“The water is rising,” one of the men, James, said.

Back at the mall, a small group gathered at one of the second level railings. The dozen people included Jody and Elliot, and Evan, the man Donnie had caught in the dressing room with his girlfriend. James played his flashlight up and down the escalators that led to the flooded lower level of the mall.

“Are you sure?” one of the men asked.

“You see down there? Before, I was curious about whether the water was going anywhere so I put a yellow mark about halfway up that stair, right where the water’s edge reached. Now it’s over the mark, it’s covered the whole stair, and it’s working its way up the next one.”

Rain hammered the skylights above. A hard flash of blue-white lightning lit the glass, followed by a peal of thunder. Dark water swirled below them, filled with sodden clothing and floating trash.

“Is it as high as it is outside?” Jody asked. “Something could just be leaking, somewhere?”

“I don’t know but this rain can’t be helping.” James swung his flashlight up, reflecting off the skylights.

“Should we be worried? Could it reach us here?”

“We could get to the roof, the rooftop parking?” Evan said.

“I don’t think it’ll be that bad, unless there’s another big wave,” James said. “But I’m worried about food and water, drinking water. The grocery store is on the bottom level, remember? We were going to wait until the water went down and then we thought we’d be able to recover whatever was left, if rescue hadn’t come by then. But if the water is rising, and rescue isn’t coming, maybe we need to get what we can now?”

“How? Get it how?” someone asked.

“That guy who came in here from outside, swam here or whatever, he inflated one of those air mattresses and left on that,” James said. “Brave, or stupid, I wouldn’t be going out there with one of those, but down there? They should be fine to get to the grocery store and back.”

They got to work creating more rafts the same way Donnie had. Drawing in a bunch of people from the food court, and finding several more hand-cranked generators, they worked in shifts and were able to go a lot faster than Donnie had been able to do working alone. Four inflatable mattresses, ranging from queen-sized to a single, were rapidly filled to use as rafts.

Lowering the inflatable mattresses into the water, they boarded from the escalators. They had oars from the camping store and kiddy pools from the department store to tow behind them. The kiddy pools, as Donnie had noted when he found them, wouldn’t serve as rafts. They would never support the weight of an adult man or woman. Towing them though, the men on the rafts could fill them with food and water from the grocery store like shopping carts. Four men went down, James and Evan, Terrence, and Donovan.

“Be careful, okay?” Evan’s girlfriend, Taylor, said.

“We’ll be fine, like, even if this popped I could totally swim my way back.” Evan sloshed on his makeshift raft.

Although there were areas where the lower level of the mall was overlooked by balconies on the second level, and the skylights above, it still seemed cavernous. Currents stirred the dark water. Dipping their paddles, the four men set off across the flooded mall. Tangles of sodden clothing drifted into their paths and trash like disposable coffee cups and plastic packaging filled the water. It was far easier to row than the treacherous waters Donnie had been dealing with outside but the four men moved slowly. Trickling water made the whole place feel eerie. The grocery store, with no electricity and no skylights, would be pitch black. The men carried flashlights which they switched on and cast across the walls surrounding them. Names of various stores stood above their flooded entryways, the water level about two-thirds of the way up on their doorways.

“Body over there,” James said. “Exactly why you don’t want to take a dip, there could be disease.”

The corpse floated facedown in the entry of a clothing store. Most of the people in the mall had managed to get upstairs when the flooding started but maybe this was one of the unlucky ones, or they had been carried in from the outside. The body seemed to be caught on something and it rocked as if trying to escape.

“Hey! What was that?” Donovan yelled.

Donovan gestured and started sweeping his flashlight around wildly. The others trained their lights on the same spot. Water rippled but there was nothing there but more trash.

“What was it?” Evan said.

“I-, I don’t know, I thought I saw something,” Donovan said. “Almost like a face, watching us, but-,”

“Probably just a fish, jumping out of the water, or a trick of the shadows,” James said.

“Apparently that Donnie guy said something to Jody and Elliot about weird animals,” the fourth man, Terrance, said. “Maybe it was something like that?”

“Keep your eyes open,” James said.

