The Salt-Stained Cassock

I was coming back from a job interview in Redding, heading home to Crescent City on that lonely stretch of Highway 199. The rain had been coming down in sheets since noon, turning the redwood forest into a tunnel of dripping shadows. My windshield wipers were working overtime, and the radio had dissolved into static, so I was left with my own thoughts. They weren’t good company. The interview had been a bust, my bank account was a joke, and the only thing waiting for me at home was an empty apartment and a stack of unpaid bills. I kept my eyes on the asphalt, the white lines blurring into a hypnotic rhythm.

It was near Patrick’s Point, just past the turnoff for the state park, when I saw the car. It was a dented old station wagon, its rear end sagging like a tired horse. The driver’s side door was open, and a woman was crouched beside it, her head in her hands. In the back, I could see the silhouettes of children moving beneath a blanket, their shapes shifting in the gloom. My gut said keep driving. This stretch of road was known for its isolation, and there was something wrong about the scene. But then I saw the priest.

He was walking along the shoulder, coming from the direction of the car. He wore a long black cassock, the kind you don’t see anymore, and it was soaked through, clinging to his thin frame. His face was a mess of wrinkles and sun-blemished skin, like he’d spent years under a harsh sun that had long since set. His eyes were wild, and his mouth was moving, whispering words I couldn’t hear over the rain. I slammed on my brakes, my tires skidding on the wet pavement. I rolled down the window, and the cold air hit me like a slap.

‘Father, do you need a ride?’ I called out, my voice cracking. He stopped and turned to me. His lips were stained with some dark substance, and his eyes were bloodshot, almost yellowish. He stumbled toward my truck, and when he spoke, his voice was a low rasp, barely audible above the storm. ‘The children… they’re not playing under the sheet. They’re feeding it.’ I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. But he just stared at me, his hand gripping the edge of my window, his nails cracked and dirty. I looked past him to the car. The blanket in the back seat was moving in a way that was wrong—twitching, undulating, like something beneath it was trying to break free.

The woman looked up, and her face was gaunt, hollow. She didn’t seem to see me; she was looking at the priest with a kind of desperate plea. The priest leaned in closer, and I caught a whiff of something foul, like rotten meat and brine. ‘She summoned it,’ he hissed, nodding toward the woman. ‘Three days ago, up at the old lighthouse. She wanted her husband back. But the sea doesn’t give back what it takes. It creates its own.’ The blanket in the car heaved, and I heard a sound—a wet, slobbering noise, like something huge and toothless was trying to chew. The children under the blanket began to laugh, but it was high-pitched and wrong, too shrill.

My instincts screamed at me to drive, to leave them all behind. But I couldn’t. I started to get out, to help the children, when the priest grabbed my arm. His grip was like iron, and his eyes were suddenly clear, almost lucid. ‘Don’t. It’s too late for them. It’s only a matter of time before it finishes feeding. Then it will be looking for a new vessel. That’s why I’m here. I’m the bait.’ He let go and stepped back, and I saw the marks on his neck—three parallel gashes, raw and weeping. ‘The tide is coming in,’ he said. ‘You need to get to higher ground. And whatever you do, don’t look at the water.’

Before I could respond, a sound came from the car that made my blood run cold. It was a deep, resonant hum, like a whale’s song but twisted, with dissonant overtones that made my head ache. The blanket in the back seat burst open, and something emerged—a mass of slick, gray skin, with too many limbs, each ending in a cluster of suckers. It wasn’t human, and it wasn’t an animal. It was a mistake, a wrongness given form. The children were gone. The woman was gone. Only the thing remained, its eyeless head turning toward me.

The priest shoved me back into my truck and slammed the door. ‘Go!’ he screamed. ‘Now!’ I didn’t need to be told twice. I floored the accelerator, my tires spinning as I sped off. In my rearview mirror, I saw the priest drop to his knees, pulling a silver cross from his cassock. The thing from the car lunged at him, and I heard a scream that was both human and not. I didn’t look back again.

I drove for hours, not stopping until I reached the outskirts of Crescent City. I never called the police. I never told anyone what I saw. But every night, I dream of that road, the rain, and the priest’s face, half-eaten, still whispering: ‘The salt-stained cassock. It’s the only thing that keeps it at bay.’ And every morning, I check the back seat of my truck, expecting to see the blanket, twitching. So far, it’s been empty. But the tide is always coming in.