by Tim Waggoner
For their rendezvous this evening, Tamara had chosen an abandoned shop across the street from Flotsam, where most of the cast and crew – Pete included – had gathered to drink and shoot the shit. Tamara had picked out the place earlier, broken the glass on the door so she could reach in and unlock it, lay the blanket on the floor, then closed the door and returned to the set. Now she was here and building to her third orgasm of the evening and enjoying herself immensely.
As much fun as Pete and Shari were separately, Tamara thought the sex would be even better if the three of them all got together at the same time. She wasn’t sure how to bring up the topic, though, since neither Pete nor Shari knew Tamara was fucking them both. She could be pretty damn persuasive when she wanted to, and while Pete and Shari might be angry with each other when they learned the truth, Tamara thought she’d be able to bring them around eventually. After all, they wouldn’t be the first couple she’d convinced to join her in a little group action. She decided to bring up the subject of a threesome to Shari – without mentioning she’d been fucking her husband – to gauge Shari’s response to the idea. After she came again, of course. But just as she was on the verge of climaxing, she heard a scream coming from somewhere out on the street.
Shari raised her head and said, “What was that?”
Tamara’s almost-orgasm began to fizzle, but before she could get hold of Shari’s head and push her back down to her crotch, there came another scream, this one louder and closer.
Tamara sat up. What the fuck was going on? Sailor’s Walk had once been a thriving entertainment district before Janae, and while half of the establishments were closed, the buildings vacated and boarded up, the other half were still open, and if they didn’t pack in the customers these days, they did enough business to survive. Sailor’s Walk wasn’t exactly a lawless urban wasteland teeming with murderers and rapists. But that scream sure sounded like someone was in trouble. Bad trouble.
Tamara didn’t bother grabbing her clothes or even covering herself with the blanket as she walked towards the taffy shop’s grime-streaked window. She wasn’t afraid of being seen by anyone outside. There was no light in the shop, and she wasn’t self-conscious about her body in the slightest. She looked fantastic naked, and she knew it. Shari followed, remaining behind Tamara, obviously less comfortable with the idea of standing nude at a window.
The streetlights had been fashioned to resemble old-fashioned lamp poles, only with electric bulbs instead of flames. The illumination they provided was dim, an attempt to create a classy-cozy atmosphere, Tamara thought. But right now, she’d have preferred the bright garish glow of fluorescent lights so they could better see what the fuck was going on. The streets of Sailor’s Walk were covered with cobblestones and closed to vehicular traffic, an affectation Tamara thought designed to give the area the feeling of an old New England coastal town, but which came off as an inferior – and more than a little sad – imitation.
“Do you see anything?” Shari asked. She’d placed her hands on Tamara’s shoulders and her fingers dug into the skin. Tamara was surprised by Shari’s fear. She would’ve expected a big, bad stuntwoman to have bigger balls. Tamara was scared, too, but when she got frightened, it was all fight with her and no flight.
She put her hands up to shield her eyes and pressed close to the window, smooshing her breasts against the glass. Anyone who walks by right now will get a hell of show, she thought.
She didn’t see anything, and after several moments she was ready to give up. But just as she was about to draw back, a man stumbled forward and smacked into the window. Shari let out a small scream of her own, and her fingers dug into Tamara’s shoulders with enough force to draw blood. Tamara tried to pull back from the window, but Shari held her in place, so all she could do was look at the man, whose forehead touched the glass a foot above where her tits were pressed. He showed no interest – or indeed, any awareness – that she was naked, and Tamara might have been insulted if the man’s face and clothes hadn’t been covered in blood. Blood she thought was due to the ragged stump where his right arm had been. He had a hell of a good reason to be preoccupied.
He was a young man, in his early twenties, Tamara guessed, with glasses, a small goatee, and black stubble on his shaved head. He wore a light gray T-shirt – which was now splotched with crimson – khaki cargo shorts, and sandals. His eyes found Tamara’s, and she saw pain, confusion, and desperation in his gaze. He opened and closed his mouth several times as if he were trying to speak, but no sound emerged, and she was unable to read his lips.
