Beware the Bag Monster!

 

A Surfrider Halloween Story

By SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Whenever Halloween is near SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti remember that eerie night in Seal Beach years ago at The River's End Cafe. The restaurant is gone now, but the haunting memories still linger... 

“Whose bright idea was it to hold this meeting on Halloween?” Seth demanded to know, checking the time on his Rip Curl watch. “I’ve got trick-or-treat candy at home to give out.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Jeff. “Paul Lushon from the Beach Cities Disposal Committee said it was tonight or nothing. And Surfrider needs his vote on the plastics initiative.”

“He can be a real pain,” Tony added, looking out at the waves breaking in front of The River’s End Café.

Watching the waves churn, he knew that more trash would be washing up on the beach and along the San Gabriel River. 

Tony took a sip of his Pacifico beer, then turned to Sunny and said, “Make sure you get everything in the minutes.”

Sunny nodded her head and, pushing up the sleeves on her Volcom jacket, dutifully wrote in her notebook: Surfrider Huntington Beach/Seal Beach Chapter Special Meeting – Rise Above Plastics Initiative – October 31st.

Just then Paul Lushon poked his pale, bespectacled face into the doorway of the café. “So, everyone made it,” he said, looking around. “I trust that you’re ready to get down to business.”

Jeff started. “It’s all there in the proposal. This initiative will help get rid of the plastic that’s littering our beaches – all the bags, cups, straws, and other junk.”

“We picked up 100 pounds of trash at the last beach cleanup,” said Gilbert. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be surfing. Let’s ditch the plastics!”

“Not so fast,” Paul Lushon said, raising a fleshy hand. “Take away plastic straws and the fast-food places will complain. Besides, if people don’t like plastic cups, why do all the cars have cup holders? What’s a little plastic, anyway?”

“It’s more than a ‘little,’” said Patti, giving him a look. “Haven’t you heard of the Bag Monster?”

“That’s right,” Sunny chimed in. “Beware the Bag Monster! Researchers found that all the plastic waste each person throws away is enough to make a giant monster.”

“That’s not my problem,” Paul Lushon retorted, rolling his eyes.

“It’s everyone’s problem,” Patti told him. “Plastics are injuring the sea life. Some of the fish and birds are even evolving into strange mutations.”

 

“And everything's getting into the food chain,” Seth pointed out.

“Like I care,” Paul Lushon snorted. “I don’t eat fish.”

“Well, you drink water, don’t you?” Norma asked. “The PVCs in the plastics aren’t doing that any good.”

“That’s for sure,” Manny agreed. “Surfrider has been working hard to keep the beaches from becoming one big plastics' dumping ground.”

"Maybe some plastic on the beach is the price we pay for progress." Paul Lushon said. 

“No way!” everyone in the café said in unison.

 “After all,” Paul Lushon said in a snide tone of voice, “in the real world people have to work for a living and can’t just surf all day.” 

   

Tony could see that this wasn’t going anywhere. "So, what’s your recommendation to the committee going to be?”

“What’s my recommendation going to be?” Paul Lushon repeated. He was enjoying putting these surfers in their place. He answered with a sarcastic laugh, “Let’s just say you’re getting a trick tonight, no treats.”

 

Then, turning around, Paul Lushon went out the door and started across the dark parking lot to his car.

The wind was picking up and he could hear the waves pounding. He heard something else, too…a sort of rustling, squishy sound…coming from behind him.

Paul Lushon peered into the darkness…and saw a huge shadowy form hurtling toward him beneath an eerie full moon.

Before he could identify what he was seeing, it was towering over him – a translucent, squid-like abomination more frightening than his worst nightmares.  The gigantic writhing mass was a tangle of plastic bags, cups, bottles, straws, and God knows what else.

Staring down at him with soulless eyes, the creature gave off a horrible foul smell like something rotten that had been dragged in from the sea.

The odor alone almost overwhelmed Paul Lushon as he fumbled with the car door handle and tried to get inside. But, the oozing horror was pressing against him, pulling him close.

 

Mesmerized by the black and orange eyes staring down at him, Paul Lushon could feel himself being drawn toward his captor’s gaping, red slash of a mouth.

Struggling to make sense out of what was happening, he suddenly remembered Sunny’s warning to “Beware the Bag Monster.”

Then, just before the gaping mouth closed around him and sucked him inside the swirling darkness, Paul Lushon heard a rasping voice in his ear: “You’ve been recycled.”

Happy Halloween!!!

SurfWriter Girls Sunny & Patti

http://www.surfwritergirls.blogspot.com

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to the following copyrighted material. For permission to reprint or excerpt it and/or link it to another website, contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com