The four men ducked under the top of the grocery store’s entryway. Rolling shutters that had never gotten a chance to close the night before dangled over their heads. They cast their lights around the store. Beams glittered off of racks of fluorescent lights, now dark, and immediately in front of them were light boxes with numbers on them attached to the registers. They poked above the water on poles like little streetlamps. Fortunately, across the store a good portion of the very tall shelves remained above the water. Almost all the shelving the shoppers would have had access to was underwater but boxes of products on top of the shelves that hadn’t been unpacked yet were literally high and dry. Food packaging, trash, and food refuse of every imaginable type created an almost solid layer on top of the water.

Beside the other men, Evan seemed struck by an attack of giggling. Holding the flashlight in one hand, oar across his legs, he stifled it with his other hand.

“This is all so fucking weird, you know?” Evan said. “I mean, come on, here we are riding a bunch of inflatable mattresses so we can row our asses to the grocery store?”

“How should we do this?” Terrance asked, ignoring Evan.

“Each of us takes an aisle, I guess? Fill the kiddie pools with whatever we think looks good to eat or drink,” James said. “Nothing where the packaging could be compromised. And careful we don’t overload the pools, we can always come back, remember.”

Bizarre as the whole situation may have been, the four men took off in four directions with businesslike efficiency. One end of the store, where the fruit and vegetables had been, was a total loss. Spoiled refuse floated on top of the floodwater, lettuce, cucumbers and fruit, like apples and oranges, along with plastic bags of salad leaves. James paddled for the bread aisle. His flashlight pointed the way ahead, reflecting off the shelves. Floating loaves of bread bounced off the front of his blow-up mattress. Just like the salad bags, James ignored them out of fear the dirty water could have gotten inside them. Some were already getting soggy and beginning to sink. It wasn’t just bread but bagels, hamburger rolls, hot dog buns, waffles and such, all floating around the aisle.

Shining his light across the top of the shelves, James spotted a box filled with packages of oats. He seesawed over to the shelf and hooked the box with his paddle, dragging it forward and catching it before it fell into the water. Juggling the oats, he turned and dropped them into the kiddie pool tethered behind the mattress. It bobbed in the water, accepting the weight.

Donovan moved down another aisle filled with drinks and snacks. He ignored the floating bags of chips and bottles of soft drink that completely covered the water’s surface. In one section, boxes full of bottled water lined the high shelf. Donovan didn’t see them, however, and started fishing individual bottles out of the water and tossing them into the kiddie pool.

Something rippled through the debris filling the aisle, making a V-shaped wake. Donovan whipped around and rocked the mattress, his feet and knees digging into the inflatable surface. His heart thundered. He hadn’t wanted to admit it but he’d really thought he’d seen something out in the main body of the mall. Of course, it had been so strange and scary it had to have been his imagination. The image burned into his mind was almost demonic. A long, vertical slash of a mouth and eyes that glowed red as they caught the glare of the flashlights.

The mattress rippled. It could have been Donovan’s own movements but he felt sure there was something directly below him in the water. Something big and heavy, uncoiling, ready to spring. Picking up his flashlight, Donovan leaned over and pointed it straight down. The light did little to penetrate the surface.

A thick tentacle shot out of the flood. Froth sprayed off the limb as it whipped around the back of Donovan’s neck and yanked him forward. He didn’t have time to scream, entering the water with a loud splash.

Water filled Donovan’s eyes. Bubbles streamed out of his mouth as he let out an almost soundless scream. The flashlight fell from his hand. Still switched on, it drifted to the bottom of the flooded aisle and cast a glow on its strange surroundings. More trash created a reef across the floor. The glow also picked up a hulking mass of tentacles, coiling and uncoiling in all directions. It loomed over Donovan like an angel of death. The tentacle tightened around the man’s throat. His airway was crushed, the bubbles ceasing to spill out of his lips and the remaining air hitching in his lungs. Twisting, the tentacle broke Donovan’s neck, bone and muscle tearing, face frozen in horror as the life died from his eyes.

James was rowing down his first aisle, collecting muesli and cereal boxes. He had no idea something had happened to Donovan in one of the neighbouring aisles until he heard the shouting. The grocery store was otherwise dead silent except for the trickling water and distant echo of rain.

“Donovan? Donovan?” Terrance yelled.

James paddled to the end of the aisle, dragging his floating kiddie pool, until he could catch sight of Terrance. He drifted above the dairy section. An oily skim of milk and yoghurt covered the water’s surface. Terrance was on his knees, using his flashlight to search the aisles. His voice held a note of desperation.

