Requital - E-book - ePub

166 Pages Fraternal 12 year old twins, Frank and Natalya, hitchhike to LA from White Sands, New Mexico with their father's cremated ashes in an Urn to show their estranged mother. A devil and his minions stalk the siblings, killing people and losing their AI robots, as the twins discuss innocence, spirits, God, love and death on their sojourn to the Pacific Ocean and their beloved dolphins. When I stood up, a round old man in a long dark coat was searching for something in the sand.
He would slowly turn around with his body stooped, his eyes scrutinizing each pebble."What are you looking for Mister?"He wasn't startled by my voice. It seemed like he was expecting me. He looked up and raised his ring finger and said, "I seem to have lost my ring." His hands were wrinkled and spotted from age. He had a deep voice with a thick German accent. He was from the beach party and his upper lip still held some foam from the glass of lager that he was carrying in his free hand.
Some of those engineers carried those steins so frequently that they appeared melded into their hands. "Ocean nice?" I knew he was one of the old Von Braun people at the Cape because he looked ancient and still had that heavy accent, but I had never met him. He must have been eating the fresh sausage at the picnic because he had that pig smell. He wore a clean panama hat above a chubby red withered-face sitting on a wrinkled neck, dark sun glasses wrapped round his eyes, and a freshly pressed black silk shirt with the red lettered words, Xanadú Mansion Golf Course, stitched over the left breast pocket.
When Aunt Flo stayed with us for several weeks in the early summer she said that was one of the casinos in Batista's Cuba that the Cape people use to fly down to in American Air Force planes taking off from Patrick. That was before Castro overthrew the island-a long time ago-way before my time. This man had to be real old. I remember his starched tan lederhosen revealing white hair on his chubby calves that disappeared into strange black rubber boots wrapped tightly over his feet.
He stood just out of the reach of the lapping sea, a muscular German Shepherd dog stood still next to him. I wondered if Bara would like this dog."Kinda small, but fun, " I replied. He scrutinized my face for many moments. I felt like I was being inspected for some purpose, and then he said, "Sie haben sehr blue eyes.""What?"He seemed to catch himself and said, "Nichts." I knew that meant nothing and he continued, "I don't see your Vater kicking the ball around? Is he out in the Wasser?" I knew the German word for water."He's over there." The man's glance followed my pointing to Papa, about two hundred yards to the north, who was walking with his radio toward us."Gut.
This reminds me so much of Peenemünde. You need him to swim in the Wasser with you, " said the man. "Is your sister out there?""Who are you?" Beads of sweat broke out on the man's wrinkled face and he removed his sun glasses to wipe his brow. His eyes were as blue as mine. He looked away from me and I saw the whites were streaked with crimson, and the cheeks and nose of his face were contorted with blue blood vessels.
He replied, "I am from the Overcast Group." He may have expected a response from me, but I gave him none and then he said, "This beach is so much like Karlschagen." He spread his arms out, took in the beach, slid a boot in the sand, and looked back at me. "I enjoy the beach parties. Ich liebe the calm Atlantic Ocean."