Fangtooth

Chapter 21

Jack never would have believed his head could hurt so much. A roaring sound bombarded his ears, and he gingerly opened his eyes to find himself bound hand and foot to a stake in rocks at the edge of the sea. A thick wall of fog billowed around him, clammy and cold.

He tried pulling his hands free, but the binding was too tight. A ringing sound caught his attention, and it took him a moment to realise it was the phone in his pocket.

He couldn’t understand what he was doing there. His fingers felt numb, the rope or whatever was used to tie his hands, too tight. He tried prizing his wrists apart to relieve the pain, but whoever had tied him had done a thorough job.

The phone stopped ringing.

He couldn’t see much through the fog, but there were small rock pools around his feet, and waves crashed into the rocks, spraying him with rabid foam. Cold and wet, he shivered and fought to hold back the tears.

Tenerife had nothing on this.

“Hello, is anyone there?” he shouted. The only reply came from the roar of the sea as waves crashed ashore. “Please, tell me what’s going on. Why am I here?”

When no one answered, Jack struggled against his bindings, but all he succeeded in doing was inflicting pain on his wrists worse than any Chinese rope burn.

A shrill cry made him jump and he twisted his head to see a seagull on the rocks. The bird eyed him for a moment, then took flight and disappeared into the fog.

Jack couldn’t understand what he was doing here. It was crazy. Saltwater stung his head, probably from a cut where his assailant had struck him. He ached to rub it, to make the pain go away.

Movement caught his eye and he looked down to see a large red crab scuttling across the rocks near his feet. It stopped and clicked its pincers a couple of times. Jack wanted to kick it away, but couldn’t with his feet bound. If it wanted to nip him, there was no way he could stop it. He watched as it scuttled closer.

“Get away, shoo,” he said, a slight tremor in his voice. “Go on, get away.” He felt ridiculous trying to scare a crab away, but by the look of its large pincers, it could deal a wicked nip, which was the last thing he needed on top of his current predicament.

Desperate to escape, he lunged forward as far as he could, hoping the post might be rotten and would snap, but it held firm.

At his feet, the crab scuttled into a rock pool and disappeared below the surface of the water, where it sat, seemingly staring up at him with its stalk eyes. Molluscs’ clung to the rocks in the shallow pool, along with trails of seaweed that drifted like a mermaid’s hair.

Jack looked back out to sea and screamed as loud as he could, his cry cut off when a fresh wave of sea spray hit him in the face, making him cough and choke as it entered his mouth.

The saltwater stung his eyes and he blinked rapidly to try to clear his vision. When he looked back down at the rock pool, he noticed the level of the water was slightly higher than before. The tide was coming in.

He screamed again until his throat was raw, but no one answered. Breathless and exhausted, he slumped against the post. He wondered how high the water would come, then remembered rubbing his face against the molluscs, a marker for the high tide, which meant the water would rise above his head.

Panicked, he struggled against his bindings, but it was hopeless. There was no way he could break free.

Why had his dad moved them out here? Why couldn’t they have stayed in the city where he was happy? If only his mum hadn’t died…

He chastised himself that last thought. It wasn’t her fault. Tears ran down his cheeks, blurring his vision. Unable to wipe them away, he blinked rapidly and shook his head to clear his sight.

The crab still sat in the rock pool, but there was something next to it, wedged into a crevice. Jack squinted to see more clearly but the incoming tide churned the water, further obscuring his view. He waited for the water to retreat, allowing the rock pool surface to calm.

And that’s when he recognised what it was. Bones.

There were bones in the pool. Jack was no expert, but these weren’t any old bones–by the looks of them, they were goddamn human.