“Let go of me, Shari,” she said, wriggling to try to dislodge the other woman. “That guy needs help!”
But before Tamara could get free, something large and black slammed into the man and bore him down to the sidewalk. The man released a high-pitched shriek so horrible that Tamara actually peed a little. Shari’s fingers still dug into her flesh, and the woman was pressed so hard against her back that it felt as if they’d been sealed together by industrial strength epoxy. But Tamara might not have retreated from the window even if she could. Her curiosity was simply too strong to deny. She looked down at the sidewalk and saw what appeared to be a motherfucking shark chewing the shit out of the guy. The shark had torn open the man’s abdomen and was now pulling out coils of intestine and gulping them down. Despite this horrendous injury, the man still lived, and he screamed and thrashed as the shark – a goddamned shark – feasted. Tamara noted the strange additions to the shark’s anatomy, red eyes, veiny hide, weird frills, and the cord attached to its back, but none was as bizarre as seeing a fish kill someone on dry land.
“What is it?”
Shari’s face was pressed between Tamara’s shoulder blades, and thus the woman couldn’t see what was happening outside. Lucky her, Tamara thought.
“I’m not sure,” Tamara said, her voice shaky but clear. “It looks like the guy’s being eaten by some kind of . . . something.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word shark. The idea was too ludicrous to speak aloud.
There was more shouting and screaming, and an instant later a group of people came running down the street. Tamara didn’t know where they’d come from – a bar or restaurant farther down the street, probably – but they looked terrified. A second later, Tamara saw why. Three more of the impossible sharks pursued them, the creatures gliding across the cobblestones with strange undulating motions, moving as swiftly as if they were still in the water. The sharks quickly caught up with the people at the tail end of the crowd, and they lost no time in bringing them down and chomping away. Blood sprayed the air, and the victims screamed as they died. The sharks did something curious then. Instead of eating their prey, they abandoned them and went off in pursuit of those who were still running, as if the creatures were determined none of them would get away. The shark outside the taffy shop’s window did the same, leaving the ravaged body of the guy with the stubble head to join in pursuit of the runners. Once the last shark was gone, all that remained in the street were several dead bodies and four stretched-out umbilical cords.
Tamara realized then that she wasn’t the sole witness to what had happened. Across the street, the Flotsam’s door was cracked open, and the owner – Susan – was peering out. Tamara made a decision. She reached up, pulled Shari’s hands off her shoulders, which stung like hell from where Shari’s nails had cut into her flesh, and took hold of one of her hands.
“Come on. We need to get across the street before more of those things show up.”
“What things?” Shari asked, but Tamara knew this wasn’t a time for explanations. Pulling Shari along after her, she headed for the taffy shop’s front door. She’d left it unlocked and she opened it now and dragged Shari out onto the sidewalk with her.
“Don’t close the door!” Tamara shouted at Susan. “We’re coming over!”
Susan opened the bar’s door wider, and her face registered surprise when she saw Tamara and Shari were both naked. Tamara pulled Shari into the street, and they both slip
ped in blood that had spilled from Stubble-Head’s ravaged gut. They managed not to fall, but only because they had each other to steady themselves. Stubble-head amazingly still clung to life, and he rolled over, spilling more of his intestines onto the ground, and reached out to them with his one remaining hand. Tamara thought he might’ve whispered, “Help me,” but it might’ve been nothing but a final wordless gust of air from his dying lungs. Then the man fell still, eyes remaining open, lips parted in a soundless eternal sigh.
When Shari saw Stubble-Head and the other dead men and women lying in the street, she let out a choked sob. Tamara would’ve told her to close her eyes as they crossed the street, but they needed to make sure they didn’t trip on the land sharks’ umbilical cords, and Shari would need to keep her eyes open for that. The umbilical cords were disgusting. They pulsed and quivered hideously, and they stank like rotten fish and seaweed.
The cobblestones hurt like hell on Tamara’s bare feet, and when the two women were halfway across the street, she heard a whhsk-whhsk-whhsk sound, like thousands of tiny bristles moving across the cobblestones. She looked to her left and saw another pair of sharks gliding toward them, mouths open and red eyes blazing.
