Another Friday, another chapter! Only two chapters left!
If you missed last week, you can find Chapter 23 here. Or, if you’re new to ZSH, you can start at chapter 1 here. All ZSH chapters can be found under the ZSH section of Authorstrator.
CHOMP CHOMP!
TWENTY FOUR
No pulse.
Melvin said she didn't have a pulse.
Kayla -- strong, smart, beautiful Kayla -- didn't have a pulse.
Justin's own heart stopped beating. His lungs forgot how to take in air. All he could do was stare at her, at her ghostly pale skin, her lifeless limbs. Her bare, expressionless face. She couldn't be dead. She couldn't.
Melvin climbed over Justin, untying the lines from the bow of the boat. He sat down in front of Kayla, wrapping the rope around her ankles.
"What are you doing?" said Justin.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
Tying her up. Why was he tying her up? Melvin's hands worked quickly, roughly wrapping the line around her legs, pulling it tight.
"Stop it!" Justin shouted, pushing him back. "You'll hurt her!"
"I'm not hurting her, she's dead."
"Shut up!" How could Melvin say that? Say it so calmly, so matter of fact?
"Justin," Maddie's hand was on his shoulder, "Justin, he has to. You saw her eyes. She's --"
"She's what?" he snapped, shrugging her off. "What do you think she is?"
Melvin's eyes rolled, knotting the rope around Kayla's wrists. "Knock it off, kid."
"What?"
"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."
Justin swallowed the lump in his throat. He did know the answer. He saw Kayla's cloudy eyes, saw the boil on her arm. She looked the way they looked -- the sharks. But what did that mean? What did Melvin think was going to happen? He couldn't think she'd...that Kayla could...that she'd become....
Bile rose in Justin's throat -- Melvin was afraid Kayla would become like them.
"Where did this happen?" Melvin asked.
Justin could see Kayla, remember the way she fell, swallowed by the slime --
Melvin snapped his fingers in Justin's face. "Kid!" he barked. "Where did this mucous come from? Where was this?"
"The m-marina," Justin stammered. "We were at the marina."
"And there were more sharks there?"
Justin's mind raced. She fell into the slime. She sharks were coming for her. And he used the propeller. He saved her. That was all he wanted to do, and he did it. But here she was. Still and cold and quiet.
"Kid!" Melvin was tired of waiting. "Were there more sharks at the marina?"
Justin could only nod.
"Dead ones?"
"They looked dead."
"Dead in the mucous?"
Justin nodded again.
Melvin settled into the back of the boat and got the motor started.
"What are you doing?" asked Justin.
"You're going to show me."
"You're leaving?" asked Maddie, panicked. "What about Kayla?"
"She's coming with us," said Melvin.
Before Maddie could say anything else, the boat took off up the street. Justin didn't argue, didn't care where Melvin took him. All Justin cared about was Kayla. He stared down at her, limp and pale at his feet, the leaky water that pooled in the bottom of the boat drifting into her hair, the corner of her mouth. He wanted to lift her, but she was so still, so quiet, he was afraid to disturb her.
"Which way?" growled Melvin as they came to the stop sign, mostly submerged at this point.
Justin didn't even have to look up, nodding in the direction of the marina. His eyes roamed down Kayla's arm, down to the boil growing in the elbow crease, perfectly round and swollen to bursting, a green crust forming around the edges. The puss was swelling inside, the same poison that warped the bodies and minds of the sharks that started all of this. It had set to work on Kayla. The proof of it was right there, bulging underneath her skin. But what did that mean? What would it do to the girl he'd known all his life? The good sheriff's daughter who was too smart and too clean to get mixed up with the likes of him. The brave and fearless girl who always seemed to know what to do.
The girl, Justin barely let himself admit, that he'd fallen for so hard and so suddenly he worried the feeling would drown him.
He'd never felt that way about anyone.
What was happening to her now -- it couldn't be. Wouldn't be. He had to stop it. Somehow.
"Kid," Melvin shouted over the motor, "how much further?"
They were on Devon, the same way Justin had come with Kayla earlier.
"Just down there," Justin pointed to where Devon met Anne, where the roof of the Pharmacy was barely visible above the waves. Melvin nodded and the boat moved forward, slowly, both he and Justin scanning for fins.
When they were close enough to the Pharmacy, Melvin cut the motor.
"It's just up there." Justin could see where the water turned green, see the lumps of dead sharks bobbing up and down.
Melvin pulled out a pair of binoculars and surveyed the marina.
"What do you see?" said Justin.
"Makos. Tigers. Hammers. They're dead alright."
