Jenna watched the darkening ocean in trepidation. It had come every sunset this week. Tonight would be no different.

A swirl of wind whipped her brown hair into a frenzy around her face before settling back down. She pushed the hair behind her ear without taking her gaze from the rainbowed water, and settled more deeply into her seat in the sand.

Once the sun had started setting, it didn’t take long before the darkness won its struggle against the light. The stars would be out in full force in about thirty minutes. It would be here soon.

The strong noise of chopper blades broke through the hypnotizing swell and retreat of the waves. Jenna shaded her eyes from the last rays of the sun and looked up. It was probably one of the search and rescue teams, still looking for the missing tourist fishing boat that hadn’t arrived in port the night before. Everyone was starting to give up hope.

“Jenna? Jenna?” Grandpa. He hated it when she spent this much time by the ocean, especially at night. He thought it was bad for her asthma. And it should be, but so far in her eighteen years she hadn’t been able to find a place where she could breathe better. Something about the salt air opened her lungs.

“Down here, Grandpa. I’ll be up in a few minutes. I want to watch the rest of the sunset.”

“Supper’s done,” Thomas answer. “Don’t dawdle.”

Five minutes would be plenty of time. It always showed itself in the very last moment of twilight.

The beating blades of the chopper went nearly right over her head. Grandpa’s place here on the peninsula was the farthest point into the ocean in the area. The Coast Guard base was only a mile down the beach. Four miles if you went by road.

A tingling started in her stomach, followed shortly by a deep, sad cry somewhere out across the water. Jenna shivered in spite of the warm March breeze drifting up from Mexico and scrambled to her feet.

It was coming.

The cry sounded again, this time much longer than the first. A head broke through the water, followed by a long neck and then a back. It was much closer to shore than the night before. As usual, it was too dark to get a good view of the monster. She’s tried capturing it on camera once, but when she’d popped the SD card into the computer and checked the pictures out, the monster wasn’t visible against the dark background. She probably should report the thing to someone, but who was going to believe her? So far it hadn’t seemed to mean any harm to anyone.

The monster turned suddenly and looked in her direction. Jenna stomach turned. This was new. A moment later the whoosh whoosh of the chopper that had been going back and forth in the area sounded behind her. The creature disappeared beneath the water.

So that was that. Jenna brushed the sand off her jean capris.

The black helicopter went by overhead, large white letters proclaiming ‘COAST GUARD’ on the side.

“Good luck,” Jenna whispered.

One last glance over the ocean, and she turned to head up the beach to the house. Grandpa was always serious when it came to food. She’d better get up there.

Jenna had just turned her back and started up the hill of sand to her grandpa’s shanty when the sound of something breaking the water at a high rate of speed burst across the beach. She jerked around just in time to see the creature grab a part of the chopper. Horror spilled through her as the thing dove back toward the ocean, releasing the chopper just before impact.

“Grandpa! Grandpa, get the fishing boat!” Jenna screamed as she ran down the beach, knocking off her flip-flops and pulling off the t-shirt she had on over her swimsuit.

“What’s that?” Her grandpa must have been coming to get her for supper again, he was part way down the sand hill behind his house.

Jenna didn’t take the time to answer. Flames erupted on top of the water where the chopper had made impact, sending smoke into the air and lighting the path. She slammed into the cool water. The waves were huge compared to a few minutes ago. Whatever that thing was, it must have hit the water hard. She swallowed down the wisdom that said she shouldn’t be entering the water. This was where she felt most at home. She would not let herself become afraid of the ocean because of that thing. Somehow she knew it was gone anyway. There was no explanation as to why she felt so sure of that, but she did.

Smoke billowed from the twisted wreck gurgling two hundred feet out to sea. It was deep there. Very deep.

The chopper shuddered and went under. She had used up the few seconds it took for the air to leak out of the compartments. The people on board were going to die.

No. They weren’t. She wouldn’t let them. She gasped for breath as she pushed herself to swim harder than she had ever swam before.

The wonderful growl of her grandpa’s fishing boat came across the water just as she reached the point where the chopper had gone under.

She took a deep breath and was about to plunge when a wave pushed something against her. She shoved it back. Warm skin! She could barely make him out in the dark, but a man in a vest floated nearby. She grabbed him and flipped him on his back. She’d almost missed him. The waves where starting to calm. She kept the guy on his back and started to butterfly kick toward the beach.

The whack of her grandpa’s motor drew closer. The big searchlight he kept near the wheel lit the water in arcs traveling back and forth across the water. “Jenna? Jenna!” his booming voice carried across the water.

She raised her right arm, keeping her left firmly around the soldier. “Here Grandpa! Over here!”

The small circle of light landed on her and stayed there. “I’m coming, don’t move!”

It was an eternity before he got the boat maneuvered close enough that she could grab the ladder with her free hand. She tugged on the guys life vest, bringing him as close to the boat as possible. Her grandpa’s huge, rough hand reached down out of the darkness.