“Fuck!” Tamara shouted, and she started running, yanking Shari along behind her. Shari screamed when she saw the sharks, and while Tamara knew how she felt, she didn’t want to waste any breath right then. She needed it all for running. She could’ve run faster if she hadn’t been pulling Shari along behind her, and there was a moment – an infinitesimally small moment – when she considered letting the woman go. A punch line from a joke flashed through her mind then. I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you. She didn’t do it, of course. She wasn’t in love with Shari. For Christ’s sake, she’d only known the woman for a few days – but Tamara, vain and self-centered as she might be, wasn’t a piece of shit human being.
Susan threw the door open wide as they approached and stepped aside so the two women could run past her. Then she slammed the door shut and engaged the locks. Half the people in the bar were standing, probably having responded to the screams of the sharks’ victims. The other half were still seated, perhaps undecided about what, if anything, they should do. But now all of them stared at Tamara and Shari, minds struggling to process why the hell the two of them were naked.
Unsurprisingly, it was Pete who spoke first.
“Are you two . . . uh . . . all right?”
He sounded both scared and angry, and Tamara decided she didn’t have time to deal with his hurt feelings.
“Pete, Shari – I’ve been fucking both of you. We can worry about that later, though because –”
Something large and heavy slammed into the bar’s front window, causing cracks to spiderweb across its surface.
“– a bunch of fucked-up landsharks are attacking the town,” she finished.
The window broke and glass shards flew into the bar, followed by the creatures Tamara had spoken of. And then the screaming started.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Boyd trailed the sharks to Sailor’s Walk. It wasn’t difficult. All he had to do was follow their umbilical cords. Once, he’d paused to bend down and touch one, and had been surprised to find it warm. The flesh gave beneath his fingers a little, but it felt tough, almost leathery. It had taken him some minutes after the two sharks had broken into his hotel room to work up the courage to venture outside, but he had, and while several other sharks had passed him, none paid him any attention. It seemed he was immune from attack – at least for now.
The sharks made straight for Sailor’s Walk, as if they knew they’d find the greatest concentration of victims there, at least this close to the beach from where they’d emerged. It was weird how they seemed to operate as a unified group, almost as if they possessed an intelligence of some kind. He remembered how the one shark had brought his laptop back into the room and given it a nudge, as if to tell him to get back to work, and he shuddered. Dumb monsters were bad enough, but smart ones were way worse.
As he walked, he passed the remains of men and women who hadn’t managed to escape the sharks. The bodies had been savagely torn apart, but as near as he could tell, the sharks had eaten little of their prey. But then, these weren’t regular sharks, were they? For all that people feared sharks, in the end they were just animals, doing what they did in order to survive and perpetuate their species. They didn’t attack to inflict pain or for the thrill of the kill. Humans did those things. But these creatures, these . . . demon sharks were different. They appeared to kill indiscriminately and for no apparent reason. No, not completely indiscriminately. They wouldn’t kill him. Boyd wasn’t sure why, but he was beginning to have the sneaking suspicion that he had been spared to witness the sharks’ attack on Bridgewater so he could write about it later and tell the world of the monsters’ bloodthirsty might. That was the message the demon shark had given him when it had returned his laptop. The notion seemed insane, but it felt right to him, so it would do until another hypothesis presented itself. Or he got eaten, whichever came first.
As he walked down the street, being careful to avoid stepping on any body parts or umbilical cords, he felt strangely disconnected from himself, as if he were simultaneously a character in a movie and an audience member watching himself.
I suppose I’m in shock.
He made a mental note to remember this sensation so he could write about it later.
Without realizing he’d done so, he’d headed in the direction of Flotsam, and now the bar was in sight. Sharks were clustered around the establishment, and more were coming, as if responding to a silent call. The creatures crawled over one another as they fought to get through the broken window. It was the same tactic the sharks that had entered his hotel room had used, only on a larger scale.
If something works, you stick with it.
