They walked along the tide line, where the sand was hard and dark.

  Tony kept his hands in his pockets. Cristy struggled forward, focused solely on not sinking her heels.

  ?"Better?" Tony asked.

  ?Cristy stopped dead.

  "No," she said. Her voice came out shrill. "It's not fucking okay. Did you see what I did? I used you. I jumped you like an idiot just to hurt him."

  She pressed her palms against her hot cheeks.

  "I disgust myself, Tony. I'm a horrible person. Just like my mother."

  ?Tony stepped closer. There was no judgment in his eyes.

  "You're not like your mother," he said softly. "You're just messed up. Like all of us."

  ?"CRI!"

  ?A silver whirlwind crashed into them.

  Charlotte arrived running across the sand, drunk on happiness.

  "There you are!" she exclaimed. Her smile faded as soon as she saw Cristy's face. "Oh god... Cri? What's wrong?"

  ?Cristy recomposed herself in a millisecond.

  "Nothing," she lied. "Just a blood pressure drop. That blue punch is poison."

  ?"Oh, good!" Charlotte giggled. She turned to leave, but stopped.

  She spun back and wrapped Cristy in a sudden hug, crushing her ribs.

  "You're my best friend," she whispered in her ear, with the disarming sincerity of drunks. "I just wanted to tell you. You're the best."

  ?She broke the hug and ran off, a silver comet in the dark, heading back toward Tommy.

  Cristy watched her go, feeling like a monster.

  ?Suddenly, the pounding bass went silent.

  Silence fell over the beach.

  "Good evening, Stonemouth!"

  ?Under the stage spotlights, Mayor Susan Caldwell smiled at the sea of people. Red suit, teased hair, microphone in hand.

  "What a sight!" she began. "But we are not here just to celebrate. We are here to remember Charles Stone. The man who defied death in these waters and was saved by the song."

  ?She pointed to the line of illuminated buoys offshore.

  "Swimmers! The shore awaits you! Come home!"

  ?All eyes shifted to the horizon.

  A dozen boats rocked on the black waves. Silhouettes ready to jump.

  "On my mark!" Caldwell thundered.

  ?Unreal silence.

  "GO!"

  ?Dozens of bodies launched into the void.

  In the same instant, the first cannon shot fired from the pier.

  BOOM.

  A blood-red flower of fire exploded in the sky, lighting up the ecstatic faces of the crowd as if it were day.

  ?Cristy looked up.

  Bzzzz.

  The vibration hit her not as a sound, but as a blade of ice in her sternum.

  She doubled over, gasping. Taste of copper. Pure anguish.

  Hunt.

  ?"Cristy?" Tony grabbed her arm.

  ?"No..." she wheezed. "Tony, look."

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  ?From the sea, under the stroboscopic light of the fireworks, the horror took shape.

  A boy's head, twenty yards from shore, vanished.

  It didn't sink. It was ripped from the surface. A violent splash, then nothing.

  Then another. And another.

  Like bobbers pulled down by frenzied sharks, the swimmers were sucked into the abyss.

  The water began to boil.

  A gurgling scream broke the party.

  "SOMETHING GOT ME! HEL—"

  ?Terror infected the shore.

  "What the hell..." Tony started.

  ?He didn't finish the sentence.

  The attack reached land.

  From the shadows on the sides of the pier, nothingness took shape.

  Silhouettes snapped out.

  They didn't run. They glitched.

  They were patches of solid darkness moving in jerks, leaving visual trails like static on an old tape.

  ?One of these things crossed the crowd like a bullet.

  A man was hit. He didn't fall. He was lifted horizontally off the ground and dragged toward the woods at an impossible speed.

  ?"RUN!"

  ?Panic exploded. The beach became a slaughterhouse.

  Thousands of people ran blindly, trampling the bonfires. The smell of cotton candy was swept away by the acrid scent of fear and ozone.

  The silhouettes were everywhere. They sped through the chaos, snatching prey.

  ?Tony grabbed Cristy.

  "Go! We have to leave!"

  "No! Alex!" she screamed, fighting him.

  In the middle of that hell, Cristy had only one thought. Alex. Everything else was noise. Alex couldn't hear the footsteps. Alex couldn't hear death coming from the left.

  ?The headlights of military Humvees cut the darkness. Soldiers poured onto the beach.

  TA-TA-TA-TA.

  The crackle of automatic weapons mixed with the booms of fireworks.

  They fired at the shadows, but the creatures were too fast. Cristy saw a soldier aim his rifle. A moment later, the soldier was gone. Dragged away screaming into the dark.

  ?"Cristy! Help!"

  ?Cristy turned.

