobsters are not passionately licking throats and exposed bosoms in lieu of the writer's desire to write that they banged like bunnies and the vampire (or in case of Carmilla, the vampiress) was the best tumble whatever poor, pale girl ever had; whether dead or alive, he can't quite picture lobsters able to get their sensual eroticism on. Even if he could, he doesn't want to.

He may be the lobster trainer present, formally -- but he has no idea how to do a lobster mating call. He's also not very surprised that August and Aidan both do seem to know how. Or whatever it is they do -- shine works in mysterious ways. He'll rib Aidan about it for a week, later. Another bonus of being house mates.

Vicky Barrett does not know, either. She watches the conversation with a strange little frown; that of a girl who has a bit of shine of her own, but no one really told her what it's all about, and the Veil hasn't really noticed her much yet -- or maybe it has, and just left her alone because with her all but militant veganism, she spreads misery around Gray Harbor just fine, unassisted. Maybe in her own, unaware way, Vicky Barrett is one of those people that Ravn describes as 'batting for the wrong team', the ones who have been lured, corrupted, or coerced into doing the work of the Dark Men on this side.

And maybe she's just a confused teenager. "That is awesome," she declares upon seeing those quivering long antennae pop out of the ground, wiggling. "Oh, you are beautiful!" Vicky Barrett loves all things living, no matter how much they are actually sea spiders.

The creature is pearly grey, like the inside of an oyster shell; smoky in places, almost white in others. It does the lobster equivalent of quirking an eyebrow and asking what the hell Aidan wants, by shivering its antennae and raising one claw -- and they are indeed unbound claws that you don't want your fingers too close to, because of the sheer size of them. Think good-sized lobster -- and then double it up. These are big bloody crayfish.

It doesn't feel hostile. Just, curious. And a little busy -- maybe he's got a hot little girl with a sweet tail on her waiting for him down in the hole. It's certainly that kind of feeling that both mentalists pick up on while Ravn and Vicky both just watch, missing the subtler cues. Is hot prawn porn a thing? If it is, this lobster has every intention of getting in on the crustacean carnality.

August just looks at Ravn. "I think you're using a very specific and literal interpretation of sex in that statement." Sounds like someone here has read Dracula. Or something in which there is undead sex, implied or otherwise. Possibly creative sex, but August will have everyone know, there's more than one way to get tab A and/or slot B off.

For August's part it's less a lobster mating call and more a hint of 'hey, can we talk really quick'. His mind Art isn't remotely like Aidan's, so this probably comes across as LAAAAAAAASSIIIIIEEEE or a whistle to catch something's attention. Either way, they get results. See? It was foolproof. He looks askance at Aidan and Ravn, though, because, one hundred of that? It's big. Like real big. Like, 'how the fuck are we dealing with a hundred of these' big.

"Don't touch it," August says automatically. He's had enough employees under the age of 20 to know what 'oh it's beautiful' can mean in the context of an animal. Sure, Vicky will get offended and I-would-never or how-dare-you August about it, but that'll just prove his point: she was thinking about it. He knows she was.

Among the things he doesn't know is, well...what in the world has driven these things to do this, here. (Aside from 'Gray Harbor', of course.) And, being the kind of guy he is, he just asks.

<<Why here?>> He looks around the cemetary. <<Aren't there better spots to get busy and lay your eggs? This seems kind of...>> Kind-of-kind-of. Will a lobster get that? Maybe not. If he's lucky, it'll get 'why here'.

Just to make sure things are clear: Aidan's is definitely not a lobster mating call either! All lobster mating and encouragement thereto is left wholly and entirely to the lobsters themselves. Aidan's at most inducing a sort of neighbourliness, which may not be all that familiar to a crustacean on a day to day basis, but who knows? Maybe there's a whole undercurrent of cooperative shellfish society that's just been missed by humanity thus far. Or maybe there only is in Gray Harbor.

It might not only be Vicky who may benefit from August's prompt advising; there's a movement of Aidan's hand as though it might have been giving in to an unthinking impulse to offer to shake that raised claw in greeting, weirdly massive size of it notwithstanding. The movement is, however, curtailed, and he gives the creature a small smile instead. "Uh, hey," he greets it, "Thanks for talking to us." For, you know, certain values of 'talking'. August's question is a very good one, and he nods once to second it before adding his own, [Is everything okay? I mean, this isn't where you guys usually do this, right? It seems like we would've noticed.] The questions are sent as much in feeling and concept as words, since... yes, lobster. It may still be too complicated. Presumably, they're about to find out.

