48 Hour Short Story Contest

The Wave Select

The cab barely came to a stop before the three boys poured out. Alex Harris lifted the door handle while still leaning against it. His head pounded from their last night on campus and he was sure the cab had stopped before he lifted that handle. Even with his misjudgment on the exit he managed to stumble forward as Connor Stevens pushed from behind.

Connor sat in the middle with his long legs making his knees press into his chest. He was too large to sit in the back seat of a taxi but the driver had insisted as soon as he saw the boys hailing him down.

They were picked up at the bus station still weaving and holding each other in an effort to appear sober. The driver didn’t buy it and he didn’t want anyone sitting up front and throwing up on him. With that said, Connor’s six feet, four inch frame had been pushed into the middle for the ride to the marina.

He needed out of that cab and even though his friend, Alex was having trouble balancing himself, Connor pushed against his back to help him exit faster. Connor stepped on the wooden planks of the boardwalk catching his balance against an old fashioned street lamp. He took a deep breathe and the heavy salty air of the inlet’s water filled his nostrils with a stringing blast. He coughed violently and then stumbling three steps forward, puked on the side of the Murrell’s Inlet Bait Shop.

Brian Holloway left from the driver’s side of the cab once the brakes were fully applied. He bumped against the door trying to squeeze out the back seat and bruised his shoulder. The rising sun bounced a gleaming stream of light from every chrome surface on the cab’s roof sign blinding him. He shut his eyes and reached for his sunglasses in the left pocket of his sport coat. He dug the wallet from his back pocket of his shorts and paid the driver, ignoring the advice to clean up his act and maybe getting a job wouldn’t be a bad start in life, nodding at the driver with each comment.

“Keep the change,” he mumbled and walked around the back of the cab to his friends.

Alex Harris, the first one out of the cab, was leaning against the bait shop and Connor was sitting on the wooden walkway with his legs stretched out in the street.

“Well boys, we’re here,” Brian announced. He stepped in front of the picture window and studied his appearance. His coat was wrinkled and the blue shirt he wore smelled of liquor, perfume and something sour he couldn’t identify. He also wore shorts. He had changed on the bus in anticipation of their arrival at the marina. Suddenly, it occurred to him that their bags were in the trunk of the cab. He turned toward the car as it sped down the street.

“Hey! Our luggage! Hey, you idiot!”

“You left the luggage in the car?” Alex whined.

“Me? That idiot driver took off before we had a chance to remember the bags. You didn’t remember them either,” Brian defended himself.

“I was busy picking myself up from the street. The bull didn’t come out on your side and throw you to the ground. You shouldn’t of paid him before we got our stuff,” Alex threw back at his friend.

“What are we going to do for clothes?” Connor whined. He was still sitting and the other two shouted at the same time making him cover his head with his arms.

“Shut up, Stevens!”

“This is all your fault anyway,” Alex added.

“My fault? How is it my fault?” Connor’s whine deepened to a shrill.

“I’ll tell you how,” Alex stepped forward and pointed his finger down at his friend. “You were the one who said we had to go to Barry’s party. You are a compulsive womanizer. One last fling before we go to work, something to remember all summer while we scrape boats, that’s what you said. Well, we’ll remember all right. Wearing the same damn clothes, sure the girls are going to like that.”

Brian moved away from the two as soon as Connor confronted Alex. He held his cell phone and now caught the feuding friends’ attention as he addressed the manager of the cab company.

“Yes sir, he drove off with our luggage in the trunk and we would appreciate having them delivered to Murrell’s Inlet Marina at the Ship Shape Clean.” Brian paused to hear the manager’s response. He grinned at his friends.

“Ten minutes would be acceptable. At twenty we would be obligated to inform the police that our luggage was stolen,” he winked at the other two. The manager must have assured Brian that calling the police was unnecessary because he suddenly nodded his head while deepening his grin and then snapped his cell phone shut.

“What say we get a cup of coffee?” He held his arms stretched open in a sign of success.

Their disagreement forgotten Alex reached a hand down to aid Connor to his feet. The three walked the boardwalk seeking an early morning café and talking at the same time about Brian’s quick thinking and the possibilities of the summer ahead.

They found a café two blocks west of their job. They had time to grab some coffee to go and make their way back to meet the cab. The sign outside the shop read, Hunter’s Cove. As soon as they stepped in they knew why. The café was small with a counter and four seats, three tables and a couple of tall tables for standers in the window. Every inch of wall space was covered in animal heads. Brian surveyed the room while Alex ordered the coffee. He added in three bear claws and then chuckled at the pun.

“This is a weird place to have at the beach isn’t it, man?” Alex nudged Brian’s elbow.

“There’s no fish,” Brian commented.

The female counter worker finished their order.

