Joey traced the tip of the stingray barb along the river map, from Macapa’ to the tributaries that ran below Santana do Cajari. At that point, the tributaries fanned out into a web of smaller rivers, some charted and some just drawn where the mapmaker had guessed them to be.

Joey slowly circled the barb over a remote area and looked up at Grahame expectantly. Grahame nodded. Joey narrowed his eyes and pointed the barb at the nodding man.

“Don’t play with me, this is too big. Are they really going to let us explore it?” Grahame smiled in response. Joey knew that smile.

“Yes!” Joey threw his head back and howled, slapping Grahame across his shoulder. “When did you find out? I just figured they were going to ignore us…”

“Fatima told me a little while ago.” Grahame rubbed his back and grimaced. “And you can thank her, she’s the one who got us in.”

Joey cocked his head at Fatima and held his arms open, “Get in here! I didn’t even know you had connections! You’ve been holding out!”

Fatima grinned but held her hands up to stall the oncoming rush that was Joey. At fifty-seven, she was no match for the younger man’s excitement. She did smile, though, and her soft Portuguese accent held mirth.

“Permission was granted to us through the Regent’s office, and Grahame is much too humble,” she looked over at him and her smile was warm. “He spent most of the afternoon detailing the species that we have so far collected. When the board learned of the new finds, they granted us an extension to explore the Reserva.”

Grahame leaned back in the chair with his hands behind his head. “It was the aquatic spider. I told you, that’s the bread winner.”

Joey pointed the barb, his good luck charm, back at Grahame. “But the giant stingray is the crowd pleaser! Did you send the video?”

Grahame shook his head. Technology didn’t always play by the rules in the Amazon basin. Joey’s face dropped, but the world would see those haunting images soon enough. And Joey was right; the footage of a ray larger than their boat would attract the media’s eye. Hell, it had caught all of their eyes, and even though it meant less from a scientific perspective, it was still magnificent.

The video had been shot right at dusk. Joey was on the roof of the bridge, shooting down through the clear water of the river. The light was perfect and you could see clear to the bottom. They were in maybe eight or ten feet of water and Joey was giving commentary on the species of fish when silt kicked up in a circle around the boat and the massive ray slid out from underneath them.

It was soft brown with faded chalk stripes across it’s back, blending in perfectly with the jungle. Its size dwarfed even the giant Manta, the largest ray known, and it gracefully swam away and disappeared as the sun dropped below the horizon.

They had watched the video over and over, and Grahame still couldn’t believe that something as large as that could live in such shallow water.

It was human nature to stand in awe of giant creatures, and had that video been the only thing that the two-month expedition had produced, it would have been enough. But they had discovered more, much more, and some things much more important to the scientific community as well as the pharmaceutical industry.

They had catalogued new species of jellyfish, reptiles, amphibians, insects and plants. But the arachnid was what Grahame’s career would launch off of. He had already been in touch with the university, and they were positively hot to see what he had discovered.

It was a spider larger than a tarantula, that lived and breathed underwater. It was a needle in the evolutionary haystack. It meant that so many new things were possible than previously thought, and the applications were endless. He was still barely able to imagine the magnitude of what his discovery would mean in the years ahead, and being in his mid-forties, he was still young enough to enjoy the ride.

And now, Fatima had permission to extend the expedition for two more weeks, exploring an area that had never been thoroughly mapped or studied with scientific equipment. It was a chance for lightning to strike twice.

Joey set three glasses out onto the table and poured a shot of cheap brandy into each.

“Here’s to more undiscovered country, about to be discovered.”

All three scientists clinked their glasses together to the toast. “Saluda.”

***

Fatima’s assistant, Christina, sat quietly, typing into the laptop. Grahame had mistaken her for being sullen at first, but she was just shy. She was awake early this morning, entering notes from Fatima, a cup of coffee steaming beside her. She looked up at Grahame as he entered.

