Part two - Adam

Part two - Adam

Adam pressed the ‘end call’ button a smidge too early, the customer had another question that they’d just thought of and Adam had cut them off. He felt guilty but not motivated enough to call them back and find out what the problem was.

There was a lot of noise coming from around the corner, he turned and saw the entire advertising team and half the HR people gathered along the windows, looking out and talking loudly. Sarah caught him looking and craned her neck to see past him.

‘Must be dolphins in the harbour again,’ she said. Adam checked the time: 2.07, it had only been an hour since he got back from lunch but his boss was out smoking another cigarette. He could take a quick break.

‘What’s going on?’ he said to one of the girls from the advertising team, they all looked the same and he could never remember their names. ‘Dolphins again?’

‘Nah, it’s out there see? Past the marina, a dark shape under the water.’

Adam looked past the marina, at the choppy waves and didn’t see anything. The girl, who might have been called Natalie, was watching his face. ‘D’you see it?’

‘No,’ Adam said, but just as he said it his eyes located a dark blotch in the water, ‘oh, yeah.’ It was big, kind of like the purple shadows he’d seen whale watching in Australia a few years back. The dark shape appeared to be right under the surface of the water, it wasn’t a clear shape though.

‘No one knows what it is. It’s not surfacing like whales do, and it keeps disappearing and then reappearing in other places, really fast,’ another of the advertising girls had said this. Adam glanced at her, and thought her name might be Bonnie. He looked outside again, the waterfront was packed with people. They lined the retaining wall, some of them out on the rocks, there was a field trip full of children, probably on their way to Te Papa, all staring at the ocean.

‘I’m going down there after work,’ possibly-Bonnie said.

‘Me too,’ said maybe-Natalie. They both looked up at Adam, expecting him to say the same thing. Adam didn’t want to agree though. Something about that indistinct shape, and the way she’d described it as disappearing and reappearing made his stomach churn. He had a very bad feeling about it, but he didn’t have a good reason for that, and he didn’t want them to think he was weird.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said, instead, his voice low and non-commital, ‘I’ve got to get back on the phones.’

At five pm the office emptied faster than usual, everyone was going down to the waterfront to stare into the sea. There were radio stations down there, even the news crew had driven up to do a piece with the dark shapes in the background. It had been established now that there was more than one of whatever-it-was. Adam’s stomach had stopped churning and evolved a hard, tight lump of tension. He left when Sarah did, and was carried along with the flow of people in the stairwell. He found himself joining the crowd. It was hard to find a place near the water now, but the festive mood of the crowd meant newcomers like himself were being allowed through, given a space where they could see what was happening.

When he arrived at the waterfront and peered down into the water, Adam’s sense of balance disintegrated. He watched as a dark shape appeared right in front of him, just a couple of metres away and he felt himself falling forward. He was tipping towards the water, even though every fibre of his body was screaming out against it. Just before he actually fell he caught himself, took an awkward half step forward to regain his balance and cried out.

Wildly, Adam turned and pushed his way back through the crowd, the other people were looking at him now, thinking he was weird. Just like back in school, he thought to himself, when you wouldn’t stop telling people about your dreams. It was hard to get through the throng. Adam walked straight into someone in his eagerness to get away.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Adam said, trying to dodge past the guy. There was no room to get past and the panic he was feeling made Adam angry rather than shy. ‘Look, can you get out of my way?’ It came out much louder than Adam was used to talking. The guy had long hair and was wearing punkish clothes that Adam associated with a student, or someone from Aro Valley: check shirt, leather bracelet, a T shirt with a band logo on it, heavy boots. He looked at Adam but his eyes were faraway, unfocussed. His pupils were huge, like some kind of cartoon character, and he didn't react to Adam's words.

Adam’s need to get away from the ocean was greater than his sense of politeness. He could still feel the pull of whatever-it-was, and that scared him. He grabbed the guy by one shoulder and turned him so that there was space to get past. The guy flinched as if Adam had hit him, but Adam didn’t notice, he just kept pushing through the crowd and out. Behind him the guy cocked his head to listen to something that no one else could hear and then hunched his shoulders and moved closer to the water’s edge.

Once Adam was clear of the mob he started running, heading inland. He ignored the traffic signals and dodged around cars, the traffic was much lighter than it usually was at rush hour, but the streets were packed with parked cars. Inland, he thought, got to get inland.