“I’ve got someone down here, do you think you can pull him up?”

Her grandpa, Thomas, bent forward and slid his hands under the guys armpits and hauled him out of the water and onto the deck.

Jenna took a breath and shoved off the boat. There had to be at least one more person.

Thomas turned his search light on her in the water. “Jenna, the Coast Guard is on the way. They say their cutter will be here any moment. Come out of the water!”

She couldn’t. Not when there was a chance she could save someone’s life. She stroked back over to where the chopper had disappeared, pulled in as much air as her lungs could hold, and went under.

The deep blue of the ocean after dark wasn’t very good for visibility. Huge bubbles of air hit her from below. That wasn’t a good sign. There. A body, tangled in the wreckage. She dove as deep as she could, ears popping, the dark water crushing her as she begged whatever had ripped the chopper from the sky to ignore her.

The chopper sank faster. Her fingertips brushed a cable, and she grabbed it, trying to keep what was left from sinking farther, but instead of her stopping it, the wreck pulled her down.

Down so deep the dark stillness nearly suffocated her. Her lungs burned as she ran out of air, pulling herself down the cable toward the person she knew was here somewhere.

But she couldn’t find him. Jenna kicked for the surface, bursting out of the water to suck in a breath. She gagged as she cried, tears mixing with the ocean water.

She was about to dive again when something whizzed by her in the water below. Panic bubbled inside her chest. She flinched as the movement repeated, body going cold. What was down there? The creature couldn’t be back, she would have felt its return. She bolted for the boat without pausing. There was no saving the person who’d gone down with the wreckage.

“Grandpa, pull me up. There’s something down here!”

“What?” Even this scared Jenna could tell he was mad.

Jenna slammed into the side of the boat. She barely had a chance to grab onto the ladder before her grandpa’s meaty hands wrapped around her upper arms and jerked her up, dropping her on the floor of the boat.

“What were you thinking? Who knows what condition the pilot of the chopper is in, there could be blood everywhere in the water. You know it doesn’t take long for sharks to zero in on that smell.”

Jenna rested on all fours in the bottom of the boat, taking deep gulping breaths of the cooling air and blowing the salt water out of her nose. Thomas bent down over her and rubbed her back for a second.

Thomas stood. “I need to check on the guy you pulled out.”

Jenna nodded. He probably couldn’t see her in the dark. Two more. There had to be at least two more people down there. The pilot was one, and another rescuer. She pulled herself up and looked over the edge of the boat. The water boiled with activity in the small beam her grandpa’s searchlight threw.

Something moved just under the surface. Jenna backed away from the edge of the deck. What if it was back, and she just hadn’t felt it this time? If it could take down a chopper that easily, what could it do to her grandpa’s small fishing boat?

Two gray heads broke the surface of the water. Dolphins. Dolphins with a girl in uniform strung between them.

“What the-” But at least the presence of dolphins meant no sharks.

Hopefully that was the only movement down in that water. “Grandpa, help me out here!” Jenna tossed a life ring off the boat and dove off the side. She grabbed the ring and started toward the animals, slowing down as she got closer. They didn’t seem to be afraid, but scaring them off would be bad.

The dolphin on the left started chittering to her. As if it was trying to tell her something. They dragged the girl to her and Jenna took her from them, sliding the ring over the girl’s head and pulling her arm through. Now wasn’t the time to worry about neck injuries.

“It’s going to be okay.” The woman probably couldn’t hear her. She just needed to say something. They hung suspended by the life ring while Jenna let her exhausted muscles rest a moment. The body slung across the life ring went into violent shivers. It was cold down here in the water. Where was Thom? He must not have heard her yell.

This wasn’t the person she’d seen being dragged down by the chopper. She was much smaller, and had a slightly different uniform. Jenna bit her lip to keep herself under control. Two out of three. Hopefully her guess on how many people would have been on board was correct.

“Ho, down on the surface! Hold on for a moment, don’t let go,” a voice carried across the water. The Coast Guard. Jenna went limp with relief. She hadn’t heard them arrive.

The Coast Guard cutter slid up along-side Jenna and the now still woman. Hands reached down and pulled the woman from her, then were back for her, hauling her over the side of the boat.

“Any injuries?” a medic asked her.

“No, not me. I was on shore and came out to help. It’s the lady, help her. And another man, he was tangled in the chopper wreckage, someone needs to go down after him!”

The medic was gone in a second.

Jenna let herself collapse onto a bench in the front of the boat. Where was her grandpa? Oh no, the other guy from the chopper, somewhere with Thomas. He may need help as well. She pulled herself up and grabbed the closest man.

“Excuse me.”

“Just a minute.” He went back to talking to a diver about to jump off the side of the boat.

She pulled on his arm. “Excuse me but-”

Annoyance flashed across the guys face. “Can’t you see we are trying to save lives here? Go back with the rest of the civilians.”