It took him a moment to remember that Flotsam was where the Devourer’s cast and crew hung out after work. This meant that his co-workers – he couldn’t really call any of them friends – were under attack. Some of them might already be dead. He supposed he should take a look. After all, it seemed his role in this madness was to bear witness, so he might as well get on with it.
He walked around the writhing mass of demon sharks, went to Flotsam’s front door, opened it, and stepped inside.
* * * * *
Tasha grimaced as the first of the sharks came in through the broken window. As hideous as the things were, she grimaced not out of revulsion, but from pain. Her head was filled with crackling static, like a radio that couldn’t pick up a station, only turned up to deafening volume. It felt as if someone had shoved a white-hot blade through the middle of her brain. Her entire body went limp, and she would’ve fallen off her chair if Jarrod hadn’t grabbed hold of her arm and lifted her to her feet as he stood. Bonnie screamed, jumped to her feet, and grabbed hold of Jarrod’s other arm.
Chaos erupted in the bar.
The sharks – or whatever the hell they were – began tearing into the people closest to them. The first to go down were some of the locals that had been working on the movie, as well as Tony and Nina. A shark tore off Tony’s right arm, and a second ripped off his left leg. He went down then, and another shark took off his head. Nina screamed as Tony’s blood splattered her face and chest, and then the shark that had taken Tony’s arm spat it out and rushed toward her. It rammed her in the stomach, the impact breaking her spine. The instant she fell to the floor, the shark tore into her battered abdomen and began feasting on the soft, sweet treats within.
Tasha concentrated on muting the static jangling in her head, but the most she was able to do was lower the volume to a tolerable level. It still hurt, but at least she was no longer in danger of passing out.
As the sharks killed their first victims, Pete yanked the rusty machete from the wall and moved in front of both Shari and Tamara, as if to protect them. Tasha had known about the couple’s separate affairs with Tamara, but she was still surp
rised to see Pete ready to defend them both. Maybe he wasn’t quite the selfish asshole she’d pegged him as. Susan rushed back behind the bar, ducked down, came up with a pump-action shotgun in her hands, and began firing without hesitation. Everyone else tried to run, with varying degrees of success.
Saul – despite not having the most athletic build – hauled ass toward the back of the bar like he was an Olympic-level sprinter. Tasha knew the restrooms were back there, but was there a back door? She supposed Saul would find out soon.
Tasha didn’t know how much training or experience Susan had with a gun, but a half dozen sharks had made their way into the bar, and still more were fighting to get in. The damn things were so big that it would’ve been shocking if Susan missed hitting any of them. Tasha half expected the rounds to bound off the monsters’ hides, but the pellets tore into the creatures with small explosions of blood. The wounds didn’t seem to slow them down any, but she could sense the reaction of their nervous systems to the injuries, and she felt confident they could be killed.
Besides their strange eyes, skin veins, gill growths, and centipede-like legs on their undersides, the sharks had fleshy tubes a couple inches in diameter attached to their backs and trailing out the windows. What were those things? Were they like the oxygen lines deep-sea divers used, only in reverse? Did they pump saltwater into the sharks to help them survive on land? She reached her mind out toward one of the sharks, and the static in her head grew louder again. Yes, the tubes were for water, but they also connected the sharks to a larger mind, one that was controlling them. She recognized it as the presence she’d sensed earlier on the beach, only now there was something different about it. Different, yet at the same time familiar. It was confusing, but she thought if she could psychically follow one of the tubes back to its source, she might be able to connect with the boss’ mind, and –
A round from Susan’s shotgun struck the tube of the shark Tasha had been focusing on, and reddish-pink fluid gushed out of the resulting tear. The shark – which had been chewing a man’s groin to bloody mush – arched its back, raised its head, and roared with pain. No, that wasn’t right. The creature made no actual sound, but Tasha heard its agony in her mind as if it were sound. The shark began thrashing back and forth, its entire body quivering, as if it was having a stroke or something. The tube grew taut, and then it pulled loose from the shark in a spray of blood. Tasha got a brief glimpse of the barbed end of the tube before it flew back through the window and was gone. As soon as the tube retracted, the shark shuddered from snout to tail, collapsed to the floor, and lay still.