  Charlotte.

  She was there, paralyzed in the middle of the crowd flowing past her like a flood. Alone. Her silver dress torn at the shoulder.

  "Char!"

  Cristy threw herself at her, almost tackling her, and dragged her bodily toward a large stack of logs.

  "Get in there!" she ordered, shoving her into the hollow.

  "No! Don't leave me!" Charlotte clawed at her arms, nails sinking into skin. "I don't want to die!"

  "Shut up!" Cristy screamed in her face, forehead to forehead. "You're safe here! I'm coming back for you! I swear!"

  ?She pushed her friend into the darkness of the pile and turned, diving back into the apocalypse.

  "Alex!"

  ?They saw him.

  He was near the water's edge, on his knees. Hands pressed over his ears, eyes squeezed shut, disoriented by the acoustic chaos that must have been physical torture for him.

  They reached him, grabbing his jacket and hauling him up.

  "I was looking for you..." Alex gasped, voice distorted by panic.

  ?A sharp, tearing whistle drilled through their eardrums.

  A dark shape stopped thirty feet away. Two cold, white bulbous eyes fixed on them.

  It lunged.

  ?Cristy, Tony, and Alex pressed against each other, forming a triangle of trembling flesh.

  Alex closed his eyes. Cristy hid her face. Tony gritted his teeth.

  ?BAM.

  ?For an instant, the world stopped having sound.

  ?The resonance exploded.

  A sphere of blue light materialized around them.

  The creature crashed against the shield.

  The sound was horrible. Burning flesh and screeching glass. The thing was thrown backward, tumbling on the sand, before dissolving into the dark.

  ?The shield vanished.

  They were alive.

  "Charlotte," Cristy gasped, heart pounding out of her chest. "The log pile. We have to get her."

  ?They ran toward the logs.

  "Char! Come out!"

  ?But fate was faster.

  A black shadow, bigger than the others, plummeted from above.

  CRASH.

  The stack wasn't moved. It exploded. Logs flew into the air like matchsticks.

  Charlotte was there, curled up in the sand.

  She looked up. Her eyes met Cristy's.

  In that look, there was no scream. There was a goodbye. A mute plea. Help me.

  ?Cristy reached out.

  "CHARLOTTE!"

  ?The shadow wrapped around her. A black claw grabbed her waist.

  Charlotte let out a scream that drowned out the gunshots, the fireworks, the sea.

  In a second, she was ripped away from gravity.

  Cristy saw the silver heels plowing two furrows in the sand as she was dragged away at impossible speed.

  "CRISTY!"

  The scream faded fast, swallowed by the thicket.

  Then, silence.

  ?Cristy fell to her knees.

  "No..." she whispered. "NO!"

  ?Tony looked at the destroyed Cristy. Looked at the petrified Alex.

  He felt a cold, nuclear rage mounting inside him.

  Enough.

  He jammed his hand into his pocket and ripped out the pendant.

  It was burning. Pulsing with blinding white light.

  He felt the energy saturate the bones of his arm until they creaked painfully.

  ?Tony screamed.

  He raised his fist with the pendant and slammed it into the ground, burying it in the wet sand.

  ?BOOOOOM.

  ?A sonic quake.

  A visible shockwave started from Tony’s fist and swept the entire beach.

  The sand rose in a wall. The windows of cars in the parking lot exploded in unison.

  The creatures froze in mid-air, emitting a whistle of unbearable pain, and were hurled violently backward, sucked by the force of the impact toward the darkness of the woods.

  ?The beach emptied.

  Only smoke and silence remained.

  Tony stayed on his knees, hand buried in the smoking sand.

  His wrist cracked.

  He coughed. A spray of bright red blood stained the white sand.

  He felt like he had broken inside. He tried to move the fingers of his right hand, but they didn't respond. He felt no pain. He felt only an intense smell of ozone and meat, and absolute coldness where his fingers used to be.

  He collapsed on his side, gasping.

  ?In the distance, a rising sound began to drown out the noise of the surf.

  Blue and red lights began to flash in the parking lot.

  Cristy raised a hollow gaze toward the woods that had swallowed her friend.

  It had been announced as the Night of the Sirens.

  The party was over, and the only song now filling the air, screaming in the darkness of the wounded city, were the police sirens.

  ?Far from there, in the black heart of the forest.

  The old house was immersed in darkness.

  The old woman sat at the table, motionless as a wax statue.

  There was no more light. There was no more hope.

  In the muffled silence of the cork-lined room, the woman lifted her head toward the ceiling.

  Her dry lips barely moved.

  A raspy, definitive whisper.

  "It has begun."

  Author’s Note ??