Fangtooth

Chapter 26

Erin squinted to see through the dark. It didn’t seem possible, but there was no mistaking that pitted face, the hard ridges between the two beady eyes and the teeth… god those teeth, which looked like a steel-jawed mantrap in the chasm of its mouth.

“I don’t understand,” Bruce said. “What the hell is it?”

Erin rubbed her eyes, hoping the action would change the scene before her, but it didn’t, of course it didn’t.

“Well, if it’s what I think it is, they normally only grow to about the size of your hand. But this…”

Bruce pointed at the creature. “My god, it’s crawling out of the water. It’s got arms and legs!”

Erin swallowed to hold in the bile as she remembered Kev’s body bitten in half.

“I’ve got to get my son out of there,” Bruce said. Before Erin could reply, he clambered down the rocks to the sea’s edge.

Erin wanted to follow him down, but her legs were shaking and she found she couldn’t move.

Shazam barked like something demented. The sound drilled into her ears, deafening.

She stared at the creature, almost too afraid to blink. Arms and legs! It wasn’t possible. It was like something conjured in a nightmare. Almost close enough to reach out and touch already, she didn’t want to get any closer. She thought she could smell it in the air, a pungent fishy aroma that made her feel sick.

“Hey, get away,” Bruce said as he picked up a rock and threw it at the creature, striking it on the back.

The Fangtooth turned its head and looked at Bruce, then it raised its head higher and stared at Erin. Her legs turned to jelly. On the verge of collapsing, she tried to control her breathing, was hyperventilating.

Its black eyes seemed to bore into her, and it almost looked as though it were smiling. The spiky dorsal fins along its spine seemed to quiver, then it slowly slid back down into the water and disappeared below the surface.

“Can you climb along the rocks?” Bruce shouted.

Jack shook his head. “There’s no way we can get across. We tried.”

The creature’s disappearance spurred Erin into action. With her legs functioning again, she scrambled down to Bruce. She was still breathing erratically, but at least she didn’t feel as though she were about to collapse. She kept warily glancing at the sea, and was about to speak to Bruce when she saw movement in the water, and the creature’s head broke the surface only feet from where she stood.

Erin staggered back in alarm as the creature started to swim towards them. When it reached the rocks, it scrambled ashore, and with nothing to stop its progress, it moved quickly up the slight incline towards where they stood. Shazam growled, baring her teeth.

Bruce picked up a large rock and threw it at the creature, hitting it square between the eyes, but the creature didn’t even flinch.

“Come on you bastard.” Bruce picked up a piece of sturdy driftwood as thick as his arm and smashed it across the creature’s head. The wood shattered on impact with a loud crack, but the creature seemed unfazed. “What the…”

The Fangtooth opened its mouth, allowing Erin to see inside its cavernous, tubular throat. A rotten stench flowed out, like something dead, then the creature started to advance, using its arms and legs to move in a lizard-like fashion across the rocks.

“Bruce,” she yelled, “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“I can’t leave Jack.”

“They’re safe where they are, but we’re not. And you’ll be no use to them dead.”

With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, Bruce shouted, “Jack, stay where you are. We’ll go and get help. Come on Shazam, we’ve got to go.” He grabbed the dog’s collar, turned tail and followed Erin back up the cliff.

On the way up, they saw Sara and Duncan making their way down. “Back,” Erin shouted. “Get away. There’s something down there.”

Duncan frowned and shook his head, perplexed. “Are they down there? Did you find your son?”

“There’s something coming after us,” Bruce shouted. “A fucking monster of some sort. I don’t know what it is, but run.”

Sara threw her arms in the air. “Where’s Jen? Is she all right?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “But we won’t be if we don’t run.”

Erin heard rocks skittering behind them, propelling her to move faster. The incline made her breathing laboured and she gasped to draw breath.

Whether it was the look on their faces or the sincerity behind their words, Duncan and Sara turned tail and hurried back to the top of the cliff. When she reached the summit, Erin looked back down. She thought she saw movement in the jagged shadows of the rocks, but it was getting too dark to see, the moon’s light unable to illuminate the path she had just taken.