“I’m not a just a civilian, and there’s a guy on my grandpa’s boat over there that we pulled out of the water. He didn’t seem like he was in very good shape, you might want to get someone to check on him.” Okay, so technically she was a civilian, but Thom had been in the Navy, that had to count for something, right?

The man’s face changed instantly. “I’m sorry, I thought you were one of the guests on board for the banquet. Excuse me.” He started off toward where the medics were taking care of the female officer. He turned back to look at her as he hurried on. “Don’t move, we’re going to need a statement from you.”

Oh yeah, she was planning on jumping back in the ocean in the dark. She went back to her bench and laid out flat on it. Everyone was going to be busy for awhile, this had to be her best chance to catch her breath, and get herself under control.

                                                *          *          *

Evan knocked on the weathered shanty door. Someone should help this old guy give this place a paint job. That somebody was probably going to be him. Lieutenant Thurston wanted to know what had hit the chopper, and he figured the best man for the job was Evan. He had been at the scene and was said to have quite a way with the ladies. At least that was the excuse the Lieutenant had given him. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t mind the getting to know the girl part, she was pretty and she had saved his life.

But she was also a liar. Thurston had sent man after man to get her statement, and it always stayed familiar in the same vague way. She didn’t see what knocked the chopper out of the air, she had no idea what could have caused it to come down. Jamison had been on that chopper with him, they had been together since they joined when they were eighteen. Now he was dead and Evan wanted to know who was behind it.

The old man must have a hard time hearing. Evan rapped on the door again, feeling it through his whole body. He was still more sore than he had any right to be. But it didn’t matter. He was treating this as a mission. He knew everything there was to know about Jenna Reynolds and her grandfather, Thomas. Her parents had gotten a few minutes of inspection too, but they hadn’t been present the night of the crash.

Finally, footsteps on the other side of the door. Evan pulled his t-shirt down over the top of his khaki shorts. It felt odd being out of uniform, but he wanted to put as much distance between the Coast Guard and himself as he could. She’d be more likely to talk that way.     

A huge, grizzled old man opened the door. His body filled the entire opening. This wasn’t exactly the type of old man he had been expecting, but it had to be the grandpa that had helped the girl pull him out of the water. He still couldn’t remember a thing about that.

“Hi. I’m Evan Carnihan-”

“From the chopper incident last week.” The old man’s voice was as grizzly as his appearance. He didn’t seem very welcoming.

“Yes. I came to say thanks. For pulling me out of the water.”

“You’re welcome. I would have done it for anyone.”

This guy was obviously not going to be any help. “Is the girl around? The one that was there and helped?” Better to pretend he didn’t know anything about her.

A flash of something went across the old man’s face before it went blank. “No. She isn’t here. I’ll tell her you stopped by and give her your thanks.”

He could tell when he was being dismissed. Time for an orderly retreat and regrouping. “Thanks.” He would be back, sometime when he knew the granddaughter was around. Something had killed Jamisen. Something that no one was admitting to. And he was going to find out what.

                                                *          *          *

Back to school. How did one just go back to school after a night like Thursday night? Thankfully her mom had let Jenna stay home on Friday, but here she was again. Her dad hadn’t let her go back to grandpa’s over the weekend, so she had no idea if the creature who had caused so much havoc had stuck around to enjoy it or not. Probably not. From the reports she was getting from her grandpa, the entire Coast Guard was still out there searching.

Her locker door slammed shut, nearly catching her fingers. She jerked away from the locker, holding in a squeal.

“Brian!” She turned to look at the guy who’d slammed the door shut. She should be used to this by now. “Would you quit doing that? Someday you’re going to catch my hand.”

“Nope, I won’t quit.” He leaned down over her, his blue eyes sparkling, and flashed her a grin. “You can’t make me. Wanna go surfing after school?”

That was Brian all right, a one track mind. Surfing.

“Shut up Brian. She’s been through a lot in the last couple days.” Brian’s golden twin Britney interjected. Okay, not literal twins, but the siblings looked like it. She flipped her blond hair over shoulder and leaned in close to Jenna, blocking off her only other chance of escape. Sometimes her best friends could be a little over the top.

“Was it terrible?” Britney asked. “Or, more importantly, were the guys from the Coast Guard cutter that picked you up hot?”

Another one track mind. Must have had something to do with the sibling thing.

“I don’t really want to talk about this, guys. You asked your questions already, and I don’t want to think about it anymore.” Jenna slung her messenger bag over her shoulder and started toward gym class. Normally it was a bad thing she didn’t have any classes with the twins until after lunch, but right now it was a good thing.

“Just a couple questions, and then we’ll drop it.” Brian said. “Promise. You didn’t answer anything we asked by text over the weekend, not really.”

They were not going to let this go. The three of them had been friends long enough that she knew there wasn’t a chance. “Two questions.”