"What does that mean?"
"Not sure yet."
"Well what are you looking for?"
"Not sure about that yet either."
Justin didn't understand. Every second they were out here they risked their lives. Every second was another second the sharks could come for them. Looking at Kayla though, he wasn't sure that mattered much to him any more. Couldn't think of anything that mattered, except saving her. Kayla's skin -- spidery blue veins were beginning to show through. The beginnings of another boil showed on her chin.
Whatever was happening to Kayla, it started here. The answer had to be here too.
"Hold on," said Melvin, sitting up straighter with the binoculars. "Alright now, here we go."
"What? What do you see?"
"Shark," he said pointing ahead. "One of our old friends. The big boy."
Justin squinted into the distance -- there was movement in the water about a hundred yards away, and he recognised the fin that had chased him through Point Chester. But the fin didn't cut through the water with the horrifying speed it usually did. It wasn't moving at all.
"Here we go," said Melvin, leaning forward. "Here we go here we go here we go."
"What's happening?"
"Gastric eversion, looks like."
"What?"
"Puke basically. Shark's upchucking...something mighty big."
Justin waited, watching Melvin who looked like a bug, with the giant lenses over his eyes and his mouth hanging open.
"Jesus!" he said finally. "It's a hammer!"
"Let me see."
Melvin handed the binoculars to Justin and he looked out towards the shark. There it was, the giant beast, just above the water, shuddering and heaving with it's jaw unhinged. And sliding out in a healthy coating of green slime, was the body of a hammerhead.
"It's coming from the shark," said Melvin. "The mucous. It coats the victims. Must keep them tethered to this spot."
Victims, Justin thought. Like Kayla.
"Why here?" he asked.
Melvin took back the binoculars and gazed through. "I dunno. Except maybe its supposed to be like --"
"Like what?"
Melvin dropped the binoculars, rubbing his hand over his mouth in thought. "You ever see a frog's eggs? All gelatinous and whatnot?"
Justin nodded.
"It's there to protect the young. Keep 'em clumped together and supported so they can grow. Change."
"You mean -- " What did he mean? What young? These sharks were dead.
"The sharks from the highway," said Melvin. "They're making some kind of nest. Here. Clumping together their victims so they can be safe, so they can change."
"Change?"
"Into them," said Melvin, firing up the motor and moving them closer.
Justin's heart rate jumped, looking out over the hundreds of bodies floating over the marina. Hundreds of sharks. Sharks that, if Melvin was right, would become like the sharks from the highway.
The water beneath the boat changed from a dark muddy brown to green as they moved closer, and Melvin reached over the side, pulling up a finger thick with slime. He touched it to his tongue, winced, and spat.
"Sulfur," he said.
Justin sniffed the air -- a faint stink of rotten eggs. He glanced down at Kayla -- she'd been completely submerged. What if she swallowed it?
A nearby splash stopped Justin's heart and Melvin's head snapped in the direction of the sound. A few feet away, a fish like the one he'd seen before, slithered through the bodies.
"Just a sucker fish," said Melvin.
But still, Justin's heart raced. They were pushing their luck, lingering with the big shark not so far away. And where were the others? They could show up any second.
"We should get back," Justin said.
Melvin pulled a tiny jar from his pocket. "First I want a sample."
Justin looked back to where the shark was still working on puking up the hammerhead. It didn't seem to know they were here. Yet. But Justin remembered what happened last time he ventured into the marina.
He turned back to Kayla. He didn't want them to come for her again.
Her face looked different, he noticed. Not as peaceful. She was frowning.
"Kay?" He leaned closer.
Her eyes twitched. There was movement behind them.
And then, her ankle jerked, strong and violent so there could be no mistake.
"Melvin!" shouted Justin. "Melvin, she's alive!"
Melvin looked up from his sample and watched as Kayla's fingers began to tremble.
"Alright," he said, bringing the motor back to life. "We need to go."
He turned them around, circling through the green sludge and as he did, Justin saw the glow -- the green light rippled through the slime and Justin watched as it travelled back toward the big shark.
"Faster!" Justin shouted. "Melvin, we gotta get out of here fast!"
Melvin glanced behind them and they both saw the fin, sailing straight for them. It was happening again.
Kayla's foot slammed Justin's ankle, and he looked down to see her flailing, shaking, writhing against the ties on her limbs.
And her eyes.
Oh God, her eyes.
Kayla Girard's eyes were open again. But they weren't the ones Justin knew. They didn't belong to his Kayla.
Those eyes.
Cloudy.
White.
And completely, terrifyingly inhuman.
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