The Others

It happens every year, almost like an age-old cycle, and always just after midnight. Stone crab season officially opens the minute after midnight on October 15. During the weeks before the opening, the stone crabbing crews are busy preparing their traps. The baiting of the traps is interesting. The bait, which attracts the crabs, can be anything with flesh. Absolutely, any flesh that might cast a scent, a lure, or an attraction for the many creatures who prowl the sandy seafloor of the Collier County Coastal islands.

Many scientists and oceanographers agree that abnormal changes in the reproductive cycles of aquatic animals are a result of unusual lunar orbits and phases of the moon. As the moon travels patiently and endlessly around the Earth, the orbital path of our nearest celestial neighbor changes. Ancient seafaring folklore and modern researchers alike make a strong and compelling statement that the moon is on an orbital cycle that repeats every five hundred years.

The first moon

On the eve of stone crabbing season, almost all of the crab boats from Goodland and Isles of Capri went out the Big Marco Pass under the light of the first of the super moons. The youngest and newest of the crew members were chatty and in awe because of the size of the moon, and because the moonlight was so strong it was reaching deep into water that was as clear as a swimming pool. The captains in their wheelhouses were not as talkative, but even the saltiest of the captains were scratching their heads beneath their caps and wondering: when was there ever such a moon?

As the hauling out of the trapping tackle began, the diesels in the boats grumbled, the traps splashed over the gunnels, but when the cages full of bait hit the bottom, the traps all shuttered with an impact that no human would ever see.

Beneath the water and the reflection of the lunar light, and navigating carefully across the glimmering seafloor, was a creature even rarer than the most exotic of the albino phenomenon. Albinos in humans are rare, but the creature that was moving, calculating, and compiling information was the rarest of all. This was because only a few of the most intelligent creatures on the planet ever lived beyond the three-year life span of an average octopus, but The Others, who hatched every five hundred years, had the longevity of humans and would always grow tentacles large enough and long enough to defy any predator.

The second moon

The morning after the next super moon, the “Lonesome Lady” was out on the Gulf alone. Her diesel was dead because she was out of fuel, and she was lonesome because her captain and crew were no longer aboard. After the sunrise, another crab boat and her captain and crew saw the lady appear in the early morning haze and watched her riding the whitecaps and the breakers that were pushing her offshore. After the VHF radio calls went unanswered, the sister boat and her crew came alongside, but not a soul was aboard the “Lonesome Lady.”

All crabbers know the stone crabbing business is rough and tough, and often disappointing, but also full of surprises. For every fourth or fifth trap pulled, which is full of crabs, an octopus will be slyly waiting and hiding in the most far reaching corner of the trap. This is because an octopus is clever enough, nimble enough, and strong enough to slip in and out of a trap at will, and can devour with a piercing beak anything necessary to enable the intelligence to continue.

Shortly after the cycle of the second and even closer, super moon began, several thousand of The Others began to hatch, flourish, and feed above the sea floor. The tentacles of The Others were much longer than their smaller cousins were and could reach out and capture with cleverness anything with flesh that would allow the five-hundred-year hatching cycle to continue.

The instinct of The Others was unique among all creatures on the planet. The ingrained instinct contained the memories of The Others, who came during the previous five hundred years. With this gift, all of The Others could easily recall the rising and the capturing of the ships and the devouring of the humans who were clever enough to build the sailing vessels, but not clever enough to escape the previous hatchlings. The Others knew the humans were not able to retain the instincts and knowledge from the last generations and would always be harmless and unwilling to detect any threat that could simply slip under the sea.

The final moon

On the third of the super moons, when the moon, which was the mother of the hatchlings, was the closest since the previous five hundred years, The Others became hungry again and began to seek the sustenance that was the delicacy. The delicacies that were always dwelling and sleeping, near the water but upon the dry land.

When calculations were complete, the newly born intellects with the eight reaching tentacles, and the large dark eyes, and the brains that could calculate over a hundred moon cycles, began to emerge from the beaches and the canals where the delicious humans lay resting and waiting under the light of the moon.

When the first of The Many Others quietly cracked the shell of the first human dwelling and began to slip inside with a calculating tentacle toward the delicacy and the food that was sleeping, the full moon was glowing bright, just as it was, during the previous five hundred years.

Happy Halloween, Marco, Goodland, Isles of Capri, Everglades City, and South Collier!