The twins came running up and dripped water on her as they reached for their towels.
“Do you mind?” she said, shooing them away.
“Mom, it’s time to go.”
“It will take time to load the others. I’m not waiting in line in this hot sun. You go ahead. Where’s your father?”
“Last I saw, he was climbing those rocks over there.” Bruce pointed to the west end of the beach.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to go there,” Marie said, shading her eyes, trying to spot Karl.
A woman screamed. The Gables turned to see a college boy pouring a cold bottle of water on one of the girls. She was dancing around, much to the appreciation of the teens.
“Look at the tits on that one,” Jeremy said before his mother shushed him. He resorted to miming his appreciation.
Bruce laughed.
Anders jogged to the refreshment tent. “Grab whatever is valuable and get to the boats.”
“Why?” Sally asked.
“I have a bad feeling that I can’t shake. We need to get these people off this island. Something is moving under that sand,” he said.
Sally took off her Oakely glasses and nodded. “Looks like a lot of somethings.” She turned and began tossing the battery-operated blenders in the traveling cases. It wouldn’t be the first time that a water excursion was ruined by the natural world. At least it wasn’t sharks. Sand fleas or crabs she could deal with. The dead-eyed predators of the deep, she could not.
Marie lay back and closed her eyes. She ignored the chit who was screaming for attention.
“Help me! Something’s got my leg!”
“Mandy!” a man yelled. “Where the hell is my daughter? She was just beside me!”
The screams multiplied. Marie hit the sand with her hand and sat up. She looked down the beach, not trusting what she saw. She grabbed her prescription glasses and jammed them on her face. All around her, people were being dragged under the sand. Others were running for the boats as soon as they got near enough. The tall drink of Swedish water was picking up the children, charging into the water, and dropping them in the arriving boats. People were abandoning their stuff and running for the skiffs.
“Mom!” Jeremey called. “Get to the boats. I’m going to find Dad.”
“Where’s Bruce?”
“He’s already out there.” Jeremy pointed to the group of college kids in an overfilled boat.
“I told you to…” but Jeremy had already run off towards the west end of the beach. Marie watched him as she put together their stuff. She wasn’t going to leave thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics and designer sunglasses. She stood up, and the ground dropped out underneath her. Her beach towel twisted around her legs as she was caught up in some kind of a swirling eddy of sand. She screamed, but her voice was just an addition to the chaos. Her one voice could not be singled out from the horror around her. She was spinning slowly around as she was pulled under the sand. Marie watched helplessly as the people on the beach were pulled under the sand around her. In the distance, she saw Karl. He was trying to pull her son Jeremy up on the rocks.
She didn’t see him succeed in extracting the teen from the moving sand. Marie’s eyes were closed in a vain attempt to keep the sand out. But the deeper she was pulled, the more the sand pushed them open until they were scraped raw. For a moment, there was no air, and then there was a rush of stale air that smelled like rotten eggs. Marie fainted but was revived by the strong odor which acted like smelling salts. She wasn’t able to fall into the oblivion she wished for as she was dragged along. She heard the screams of the others and put her hands on her ears, praying for the horror to stop. Whatever had pulled her stopped. She felt hands grab her and toss her on a soft, warm, squirming pile of people. Her eyes were too damaged to see, but she smelled cocoa butter and expensive perfumes.
“Help me,” she said, reaching out. “I have children for God’s sake!”
A dry scratching preceded the sound of a long-silenced set of vocal chords attempting speech. It screeched out something over and over again, and finally, Marie could hear what it was saying. “What’s God got to do with this?”
Karl hauled Jeremy up on the rocks. He turned the teen’s face away from the horror of the people on the beach running towards the water only to get pulled under the ground by a long tentacle of some kind. His wife was too far away for him to save her. He watched as she collected her belongings before being sucked into a hole. She was twisting around and around until finally she was gone. Karl could see the EM jump in one of the boats and order it to move along the shoreline, plucking the few people that made it that far into the boat.
Anders continued his fruitless patrol until it became apparent that, aside from the two Gable men on the rocks, no one else was to be seen on the island. He motioned to Karl to stay put. He yelled, “Stay off the sand.”
Although tempted to yell back, “I know jackass,” Karl held his tongue.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Jeremy asked.
“I don’t know. But for the time being, we’re safe. Your brother is safe on the water…” Karl stopped. Where were the boats? He could only see two of them. Did they speed away? He hoped to God that was what happened. There were only two skiffs in the water. One was headed out to sea.