“Good morning professor.”

Her voice was little more than a whisper. He tried to hold his voice down as well when he answered. Even the jungle seemed quiet this morning.

“Good morning to you, Christina. What’s that?” His eyes rested on a book that lay on the table beside her computer. He squinted to read the title without his glasses, and was surprised that it was what he had first taken it for. Large black letters read A Guide to Cryptozoology.

Christina reached to it, and flipped it open to a marked page. Grahame looked down to see that it was a chapter entitled “The Feejee Mermaid”. Several jokes came to mind, but he put those aside and settled on a simple question.

“Why did you bring a book about Cryptozoology?” He was amused, but a little perturbed at the same time. Space was tight on the boat and no one brought books for anything other than research.

“It’s not mine. Fatima gave it to me so that I could become familiar with this story.”

Grahame nodded as he moved to the counter and the coffee maker. He poured a cup and spooned sugar into it. He gave it a moment, decided that he was genuinely intrigued, and sat down to look at the picture of the mermaid.

It was just as ugly as when he had first seen it as a kid.

“This is Fatima’s?”

Christina nodded.

He would need his glasses to read, but he vaguely remembered the story. The Feejee Mermaid was one of P.T. Barnum’s famous attractions back in the days when sideshows were all the rage and before Barnum had invented the circus.

The mermaid turned out to be nothing more than the head and torso of a monkey sewn to the tail of a large fish, but it caused a stir back in those days. It was also one of the greatest examples in the world of a scientific hoax, and the last thing that Grahame would have expected from Fatima.

Captain Ferreira’s voice boomed out over the river as he yelled out for the first mate, Dobo. Dobo shouted back with the depth of the water.

“So much for a quiet morning, eh?” Joey smiled as he ducked in and grabbed a cup off of the rack, “Makes you glad you’re not Dobo.”

Joey smirked and sat down to join them. He leaned over the table, spotting the book.

“Mermaids, huh? Lemme guess, a parasite has started to nibble away at your brain?”

Grahame snorted, “It’s not my book. It’s Fatima’s. She asked Christina to read about this.”

“And you would do well to read it after she has.”

All eyes turned to Fatima who entered and sat to join them. Joey grinned and proceeded carefully. Fatima had definitely taken on the role of matron during the expedition.

“Okay. I’ll play. What does the…” Joey leaned in to read the caption under the picture…”Feejee Mermaid, have to do with us?”

Fatima nodded. “That is what I hope to learn. It was reported as a hoax, played on a people that did not know any better. But it does leave one with an interesting question; where did the idea for this hoax come from?”

Grahame transferred his amused gaze to Joey.

Joey didn’t even pause. “Mermaid legends existed long before the early 1800’s. The idea came from one of the multiple accounts going back to who knows when…”

Fatima smiled patiently. “That is true to an extent, but when you read the article, you will find this account began with none other than the famous Barnum, and remember, his was billed as the greatest show on Earth.”

Joey held his hands palms up and gave her a questioning look. She continued.

“As a showman, Barnum would have wanted the mermaid to match the legends; a beautiful, shapely maiden with the tail of a fish. He would have sold a million more tickets that way. But instead, he presented a withered and gruesome collage of animal parts. Why do you think he might have done that?”

Grahame couldn’t help himself. “Because sewing the torso of a beautiful young woman to the trunk of a fish would have taken things a bit too far, even for Barnum?”

They all laughed..Fatima continued.

“So why present a mermaid exhibit at all? The taxidermy was obvious, Barnum would have been aware of that. He could have much more effectively presented a giant Yeti, or a murdering Loup Garou. There were many legends available to him during those times, and they would have been infinitely easier to fake.”

They all waited in silence for her answer. Fatima let an appropriate pause settle over them, proving that she possessed a sense of showmanship as well as decorum. Then she finished the story.