“What? What is it?” James asked.

“It’s Donovan, he’s not there! His-, his boat, he’s not on it,” Terrance said.

“He fell off? But he said he could swim! I asked all of you if you could swim!”

“He’s not there, I don’t know!”

Something broke through the milky skin covering the water behind Terrance. A fountain shot through the air and hit the ceiling as what looked like tentacles wrapped around Terrance’s arms and chest, and heaved him backward. Terrance let out a short yell. His legs and feet jerked straight up in the air as he and whatever was holding him re-entered the water with another splash. His mattress was hit and flipped up on its side, teetering for a moment before coming back down. Ripples billowed all ways at once, covered in milk and froth.

“Jesus Christ! Jesus, what the fuck was that?” James yelled. “What the fuck was that?”

James thrashed at the water with his paddle, trying to back up. He was exposed, vulnerable. Whatever grabbed Terrance was like some kind of octopus, a giant octopus or a squid, with a thick, torpedo-shaped body and many more tentacles than just eight or ten. It could be anywhere in the water beneath him. It would be able to move a great deal faster through the water, unseen. He could barely steer his lumbering, makeshift raft. James’ only thought was to get away, get back to the escalators and back to the second level, to dry land, where human beings belonged.

“What’s happening?” Evan yelled from somewhere else in the store

“There’s something in the water!” James said. “Some kind of animal!”

The mattress lurched underneath James. It folded in the middle and huge bubbles erupted from either end. Something, the creature, had cut through it from beneath. A thought shot through James’ mind. Cut through it with what? A tool? A weapon? It was an animal.

Mattress rapidly deflating, James struggled to stand on the wallowing raft. He grabbed the nearest shelf and threw himself at it, clamouring up to the top shelf. One foot sunk into the water, finding another shelf for footing while soaking his sock and pants leg, but he shoved off it and kept climbing. His mattress was pulled under, a few last bubbles bursting on the surface. The kiddie pool that had been tethered to it with duct tape was attacked as well. It exploded into the air, flipping as it was smacked from beneath, and catapulted the boxes James had collected. They hit the water all around him, splashing and sinking.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“What is happening?”

On the top shelf, James could see all the way across the store. He managed to hold onto his flashlight. In another aisle, he could see the beam of Evan’s flashlight. The fit, younger man paddled toward the end of the aisle.

“What the hell is going on?” Evan asked.

“I told you, there’s something in the water!” James said. “It took Terrance, it just took him! And I think it got Donovan.”

James swept his light around as he turned atop his narrow island. He couldn’t stand up straight without running into the ceiling but there was enough room for him to move while hunched over. The metal of the shelves dug into his feet, one sock sopping wet. Squinting, he got a glimpse of a strange shape, man-sized or bigger with trailing tentacles, shooting around the end of the aisle. It moved like a missile through the water. All that he could see was a shadow, his light bouncing off the water.

“How did you get up there, man?” Evan turned into view. “What animal?”

Evan and his mattress exploded out of the water. It was like he had been blasted by a torpedo, shooting straight up so hard he crashed into the ceiling. Half a dozen ceiling tiles were broken or knocked loose in a shower of dust. Evan let out a short, surprised yell as he came back down. The mattress sprung upward, wobbling in mid-air, and then fell flat again. Evan came straight back down on top of the mattress but then bounced into the water. Debris hailed all around the raft.

It was toying with them, like a cat with mice. James backed along the top of the shelving, knocking more boxes into the water to either side. He had no weapons, he hadn't thought of any possible reason he could need one. Now, his eyes hunted the surrounding shelves for anything he could use.

“What the hell was that?” Evan screamed from the water, climbing back onto his mattress.

Evan’s raft was hit again, flipping it over. He was hurled through the air, screaming, and landed facedown in the dirty water. His arms thrashed. A V-shaped wake cut across the surface. Tentacles arced through the air, falling on Evan and dragging him under. Bubbles shot to the surface, slowed, and then stopped. Evan didn’t come back up.

“What is this?” James yelled into the silence that followed. “What are you?”

It looked like an animal but there was something alien about it. And James didn’t know why it was hunting them one by one. Even a shark or a man-eating tiger might take one person but then they would slink away to enjoy their kill. This creature was picking them off deliberately, and toying with them. Then, there was the possibility it was using tools. It could be something on the same level as human intelligence, or more, James thought.