Ravn glares back at August. "Well, I didn't read Twilight." Vampire erotica is an abomination. He will fight you about it. Some other time, though.

August the outdoorsman, accustomed to looking at lobsters, can tell that this one has recently molted; its pearly grey 'armour' is still a bit soft in places. (Ravn probably ought to be able to tell, but his actual studies of the damn things boil down to, look, the Veil makes me do this stunt, it can't make me read the books. And Aidan -- well, they make a nice shirt motif). This is a point in favour of something mating-related going on; lobster hens can only mate right after molting.

Who's really surprised that the lobster does what a lobster does, and simply stares with beady little eyes and wiggling antennae. Well, those are some pretty impressive antennae -- almost half as long as the lobster itself. They're necessary too -- the creature probably has exactly the kind of not very fantastic eyesight you'd expect from a bottom of the muddy ocean floor dweller.

"I read Twilight," Vicky Barrett inserts. "It's very stupid. That's not what vegetarian means, at all." Fortunately a few more lobster faces appearing out of holes shuts her up before she can get started on lecturing Ravn the foreigner on the actual meaning of the word, or any other word. These ones look at the cemetery fence, though; and they do it in a way that seems so pointed that every single human present can't help a glance in that direction too.

Sure enough, there's a most dashing gentleman in black and white standing on the other side of the low fence, watching the -- proceedings. The expression on his face is polite enough -- curious, a little, mostly a bit puzzled, really not that different from everyone else's at the moment (possibly the lobsters', it's really hard to tell a lobster's facial expression). The most curious thing about him is not that he's dressed like a 1920s fashion catalogue as much as it's that he appears to be literally in black and white -- as if he stepped out of an old movie.

Or maybe it's not really that curious. This is Gray Harbor, after all.

"I don't mean to intrude," the dapper fellow says, quite politely. "But I am wondering, what exactly are you doing with those crustaceans? This is not really a proper place for that sort of thing, is it now?"

"We're, like, getting them," Vicky Barrett offers, a little confused, eyes a little glazed over. Much as she's a native to the town, maybe this is a little more hands-on than she's accustomed to, even with her little bit of shine. Alexander Clayton, assaulted by his own toys trying to eat him, she is not.

"Wait, you can see him too?" Ravn murmurs, surprised for a different reason.

"Squeak," says one lobster. Or well, technically it does not say it, because lobsters have neither lungs nor vocal cords. But it can rub its claws against each other and make a scraping noise, and 'squeak' will have to suffice.

"Oh, neither did I," August assures Ravn, a hand up. "Just, there's plenty of undead boning going on, even in the older books where it's all in terms of biblically knowing one another." He glances at Vicky, frowns. "Vegetarian?" He sounds utterly confused as to how that figures into Twilight. A second later he realizes he's unwittingly invited an explanation. "No, don't uh...don't spoil it for me." Yeah, there. Invoke spoilers, that should stop her.

Nothing useful from the lobster. August can't say he's surprised. Oh, wait--lobsters. Plural. Several. "Looks like they just molted. That's why they look all pearly white." Which goes back to them being grayer, possibly once their carapces have hardened.

He's about to ask Aidan if he got anything from that, when everyone is look at...a guy standing there in literal grayscale.

"We're trying to sort out why they're mating here, and not...somewhere else." Somewhere not a haunted graveyard. Somewhere they normally would. (Does that mean they are ghost lobsters?) "They're pretty big and the last thing we need is several hundred of them running all over town." Here he pauses. How does he put this delicately?

He's August; he doesn't. "You um...you seem to be in grayscale. That normal for you?"

The look on Ravn's face loudly proclaims, I do not want to know about undead boning. "Oh, please don't spoil the classics for me," he murmurs, because he caught what August did there, yep, saw you, I can definitely play that card too, and for the same reason.