“Barnum faked the mermaid model to symbolize something that was real, something that actually existed. He never intended for the model to be considered real. He just wanted to show what it looked like. That part of the story is seldom published because the exhibit lost its appeal, and he was never able to make a trip to the Fiji Islands where he hoped to catch a real specimen. That was his true intention, and that would have been the greatest show on Earth. But, as history has proven, that show turned into something else entirely.”

Joey shifted in his chair. “So you’re saying that he knew he was showing off a fake, but that it was made to look like something real? Okay…maybe? But what does a legend from the Fiji Islands have to do with us sitting in the middle of the Amazon basin?”

Fatima nodded to Christina. The girl pushed a bound sheaf of notes across the table in front of the impatient young man.

“The Fiji Islands are not the only place that the mermaid legend has been told.”

Joey tried to keep his voice level as he spoke, but it was ever so slightly tinged of mockery.

“Fatima, please, please don’t tell me that you are now on the lookout for one of Barnum’s mermaids?”

Fatima gave him stern look.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Joseph. There is no such thing as a mermaid.”

He visibly relaxed, but Fatima was not done.

“However, one of the reasons that we have been granted access to explore the Reserva is a flood of recent reports of what the local tribes call Demonio Tiburon, or, the shark demons”. These reports seem to come in waves, every few years or so, and this year they include a number of child abductions. The regents are hopeful that we can identify the source and cause of these reports.”

Joey was silenced, but Grahame voiced what they both were thinking.

“Fatima, with all due respect, it’s got to be Bull Sharks. We saw them all of the way back in the interior, so we know that they’re here. You know that…”

Her brows tightened together, forming the slightest crease.

“Yes, Grahame, of course. But what I do not know is why a people that are more used to seeing sharks than you and I ever will be, have reported hands reaching up out of the water and snatching their children off of docks. Please read the story after Christina is finished, both of you. We must take our clues from wherever they are offered.”

***

It was mid afternoon when the rumble of the diesel engines stopped and the boat drifted up to the dock of a tiny village. Dobo made the lines fast, and yelled when they were secure. They had stopped south of Ajerico, where one of the reports of a missing child had come from.

Captain Ferreira and Dobo immediately set in making small repairs to the boat while the four scientists headed into the village to interview a woman who’s child had been abducted.

Fatima and Christina took the lead as neither Grahame or Joey spoke Portuguese. They made there way throughout the village, surrounded by an small crowd of onlookers. Fatima asked another woman a question and the woman pointed to a dilapidated shed. The four walked over and Fatima knocked on a piece sheet of metal that served as a front wall to the structure. A groan was all the answer they received, so Fatima poked her head inside. Words were spoken, then Fatima motioned for the others to join her. They entered to find a bone-thin woman, half collapsed on a grass mat spread over the dirt floor, attended to by several children.

This was the woman who had witnessed her child being dragged into the water. She had hardly eaten since then and was weak. She could barely muster a whisper as the scientists introduced themselves, but when Fatima asked her about the missing child, she began to wail at the top of her lungs. She screamed and thrashed, and finally the men were asked to leave so that the women could calm her.

Grahame and Joey waited outside for over an hour and were relieved to see the women finally exit the shed. Fatima looked at Grahame and he knew to hold back any questions until they were back on the boat. It was dusk as they made their way back to the docks. They reached the boat just as the last light was about to fade. Fatima knelt to inspect the side of the dock where the child had reportedly been sitting, and just as the grieving mother had described, four lines had been scratched through the wood. Fatima looked up to Grahame.

“These are rather distinct scratch marks, and they are deep enough to make me believe that the flexion of a strong hand might have been applied. The splinters drag toward the river, as they would if something had been pulled in that direction.”

Grahame pulled a hand over his mouth, carefully choosing his next words.

“So what are you saying? You believe that what the woman described is what actually happened the child?”