Jars and cans of coffee lined the shelf beneath James. He reached down and picked one up. The water rippled, heading away from where Evan had gone down. James pitched the jar at the creature as hard as he could. It hit the water with a splash, sinking harmlessly. James bent over, grabbed another one, and threw it, and then another. The tentacled creature snaked through the water, moving around the splashes, and kept coming toward the shelf James stood on.

The shelving quaked and James let out a shout, flailing his arms to keep his balance. He couldn’t see the creature but it was down there somewhere. Already knocked around by the flooding, the shelf rocked again and started to lean. James staggered to keep his balance but the creature kept pushing. The shelf only made up about a quarter of the whole row but it was extraordinarily heavy and still loaded with products. More jars of coffee and other bits and pieces rained into the adjoining aisle. James stayed on his feet but eventually he fell. Desperate to avoid the water, James threw himself against the top shelf and clawed for purchase, clinging on as the shelving continued to tip. It created a wave underneath it as it fell, rushing down the length of the aisle.

Unfortunately for James, the shelf fell and continued to topple into the other side of the aisle. Clinging to the top, James was caught between the two shelves. His ribs and midsection were crushed. He felt and heard ribs snap. James choked, the breath exploding from his lungs. The rest of the shelves didn’t fall like dominoes, but the standing shelf that James had been hammered against started to rock and go over, pushed by the weight of the falling shelf.

“What-, what-,” James gagged.

Blood spewed out of James’ mouth as he choked it up from his flattened chest. Points of bone dug at his organs. The creature was still there, circling in the water like a shark. As the shelf behind James gave way, driven by the weight of the one that had fallen, he felt like he was being ground into paste. Eventually, the shelf collapsed and dark water swelled up to envelop him, covering his face and swallowing him completely.

Back in the main body of the mall, the shout, screams, and crashing echoed across the water. Jody and Elliot and some of the others had been waiting by the escalators. They screamed back as loud as they could but no answer came from the men who’d gone to raid the grocery store.

“What do we do?” Elliot said. “Do we go after them?

“I-, I don’t know,” Jody said.