More little pearly grey faces pop out of the ground, wiggling antennae and all. Insofar lobster faces can express anything at all, one gets the feeling they are impatient. Vicky Barrett no doubt heard the botanist's warning -- but she disregards it, kneeling down to reach out tentatively. "Whoooo's a pretty boy, whoo's a pretty boy -- "

SNAP

That's going to need a bandaid.

"I don't think I would do that," the gentleman in greyscale observes with the casual air of someone who's just out on his evening stroll, perfectly lovely autumn evening, why thank you, everything is perfectly within normal parameters(1). "They do seem frightfully agitated, and ladies do not appreciate being called boys."

(1). It's Gray Harbor. He has a point.

"They're females?" Ravn asks, taking away the bit of fact from the conversation there with a sigh of relief. "Then I guess they are in fact not breeding. Unless we're about to see an invasion of boy lobsters next."

"Why, thank you, I believe it's a matter of time," says Mr Grayscale to August. "I used to have more colour as it were. When my grandchildren died I faded to sepia, and I imagine it's only a matter of time. Such is the way of things, is it not? I rather look forward to fading away altogether. Charming as it has been, watching Gray Harbor prosper and then go into a recession, I am really quite done with it all. And now there are giant grey lobsters in my plot, which I really find to be quite unacceptable. Not that there's much left for them to eat, but really, a man wishes to keep his dignity."

August reaches out to grab Vicky and stop her--too late, and now he's wincing like he's the one who got her. Did it get snapped off? Christ, he hopes not. He's not sure he can...re-attach digits.

The grayscale man's comment draws him out of the dull ache of Vicky's injury. He watches those new heads pop out, looks from Ravn to the man. "They're...all female," he repeats. He looks back at the many impatient lobsters. "I don't really remember if they even need a male present," he asides to Ravn. "Do they? Or is it a case where they drop the eggs and the males comes along to fertilize them." Ravn Abildegaard, local Lobster Expert. This is less a question for him than it would otherwise be, because Mr. Grayscale has August's full and undivided attention now.

"So you're...being forgotten. Because everyone who knew you has passed on, or is about to." He thinks it through. "And the only ones who know you, know you from black and white photos." Well, that's horrible. Trust St. Mary's to have a few more ugly things hiding under its habit.

He looks to the headstones marking various plots. "Ah, are they? Eating all of you, I mean. Or are they just making a nuisance of themselves." He looks to the lobsters who are surveying this conversation, sends them an emotional wave of 'no offense'.

When in doubt, ask your local technological oracle. Ravn flips his pink Hello Kitty cased cell phone open to hit up wikipedia; while he's been overseeing a lobster fighting ring for almost a year now, it never occurred to him that he might need to know how the damned things procreate -- it's not like he wanted the job in the first place. It was infinitely preferable to being a celebrity chef with a reputation for molesting women but when push comes to shove, he'd really have preferred for the Revisionist to just forget him altogether.

"Says here that the females carry the eggs until fertilised," he murmurs. "Which means -- there has to be a male somewhere. Or they're waiting for one. Hopefully more than one, unless he's going to get very tired. Right?"

Vicky Barrett titters like only a teenage girl can, while sucking on her finger; at least she's still got it, and reattachment may not be required. Girl's got fast reflexes -- the kind you develop when you spend a great deal of your time sneaking around the neighbourhood to open chicken coops and pick up injured wildlife to take to the nearest shelter on a regular basis; it takes more than your average porcupine or lobster to get a good hit in on this one.

Mr Grayscale twirls his elegant walking stick; one has to wonder if he was buried with it, or he just feels like manifesting with it, the air of casual nonchalance and elegance. He snaps his white-gloved fingers and grins at August. "Exactly so, my good man. It is not a bad thing, to be forgotten. When you've been around here long enough, a spot of oblivion does start to sound rather nice."

Maybe haunting St Mary isn't that exciting once you have the first century of it under your belt.

A lot of pearly little faces -- remarkably expressive for creatures that don't actually have faces -- look back at the three men (four if one counts the one in black and white) and the girl. They really do somehow manage to convey the mental image of tapping their feet -- get to business already!

"Oh, I'm sure a few of them have found a nice surprise in their holes," the dapper gentleman answers August's question. "It's really not a big deal. Can't say I need anything down there any more, and I certainly can't feel it."

"Guys," Vicky Barrett murmurs. "Think we have to find the boy lobsters?"

