The smell of salt and marsh mud mingled, saturating the humid summer air with a scent unlike any other in the world, a cornucopia of rotting egg, decaying flesh, and sweetness that assaulted the nostrils of all around and brainwashed them into thinking this place where greedy birds circled overhead, saltwater made everything rusty or sticky, and sand crept into hidden places and irritated the skin for weeks after was a paradise on earth.

Hundreds invaded the beach today, enjoying the first warm, clear day of the summer following weeks of dreary clouds and enough rain to satisfy the yearly water quota twice over. The authorities had put in a request for several cubic yards of new sand to replace all that had been swept away by the waves. They wouldn’t be in a drought any time soon.

Angelica closed her book around her index finger and leaned back in her chair, eyes shut. The sun had almost worked its way through the layer of sunscreen she’d slathered on when she first got here, warming her body in spots and doubtless turning it an unhealthy cherry shade. She’d left the umbrella at home accidentally, but she wouldn’t forget again. She liked her fingernails red, not her stomach.

She sighed and stretched. The unending tumble of the waves against the shore formed a perfect melody. The gulls overhead added their notes. If she listened hard enough, there was a definite rhythm to their call. Crash… Crash… Crash… Scree.. Crash… Crash… Scree…scree… The shrieks of delighted children splashing in the water added their chorus. Crash…squeal…crash…scree…squeal…

Angelica nestled deeper into the nylon fabric of her beach chair. The melody picked up her mind and carried her, rocking her with the waves, nature’s lullaby.

Until the screams startled her from her stupor. Those children were playing too rough. She cracked her eyelids open.

It was not just children. Adults joined the discordant song as dozens of feet scampered from the water and hundreds more pointed into the serene blue, screaming at the top of their lungs and standing frozen.

A shark? She rose from her chair, brushed sand from her thighs, and followed the pointing.

It was no shark. A black mass floated in the water, oddly resistant to the flow of the water and crashing of the waves. The waves seemed to pass right through it, like it was not there.

Then it doubled in size. Tripled. Water began to react now, flowing into the space, this void in the deep.

Angelica’s scream joined the throng as thousands of jagged streaks erupted from the mass. A black line crossed her body and tore her hand from her arm. But before she could register the pain, a dozen more such lines attacked her and severed her body and mind into a dozen pieces, and her world faded to nothingness.

“Tyler! You jerk! I was almost finished!” Jessica huffed and picked up one of the pieces of the puzzle she had been toiling over for the past week of summer vacation, her favorite pastime until the rainy days outside finally came to an end. Tyler had lost control of his truck and slammed it against the unsturdy card table, which decided that it didn’t want to live anymore and had crumpled and dumped everything it held to the floor.

“Sorry,” he said, not meaning a word of it.

“Now I’m going to have to start all over again!” She turned away and put the table back together, muttering under her breath. “Brothers.”