Newt's Hand

Hello Dear Readers,

Today I met Yusuf for lunch at a bar founded by his great-grandfather Joseph.  I’ve been trying to talk to my four new friends about the Elevator Game and the Vandal.  Most of them seem hesitant to discuss it.  Every time I bring it up Yusuf says he needs a drink. But he said that if I stopped asking him about it he would tell me a story about his great-grandfather and a strange encounter that he had.  So my persistence paid off again!

The bar is called the Newt’s Hand and I have never heard of it before.  But Treasure Town has a high bar to person ratio, so I’m sure it’s easy to miss.  The bar was established by Yusuf’s great-grandfather, Joseph, back in the 50’s.  Apparently, it was a rough neighborhood even then.  Now one of his cousin's runs the bar while Yusuf works as a software engineer over in Telford.

We met for 'lunch’ so he could tell me about why his grandfather opened and how it got its name.  Considering the part of town it's in, I decided we should meet during the day.  The bar was small, dark, and below street level.  Since it was midday there were few patrons there, but the ones that were, looked like they never left.

When I arrived Yusuf appeared to have had a few drinks already.  I don’t know him well enough to know if this is normal lunchtime behavior for him.  I joined him at a small table that had decades of graffiti and an ashtray that looked like it had never been emptied.  (Do people still smoke?) He seemed happy to talk about anything except the Elevator Game.  So I let him start his story after ordering a cheap beer and a pickle for myself

His grandfather worked for the town utility company back in the fifties.  I can’t think of braver human being than one that would work below ground in Kevin’s Crossing.  The underground being full of strange creatures and at constant risk of flooding. A place and mystery and danger!.  One day he was in storm drain doing routine inspections.  He was not supposed to be down there without his partner, Jimmy.  But Jimmy had been out all week with the measles and Joseph couldn’t wait any longer to get the inspection done.  He suspected that it was the storm drain itself that Jimmy was trying to avoid.

A few years early several small children in that part of town had gone missing.  The only thing they found was one of the children's toys, floating in the storm drain.  Though in reality it probably just washed up there in the rain. Ever since then people in town have believed there was something not quite right going on below the streets.

It didn't help that lately, pets had been going missing.  And sure enough, a dog collar had turned up in a rain gutter.

His grandfather was a practical man though.  A decade earlier he had gone to fight in the war and had managed to come back, unlike many he had served with.  Unlike many of the other men in Kevin’s Crossing, he had returned with his mind intact.  So he paid little attention to the silly superstitions and fears of the weak minded.

He had worked those tunnels for years.  While they had their share of rats and low hanging pipes, he was confident that it was nothing he couldn’t handle.  Besides, Jimmy always let him do all the work anyways.  So really, what was the difference?

It had been an uneventful morning.  Checking pipes and masonry work, looking for cracks and rust.  Several times he thought he felt something in the tunnel with him.  Kevin’s Crossing has a healthy rat population so he didn’t think anything of it at the time.

It was this rodent population that first alerted him to something strange.  Actually, it was their absence.  As he entered the last section of sewer, it became strangely quiet and still.  Joseph shined his flashlight around.  Not a single rat in sight.  Being a practical man he was not going to question a gift like ‘less rats’. He hurried to finish his work so he could get showered and home to his new wife, Caroline, who was roasting a chicken for dinner.

But then he heard a splash behind him.  In the stillness, it sounded like a cannonball.  He turned around quickly but saw only ripples.  A small animal skull floated by.  He hoped it was a raccoon or possum, but feared it was a dog.  As I said, he was practical and nobody's fool, so always carried with him at work.  He drew it.  Having lived in Kevin's Crossing his whole life this couldn’t be the first unusual encounter he’d had.

He waited, ready, but the water remained still.  He put his knife back in its sheath and returned to his inspection.  He finished and headed back to the tunnel entrance.  He was several hundred feet from the entrance.  Unnerved, he hurried to leave and he took a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong tunnel.  He began to feel that he was not alone.

It took him several minutes to reorient himself and find his way back out.  But he did.  He let out a sigh of relief when he laid his hands on the latter to the surface.  He began to climb.  His boot left the water and something lunged from beneath the surface and grabbed it.  It pulled so hard that he lost his grip on the rungs and fell back into the water.

He felt himself land on something slimy and muscular.  It let go of his boot and wriggled to get out from underneath him.  He imagined a giant earthworm.  Joseph rolled over and got his feet underneath him.  He pulled his knife out and waved it in front of him.

The water surged and a large, pale, wrinkled creature lunged at him again.  Its head was round and flat, not long like the alligators he had heard about living in the sewers in New York.

He dove to the side, dodging the beast.  He slashed blindly with his knife.  He felt it strike something.  As confirmation, the beast let out a cry of pain that made his ears ring.  It then turned and swam off down the tunnel.  The last thing Joseph saw was a huge white tail splashing away.

He leaped to his feet and looked around.  His army training taught him to always assess a situation.  The creature was clearly in retreat.  Something white bobbed in the water nearby.  It was the beast’s severed foot.  It had shiny skin and four webbed toes on it.  He shoved it in his tool belt and bolted up the ladder.  When he was back in the sunlight he slammed the storm drain closed and didn’t look back.

He drove straight home and put the claw in a large jar and filled it with vodka.  He drank what didn’t go into the jar.  The next day at work he showed everyone the foot.  His boot had a semicircle of small punctures size of a dinner plate.  He told the story to a break room full of co-workers.   One of them said it sounded like some kind of giant white salamander.  Joseph shrugged and agreed.  Two weeks later his bosses tried to send him back down into the storm drains to check on a clog.  He promptly quit, took the hand in a jar and opened up a bar with the little money he had saved up.  The rest, as they say, is history.

With ending of his story, Yusuf waved to his cousin behind the bar.  He walked over and sat down a jar containing the bar’s namesake.  The liquid splashed around inside and I nearly spit out my beer.  The giant severed salamander foot bobbed there, challenging my previous understandings of zoology.  It was almost as large as my hand, which are admittedly small.  But still!  The alcohol had grown cloudy and partially obscured the claw.   Looking at the limb, I couldn't help but wonder if the creature was still out there somewhere.  Swimming below the streets.  Perhaps its hand regrew.  Maybe it got a hook for a hand.

Once again Kevin’s Crossing has shown me irrefutable evidence that the unknown exists and can reach out and grab anyone that lets their guard down.

I’ll keep you updated