"I suppose," Ravn says and looks around. He's no wildlife expert. Neither's Aidan. But the one man who is -- it starts to dawn, perhaps, on August, what the lobster ladies are waiting for. Get down to it, indeed. Rule 34 is in effect.

"Well, that's good at least. I mean, that you can't feel it, not that," August gestures, indicating, 'all of this bullshit currently underway'. He starts to say something about oblivion, stops. Come to it, he's not honestly if he'd prefer oblivion or some kind of afterlife. Really he's always figured on reincarnation, or at least recycling of energy. That would, functionally, be the same thing. "No way to get loose on your own? No one to undo whatever's tethering you?"

He can't help it, asking these questions of the ghost, but there's a more pressing matter--aside from Vicky's fortunately-not-severed finger--and that's to do with these lobsters. He has Concerns with helping them, such as, are they just going to overrun the town? The last thing Gray Harbor needs (after another massive storm) is a horde of ghost lobsters. But if they don't help, what then?

So apparently they need some male lobsters to help them. Where are they going to find male ghost lobsters, not having known that female ghost lobsters were even a thing?

...unless...

August frowns, surveying these impatient expressions. No. It wouldn't be. Would it?

Well...

"I'm not sure they want us to find the male lobsters." He cuts a look at Ravn and Aidan which he hopes telegraphs his (horrific) assumption, because he doesn't want to say it in front of Vicky.

"Absolutely out of the question," Ravn says, with a look at August and Aidan which transmits at least sixty translations of the term 'no', in case one was not enough. He's not even sure he accurately understood what the other man is trying to not say because impressionable teenager, but the place his mind went all on its own is no, no, no, repeat fifty-seven times, in as many languages as is necessary. Hopefully he's just got a really embarrassingly dirty imagination and this was not what the botanist was trying to say at all. Pass the mind bleach, please.

Vicky Barrett looks at August, and heaven only knows what conclusion she reaches. She opens her mouth. Turns crimson. Shuts it. Looks pointedly at the lobsters. Yeah, she's not having this conversation, noping out right there. Please protect the (in this case genuinely) virgin ears.

"Oh dear," says Mr Grayscale. Though whether it's a response to a similar horrible idea, or something else entirely, is anyone's guess.

"There has to be something we can do," Ravn says and looks at Vicky Barrett, of all people. "To save these creatures. And the cemetery -- I think it's going to be problematic if we have to tell people to please bury relatives in crustacean-proof caskets from now on. The obvious choice would be to send them somewhere else."

Bright plan there, Sparky. It went splendidly last time, didn't it? The dragon came back, twice.

"You're a monster," Vicky Barrett informs the Dane earnestly. "You are not shipping these poor things to some fighting ring in Tijuana, or whatever it is you're thinking. I'll call Greenpeace, I'll call Seaworld, I'll call -- anyone. They're alive. They deserve to be free."

Really, ghost-dude is arguably the least weird being in the cemetary right now that isn't the living humans. And some might argue regarding at least one or two of them. One of those options has gone a bit quiet, apparently trying to mull all this over, including a glance from the ghost toward everything else just to make sure it's just that guy and the lobsters and they haven't somehow ended up in Grayscale Harbor overall. They don't seem to have. Good.

And the others are definitely seeing and hearing this dude as well. Also good. Were someone paying particular attention to Aidan despite all the currently more compelling options, they'd probably notice something relaxing a touch just then. It tenses right back up when Vicky gets her finger snapped at, but-- okay, it didn't take anything off, and she doesn't seem hurt enough to be distressed. Okay, then we're staying in the general realm of 'good', here.

What he gets out of August's look after a second or so of confusion, that makes his eyes widen and brows lift? Less good. "Uh." A glance to the monochrome man (which does not mean Ravn, this time), with a fairly clear look of you guys aren't saying what it sounds like you're saying, are you?

"Well, I mean. Seaworld isn't exactly free," he points out, possibly instigating a new obsessive campaign in Vickyworld if she starts thinking about it too hard. "But like. I think. Maybe it'd be better if we could get them to where the dude lobsters are? Though, I mean. Maybe they're pretty good with just ladies? They kinda didn't look like they were complaining before we interrupted. Though that's prolly not great for the egg thing 'cause I don't think there's lobster test tube spawn or whatever." He is willing to entertain the notion he's entirely wrong about that, though.