Fatima nodded. “I believe that she described what she saw to the best of her ability. Be careful that you do not color your judgment with western perception. She has no motivation to lie; no monetary award stemming from a lawsuit will ever be awarded to her. She is in grief, and though it is almost certain that she is confused, these marks lend authenticity to the description she has given.”

Joey chimed in, “Realistically, anything could have caused those marks. There is nothing to prove that they happened at the moment that her daughter was taken. We need to stick with what we know to be true. The only thing in these waters that has four claws is crocodilian or a big cat. I guess either could have caught the little girl by surprise, but it seems pretty far out, statistically.”

Fatima’s eyes clouded with anger, which Grahame had been watching build. He spoke up to cut off the next comment from her.

“Okay, let’s load up. It’s dark and I’m hungry. Everybody aboard.”

Fatima’s gaze still held anger, but it had been mollified and she nodded to Grahame.

Grahame was not happy, though. He respected Fatima a great deal, and she had been a true asset to the expedition. But her belief in superstition was showing through and he had no idea how to deal with that. He was terrified that it would bleed into their findings, that someone at the universtiy might get a whiff of it when they presented their work, and if that happened, he would be discounted as a crank and all of his dreams would go up in smoke. The gaze he returned to Fatima was stern.

Dinner was a subdued affair. Christina described the woman’s version of the abduction. Grahame and Fatima were mostly silent, leaving Joey to fill in the gaps in conversation.

“How did she describe the arms again?” Joey looked frustrated. His first thought was that a shark had grabbed the child’s submerged feet and pulled her in, but the description of arms immediately led him to think croc. But, the arms described had black, slick skin, very different than the native crocodilian, the caiman. Further, the arms were described as lifting out of the water to grab the child. No caiman could do that.

Joey looked over to Grahame. “You don’t think it could be cephalopodan, do you?”

Grahame just shook his head. “Giant octopus? I don’t think so. They wouldn’t recognize a human as prey. And the woman did describe hands. No, I think you’re just reaching…”

Joey smiled at the attempted humor. Fatima spoke with a terse, irritated tone. “She described clawed hands. She said that she saw them tear through the child’s skin.”

Joey snorted, “Well, that’s just great. Now we’re looking for the Creature From the Black Lagoon. I still say that the mother is just suffering from posttraumatic shock. A shark or a caiman snatched her child from the dock, or maybe the child actually just slipped, drowned and was swept away in the current. The scratches were from the fisherman, but when the woman saw them she got confused and confabulated the rest of the story.” He slapped the table as he finished.

“That would be the first scenario to consider, of course…” Fatima’s words were clipped. “But what of the other reports form different villages? The descriptions are almost identical, and the villages are spread miles apart. Similar accounts date back for as many years as records have been kept.”

Joey shook his head in frustration. Grahame grabbed his shoulder and squeezed bothered himself by Fatima’s growing infatuation.

“Well, one way or another, we’ll enter into the Reserva tomorrow and see whatever there is to be seen. We’ll carry on just as we have been, and if we chance across something new, so much the better. Let’s not let it go to our heads.”

He looked at Fatima with a give the kid a break look. “Any way you look at it, a child disappearing is enough to upset anybody. We should all turn in early and be sharp for tomorrow. It’s going to be a big day.”

***

The boat left the docks at dawn. They had only been traveling for an hour or so when the terrain on the sides of the river began to change. For weeks, the group had been used to looking off into heavy jungle, but now the jungle draped over the mouths of limestone caverns. It was beautiful, but ominous, and it did nothing to raise anyone’s spirits. Grahame had to nudge Joey.

“Perk up there, Jo Jo. I’m going to need you on point when we reach a place where we can anchor. Just think of what we’re going find in those caverns!”

Joey nodded and smiled, but it was halfhearted. Grahame looked up to the bridge and saw a troubled expression on Captain Ferreira’s face. The foreboding mood seemed to have had taken over the entire boat, but Grahame refused to let it drag him down. Around mid-afternoon they came to a calmer section of water where the Captain said they could drop anchor. It was finally time to explore.