“Each!” Britany added.

“Two total, one question each.”

“Did you see any hot guys in uniform?” Britany asked again.

Ugh. Seriously, if they hadn’t grown up friends, they would never have become friends in high school. “I didn’t have time to notice. I was trying to save people’s lives.”

“Which leads to my question,” Brian interjected. “Did you see what happened? Choppers don’t just go down like that.”

This wasn’t great. The three of them never lied to each other. Not about anything. Not their parent’s divorce, or her grandma’s death. But did she really want to tell them she’d been seeing a creature at night, haunting the bay? Her stomach turned, the sight of it dragging the chopper beneath the waves far too fresh in her mind.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Do you know what’s on the menu for lunch?”

That made both of them lean in close. Shoot. They knew her too well.

“You’re not going anywhere until you answer the question,” Britany said.

“I saw… I don’t even know what. I’ve been seeing it, every night at sunset, for a week now. But every time I run to get Thom, it’s gone before I get back. And the lighting is never good enough to get a video.”

Britany and Brian exchange looks.

“Seriously! I think it’s some kind of sea monster or something.”

“And you didn’t invite us to come and see it?” Brian’s voice was indignant. “You didn’t think for a second, oh, my best friend Brian might like something like this?”

“I don’t need people thinking I’m crazy. I’m already weird, and that’s without most people here knowing about my brother.”

“Eh,” Brian waved a hand. “Everyone’s weird. Just like everyone’s special. So if everyone is weird and special, is anyone weird or special?”

“Now you did it,” Britany said. “You know not to get him started on this.”

“Yeah. My bad.”

“If you don’t want to hear this lecture, there’s an easy fix. Let us see the monster.”

“Fine then. Tonight. Half an hour before sunset. Be at my grandpa’s.”

                                    *          *          *

“That’s coming along just fine,” the big man said in approval, his hands on his hips. Somehow he’d roped Evan into painting, because he was old and it wasn’t safe for him to be on a ladder.

Ha. The old man was probably safer up here than he was, considering how he didn’t act like an old man now that the painting was done.

“If you’re going to be waiting around for Jenna, I can always find you some more things to keep you busy. You know, just so you don’t get bored.”

Ah yes. So he didn’t get bored. Over the last two days he’d fixed shingles on the roof, painted a section of the house, and fixed the front fence. And yet, he still hadn’t seen who he’d come to see.

Would he recognize her if he saw her? Because it was almost time to just go and camp outside of her school.

The old man pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot off a text message. Suspicious. Maybe he was warning the granddaughter to stay away. Well. She couldn’t stay away forever, and he had to know what she saw that night.

Jamisen’s body had never been recovered. And at this point, the chance it would be was getting more and more slim. Henderson, the medic who also owed Jenna her life, may or may not recover. Physically she was going to be fine, but mentally… Being dragged beneath the waves had left its mark, and no one was believing her story.

“Speaking with Jenna?” Evan asked. The subtle way didn’t seem to be working. Time for a bit of a push.

“She comes and goes as she pleases. I make sure she’s got food to heat up and check on her before I go to bed, but I can’t guarantee you she’ll even be home until after dark.”

Seriously. Seriously. Now he was getting suspicious that the old man knew something. This was past him just wanting free labor.

Whatever Evan had seen that night… There was no real explanation. No missile, no other chopper, nothing that made any sound other than the splash. It was big, whatever it was.

There, and then gone. Though it wasn’t like he’d really had a chance to see anything once the chopper had started down toward the water. Henderson’s explanation of a sea monster had been dismissed by everyone right away as PTSD. But Evan didn’t have a better one. And neither had the mechanics on base after the dive team had brought up the wreckage.

He needed Jenna to explain to him what had happened. How Jamisen had died. And why he was still alive.

“That’s okay. I’ll wait.” Leaving and coming back hadn’t worked so well thus far. If the old man kicked him off the property, he’d just have to start a stakeout.

“Suit yourself.” Thomas turned and walked back into the small cabin, letting the door slam behind him without another word.

“Wonderful.” Evan slid down the ladder and moved over to sit on a rock in the shade of a nice tree. Up on the ladder had been hot when he’d climbed it carrying a bucket of paint hours ago. It had only gotten worse since.

He closed his eyes and leaned back. A bit of rest would be good. After a couple minutes, he cracked open an eye to check on the cabin. Sure enough, a curtain moved.

The old man was spying on him. Which left him in an interesting position. Stay right here out in the open, and hope the old man didn’t tell his granddaughter not to come home. Or be a creeper out in the brush.

Something was going on, that was obvious. Why in the world did Thomas whats-his-name not want him talking to his granddaughter?

A stealth mission had a much better chance of success.

He stretched and stood, acting like he’d actually had a quick cat-nap. Then he waved toward the window, and walked toward his motorcycle, waiting at the curb.