"But, like. You noticed them," he points out to Vicky, "and so'd at least two other guys who told you guys," a glance to August and Ravn, "and plus I dunno if the other folks who li-- uh... reside? here are as good with it as this dude," a glance to the ghost, "so maybe everyone'd be better off if we did find them somewhere that's kinda more isolated. And less, uh, populated? Except maybe more by other lobsters." Does he have any idea where they find such a spot? Nope, not the slightest.

August can now mark off 'horrified three people and a ghost with my worst case scenario' on his weekly Gray Harbor Bullshit bingo card. He's relived, though, that the others agree with him on the aspects of how gross it is and how very much it's not happening. (His child isn't having lobster half-siblings. That's just not going to be a Thing.)

"SeaWorld gives tons of money to conservation but keeps animals captive who have no business being captives, leading to the deaths of trainers," August says, somewhat on autopilot. Greenpeace, well, he doesn't have a beef with them.

But: "Yeah," he nods at Aidan, "we need to find somewhere away from people. And not full of bural plots." He looks around, frowns. "I'm guessing they're here because it's not too far from the water, so the ground's wet most of the time. Easy access to the river or the ocean." He bites his lip. "Can we just get them over," he tips his chin into the distance, beyond the cemetary walls, "that way? It's closer to Gray Pond, ground should be a bit better for them anyways."

It's Gray Pond, so 'better' is a relative term here. On the other hand, 'not a cemetary' is a very low bar that Gray Harbor would be more than up to limboing right on under, so August is keeping it simple. If they can get them all the way to the pond, that'd be ideal.

"The buffet is certainly fresher over there," agrees Mr Grayscale -- and he has a point, considering that most people are burned or filled with enough chemicals to turn them effectively into mummies, rendering them not quite perfect for crustacean consumption. He does look mildly horrified; maybe oblivion sounds nice, and helping spawn hundreds of offspring to help him continue to exist does not sound so very nice. Maybe he thinks that if anyone here should be exempt from such a plan, surely the dead guy is it. Maybe he's just contemplating the mechanics and noping out harder than a teenage girl asked to babysit her baby brother in a Jim Henson movie.

Ravn looks at Aidan and then at August and looks (very relieved no one else is reaching for their belt buckles either) to be in agreement. "That's not a bad idea. Gray Pond? Worst case scenario, some of my lobster fighters go hunting. They do that anyway. So far, the ghosts haven't eaten any of them. The breeders, I mean. I'm sure they've eaten the occasional lobster."

"You're a monster," Vicky Barrett observes. Again.

Around the three men and the girl (four men if one is getting technical about it) even more grey, opaque lobsters emerge, from under rotting leaves, from holes in the ground, and from beneath bushes. They wiggle their little antennae. They make as friendly faces as lobster ladies with certain needs can (it's not much). That one there, it just winked.

"I suppose we can pick them up and carry them," the Dane murmurs. "But if any of you can like, commune with lobsters and nature and stuff, now is a really great time."

"You could always promise them you'll go vegan if they just follow you," suggests Vicky Barrett.

Well, Gray Pond isn't technically a cemetery, at least. Rumours do suggest there might indeed be enough to qualify as a buffet over there, though surely most bodies claimed to end up there have either been fished out or really ended up somewhere else altogether. Most.

Aidan looks fairly relieved as well that there is unanimity on the not finding out what lobster-human hybrids would be like front, though, and quite happy to glom on to this suggestion of a Where that is Not Here. "I dunno it'd be all that motivating," he says to Vicky, "I mean, they're not vegan. Plus I kinda get the feeling they wanna go anyway. Yeah?" That question appears to be broadly toward the lobsters themselves, though what kind of answer he expects, who knows. August and Ravn get a bit of it as well, though, and they have much better modes of reply. "...also if I go vegetarian too long I get anemic and stuff and it messes with my brain chemistry and everything? So I think I'm just gonna ask if they wanna go."

