SHARK BEAST

by RUSS COOPER

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2010 by Russ Cooper

Table of Contents

One--A Knockout Of A 19-Year-old

Two--Too Many Dumb Hot Chicks In My Life

Three--The Surfer & The Hooters Waitress

Four--The Splintery Stairs

Five--Naked, Beautiful, Pissy

Six--The Prank

Seven--A Nerd With A Metal Detector and An Odd Theory Concerning The Alleged Misunderstood Quality of "The Phantom Menace"

Eight--Oblivious Sex

Nine--OPERATION: GETTING SOME

Ten--"The Gob-Slime"

Eleven--OPERATION: NOT GETTING SOME

Twelve--ESCAPE

Thirteen--MORE ATTIC SEX

Fourteen--ROCKS

Fifteen--THE BALLAD OF D. J. & Roxy

epilogue

* * * Bonus "Shark Beast 2" Sneak Peek

(After reading "Shark Beast," at the end of the book find a free bonus sneak peek at the sequel -- this time, a young and sexy band of film-makers make a quickie Sci-Fi style "Shark Beast" exploitation movie, on the very beach the attacks happened one year earlier.

Distracted by the sexy behind-the-scenes movie hijinx, they don't notice the REAL shark beast is about to make a guest appearance...)

~ ~ ONE ~ ~

Out On The Beach:

A Knockout Of A 19-Year-Old

I do what I feel like.

With a belligerent pout, she reached behind her back--flick!--cast the bra off with the salted breezes, a silk whisper into the night. She was drunk, but--so what? I don't even care if someone sees.

I hope someone sees, what of it?

Miami Prague was one knockout of a 19-year-old, standing there, drowsy and delightfully unsteady, smiling wickedly at the midnight ocean. She was supposed to be at work, her stupid little part-time job on the boardwalk, at the stupid little "Hermit Crab's Used Books" beach bookstore. Finishing up her shift. But...

Hey. Whatever.

She stood there--topless! que scandalous!--in the curtains of midnight, at the ebbing edge of the ocean, as diamond glitters of sand sifted through perfect toes. She supposed if she had to, if she wanted to, she could get the job back. A little flirting with the assistant manager--that little ska-surfer wannabe--yeah, he'd hire her back. Probably on the spot. Guys were like that. Especially dumb ska-surfer ones.

Imagine what he'd do for me if he could see me now, she mused with a lopsided giggle. Probably even give her a raise.

"Dream on, dude," she whispered. Too little, too late.

But--enough about the job she currently didn't have. Who cares? What of it? Enjoy the night! That's what it was all about. And that she did, as she puckered exaggeratedly-- tasting the saltiness of the evening, letting the breeze brush against the soft plush of her lips. This must be like kissing me, she thought. Don't know what you're missing, dude. For a moment, the possibility of embarrassment--girl, you are so conceited!--but it passed. After all, she mused, It's true, isn't it?

She looked at her beautiful reflection in the ebbing waves. Yes. What of it? And, since it was a sin to waste a pucker, she blew her reflection a kiss.

Stupid jerk.

Coulda been you.

Taking a deep breath now, letting the saltiness cool against her breasts. A faraway sigh.

Too little.

Too late.

Pouting again, she stepped--one toe--into the foaming wetness, and continued gazing at her beautiful reflection, looking wobbily back up at her. She watched herself watching, let her mind ebb, as her image undulated and pulsed in the liquid blue. Her mind emptied, until all there were, were bits of nonsense, non-sound, images and shapes and shadows, and colors--a lot of distracting thoughts, some naughty, others naughtier still--her smile widened, letting the night know she liked it that way--

There was a streak in the water. Shooting star, reflection, most likely; what else could it be, right? It spiraled, ran off, sparkled past...so beautiful...

"Expect me to come back begging for a stupid job? So what, so I can watch you date... some slut? I don't think so," she whispered, and her reflection laughed at her audacity. "After all, let's face facts, people..."

She gave her reflection a wicked drunken wink.

"...life's too short."

And then, as if agreeing, with abrupt weirdness--the sand beneath her feet--moved.

Shifted.

And, with another sharply sudden movement, she sank about a foot into the beach. The sand shifted again, and she was up to her knees--in what? Quicksand? Do they even have that out here--? Miami cried out, a staggered gasp, for suddenly, in the little dune-shapes around her sunken legs--

--blood.