After putting on his helmet and saluting the house, he pulled away. About a mile later he found a small beach access, pulled in and parked. A mile might be a bit extreme, but the old man seemed like the paranoid type.

And one way or another, he was going to have a discussion with Jenna tonight.

                                    *          *          *

A text from Thomas gave her the all clear. Why her grandpa was helping her hide from a Guardsmen, she had no idea. But she was grateful, whatever the reason happened to be.

She jogged into the house and dumped her mostly empty backpack on the table.

A note said Thomas had gone to find something for them for supper. He never kept food in the house, and for sure never cooked.

After changing into her swimsuit and a pair of shorts, Jenna slipped through the back sliding door of the weathered cabin, making for the beach.

What did that Guardsman want? Stupid question. He wanted to know what had happened that night. So did she. But she couldn’t tell him what she saw without sounding crazy. She needed proof first.

Proof that maybe Brian and Brittany would be able to help her get.

If someone hadn’t been killed, she would have never betrayed the creature. Something about it called to her…

But she couldn’t let another tragedy happen. Couldn’t unsee the chopper being pulled beneath the water.

The sun had already begun its descent, though it wasn’t behind the water yet. Twenty minutes or so. The twins had better hurry.

She moved to her regular spot and sat, staring out over the bay. Where normally a sense of peace hit her at this point, now only anxiety covered her. What made her think she’d be able to get proof tonight, after failing every other attempt?

Need. Tonight she needed to get proof. There were people all up and down the coast in the water, swimming, surfing, boating. If this thing had decided it enjoyed going after humans, she had to warn everyone.

“Hello.”

She flew off the rock she was sitting on, hitting the sand hard.

“Shoot.” The Guardsman she’d pulled from the water that night leaned over her. “Are you okay? Sorry, I totally didn’t mean to startle you like that.”

Okay, this was not cool. At all. Had he been here, spying, waiting on her? Her grandpa had been entertaining the man the entire day, letting Jenna know when it was safe to come home.

And yet here he was. She should have trouble recognizing him, in his jeans, boots, and faded t-shirt instead of his Coast Guard uniform, but she didn’t. His face had been burned into her memory forever.

“I’m fine. What are you doing here?” Oops. Blurting that out wasn’t very classy, but too late now. She stood and dusted herself off before moving back to sit on the rock.

“I came to thank you. For saving my life. I’m Evan. Evan Carnihan.” He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes boring into her, waiting for an answer to something he hadn’t even asked.

“Uh, welcome?” Why did that come out as a question? Stupid, stupid.

“May I?” he gestured toward a rock beside her, and politely waited for an answer.

Awkward. How could she say no without being really rude? She nodded, and he sat beside her.

“I did have some questions. About what happened that night.”

Here it was. The real reason he was here.

“Before the chopper went down, something…” he trailed off, his gaze going out over the water, unfocused. “I didn’t see what it was. The medic who was with me, her story doesn’t make much sense. And Jameisen… he’s gone.”

She shivered, tears popping up unexpectedly. She hadn’t known the man, but to see him die… Until this moment she’d been able to convince everyone that she was fine. Including herself.

“I’m sorry. Were you close?”

 His shoulders slumped and suddenly he looked almost old. “We grew up together. Joined the service together. He was my brother, in everything but DNA.”

His words were like a fist to her gut. Would he believe her if she told him the truth? How much had he seen? Some part of her rebelled at the thought of betraying the sea creature, but the memory of what it had done wouldn’t stop playing behind her eyelids. The chopper being pulled from the air, and the man, tangled in the wreck beneath the surface.

“Stay with me until sunset. Hopefully then you’ll have your answer.”

He looked at her oddly, but didn’t protest. If she told him what had actually happened, and he looked her up online, he’d think her crazy. He’d find the articles about her brother, and he’d write-off anything she had to say. So she’d show him, instead of telling.

And then what happened next would be on him, not on her.

A bright red convertible skidded around the corner down from the shack, revving as it came up the road and slid into the driveway spitting gravel. A welcome distraction, and now she had two people who were on her side here.

Brian shoved his door open while Brittany went over the top of hers. They messed around in the back for a moment, shoving each other and grabbing equipment.

“Friends of yours?” Evan asked.

A bit embarrassed to say yes, she nodded anyway. “Brian and Brittany.”

Brittany reached them first, slightly less weighed down than Brian. She noticed Evan right away and smiled, dropping a bag to curl her bangs around a finger.

“Jenna. Who’s this?”

“This is Evan. I told you about him earlier at school.”

Brittany dropped the act and studied Evan.

Evan nodded a hello. “I hope it was good things she had to say.”

“I don’t know you well enough to say anything good,” Jenna said. “Or anything bad, for that matter. But whatever. We need to get going, or we’re going to miss it.”

“Miss what?” Evan asked.

“You’ll see. You have to see, so you don’t call me crazy.”

