The Constellations I: Andromeda

“Ugh, Percy!” Andy groaned, a measure of resignation mixed into the complaint. She straightened up and pried, of all things, a frozen rutabaga from her dog’s mouth.

“I guess I missed one when we harvested them,” she surmised, hefting the frozen vegetable appraisingly. It wouldn’t be any good now- upon thawing, the rutabaga would be, well, “Mushy and gross,” she muttered aloud. Percy was barking and bouncing expectantly, an excited dance rather reminiscent of riding a pogo stick, if dogs could ride pogo sticks. “Right, here y’go, Perce. Fetch!” To her dog’s intense delight, Andy wound up and launched the rutabaga into the air. Percy dashed after it, paws churning up the snow that blanketed the field.

Sighing a cloud of white into the frigid air, Andy turned and bent back down to the section of pea fence she was trying to free from its supporting stakes. There was no question of getting the stakes out at this point in the year; under the thin layer of snow, the ground was frozen solid already. She should really have taken care of this in September or October, she thought, but it had been a busy few months- a number of unexpected visitors had turned up at her isolated farm, their interest aroused by a conspiracy theorist’s rambling, idiotic post. Dealing with them and the fallout after they, er, “left” (as it were) had really put her behind schedule. So, she couldn’t get the stakes out, but she could at least cut the twine holding the fences and store them in the barn… assuming she could manage to manipulate the scissors while wearing her thick winter gloves. Maybe she should go find her pruning shears or a box cutter; having the right tool for a job was important, after all.

“Uhm, hello there.”

Andy jumped and dropped the scissors, yanking her earbuds out and whirling around to confront the man who had come up behind her. He was standing uncertainly a yard away. “Hi. Hello. Uh, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, you know? I’m just here because, well, funny story, I’m interested in things like yetis and-“

“Oh, hell, not another one.”

At that precise moment, Percy rushed up, proudly carrying the frozen rutabaga. “Perfect. Good boy,” she praised, taking the rutabaga he offered.

“So, so, uh- so. Cute dog.“

“Moron,” she muttered. 

Andy wound up. Percy hopped up and down on his imaginary pogo stick. “Retriever, huh?” the interloper grinned stupidly. 

The rutabaga impacted his skull with an interesting crunch, somewhat muffled by his thick hat. He swayed on his feet for a moment, then crumpled onto the snow-carpeted field. Percy barked imperiously, and Andy obliged by tossing the rutabaga for him once more.

Andy fished in the snow for her scissors- her white earbuds took a little longer to find- then cautiously approached the heap on the snow, scissors ready to stab in her right hand, pocketing her earbuds with her left. She toed the man with her boot but got no reaction. She heaved another sigh. “Furthest point possible from where we’re going. Yup. Of course. Great, Fan-freakin’-tastic.” 

Continuing to mutter in annoyance, Andy began unloading the sections of pea fence already on her tractor. Percy insisted she re-throw the rutabaga yet again. Once the fencing was stacked on the ground, she rolled her visitor into the tractor’s bucket. That done, she climbed into the seat, started the faithful blue New Holland, and put it in gear. Percy and his rutabaga trotting along behind, Andy drove off the field at the breakneck speed of eight miles an hour and took a trail into the surrounding woods.

The tractor emerged from the bare, gray trees on the edge of a lake. Andy supposed it was frozen enough to bear the weight of the tractor, but it was still a bit early on in the season to be sure. Rather than take the chance, she parked the tractor next to a stand of tattered cattails that had half shed their furry ends, got down, and heaved her cargo up over one shoulder like a sack of chicken feed. 

“Geez,” she grumbled as she tottered through the snow and dead vegetation to the lake, “why can’t there be some rule about these idiots being skinny?” She reached the ice and stepped carefully onto it, mindful of her balance on the slippery surface that had been windswept clean of snow. “You know, for that matter, why can’t there be some rule about common sense? How many people have disappeared here, this year alone? A few of them cops, too. Should make people stay the hell away. But nooooooooo.”

The sole remarkable feature of the lake was a flat rock in its center that rose a few inches above the surrounding ice, more or less square in shape and approximately four feet long on a side. Andy headed directly for it. Percy gamboled along next to her, paws skittering against the ice. Halfway out, she was breathing too hard to keep up her grousing.

She gratefully deposited her visitor on the ice next to the rock, panting and sweating slightly despite the cold air. Percy whined and pawed her calf. “Oh. Yeah, a garnish. Can’t have anyone finding a murder weapon, right?” Andy plunked the rutabaga on top of the body, then jumped up onto the rock, hauling Percy along by the collar.

“Okay,” Andy breathed, nervous for the first time that day. “Okay.” She began stamping on the rock, counting under her breath. “One. One, two, three. One. One. One, two, three. One, two, three. One.”

Andy and Percy waited in utter, eery silence for several moments. Then, far below under the ice came a resounding thud; Percy yipped, and Andy yelped. Punctuated by splintering and groaning, the thuds continued, and soon cracks spiderwebbed across the ice below their offering. 

With a roar and a shower of glacial water and ice shards, a cluster of truly enormous, slick black tentacles erupted from the lake, surrounding the unmoving heap on the ice. The tentacles flailed up at the sky, then crashed down, inwards, carrying off the visitor and his garnish as they plunged back beneath the surface, accompanied by a sickening squelching. 

Woman and dog stared at the hole in the ice for a minute, watching as the floating bits of ice bobbed and clacked in the disturbed water. Gradually, it became more still. Andy took a deep breath, shrugged, and finally released Percy’s collar.