A pause, contemplating the lobsters and their tiny, tiny legs, and he suddenly brightens. "OH. Hey! Okay, I know how we can do this. We need like... yeah, okay. Okay, so, I'm pretty sure there's a piece of plywood in my van, and what we can do is, I can back the van up here, and we can use that for a ramp, and they can all go up it and hang out in the back and I can drive 'em over to the pond and we just let them out there. Yeah?" There's a second or two for any of the humans (ex-human included) to lodge immediate objections as he turns to head vanward, adding, "Lemme get it, be right back."

August eyes the lobsters in question. "I'd warn your breeders away from these ones," he says. "They don't look...like the kind you eat." 'Healthy' is what he was going to say, and then it occurred to him maybe the lobsters would know what he was saying and take offense and this whole situation might land him in the hospital.

Secretly, he's also relieved no one thinks the worst case scenario is a good idea. He didn't want it to be. How does he explain to his upcoming child they have a bunch of lobster half-sibs? Just no. Because they're being winked at. He's pretty sure they are. "Sorry girls, I'm spoken for," he says, holding up his left hand and shrugging helplessly.

Fortunately, Aidan is here to rescue them. A look of total relief floods August's features. "Yeah, that should work good." He glances around at the lobsters. "You guys don't mind a trip in a van, do you?" Please don't mind, he thinks at them.

"No lobster is the kind you eat," mutters Vicky, but without much gusto. She too is visibly relieved at the turn of events; perhaps the idea of heroically herding poor, hapless wildlife into a van and onward to freeeeeedom appeals to her (way more than the watch three grown men indulge the alternative does, at least).

She seems to decide to not address the point of whether lobsters eating the carcasses of fish and other things on the bottom of Gray Pond qualifies as vegan; it would certainly not be vegetarian.

"Maybe I can start a rumour that these are bad to eat," Ravn murmurs, glancing doubtfully at that one lobster that seems to be winking at them all in turns. "If we claim they're toxic someone's going to go full metal biologist, but we could just tell people they taste like stale pond water smells."

"That van looks like it's almost my contemporary," observes Mr Grayscale. He seems amused, if anything. "Goodness, life in this town was never boring, and death isn't either. Probably best to get this lot moved, yes. I am not certain all of my neighbours share my sentiments when it comes to how amusing this whole situation is." The threat is somewhat implied; he may be a good-natured bloke for a ghost, just striking up a chat out of idle curiosity, but not everything in St Mary's is quite that easy going; a sentiment that several of the living people present probably shares.

And this is how come at least Ravn finds himself fighting off the urge to whip out his cell phone and try to snap a picture of about eight hundred, maybe a thousand pearly grey, rather large lobsters crawl from their damp and dark places, to form -- yes. Squares. Of a hundred lobsters each, and each with its own lady lobster lieutenant leading the march. Ready to board a van, yes sir.

Sometimes, life in Gray Harbor is not as much bleak or terrifying as much as it's just outright absurd.

There is indeed plywood in the back of Aidan's van, one side spraypainted with what looks like a work in progress, hard to identify as what it may end up when he finishes yet. Or it could just be colour tests... but the blocking out so far looks like it has intention. The van backed up about as close to the edge of the cemetary proper as he dares, he settles the board into ramp position with the paint side downward, jiggles it once to make sure it seems secure, and gives a satisfied nod as he stands.

That's when his attention moves back to the lobsters themselves, and he notices their new positioning with surprise and a rather delighted laugh. "Lobsters, fall in!" he exclaims, then pauses, "Well, climb in. Why do they say fall, anyway? Man, you guys are organized, though." It's difficult not to be impressed, at least when organization isn't one's own strongest suit. He watches to see how this march proceeds, humming the tune that's been in his head since they headed here half-under his breath until it turns into sung words, "--a lotta lady lobsters in the lobster brigade; just climb into the van and / we'll execute the plan and," a little pause, as the lyrics stop randomly putting themselves together for him in scansion, "uh... oh! We'll make Gray Pond the barracks for the lobster brigade!" He looks very pleased with this. Shame he's not a better singer, but at least it's recognizable and passably in tune?

Do lobsters like music? Perhaps another thing to discover in a day of discovering many things.

"Do you think we oughta put up some kinda sign after we drop them off there?" he asks the other humans (and ghost), briefly catching his bottom lip with a tooth. "I mean... I dunno what we'd want it to say, but there's a lot of 'em. People might notice. I dunno what they'd do if they did, but."