“After what happened a few nights ago, I don’t think anything you could tell me would be taken as crazy.” He followed her though, ignoring Brittany’s gaze pleading for him to carry her stuff and sticking to Jenna.

The sound of the surf got louder as they made their way over the bank of sand that guarded her grandfather’s shack from the elements, and made their way closer to the water.

Wind whipped her hair. That was the reason for her eyes tearing up, not the fact that she hadn’t been back down here since that day.

Was her love of the sea gone forever? How could it be, when until the moment that thing had brought down the chopper it had been so strong?

She dropped down near a cluster of reeds on the ridge looking out over the bay. Her usual spot.

Without a word, Evan sat down beside her. He seemed to know that this wasn’t the time to be asking questions.

Brittany did not.

“Where is it? How big is it? How long will we have to sit here?”

Jenna didn’t answer her, which Brittany didn’t seem to notice. She held a finger up to her lips, like the creature actually cared about something going on all the way up here, and settled in to wait.

                                    *          *          *

He kept his silence for twenty minutes. But then, it got to the point he couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “What exactly are we waiting to see?” Evan asked.

“A sea monster,” Brian answered.

“A sea monster?” Normally he kept his mouth shut without problem, but that answer was just too bizarre. Not that part of him hadn’t been expecting it. It didn’t make sense, but neither did any other explanation he could come up with. Tonight he’d find out if he was crazy or not. Both him and the medic who’d been on board that night.

“If I have to say wait and see one more time, this stakeout is over,” Jenna hissed from her rock beside him. He almost let a grin slip, but caught himself. Sassy. You’d have liked her, Jamisen. “As you wish,” Evan said.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Brittany gasped, far too dramatic for the situation.

“Seriously?” Brian asked.

Brittany grabbed his arm and pointed out at the water, her hand trembling so hard he couldn’t figure out exactly where she pointed.

“What the…” Brian whispered.

“Shhh,” Jenna hissed.

A head rose above the water. It had to be huge to look this big from the shoreline. And it kept going up, and up, water flowing down the massively long neck. Its mouth opened and a mournful cry shivered through the air. He could feel it down to his bones.

“Is that…” he couldn’t get any more out. He wasn’t crazy. It really had been a monster that had taken down the chopper. He’d seen it, but had written it off as the trauma of losing Jamisen. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know,” Jenna answered. “It started showing up a little over a week before... It just keeps coming back and calling like that. Then it’s gone, disappearing under the water.”

Heat rose up his neck. The anger that had boiled under the surface since he’d lost his brother bubbling, ready to come out. “And you never told anyone? Look what it did! You got my friend killed from your negligence!”

Brian stepped between them. “Hey man, that’s not cool. She didn’t know something like that would happen, or she’d have handled it.”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Like she’s handling it now? She knew what happened to us, and she didn’t come forward!” He seethed, skin going hot. If she’d told someone this thing was out here, warned someone, Jamisen would still be alive.

He looked at her. She had her face turned, but he caught sight of a tear dripping off her chin. Apparently she did feel bad about it. But that didn’t change anything.

“I need to get closer. Get a picture of it so I can show the sergeant.” They didn’t need to know why. His superiors thought he’d cracked because of what he’d seen that night. He’d almost thought so too. But here was the proof that he hadn’t.

 Brian held up a fancy camera with a huge lens. “Why do you think we’re here?”

Maybe they weren’t useless. “Move out.” He led the way, sliding down the sand bank to the beach.

“Wait!” Jenna called quietly. “It will hear you and leave!”

Evan froze. If it left, it might never come back. If it never came back, he’d never get what he needed.

“It doesn’t seem to mind me, but whenever my grandpa comes out, it drops under the surface.” She passed him and walked down to the water’s edge, stopping with the waves lapping at her feet.

The water looked… strange around her toes. Glowy.

“Uh, Jenna?” Brian said.

“Yeah?” she asked, staring out over the water.

“What’s happening to your feet?”

She glanced down for a second, looking perplexed. When she looked up, her eyes sparked. Literally.

Evan took a small step back. As if some sea monster wasn’t enough. What was going on here?

“I don’t know,” Jenna answered. But she didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was monotone, no inflection. Surely she should be freaking out right now. He was freaking out, and he wasn’t even the one doing the glowing.

In their time staring at Jenna, the rest of them missed the creature sliding under the water. When Evan looked out, it was gone. “No!” He kicked the sand, spraying some into the surf. “I never got proof!” If he couldn’t prove it existed, he couldn’t get it hunted down and taken out so it couldn’t hurt anyone else.

Brian held up his camera. “You forget about this already? I videoed the whole thing.”

Brittany moved over to stand next to Jenna, who still just stared out over the water. “Jenna? You okay?”

“What the-” Brian fumbled around with his camera. “You can’t see anything in these. Why can’t you see anything?”