Eager to get started, Grahame began to gather equipment. Then he noticed that all of the others were just watching him. He crooked an eyebrow.

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

Joey spoke first, “Fatima doesn’t want to come.”

Grahame looked over at Fatima. “What? Why? You’ll probably never get the chance to come here again! Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”

She shifted on her feet uneasily and spoke with a tiny thread of fear in her voice.

“I’m an old woman, Grahame. I can’t just go traipsing off into caverns like the rest of you. What if I turn an ankle, or something worse, and you have to carry me out? I’ll just slow you down. You go on and I’ll stay here and prepare to catalogue everything that you discover.” She gave him a weak smile.

Grahame just stood there with his hands on his hips. He couldn’t imagine coming all of the way out here and then missing it. But, he had been on many expeditions over the years and he knew better than to question someone else’s reasons. He nodded.

“Well, I guess that’s fine if that’s what you want to do. And I expect you’ll have plenty of chances over the next few days if you change your mind.” She nodded her head as a thank you and he nodded back. Then he called out to Joey and Christina.

“You two saddle up. I want to get in those caves as soon as we can.”

They nodded and began loading items into their packs. Captain Ferreira called down from above.

“Professor, if you would permit it, I would like to send Dobo with you. An extra pair of hands may be useful to you.”

Grahame looked over to see Dobo holding a shotgun. He looked back at Fatima and saw the concern in her eyes. He shook his head, growing more irritated by the passing moment, but he turned back to the captain and nodded.

“Dobo is welcome to join us, of course.”

The captain smiled and Grahame had done all he was willing to placate the older members of the expedition. He finished his packing and did his best to ignore the unsettled feeling that threatened to creep over him. When they were ready, the four explorers loaded into the dingy and paddled for shore. When they were out of earshot of the boat, Grahame turned to Christina.

“Alright, what’s the deal with Fatima? Why is she so spooked?”

Christina’s brows wrinkled with her own frustration.

“It’s a cultural thing, mostly with the older generation…” she looked at Dobo apologetically and he smiled and held a hand up. Evidently he wasn’t superstitious either.

“No matter how much science they know, spiritual beliefs will always play a role in their lives. Yesterday, when you were asked to leave, the village bruxa came in through the back and warned Fatima that this expedition would end in death.”

“Bruxa? What’s that?”

Christina searched for the words, “She is like their shaman. Or, maybe more like a witch, but not necessarily bad. They are tribal healers and fortune-tellers, things like this. They are more rare these days as the younger generations pay little attention to them, but they still influence those raised in the old traditions.”

Dobo laughed and the other three looked at him in surprise. He smiled and spoke in heavily accented English. “She is correct. I never go against the captain, but I do not believe in these ghost stories either. We have not all gone loco.” He gave a toothy smile.

Everybody smiled now and feelings lifted. Grahame relaxed, he’d seen this before and in a couple of days all would be well. The trick was to not fight people or to mock their beliefs. You just had to go forward knowing that there was nothing to be afraid of and they would fall into line soon after. Still, it was amazing to witness the power of superstition, even over a celebrated professor.

The distance to the shore was covered quickly and Dobo dragged the dingy on top of a rocky point. The group gathered the equipment and walked into the entrance to the cavern, the temperature dropping immediately as they passed from sunlight into shade. Christina rubbed her arms as the group stood inside.

Grahame flicked on a flashlight and began walking, playing the beam ahead of them. The floor of the cavern was sandy and just under the water level of the rive. A couple of inches of clear water flowed gently out to the river. There was very little current though, which Grahame found odd because it looked as if the sandy floor had been swept, or something had been dragged across it. Grahame knew that the water would have to be rushing to groom the sand like that, when another possibility occurred to him. He kept his voice low and calm.

“Dobo, stay ready with the gun. These drag marks could be from caiman sliding across the floor.”