“What’s with the heads?” Connor asked her.

“The boss says, ‘If you lived in Japan and you could eat all the Japanese food you wanted and a McDonald moved in the next block, wouldn’t you bust your butt to get a Big Mac?’ He believes with all the sea food places around here folks would want something different.”

Connor reached over a small stuffed animal sitting on the counter in order to hand her the money.

“What’s that thing?”

“That’s a chipmunk,” she said sadly. She handed him his change and closed the drawer. She scanned the walls of hanging animal heads. “The place is starting to give me the creeps and I’ve only been here a day.”

Connor nodded sympathy for her and headed for the door. The walk back was quiet until they turned the corner and saw the cab pulling away in a hurry. The luggage was on the boardwalk. Brian hurried to retrieve the luggage from a curious vagrant.

A short bald, pudgy man wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt came down the boardwalk toward them. He stopped in front of the store with his keys in hand and surveyed his new summer help. The tall one looked like he slept in a suitcase, the guy in the sport coat and sunglasses looked like a Cruise want-a-be, and the third guy looked like he’d been puked on and thrown from a speeding car.

“Oh goody,” he said. “Let me guess, your Alex Harris, Connor Stevens and you, Mr. Zombie you’re Little Red Riding Hood.”

“I’m Brian…”

“I don’t care who you are,” the man interrupted him. He stepped to the door and unlocked the store.

He flipped on the lights as he entered flooding the show room display of small boat parts. Each display was a cross section of different area on a boat showing the clean, waxed deck boards, or the gleaming shine applied to brass railings. There was even a small two wall cabin showing the cleaning process of steaming the cushions and bedding.

“My name is, Mr. Coleman. You are here to work and what you do with your off hours is your business but I expect you to show up at 8:00 AM every morning you are scheduled to work. And I expect you to show up sober and in uniform looking clean because we are a cleaning business. Do you knuckleheads understand that?”

The three nodded and tried not to snicker, belch or spill their coffee. Brian even removed his sun glasses and straightened his stance. Connor looked like a buoy and tried to steady himself with little success. He kept bumping into Alex who tried to brush him off like a fly.

“Your room is upstairs, but you go out there,” Coleman pointed in case they were also mentally incapacitated. “You’ve got a half hour and I expect you to shower. You smell like a brewery.”

They scurried out of the store and rounded the building to the back stairs. Brian was the first one to report for work, looking clean in his white shorts and polo shirt with the logo of Ship Shape Clean over the pocket. He also wore white deck shoes with no socks.

Coleman inspected him and commented on the no socks.

“Your feet are going to start sweating and with no cotton to soak that up, your shoes will.”

Brian stared at his feet wondering if he should run back upstairs for socks. Alex and Connor entered for their inspection.

Connor was wearing a white cabin boy hat and bore a pile of cold cream across his nose. Coleman said nothing, just shook his head and motioned for the three to follow him.

The sun was rising strong flooding the boardwalk with golden rays. The brightness caught every brass rail on every boat they passed and beamed it into their eyes. The water of the inlet gleamed and sparkled with each movement of the water. Not far in the distance they could see the ocean and the beaches of Myrtle Beach. They walked by boats with the names of The Misty Blue, Scavenger Girl, and Pirate Bait until they reached a boat name Wave Select. It was a small yacht with two decks and large cabins below. Sitting on the dock was a pile of cleaning containers and supplies.

“First you got to carry that stuff aboard,” Coleman instructed. “Any of you yahoo’s ever been on a boat?” No one responded. Coleman sighed heavily, “Watch your step on the gangplank or your asses will end up in the water. I’ll be back in an hour to see how you are doing and I expect to see good things, you got it?” He pointed at them indicating that he meant business.

As soon as he received the appropriate nodding he turned and left them.

“What a prick,” Alex offered.

Connor was climbing the gang plank holding tightly to the ropes for support. Brian reached into his back pocket and pulled out his sunglasses.

“Let’s see what she looks like,” he said, grabbing the ropes and heading after Connor.

Alex shrugged and followed.

The wind picked up as the sun rose. Breezes cooled against their sweat as they stepped from the gang plank unto the glistening polished deck. The ropes for the main sails beat against their poles with a clanking sound. The sea air was intoxicating.

“Oh man, I want to own one of these babies,” Brian announced.

“Connor has a better chance at owning something like this,” Alex chuckled.

“Connor is a slacker,” Brian insisted.

“And proud of it,” Connor agreed. He ducked his head into the darkened cabin and stepped down three steps. “Whew! Hope you’re right, Alex. I’d fit right into something like this.”

The other two stepped below to inspect what was exciting Alex. They expected luxury and were not disappointed. The leather and brass was not spared in this room stretching twenty feet and boasting five large picture windows for viewing.