No pictures. Evan took a deep breath, centering himself. He glanced over at Jenna. Okay, the weird staring was starting to get creepy. Evan moved up to stand next to Jenna and Brittany, ignoring his boots getting wet.

“Jenna, honey, can you hear me?” Brittany took Jenna’s hand, but Jenna didn’t notice. She took a step out into the water. Then another. Brittany gripped her hand tight, keeping her from going in any deeper. Trying to, anyway. Jenna just kept moving forward.

Evan grabbed her other hand, but she didn’t even look at him. She moved forward with unyielding strength, not even pausing when he put his years of lifting weights into holding her down.

“Brian,” Brittany yelled. “Go get Thomas!”

Brian bolted for the shack, but Evan didn’t watch him go. He wrestled with Jenna, trying to keep her on shore. She didn’t speak and her fixed gaze didn’t leave the water.

“Come on, Jenna, hey!” His shout had no effect. Brittany continued screaming something, but he couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.

Holding her back got more and more difficult as they got farther into the water. With little effort, Jenna shook off Brittany, a zap of light knocking her under water.

Struggling to keep Jenna from going deeper, Evan kept an eye out for Brittany to surface. It didn’t happen. He fought Jenna, thrashing around as she continually shoved him away.

Jenna was going to get away from him eventually. And Brittany still hadn’t come up. He had to save the one he could.

As soon as his grip loosened, Jenna dove beneath the waves. The water swallowed her instantly, the sun nearly set leaving the depths pure black. He dove into the water, arms flailing, looking for Brittany.

Lungs burning, he stayed under as long as he could, but he had to come up for a breath. As soon as he hit the surface, he screamed her name. There was no answer.

The water lit up from beneath, a strange color of blue. He bit his lip, hard, to keep himself from tearing for the safety of the beach.

There. The light made a body floating over to his right take shape in the water.

It had to be Brittany. He jumped that direction and caught her by her jacket just as the current jerked her toward open water. A screech came from the water’s edge, but he didn’t have time to look and see what was going on. He put all of his weight against the undertow that shouldn’t be there, keeping Brittany in place but not making any progress back toward the beach.

A crash of a body hitting the water behind him sent a shock of relief to his toes. Jenna’s grandpa was beside him in a flash, grabbing onto Brittany’s limp body. Together they kept her head above the water, pulling her back toward shore.

They spilled out onto the sand and he laid Brittany out.

“Is she breathing?” Brian shoved him out of the way, sliding under her head, cradling her.

“Nice strong breathing,” Evan said. He looked up to catch Thomas’ eyes.

“Jenna?” Thomas asked.

Evan turned to look out at the water, and Thomas dropped to the sand beside him.

                                    *          *          *

The water had always been her refuge. A place to hide when her parents fought. When her brother had one of his days. But the peace of the water at the moment… it was like nothing she’d ever felt before.

Now it felt… quiet. Even her normally chaotic brain couldn’t get through the fog, the stream of thoughts always there, but far in the background right now.

How long had she been underwater? Too long, right?

The strange light radiating from her body showed a path ahead of her along the sea floor. She looked up, her hair floating across her face. She was at least twenty feet under, walking the ocean floor, but her ears didn’t pop and the normal crush of the depths wasn’t there.

Something flitted by, but she hardly took note.

The call. The call was all she could think about.

One foot in front of the other, and she stayed on the bottom without trying. The sea floor dropped sharply, and after only a few more steps she couldn’t see the surface anymore.

She should be freaking out. Trying to swim, trying to go back. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t know why.

Actually, she did. The song the monster sang every night. Tonight, it was in her head. Coaxing her out into the depths.

The sky was completely gone. Whether enough time had passed that the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, or she was so deep she couldn’t see anything above at this point, she couldn’t tell.

The strange light illuminating her path didn’t waver. She marveled for just a second, but then the thought faded like the rest.

A face drifted up from a deep channel in front of her. The sea monster. It stared into her eyes, its head far taller than her entire body.

“Your sea monster.” Its voice manifested in her head, deep and mellow.

My sea monster? What’s that supposed to mean? She felt the first trickle of fear. Ridiculous that it had taken this long. What was going on?

It stared into her eyes, and an image flew through her mind. The strange birthmark on her thigh was there, but instead of on skin, it was on the outside of an egg shell, the egg brilliant blue, the color of sunlight from below water.

“We were connected, before either of us were born. But this is long enough for your first time. You must return to the surface.” He broke eye contact and turned to leave.

Wait! I have to know. Why the chopper? How could you just kill someone like that?

He paused but didn’t turn back. “It wasn’t me. I was here to warn you, but I failed.”

When will I see you again?

This time he did turn, and he nearly trembled in excitement, like a puppy waiting for its best friend. “As soon as possible. As soon as he is gone.” He used this giant head to gently shove her toward the surface.

And then he disappeared.

“Wait! What do I call you? Who is he?”