The first mate answered just as quietly.

“Alright, but I do not think that there are any caiman in here, professor. There is no vegetation, no sign of anything to eat. They will stay outside in the sun.”

Dobo was right, but the marks were from something and Grahame was staying open to possibilities. He shined the light into several of the many caves that branched off of the main tunnel and saw more of the drag marks. Strange.

Just ahead, a shaft of sunlight poured through a hole in the ceiling and lit the chamber floor. It was a beautiful effect, but also disheartening as it lit the entire cavern and made it easy to see that there were no signs of any life at all.

Grahame was disappointed but he pressed on, determined to find something. They walked for close to another hour and must have been at least a few hundred meters into the cave when he caught sight of another shaft of sunlight in the distance. The light fell over a shape that Grahame squinted to make out, and then could hardly believe.

He moved forward quickly, sloshing through the water, thinking that it must be a trick of the light. But as he got closer, he saw that it was real and icy fingers of shock began to play up his spine.

A pair of jaws sat in the sunlight, like a trophy in a fisherman’s den. Grahame stared in shock as he estimated the size to be somewhere in between those of a huge Great White and the giant maw of an ancient Megladon. A shark like that must have been about thirty-five feet long…

The jaws were still white, taken recently. Not black, as a fossilized pair would be.

“The teeth are long and smooth, like a Mako, not a White.” Joey’s voice was incredulous.

“The teeth aren’t fossils. Hell, they’re not even old. There’s never been a report of anything like…” Grahame stopped in mid sentence as he realized that he was wrong. There had been many reports of sharks this size, they had just never been taken seriously. A wry voice in his head reminded him that these stories had their own chapter in Fatima’s cryptozoology book.

Dobo shined his light over the rest of the chamber and whistled. The group stared in shock as they looked at a skeleton of a giant snake, the skull the size of a bear’s head. There was another skull, a marine reptile thought not to have lived for millions of years. Tendons and flesh still connected the hinges of its jaws and Grahame knew that this creature had not been dead for more than a month.

There were spear-like bills from marlin and swordfish, massive turtle shells that could cover a small car, and pincers large enough to hold a man.

“Somebody’s been busy…It’s like a…like a trophy room.” There was still tension in Joey’s voice, but it was mixed with awe.

Christina’s voice was pure fear as she whispered.

“Oh my god…”

The group turned to follow the beam of her light into a darkened corner, piled high with the bones and skulls of humans. Grahame spoke quickly.

“Stay quiet until we get out of here, and don’t panic. Just move.”

They turned and began walking back. The footprints they left from walking in were clearly visible, and it was a surprise when one of the lights reflected off of something silver. It was inside of one of the footprints. Joey stooped to pick it up.

“It’s a child’s ring…”

At the same time Grahame whispered, “Nobody move”.

Grahame slowly shined the light over the water and sand in front of them. The sand had been smoothed where their footprints should have been. He flipped the light over to the side tunnels. Drag marks disappeared into the darkness.

Everybody jumped when Dobo worked the action of the shotgun, jacking a shell into the chamber. Grahame nodded to the man and spoke with a slight waver in his voice.

“Stay together and move quickly, but don’t run.”

Dobo took the lead. Grahame flashed the light back and forth along the side tunnels as the group hurried forward. Then Grahame came to an abrupt stop and stubled backward as he shined the light down over Captain Ferreira’s hat. It was torn and stained with blood.

No one said a word then; they just started moving as images of some primitive and violent tribe flashed through their minds. No one questioned what would happen to them if they were caught on tribal ground, but when they finally reached the first shaft of light that they had passed, it wasn’t a tribesman at all that stood in the tunnel before them.