They had no backup raft. It would take a while to inflate another mattress even if they wanted to. Certainly no one was willing to jump in and swim. Water lapped the metal steps of the escalators. Rain falling above, the flood kept rising.

~~~

Wipers slapped away the rain inefficiently. Unlike a car, the boat’s wipers didn’t have varying settings, there was just one switch to turn them on and off. In the current torrential downpour they were symbolic and nothing else. Outside the cabin there were practically whiteout conditions. Buildings loomed out of the storm at Donnie, covered in miniature waterfalls. In the middle distance, huge cranes perched over some kind of construction, appearing in and out of the mist like giant insects.

Leaning forward, Donnie wiped away the moisture on the inside of the glass. It made little difference, the poor visibility was down to the rain and fog. He kept purring along the flooded street. One hand gripped the steering wheel tight and the other rested on the throttle. The going was slow and he was no longer sure which way was back to the river. Another intersection had turned into a whirlpool. Construction material filled two of the three streets, creating impassable dams of snarled wood, wire, and metal. The barriers loomed out of the miasma. Donnie pulled away from them, circling.

“Shit!” Donnie said.

Arcing around, Donnie pulled toward the third street but it was also blocked. As he had seen in other places, a web of trash and refuse stretched across the top of the water. Tree branches and garbage, tangles of plastic debris. Maybe he could push the boat through it, maybe he’d get stuck or damage the engine in an attempt, he just didn’t know. Besides, he could see bodies caught in the debris as well. Arms and legs stuck out of the trash. Donnie wasn’t willing to risk riding right over the top of them, cutting them up and churning them into pieces.

“Fuck, this is ridiculous!” Donnie said.

Donnie kept pulling around but the boat’s turning circle was too wide. He was going to crash into one of the buildings. Throwing the throttle into reverse, he lurched and drifted forward for a couple more metres then started to jerk backward. He looked back out of the doorway, across the cabin and over the back deck, to steer, but he couldn’t really see anything except rain. The boat floundered across the flooded intersection, swaying from side to side. Still twisting the wheel, Donnie brough the throttle to neutral and left the watercraft turning slowly in the middle of the buildings and trash.

“I’ll have to go back the way I came, again, shit, and find another way to the river,” Donnie said. “The river, get far enough down the river and I’ll be at the end of the freeway.”

The boat spun, nose ticking around. Donnie pushed the throttle forward again. The engine created a froth in the water. Donnie wrestled with the wheel to get it pointed back the way he’d already come. He had no idea how much time he was wasting by going so slow but he didn’t have much of a choice. He wasn’t familiar with how to steer a boat, had no GPS and even if he did too many roads were blocked, and he had only a vague sense of direction in the storm.

Something hit the boat, slamming the back end near the engines. Although he’d gotten used to the ebbing and flowing of the water, Donnie stumbled sideways. He kept gripping the steering wheel for balance.

“What the fuck?” Donnie said.

Looking back, Donnie still couldn’t see anything but rain. Water pooled on the deck. The boat was only just puttering away in the storm and whatever had hit him came again, smacking into the other side. Donnie whipped around and his eyes rested on the blood covering the console, dried and tacky. His attention turned to the shotgun that had been lying on the floor. He grabbed the throttle again and planned to rocket down the street.

A wet, slapping sound came from outside the doorway, like something heavy and soft falling on the deck. The boat rocked sideways. Donnie imagined a huge seal or better yet, a walrus. Even though the boat was moving, something was pulling itself on board.

“Hey! Hey, is somebody out there?” Donnie said.

The wet slapping sounds continued and Donnie caught glimpses through the storm. What looked like tentacles unfurled across the deck and then went slithering away like snakes. Donnie’s eyes widened. He backed against the controls. Something was out there, alright. He was reminded of the crabs, back on his makeshift raft, but this was bigger, much bigger. He got a sense of it hulking out there, shambling toward the doorway.

“Hello?” Donnie said.

It had him boxed in, Donnie realised. He had come to a dead end, forcing him to slow down to a crawl and turn around. Whatever the thing was, it had used that as its chance to board the boat.

Suddenly, the creature snapped around. Donnie saw tentacles unspooling and lashing out, and something black streaked across the cabin. A spear of some sort skinned Donnie’s side. Catching his coat, it hammered it into the console behind him. A hot line of pain lanced through Donnie’s midsection and he jerked away, nearly tripping, but the harpoon held him against the console like a pinned butterfly.

“Wait, no!” Donnie said.

The thing that had boarded Donnie’s boat filled the doorway. He choked on a gasp. It wasn’t a squid, it wasn’t an octopus. It wasn’t anything that had ever been recorded by a human being before. It stopped, holding itself upright. The creature looked like nothing but a man-sized mass of tentacles at first, dark blue, mottled to almost black in some patches. Dozens of tentacles, some as thick as Donnie’s legs, others small and curling, ranged off the main body of the creature. At the centre, however, was a vaguely humanesque torso. Several of the thickest tentacles branched off the body from where the shoulders would have been on a person. Slightly lower down were two smaller limbs but they ended in spade-shaped flippers rather than hands. It supported itself on a mass of tentacles and two much larger flippers, like stumpy legs, that sprouted off its lower body.

“What are you?” Donnie said.

