Hesitantly, Eva looked back toward the beach between the rocks and the water, the imbedded footprints of her and Bryce’s path still evident.

The sand was crawling.

All of it.

Mike cursed and leapt to a far rock, nonchalantly skipping over three feet of sand without hesitation. He picked up a black nylon belt that had been thrown into a pile along with the couples’ snorkeling gear. There was a rip of Velcro and Mike dropped the belt but held onto a black-handled knife sprouting a four-inch serrated blade.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Bryce asked. His voice was level, but Eva could hear a note of caution running beneath it.

“For one, use it to gut that bastard if I can get close enough. Two, I’m gonna want it as protection when I make it to those trees. He may have been lying about the wild pigs in there, or God knows what else, but I’m gonna stay on the side of caution.”

“Mike, no!” Stacy said, clamping a hand to her mouth.

“How will you get there?” Eva asked. “It’s gotta be thirty feet of sand. Did you see the beach? Whatever it is … it’s everywhere.”

“I know but look.” He lifted a foot casually, showing off a dark green rubber scuba slipper. “These will keep those things off my feet, better than sandals anyway. Once I get to the trees and the hard ground, I should be okay. I’ll search for help. Worst case, I’ll find something we can use to get you three to safety.”

Eva turned to Bryce, to ask him what he thought of the idea, but Bryce was no longer paying attention to them.

He was studying his feet.

Eva followed his gaze, down the tanned legs, past the bumps of his ankles … “Bryce?”

He looked at her, his eyes wide and crystal blue.

And wild with fear.

“I think,” he said, then abruptly slid one foot free of the sandal, bent his knee and turned his foot so the bottom faced upward.

A black, blistered swirl stretched from his heel to his big toe.

Eva could see the bugs under the skin, crawling, infesting.

Eating.

“Jesus, Bryce!” she yelled, reflexively taking half a step backward, nearly pitching herself ass-backward off the rock.

“I’d felt it a few minutes ago. I guess I hoped … boy, it’s bad, I mean … oh! Oh God!”

Bryce sat down on the rock butted against the one he stood on. Its slightly higher elevation allowed him to sit, one ankle over the other knee, to more closely study his foot.

“It really hurts!” he said, hysteria creeping into his voice.

“Eva, move!” Mike ordered, already skipping back toward them. “Don’t get them on you!”

“I …” Eva felt like she was in shock. “What do we do?”

Bryce tapped her waist gently with one hand. “Do it, Eva. Move away, please.”

Eva stepped to a stone a few feet closer to the tree line, let Mike slip past her on his way to Bryce. Stacy hadn’t moved, but watched it all from nearby, a dispassionate observer.

Are they on me, too?

Eva pulled one foot from her sandal, inspected it.

Nothing.

She repeated it with the other foot, felt a rush of guilt-laced relief to see it was also clear.

Bryce, meanwhile, was beginning to panic.

“Help me!” he yelled at Mike, and Eva could see whatever had been eating at the bottom of his foot had moved upward—streaking black lines ran over the top of the foot, the ankle, along the side of one calf. “It really hurts, man. I can feel them eating me …. Fuck, I can feel them crawling underneath.”

The bottom of Bryce’s foot was completely black and bubbling, frantic with the invading creatures. The skin looked like burnt paper, and the dark lines continued to move steadily up his leg.

“Here.” Mike handed Bryce the knife, handle-first. “See if you can … shit man, see if you can scrape them off or something. Don’t let them get higher.”

“Bryce,” Eva cried, his name coming out like a sob as she watched his eyes turned wide and terrified, his lips quiver. He looked up at her, face red and wild, tears streaming down his face. Then he grabbed the handle of the extended knife and began cutting.

He began by scraping the bottom of his foot, using the flat of the blade as a straightedge, heel-to-toe.

Black, bug-infested flakes fell from his foot to the stones. Mike took a giant step back, isolating Bryce and whatever was being peeled off him.

Rivulets of blood began to run off the foot where the flesh had come away. “I think I’m getting them!” he yelled. “It hurts, though. Really fucking hurts.” He scraped again, revealing more red flesh, more of the dead, blackened skin falling in wet, leaf-sized patches.

One black tendril needling up his thigh had now traveled beneath the opening of his suit. Bryce jerked the fabric back toward his crotch. He stuck the tip of the knife into the top of the festering line as it crossed to his inner thigh, teeth gritted, sweat and tears dripping off his face.

“I don’t know how ….”

“Try ….” Mike swallowed. More softly, he continued. “I don’t know, brother. Try cutting them out I guess.”

Bryce, blood now flowing freely from his foot, began cutting along one of the black lines. More blood sprang through the cuts, but the tiny creatures didn’t fall away, they multiplied, as if the fresh blood only energized their frenzied feasting.

From one heartbeat to the next, the stripe on his leg widened, darted up past his crotch and emerged from the waistband of his suit, crisscrossing over his stomach.

“Aah!” he screamed, throwing his head back. “Oh God, no please!”

He began stabbing at his leg with abandon.

“No! Bryce, stop!” Eva yelled, and then suddenly there were arms around her, turning her around and holding her tight. The skin was soft, fragrant. Female.

Not Mike then, but Stacy. She of the perpetual frown, the seeming distaste, was now keeping Eva’s face tucked into her shoulder, her voice soft and urgent in her ear.

“Don’t look, Eva. Whatever you do, don’t look.”

Bryce continued to scream as they all stood nearby, helpless.

“I have to!” Eva said into Stacy’s shoulder. “I have to see him!”