Cracks in the Shell

Chapter 3

The black & white above the register flashed grainy images of the approaching hurricane. The storm had reversed course during the night and even picked up speed. As a result, the morning rush had already cleared out the grocery’s bottled water and half its canned goods. Carlos purchased some Advil and immediately popped two pills. He had bags under his eyes from searching the woods all-night, late into dawn. But they’d found no trace of the crab, not even a blood trail. So he’d spent the rest of the morning warning folks about the approaching storm. Now he’d returned to Mambo’s grocery to help her board up the place. 

Towards lunch, the customers dwindled, returning home to secure their houses before the hurricane made landfall. Carlos wanted to wait until they were completely alone before asking her about the crab, but Mambo seemed to anticipate his question; word of the creature had spread quickly across the island. They were halfway through boarding up the windows when she broached the subject. 

“Just ask me, child.” 

“What?”

“Something’s bugging you.” She placed a wrinkled hand on his to prevent him from nailing another board. “Ask your question.”

“You know that thing you gave Ms. Sutherland yesterday?”

“The charm?”

“Yeah, the shell covered in lines. Well, yesterday, the crab that killed Salty —”

“Had the same marks on him?”

“In blood. It looked like it had painted itself.” 

“Yes, a terrible thing.”

“You know about this type of crab?”

Mambo Lalin took a deep breath. “Yes, I know about this.” She waved goodbye to the last customer and then went inside the store. Shuffling over to the register, she grabbed her key ring from the counter.

“Well, what species is that? Salty was old…but I never heard of a crab that could —”

“This is no crab,” Mambo said, thumbing through her collection of keys. She had so many, the ring resembled a sea urchin. 

“Sure looked like a crab to me.”

Mambo found what she was looking for - an ornate key much older than the others.

“Are they native to the island?”

“No, not the Brac.” She put a gnarled finger to her lips and beckoned Carlos to follow. Then she turned and walked towards the back of the shop. “You’re going to need some things.” 

“I don’t need charms, Mambo. I told you, I’m Catholic.”

“So am I,” she said.

A tiny wharf stretched out from the back of the store; it was more a loose collection of planks, lined with poles, buoys, and other flotsam and jetsam. The path ended abruptly at a shack suspended above the tide pools. Carlos had always wondered what she kept in this structure and had eventually decided upon overflow storage.  

“You’ve never seen my peristyle, have you?“ She placed the key into the lock.

Carlos smiled. “I was saving that for our wedding night.” 

She shot him an irritated look and opened the door. It took Carlos a moment to register what he was seeing. Flags lined the interior of the shed, hundreds of them. Their fabric had long ago faded, but the embroidery caught Carlos’s eye. Incredible detail had been woven into the silk: images of skulls, hearts, and waterfalls. Carlos recognized them as ceremonial voodoo flags called drapos, highly prized by the Miami art crowd. His ex-wife owned quite a few.