A lot of blood.

"My blood," she gasped, confused, offended, appalled--then, absolutely terrified. "Me? Not me? But, not fair! It's-- I'm--

(--Miami Prague!)

And then: pain. A lot of pain. Miami tried to scream. Tried very hard. Her face, her reflection in the ebbing tide, begged, pleaded, help me, help me scream--

But nothing, not even a gasp, not a whisper. She was up to her torso now. Then she heard it, a horrible sound, an atrocious, unbelievable sound--

--click-CLICK-click-click-CLICK-click--

Realization was quick, merciless:

Teeth.

Lots of teeth.

The scream came, finally, useless now, for the sand shifted again, and she dropped--too little, too late. Not much left to reflect in the waves. And then, after a violent shudder and rabid jerk--and a raw splatter of red against those wicked cheeks--

Even less.

Nothing but a bikini top, over by the leaves, resting with a breezy flutter, on the very edge of the beach.

Too little.

Much too late.

~ ~ TWO ~ ~

In The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:

Too Many Dumb Hot Chicks In My Life

It was late at the Hermit Crab Used Books beach bookstore, and the assistant manager, a young ska wannabe named Hoagie Grisham, rubbed his crewcut has he stared down into the cash drawer.

In it: a large plastic spider.

Hoagie stared at it blankly, no expression at all, as he tossed a check on top of it and slowly closed the drawer.

"Thanks, come again," he muttered to the old lady, as he handed over her change, and her copy of a hundred-year-old Jackie Collins.

"Whatever," said the old lady.

Hoagie watched her leave, fighting-- for the billionth time in his career as a minimum-wage-plus (barely) bookstore monkey --to say something. It was tough, just standing there, having to take crap from someone who was standing just a bit over there, and who also knew you had to stand here and take said crap, which, of course, made it all the more insulting--which, of course, they knew made it all the more insulting, and they knew you knew... Oh, what he wouldn't like to do but just lean forward, get all Clint Eastwood and say, with a delicious smirk...

Hey lady.

Yo. You don't like the books we sell?

You don't like the nice view we have here, of the ocean, that nice sandy, beachy beachy wonderland?

You come in here, every freakin' day, with that shriveled scowl on your billion-year-old puss, and your creaky croak and your "whatevers" and you act like I'm some kind of smudge? You know what I say to that? YOU KNOW WHAT I SAY TO THAT, YOU HIDEOUS CRUST OF AN OLD COW--?

With a sigh, he just--for the billion and first time--watched her go, saying nothing.

"Scary, huh?" a sarcastic female voice said over his shoulder. "That little surprise in your drawer? Hope it didn't 'gotcha' too bad."

Another Hoagie sigh. "I can barely contain myself."

"Oh, c'mon, don't be a freak. Have some fun. Rubber spiders... be fun."

Hoagie didn't bother turning around. He knew who it was. Luna Bloodlove. And yes, that was her real name, not a stripper name, or so she claimed when he make the big mistake and hired her three weeks ago. He considered himself a good assistant manager type, but man, even he had to admit: I am totally bad at hiring folks. First this Luna nutcase, with her incense and big boobs and smart mouth, and then that Miami chick with her flirty games and big boobs and smart mouth, who doesn't even show up for her shifts, like tonight--

Too many dumb hot chicks in my life, he thought with a sigh.

"Whatever," Hoagie shrugged, as he started counting the register.

"Ten ... forty ... twenty-seven ... three ..." Luna teased.

"Yo, hey, c'mon. Give me a break. I'm counting here..."

Luna shook her head, pityingly. "My, my. What a life you lead. Five ... nine ... ninety-two ..."

Hoagie finally gave her a look, one of his stern I'm-your-boss specials; it faltered a bit when he saw she was dressed hippy-crazy as always. She smiled, unimpressed by his "bossitude." With a weary smirk, he started recounting. "Why are you even here, Loon-a?" he asked, flipping through the bills. "You weren't on schedule. And we all know you can't read, so... why are you here?"

"Oh, boss jr. made a funny, how cute. For someone who's supposed to be all punk and ska and 666, you're not very hardcore."

Hoagie muttered. "Hardcore? I'm hardcore. I'm way hardcore. So way hardcore. You don't even know, girl."

Luna gave a pointed look. "Mmmm .... what's the opposite of hardcore?" She six-gunned him with her painted nails. That would be yooou, she mouthed.

