Eva felt herself getting turned on, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get back in the boat and across the water to their thatched cabana, and their bed. She reached for Bryce’s hand and squeezed lightly.
“Everything okay?”
Bryce turned to look at her, and she was surprised at his expression. She thought he’d be offering her that lazy smile of his, but it wasn’t a smile at all. His brow was furrowed, his eyes worried.
She sat up. “What?”
He shook his head, looked down the beach again. “Something’s wrong with Karyn. She’s acting weird.”
Eva leaned forward, tented a hand over her eyes.
The couple were standing near the water. Terry, in a knee-length blue suit, had his hands out to his sides, as if unsure what to do with them. Karyn, wearing a black bikini and a floppy straw hat, was bent over and—from what Eva could gather—staring at her legs.
Karyn lifted one foot, then hooked it across the opposite knee while she and Terry studied the bottom of it.
“What are they ….”
Eva was interrupted when Karyn screamed—not just kind of screamed, as if startled or stung by an insect—but screamed as if someone had broken into her house and was stabbing her in the chest with a butcher knife. That kind of scream.
Hearing it chilled Eva’s blood.
“What the fuck?” Bryce said and stood up. Eva did, as well. She noticed that Mike and Stacy, small in the distance on the rocky formation, were also staring.
“Should we go over there?”
Bryce looked at her, unsure. “I don’t know. What can we do?”
“Yeah, we don’t even know what’s wrong with her,” Eva agreed. “Maybe she’s crazy.”
“I’ll go,” Bryce said, and Eva saw that Mike had been struck with the same testosterone-fueled idea. GIRL TROUBLE, ME FIX! Eva thought, then felt a wave of shame, and gratitude. She sure as hell didn’t want to go near the crazy screaming lady.
“Bryce, I ….”
And then things got weird.
Because that’s when Terry began to scream, as well.
Bryce took a step but Eva, reacting to a long-dormant survival instinct, grabbed his elbow firmly. “Wait.”
He turned, a mixture of confusion and annoyance on his face. “Eva ….”
“Just wait. Look! That Mike guy is going over there.”
And he was, albeit slowly.
Cautiously?
What’s he afraid of?
Karyn, still screaming, ran for the water.
Eva couldn’t be sure, but she thought there were large dark splotches covering Karyn’s body. Her feet, calves, thighs.
Maybe shadows?
Terry was on his ass, rubbing at his ankles and feet, as if feverishly brushing something off his skin.
He made horrible sounds as he did so. Guttural, gut-wrenching, inhuman shrieks.
Eva’s eyes moved from Terry to Mike, who was yelling something back toward Stacy, still perched atop the rocks crumbling upward from amidst the fat river of sand.
“Jesus, what the hell’s going on?” Bryce said, thankfully staying put.
“I don’t know. What’s Mike saying?”
Mike was backing away from Terry and Karyn, toward the rocks. His hands were cupped around his mouth, and he was yelling something toward Bryce and Eva.
But with all the screaming, Eva could only make out every other word.
“… shoes! … away! … sand!”
“I can’t ….” Bryce stammered.
Then Mike turned and ran across the beach, back to Stacy and the rocks.
“What do we do? Oh God!” Eva watched in horror as Karyn, sputtering in the shallow water like she was drowning, let out a final, gurgling wail of despair so deep it dug into Eva’s core and hollowed it.
Her body, so recently warmed by the bright sun, went ice-cold. “Bryce?”
