11/19/2025 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH (88K words)

We are getting there!

…

The rest of the day was a whole bunch of nothing, but the useful kind. There was an Old American philosopher that once said that the worst kind of unknowns were the ones you didn’t know you didn’t know. After checking around the seamier sides of town, the beach, and the backs of the hotels (a waiter’s gotta smoke somewhere), at least we knew more about what we didn’t know.

“No signs of monster attacks, not really,” Lucas summarized as we betrayed Dory’s trust some more with another round of room service. “At least, nothing like yakopvils. No rash of disappearances. Nobody else getting a whammy thrown at them, either.”

“See, that last one’s the scary part,” I told him while answering the door. Speaking of room service. I hoped Dory would appreciate how I was giving her something new and exciting to yell at me about. “People don’t just wake up suddenly knowing how to throw a whammies,” I pointed out as I wheeled the cart inside. “You gotta train up for it. If there’s somebody out there doing it…”

“…then when did they learn?” Lucas nodded. “And who did they learn it on? Most importantly, why were they trying to use that learning on you?”

These were all good questions, and I didn’t have any answers to fit. “It might have been a Sonoran,” I suggested. “A lot of them decided the other side of the Gulf was great place to be during the invasion, and they haven’t all moved back yet.”

“Maybe,” conceded Lucas. “Do they throw whammies?”

“Not really. But if one of them was doing it, only in somewhere like Guaymas, we’d never know, right?”

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