“So what do we do now?” Bruce asked.

Without answering, Erin took out her phone and dialled 999. When the call went through, a female operator said, “Emergency, which service?”

“There’s two teenagers trapped in the cliffs here at Mulberry.”

“So you need the coastguard?”

“No, we need the fuckin’ army.”

“I don’t understand. You said two teenagers are stuck.”

“Not stuck really, more like trapped.”

“I still think you require the coastguard in this situation.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Calm down, and tell me again what the problem is.”

“Okay, there are two teenagers trapped in the cliffs.” She took a breath, couldn’t think straight. “They’re not really trapped… well they are—”

Before Erin had a chance to say anything else, Bruce grabbed the phone from her. “It’s my son, goddamn it, and he’s trapped by these monsters in the sea. Hello, of course I’m not joking. Do you think I’d joke about something…hello. Hello.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “She cut me off.”

Erin took her phone back, “You should have left it to me.”

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on,” Duncan said.

Erin pointed towards the village. “First I think we’d better get as far away from here as we can.”

Bruce shook his head. “I can’t leave my son down there.”

“Where’s Jen?” Sara piped up.

Erin felt like screaming. “Bruce, you’ve just seen what’s down there. The tide’s at its highest, so your son’s safe for now where he is. So’s Jen. But we’re not.”

Bruce looked pensive. “You’re sure he’ll be safe?”

“If the creature hasn’t gotten him yet, then it’s unlikely it will get him now. The rocks were too steep, and by the looks of it, the creature wasn’t able to climb very well. Now come on, we’ve got to get out of here and get help.”

“We’ll pick up my car on the way. It’ll be faster,” Bruce said.

Without waiting to argue anymore, Erin started jogging back towards the village. After a moment, she heard the others following behind, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to be on her own.

Erin burst through the doors of the bar. Graham looked up and scrutinized her with his one good eye. The next minute, Bruce, Duncan and Sara piled in behind her.

“Pour me… a stiff… brandy,” Duncan said, wheezing for breath as he leaned against the bar, head down.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Graham said to Erin. “Duncan, what’s going on?”

Erin wiped sweat from her brow. “Not a ghost, a monster.”

Graham scowled. “Duncan, what’s this all about?”

Duncan looked up, his cheeks inflamed. He took the brandy and downed it in one. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Erin looked back at Bruce. He seemed hardly winded by the exertion prior to driving into the village. Behind him, Sara collapsed in a chair by the door. There was no one else in the bar, which she found disconcerting. More people would have calmed her fears, providing security in numbers.

“We need to get help,” Bruce said. “It’s a waste of time calling the police again.”

“Police!” Graham said. “Can someone please tell me what’s happened?”

“It’s my son—”

“And Jen,” Sara said.

“They’re trapped in the rocks by this… this creature.” Bruce held his hands up to ward off any questions. “I don’t know what it is.”

“I told you, it’s an Anoplogaster cornuta,” Erin said.

Duncan turned and scowled. “A what?”

“Anoplogaster cornuta. Otherwise known as Fangtooth. It’s a deep sea creature.”

“That’s not like any deep sea creature I’ve ever seen,” Bruce said.

Erin nodded. “They normally grow to the size of your hand, but something’s made that one mutate.”

“And what could do that?”

Erin shrugged. “There could be any number of reasons. Natural mutation, overfishing, chemicals being dumped into the ocean.”

Bruce shook his head. “So why haven’t they been spotted before?”

“I can’t say exactly, but as they’re a deep sea fish they could have gone unnoticed for years. We know more about space than we do about what’s in the ocean. New species are being discovered all the time.”

“So why have they come ashore now?” Duncan asked.

Erin looked at everyone in the room in turn. “I don’t know. There always has to be a first time.”

“Do you think it’s an isolated incident?” Bruce asked.

Erin pursed her lips. “I highly doubt it. But one thing’s for certain—”

Bruce swallowed.

“—we’re no longer at the top of the food chain.”