There was no answer. The water started to crush down on her. For the first time since she’d gone below the surface, her lungs noticed that they hadn’t been breathing for far too long.

Her feet left the sea floor, and the weightlessness of being in the water came back as strong as it was supposed to be. She clawed her way toward the surface, lungs burning, ears popping, the pressure of the water holding her down.

The guiding light was gone. It took her a moment, and yet an eternity, but finally she burst into the air, the surface choppy.

She coughed up water. Yelling drifted across the water, barely audible over the sound of the waves. She turned in place until she could focus on the sound.

There. A light on the hill. Her grandfather’s shack.

She took a stroke in that direction, but her muscles burned, her body trembling in exhaustion. How long had she been underwater?

She shivered, the cold just breaking through her fatigue. Something brushed against her leg and she panicked, letting out a short shriek.

Normally nothing in the water could scare her. But tonight wasn’t a normal night.

The shouting doubled in strength. Those on the shore must have heard her. She paddled in their direction, straining to keep her head above the water.

A splash came from somewhere, making Jenna jerk violently, looking for the source. Somewhere toward the shoreline. Nothing dangerous should be coming from that direction.

Tears warmed her cheeks as she struggled forward. Meeting the creature had been the most amazing thing to ever to happen to her. But at this moment, she could hardly make herself care.

She slipped under the water for a moment, fighting back to the surface. She’d swallowed too much water on her ascent from the depths. Her lungs burned, and she couldn’t get a real breath.

Something fluttered near her, and she tried to scream.

“It’s okay. It’s just me,” a voice said. She didn’t recognize it over the screaming in her head, but it didn’t matter at the moment. It was human, coming to her through her ears, not mind.

“Here!” She went under and popped back up, sputtering. “Help!”

She only got a glimpse of who it was before going under again. Evan.

He jerked her back to the surface and flipped her on her back.

Near panic made her struggle, but her attempts were feeble at best.

“I’m here to help, stop!” He sounded breathless. The waves battered at them as he tugged her toward shore. Waves far bigger than the wind warranted.

Finally the water was shallow enough that he could stand. She stretched for the bottom, but it was out of reach.

“Jenna!” Thick arms pulled her away from Evan. Thomas pulled her in close. “Jenna, speak to me!”

“I’m okay, Grandpa.” She made it through the sentence before breaking into a coughing fit.

“What happened?” Brittany asked, shoving Evan out of the way and hugging Jenna, even though Thomas still had a hold of her.

A hazy memory of Brittany holding her back and then slipping under the water hit her. “I am so sorry!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t know what I was doing, I promise!”

Brittany flapped her hand. “Of course you didn’t. But what happened once you disappeared? I was so afraid you’d died!”

“No, not dead.” She looked out over the water. Not dead, but didn’t have an explanation. She patted her grandpa’s arm and he slowly let her feet drop to the sand, keeping his arm under hers until he saw that she could stand.

Evan stepped in front of Brittany. “We need to talk.”

“Not now, you ingrate,” Brittany growled. “Give her a chance to breathe. You didn’t even ask if she’s okay or not.”

“It’s fine, Brittany,” Jenna said. “I can handle him.” She looked over at Evan. He’d come into the water for her, knowing full well what was under the waves.

They’d come full circle. She’d saved Evan, and then he’d repaid the favor.

She turned to stare out over the water. The creature would be back. She could feel it. They were connected somehow, and he needed her as much as she wanted to get to know him.

If Evan, Brittany, and Brian could keep their mouths shut. Or if they couldn’t, no one believed their story. And who would?

Evan moved over to stand beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Fine.”

He didn’t look at her, just followed her gaze out over the waves. “I need you to tell me exactly what you know about that thing. It’s dangerous.”

Her gaze whipped to his face, and she shoved her hair out of her eyes so she could glare. “He didn’t do it. Something else did.”

“I don’t know what happened to you down there, but I’m sorry. I can hardly believe there’s one of those things out there, let alone ‘something else.’ As soon as I can get back here with the right weapons, the creature is going to die.” He looked her in the eyes. “How you could want anything else after seeing what happened to the chopper…” he stopped himself, before shifting subjects. “And how are you so certain? Did you see it?”

She didn’t answer.

“You did, didn’t you? Where was it going when it left? How big is it under the surface? Do you have any idea what it was?”

“I’m not telling you any of that. Not until I know you’re going after the right creature.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped as he glared down at her for a moment, everyone behind them silent as they dueled with their eyes. Finally he looked away. “Goodbye, Jenna. Stay out of the water.” And he walked away.

She watched him go until Brian and Brittany shuffled in close.

“Now that he’s gone,” Brian took her hand and started rubbing it between his. It wasn’t until then that she noticed herself shivering. “Tell us what happened.”

“I’m not sure what happened,” Jenna said. She checked the water one more time. Nothing. “But I’m going to find out.”