The Unnatural History of Cryptozoology

Chapter 1

Lyssa Harding sighed audibly as she  craned her head to look up at the new banners adorning the Natural History Museum. "What blows your mind?" she said out loud. And in true Lyssa fashion she answered herself as well. "A good book, a glass of wine and a hot bath".

                Taking a deep breath to center herself she walked heavily up the stone steps and entered the building. She waived hello to the guard, turned right heading  for the elevators without removing her headphones not willing to interrupt the latest audible book she wasn't really listening too.

                "Hey!" Lyssa heard the distant voice but assumed they were addressing someone else and kept walking.

                "Hey." A hand came down heavily on her shoulder,  she spun startled and nearly tripped over her own feet.   She was greeted with the angry face of the guard she had said hello to moments earlier. 

                "Yes?"  her voice sounded like gravel even to her own ears and she realized that she hadn't spoken to anyone yet this morning including her cat. 

                The guard pointed at the ground,  as Lyssa face followed his arm down she found herself confronted with muddy boot prints,  her muddy boot prints. She had been wearing Doc Martens since high-school, she estimated her current pair was 20 years old and that for 20-years they had not truly lived up to being a nonstick sole.

                "Shit" she said out loud.    I will call housekeeping.   

"I already radioed," the guard crossed his arms over his chest.  "I thought I would save housekeeping from having to clean all the way to your office Dr. Harding."

                Lyssa leaned over untied her boots with practice ease, slipped out of them, picked them up and continued into the elevators.

                Behind her,  Harold Greene shook his head.  He was getting too old for this shit.  He had been working that the museum since was 19-years old. His uncle had gotten him the job and in the 30 years since he had seen these intellectuals come and go and was convinced that for all of their education they didn't know their elbow from their asshole.

                "You should try being more present" he yelled after Lyssa as she stepped onto the elevator and swiped her badge to access her 3rd Floor Office.

When the elevator doors closed , Lyssa leaned against the elevator wall shaking. An unchecked tear slid town her check and she quickly brushed it away from her freehand.

                "Jesus" she said out loud to no one.

Navigating the halls as quietly as possible she creeped past the administration office and realized her tiptoeing was unfounded. There was no one else in sight. Sliding her into her office she connected her phone to her blue tooth, opened the blinds and checked her email. Her volunteer was going to be late, they hadn't found a research assistant for her yet, UCLA had roadkill that was ready to be picked up. She read the list of animals, Coyote, Coyote, Raccoon, Otter? She shook her head, then read the email again. The otter was in a boating accident in the marina.

A reminder on her calendar popped up to let her know she was behind on cataloging tissue samples. Her previous graduate student Andy had taken the time to apply the smart labels with qr codes, put them in boxes that were clean and from this century and hand written down the contents--now it was up to her to actually put them into the database so they could easily be found with the scanner. She flipped open the binder shaking her head at dozens of pages.

Andy had moved to the East Coast to complete his Ph.d.  "Fuck", she whispered. That was over four months ago and she hadn't been able to bring herself to going out into the field since.

                It should not have been a big deal what happened that day. She had been on dozens of trips on every continent in the world.  She had lived through a sandstorm, a blizzard, boats taking on water in the middle of the Adriatic sea.  For months she had admonished herself and had reassured herself that it was just a freak accident, but she couldn't shake it.  Her dreams were filled with it.

She had volunteered to help the Ocean Biodiversity team on a collection trip. Since her mentor had retired there was no specialist for marine mammals on staff, she along with a colleague from UCLA , Andy and handful of museum volunteers had gone to Palos Verdes. While her Marine Biology colleague hunted for polychaetes, sea worms she and the staff sifted through the tide pools, noting and cataloging the animals that were present. 

That day she had somehow been the one that slipped and fell into the water. It was no more than 3 feet deep. If she sat up straight enough her head was out of the water. She vaguely remembers the volunteers laughing as Andy attempted to help her back up. Their hands were almost touching when she felt like someone had grabbed onto the hood of her sweatshirt and dragged her out to sea.

She had barely gulped in a full lung of air when she was tossed into a washing machine of seaweed and churned up sand. As she fought her way to the surface an overwhelming pressure pulled her back down. Panic set in as she kicked off her muck boots and wriggled out of her sweatshirt.  As the world started to fade she realized that the pressure was gone and she burst through the surface of the water and started swimming back to the beach. She had been pulled out more than two-hundred yards in what seemed like seconds.

Andy dived in and was swimming toward her rapidly she met him and halfway and they made their way back to the beach. 

On shore she coughed up water and was forced down by her colleague when she tried to stand. "Relax, I am doctor." Lisa had smiled at her easily trying to comfort her without causing to much of a scene. That day it was a close call, she had lived and had put the incident aside. The lifeguard had said it was just a freak rip current that had sucked her out. But she knew that's not how rip currents worked it shouldn't have pushed her under.

The nightmares didn't start for a few days, when they did she felt acutely alone. There was no one there to help her back up.

She woke up tangled in the sheets naked from the waist up where she had acted out pulling off her sweatshirt. Often she would find her cat Bristol staring at her from a safe high spot on the dresser. When she tried to drink water she choked it back up like she was drowning and found it impossible to sleep. 

She had to get it together. A glass of wine, had turn into half a bottle and half a bottle had turned into a bottle. 

Lyssa knew she should talk to her mother, she was a Princeton educated psychologist but the idea scared her more than the dreams did. She was lost, so lost in her thoughts that she failed to realize it was past lunch until her stomach growled. 

 Setting aside her work, she stood and stretched. Her brain suddenly remembered that she was playing music and she wondered how long Vivaldi had been looping.

Grabbing quarters out of a jar on her desk. She navigated to the bowels of the museum that smelled of formaldehyde and alcohol thanks to a lack of storage for Lisa's sea worms.   At the vending machine she popped in $1.50 for flaming hot Cheetos then moved on to the drinks she selected a coke.

Back in her office she sat at her desk and reached behind her into the small fridge  and pulled out a egg salad sandwich on white bread with olives. She spread out a paper towel on her desk, placed her sandwich on it then dumped her Cheetos out next to it, opened her Coke and ate in silence.