It was a small figure with coal black skin. It was holding a club with jagged edges, reminding Grahame of something he had seen before, but couldn’t remember exactly where.
Dobo raised the gun to his shoulder as the group moved forward one step at a time. As they got closer, they could see the creature more clearly. Its skin was slick, like rubber. It only stood about four feet tall, but it did not stand on legs. It balanced on a thick tail, like that of a snake, but flattened at the end to form a powerful paddle. The head and the torso were closer to human, though, and it stared at them with large black eyes, like polished orbs of obsidian. it’s two arms ended in clawed hands.

The way that it held the club made it obvious that it had the use of thumbs, anf Grahame could not help but think of the impact that this would have on the scientific world. A lost species…an aquatic species…evolutionary theory would be changed forever…

He looked again at the club it carried, seeing that it was actually a weapon, fitted along both sides with shark’s teeth so that they looked like a saw.

Grahame remembered where he had seen this done before. In French Polynesia, many years ago, he had studied and had visited many of the Islands and their museums. This club was an exact replica of the swords that some of the old Island tribes had used against each other in war. This was nothing short of astonishing…

A sharp hiss from the thing snapped Grahame back to the present. It bared needle like fangs and slowly raised the club. Dobo flicked off the safety with his thumb and sighted down the barrel.

“Wait”. Grahame’s voice was breathless, and he spoke slowly, methodically, “We can’t kill it…”

Dobo looked back at him like he was crazy and Joey whispered harshly.

“This one didn’t fill that trophy room by itself! I figure we’ll get one chance to make it out of here, but we have to be fast. As soon as that gun goes off, it will call in the rest of them, so I’m going to count down from five…” He looked to Dobo. “You shoot this one, and then we run straight to the dingy. Don’t wait and don’t look back. Everybody got it?”

Heads bobbed. Grahame blew out a breath, his face fallen, but nobody cared.

“Five, four, three…”

The creature screamed at the top of its lungs, long, raspy and harsh. The echo bounced throughout the caverns and far away, screams answered back from every direction. Panic surged through the group like electricity.

Dobo fired, cutting the creature in half with buckshot. Grahame started to yell to run, but the yell turned to a scream when a thin, black spear pinned him in the back of his leg. He twisted as he fell, and stared into hundreds of shiny, black eyes.

Another shot rang out, and then another. Dobo was yelling like a mad man, firing in every direction, even with a black spear stuck all of the way through his gut. Then he went as stiff as a board when a spear was thrust up from behind him and caught him where his neck met the base of his skull. He shuddered, mumbled something and let the shotgun slide out of his hands.

Christina was shrieking, but that ended quickly when a shark-tooth club was brought down over the crown of her head.

The creatures swarmed over the group, tiny clawed hands pinning them into the sand and the last thing that Grahame had time to think was that they had been flanked. Out-maneuvered. That the goddamn things were smart…amazing.

***

Grahame’s eyes fluttered open in the quiet dark. Off in the distance, a shaft of light poured through the ceiling and he could see the giant pair of jaws propped against the wall. He knew where they had brought him, and he realized that he was lying on the bone pile that they had spotted earlier.

Fatima lay with her back to him, her shoulders and head shaking, and Grahame reflexively reached out to comfort her, whispering as quietly as he could.

“Can you hear me?”

He squeezed her shoulder, giving her a tiny shake in case she hadn’t heard him.

Fatima’s head lolled back, staring at him with long dead eyes and a gaping hole in her throat where one of the creatures had been feeding.

Grahame realized that it was the motion from the feeding that had shaken Fatima’s shoulders, and as he stared into the liquid black eyes of the creature, he became keenly aware that it was not finished.

It chittered at him, clearly annoyed, and reached back for one of the shark-toothed clubs. Swinging it high, it hammered the club down with amazing force, splitting Grahame’s face open and biting deep into his head.

The last thing Grahame remembered was the feeling of the shark teeth being wrenched out from his skull and watching the thing raise the club for another strike.

It brought the club down again, dividing Grahame’s skull in two, and unknowingly preserving the secret of it’s race for a little while longer. Then it went back feeding.