"Yeah," August says, eyeing the lobsters. "Like those ghost apples--they look pretty interesting but they're mealy and bland. Nothing you want to grow except for compost or to feed your goats." And does August have a ghost apple tree? Why yes, one started growing in his yard some time during the Lost Months, and the goats love it. He and Eleanor debated cutting it down, but the goats seem fine so far. (Of course, they also have a magical storm baby on the way, they're not good judges of 'fine' anymore.)

He pretends not to notice the winking, winces and looks away. Sorry ladies, there's a ring on this one. A sigh for Mr. Grayscale's super casual not-at-all-a-threat. "Yeah, I've had my fair share of fun with some of the, ah, residents here. We'll get these lovely ladies sorted." Or, you know...they'll sort themselves, apparently.

He considers the formations, adds a bit of mind Art oomph to assure them that yes, this is perfect, and now you should get in this van, post-haste. "Probably put up a sign. 'Annual ghost lobster migration, do not disturb. Protected species.'" Not that they're actually protected but the good news is August knows most of the Parks personnel around town and can get them to look the other way. If they even notice, as many don't have the Art to begin with.

And if some kids take this as leave to catch one to eat and strange shit happens to them, well, that's all part of growing up in Gray Harbor. Right?

"I'll follow you in the car," he says, nodding towards his Outback. Because he is not the hell riding in back with the lobsters.

All this scene needs is a marching band (and instruments made for lobster claws). Ravn is musician enough to find his mind wandering down such questionable roads as to wonder what it would sound like -- and would it be a marching band of the mostly wood wind instruments, or more of a traditional German style oompa oompa affair? And then, before he knows it, his historian's mind is trying to make das Panzerlied(1) work with lobsters, and seriously, he needs coffee and mind bleach now, please.

(1). Oompa Oompa, World War II style.

He snaps out of it. "Ghost apples? Are those a new kind of actual apple, or do I not want to ask?" In a town like this? Probably the latter, and really, the idea of haunted apple trees doesn't even strike him as absurd compared to what's going on here. Nothing much feels absurd while you're watching literal regiments of crustaceans board a truck one perfect square at a time, marching in perfect step. He'd pinch his arm except, he'd be disappointed to find himself awake.

Even Vicky Barrett looks at a loss for (many) words for once. The usually quite energetic, all gung ho animal rights and veganism will save the planet college student sports a mixed expression. Relief that these beautiful specimens of wildlife are being moved to a presumably safer environment where they can be beautiful free range lobsters, doing whatever beautiful free range lobsters do. Disapproval that they go about it with military precision and engagement because another -ism on her long list is pacifism, and she feels that it would really be a lot nicer if they'd sort of bumbled up there in a pile of anarchy and peaceful disorder.

Maybe it is dawning on her that thousands of creatures, any creatures, that are capable of instantly communicating and acting with military precision can in fact turn out to be a problem sometime.

"I'll stay here, of course." The ghost in black and white leans against the cemetery wall and chuckles. "I dare say, boys, you've certainly given me a more interesting afternoon than most. Most of the time is really quite humdrum, one day is much like the next. This, I think, would have drawn a gasp from me even when I still had lungs. You have a nice day, now. And don't worry too much about the silvers."

"I feel like I should object to being called 'boy'," Ravn murmurs. "But from his point of view I suppose we're all kids."

"I feel like I should object," murmurs Vicky Barrett and doesn't.

Ghost lobsters are poor eating may become a staple of Gray Harbor thinking, in the same way that rolling in poison ivy is not anyone's idea of a fun time. Few people need to actually try to agree that maybe the resulting eczema is not a great idea. A bit of mental nudge here, a rumour seeded among lobster enthusiasts, a word dropped to park rangers -- it seems plausible enough. With the kind of fluid reality that Gray Harbor has on the whole, odds are that it won't even be difficult to add this aberdabei to local culture; even people without any hint of shine have heard a lot crazier around these parts.

And those grey things are kind of creepy to look at, aren't they? It takes a certain kind of curiosity to want to eat one. A dare, maybe. Or a well planted story that the one man who did dare ended up needing his stomach pumped. Or just a reminder that Gray Pond has had enough bodies surface over time that really, eating anything that lives in there is little short of, well -- suffice it to say, not everyone would eat a carp from that lake, either.