“This will be a piece of cake!” Alex exclaimed, throwing himself into one of the cushioned seats and propping his feet up on the Mahoney coffee tables. “This lounge doesn’t look like it needs anything cleaned. We don’t have to touch a thing and this place will still look good.”

“In that case,” Connor said, “I’ll take a nap. This rocking is making me sleepy. I wonder where the state rooms are.” He opened a door by the bar and stepped down two more steps into a corridor. “Found them!” he called over his shoulder and headed for the first room on the left.

“Why are we here?” Brian moved toward the far right where a built in wall desk held a lap top computer. There were letters on the desk, a letter opener shaped like a pelican, a pair of scissors with a broken tip and a photo of a beautiful blonde woman on the deck of that very boat. She had a lovely smile. He returned the photo to its spot on the desk and turned back to Alex.

“I’m going to check out the galley, there must be a mess somewhere for us to work on.”

“Hey guys,” Connor stood in the entrance to the state rooms’ corridor. “You better come see this.”

They followed him into the first state room on the left. The first thing they noticed was the smell. It was mixture of Clorox and something rotting in the floor boards.

“Phew!” Alex covered his nose. “What the hell is that?”

“Notice anything else?” Connor asked.

The curtains over the port holes were closed but the rising sun pierce the pink sheers enough to reveal a large stain across the bed and down onto the carpet. Brain stepped forward staring at the shadowy impression.

“Blood,” he barely whispered. “We better call the cops.”

“We better call Mr. Coleman first,” Alex offered.

“I’m with, Bri, call the cops. We don’t know if Coleman is in on this or not.” Connor moved toward the door. “Meanwhile we better get out of here.”

They turned back to the door in time to hear a large explosion from the galley. The boat rocked throwing the three to the carpeted floor.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Brian yelled. He pulled himself to his feet and ripped open the cabin door. Smoke poured in from the entrance. “We’re on fire boys!”

The boat lurched to the left throwing them against the dresser. They braced themselves again and made their way back into the large lounge room. Fire leapt from the galley. Smoke filled the passageway quickly filling their lungs and inducing coughing. They made their way back to the deck and crawled and rolled down the gangway to the boardwalk.

They could see the damage now. Fire leapt from the small porthole of the galley and the boat leaned into the water. By the time Brian finished explaining the emergency to the 911 operator the boat had sank.

Minutes later Coleman raced down the dock in front of the police screaming that he would prosecute them all. It was Brian who stepped up to him.

“We didn’t do this, Coleman and it will be us who prosecutes you for endangering our lives.”

Coleman came to an abrupt stop. He peered into the water where the boat was once moored. Perhaps they were right.

“Whoa, let’s not be hasty boys, let’s just calm down and find out what happened here.”

“I’d be interested in hearing that myself,” the lead detective said. He had caught up with Coleman with three uniforms behind him.

“We’re not sure ourselves,” Brian offered. “But, we will tell you everything we know. We’re pretty sure there was a crime; blood all over the state room, or what looked like blood. Someone had tried to clean it up with bleach.”

“Then there was an explosion,” Alex jumped in.

Connor used his hands to show something blowing apart while making an explosion noise. The detective raised his eyebrow at the antics and then separated them. He interviewed Coleman while each of the three uniforms took the one of the boys’ story.
“Don’t you boys leave town,” he shot at them as they walked back with Coleman.

The four stood in front of the store.

“I guess we’re fired,” Brian offered.

Coleman pulled out a cigar and bit off the tip. Then he lit it puffing hard to pull the fire through the beast.

“Maybe you guys aren’t to blame. I doubt that you blew up that boat,” Coleman offered. “It’s like I told the cop. You got to talk to the owner and find out if everybody is accounted for, especially that pretty young wife of his. When they came in last night to moor, I never seen her. Just him, barking orders about cleaning the boat while he was in Charleston on business.”

“So, we still got our jobs?” Connor asked.

“Sure, sure,” Coleman agreed.

“Well, I’m not so sure we want to work for you, Coleman,” Brian said.

“Bri, man, what ‘cha saying?” Connor pressed his elbow in a strong squeeze.

Brian yanked his arm away. “How many times are we going to get blown up? I don’t want to spend my summer in the hospital.”

Coleman rolled the cigar between two fingers and picked at his lips with his other hand, then he spit on the boardwalk.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” he quickly answered. “You boys, hungry? Come on, it’s on me. We’ll eat a good meal and discuss it, I’m sure we can reach a reasonable solution to the problem.”

He urged them toward the café. Suddenly, Connor had an idea.

“You know, Coleman, it think this is a four person job and I know someone who’d be perfect. I’ll introduce her to you at the Hunter’s Cove.

Word count: 2,983

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Suze ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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