The creature didn’t have a head, although there was a hump in its torso where the head and neck should have been. Instead, a huge, vertical gash of a mouth ran down the front of the creature’s body. Lips peeled back from dozens and dozens of small, sharp fangs. Running down the sides of the mouth were eyes. Small, round and red, ten of them studied Donnie from across the room. They shone with alien knowing. It had him trapped, pinned to the console with a weapon, and he could see an obvious and cruel intelligence behind those eyes.

Donnie struggled to pull his eyes away from the alien beast. His gaze snapped to the shotgun he’d left on the table beside him. Although his coat was pinned to the dash, he could easily reach the gun. He knew there was only one shot, one shell, loaded.

Donnie lunged toward the shotgun, arm outstretched. He managed to grab the pistol-shaped hilt of the shotgun and dragged the weapon toward him. The creature swarmed across the room. A thick tentacle whipped around and smacked against Donnie’s jaw, wrapping around his head, and a fishy stench invaded his nostrils. His head whiplashed backward, dazing him, as the creature continued across the cabin. The shotgun slipped off the table and banged against the deck.

The creature had underestimated him, Donnie realised. It had speared his jacket and assumed he was completely nailed to the console. The spear had drawn some blood, grazing the side of his stomach, but the injury wasn’t serious. The fishy creature had the advantage though as it hit him from the side. It wrapped him up in powerful limbs, pulling him and shoving him toward the ground. His coat ripped, leaving the spear jutting from the console as it came free. Donnie hit the ground and cried out, the weight of the beast pouring down on top of him. It was so strong but also seemingly boneless, like trying to fight wet concrete.

“Get off of me!” Donnie screamed.

More terrified than he had ever been in his life, Donnie was trapped under the creature. Tentacles wrapped around his body, around his arms and legs, and held him helpless. The rows of eyes down the sides of its mouth all had stretched, rectangular pupils like a goat or sheep, red eyes speckled with black. They fixed on Donnie with fearful intensity. The gash of a mouth peeled open, slathering, so big it could have easily enveloped Donnie’s whole head, or an arm, or a leg.

The shotgun lay on the ground beside the table. With a yelp of effort, Donnie twisted and stretched his hand toward it. His fingertips brushed the grip but one of the tentacles wound around Donnie’s wrist and smashed it against the deck. Man-sized, the creature was actually much heavier than it looked and much too strong. The tentacles were pure muscle, as was the rest of the creature’s body it seemed. Its flesh was dense and sinewy. Pausing its attack, it started staring at Donnie again.

“What are you? What do you want?” Donnie screamed.

The creature seemed to be taking pleasure in Donnie’s helplessness. He squirmed and fought, unable to get out from under it. His arms couldn’t get free. After a few moments, breathing hard, Donnie did the only thing it seemed he could do. Lunging forward, he opened his mouth and bit down, his teeth grazing and then fixing on one of the creature’s eyes.

It could feel pain like any other animal. Spasming, the creature squealed and tried to rip free. Donnie kept biting down. As strong as it was, he wouldn’t let up. He felt something burst and the most disgusting taste he could imagine filled his mouth. It was like fish that had been spoiling and rotting into a stew of hot, salty sewer water in the sun for days. His gag reflex was actually tougher to fight than the creature attempting to pull away but he kept biting down until he felt the creature’s tentacles loosen from his arms and legs.

Donnie let go, brackish gore streaming from his mouth. He only had one shot, literally. Rolling to one side, he reached out and grabbed for the shotgun again. The creature yowlled. It didn’t see Donnie pull the shotgun toward him.

Acting on instinct, Donnie shoved the barrel of the shotgun into the creature’s mouth. He thumbed the safety. Donnie had no idea where the creature’s brain was, where its heart was, where anything essential might be. He shoved the shotgun deeper, the creature’s fangs parting around the body of the weapon until they almost reached his wrist. The monster’s eyes widened with what Donnie imagined was shock.

Donnie’s finger tightened on the trigger. He felt the weapon explode inside the creature, a thick, wet, muffled boom that bucked against his wrist. The back of the hump on top of the creature’s body burst. A shower of gore spewed out of the exit wound, and out of its mouth where the shotgun was jammed.

The monstrosity thrashed violently, driving Donnie into the deck, and then suddenly went still. Its fishy bulk fell on top of him. He let out a yell of pain and shock. His hand was still wrapped around the hilt of the shotgun, stuck inside the creature with his arm twisted sideways. Smoke wafted out of the long, vertical mouth and the crater in the back of the creature’s ‘head’.

“My God, oh, fuck, fuck,” Donnie said.

Tentacles fell all around the body. Donnie managed to relax his hand and released the gun shoved into the creature’s mouth. He grappled with the mass of tentacles. With several shoves, he managed to lever that creature off of him and heave it aside. The unbelievably disgusting taste of its fluids still filled his mouth. Covered in fishy gunk and streaked in gore, Donnie wriggled free and sat against one of the cabin walls, staring at the monster he’d just taken down.

“Oh shit, shit, shit.”

The boat purred along, slowly. Somehow it had managed to keep going down, only slowly sidling sideways. With a loud crunch, it ran into one of the buildings to the side of the street. Glass popped and crackled, and metal screeched off of concrete. Donnie struggled to his feet and lunged at the controls. Yanking the throttle back to neutral, he set the boat to drifting for a few moments while he collected his thoughts. The fishy body covered the floor of the cabin.

“I don’t-, I don’t believe this is happening,” Donnie said, and he threw up.