Hoagie kept muttering, "So hardcore it hurts, man ..."

Luna rolled her eyes; mouthed the word "lame". Hoagie continued counting.

She mouthed "lame" again.

Hoagie, counting, "I still can hear you, you know."

She shrugged, fingered a few stray coins. "Whut-ever." She laughed emptily. "What a life you lead."

Hoagie fought the urge to give her a glare. "Why do you keep saying that? You work at the same place I do."

"Yeah, but I don't like it. I don't accept it. I do what I got to do. But you ..." She shrugged: 'nuff said.

"Yah, yah, whatever," he scoffed. "What do you do that's so hardcore? Look where you live ... You live in a trailer."

"It's not a trailer. It's a house."

"It's got wheels. It's a trailer."

Luna rolled her eyes dismissively--like you know anything about anything--then slipped him a big sneaky grin.

Hoagie, suspiciously: "What?"

With a smirk, Luna yanked something from underneath the counter, and, with her usual subtlety slammed it on top of the counter. With a dim glazed look, he gaped down at ... a Ouija board--homemade and wonky, a patented Luna-painted piece of weirdness.

"Oh, so that's what this is all about. That's your idea of hardcore?" He chuckled dismissively. "Been there, done that. When I was like in high school."

"Bet you never did it right. I used to do this for a living."

Hoagie, uninterested: "Really?"

"No," Luna admitted. "Thought about it though. And been thinking a lot about it, lately. But I need practice. So I can get gooooood." She rubbed her fingers together, frisky-money style. "And charge people."

"Oh, another business scheme." Hoagie rolled his eyes. "And to think I might have missed hearing about it."

"Business opportunity," she corrected, with a sniff. "I can't help it if I want to better myself."

"Yeah, well, good luck with that." Back to counting money. "Hope it works better than your candle party 'opportunity,' and your jewelry 'opportunity,' and your palm-reading 'opportunity'..."

Luna arched a brow. "'Only he who does nothing makes no mistakes.'"

"And what fortune cookie did you pry that out of?" he asked with a snort.

"It's a French proverb."

"Good for the French." He turned, pointing at the front of his t-shirt. "I got me a bumper sticker philosophy too."

His shirt read (beneath a drawing of a drunken rock star balanced on some rocks surrounded by roaring waves with drowning hands sticking up):

Many attempt, but few reach...

The Island Of Rock

"I wouldn't brag about your clothes, Mr. Fashion-Unconscious," she yawned. "And--fair warning--nobody cares about your band, even if you did name it after a bunch of rocks out in the local waters, Mr. 'Island of Rock,' but let's be kind and move on." Clearing her throat, now, as she surrepticiously jiggled her massive boobs. "What's with you, anyway? I'm not asking you to invest, just let me practice."

"Where? Here? Now? In a bookstore?"

Luna rolled one of her long painted fingernails ceilingward. "Upstairs. Later. In that attic or whatever you call it." She got all slinky-voiced. "After we close."

"Are you kooky? I just pulled an all-day shift. By myself, I might add. Now you want me to waste the night here too?"

"Aah ha-a-a ha ha. I knew it."

"What?"

"It's your little girlfriend, isn't it? You have to get her permission." Luna affected a mocking voice, "'Ohhh honeey, uhhh, can I go be a man and do what I want, puh-leeease--"

"Oh, drop out, you... drop-out."

"Hah, shows what you know," she snickered. "I never even went to college, dope."

"Was talking about high school," Hoagie muttered. "Besides, yes, I do have a previous engagement with Roxy--by choice--and it doesn't involve a ratty old attic in a ratty old used bookstore with a ratty old bootleg Ouija board. Not when there's gorgeous waves right... out... that... window." He jabbed a ska-punk finger at the big glass window with the awkward painting of a hermit crab reading a used book by "Shakespier."

"'Roxy'--now there's a stripper name." Luna sighed. "Whut-ever. You're the boss, supposedly," she said in that not even close to respectful way of hers. "You're missing a golden opportunity to help me with my golden opportunity."

"Yeah, I bet. How does blowing my night with you and that piece of plywood work out gold for anybody? Specifically me?"

"If it works out, I can make me some real money. And if I can make me some real money, I won't have to work here--emasculating you. Which, trust me, while amusing, is a full-time job."

"Wow," Hoagie said. "I'm impressed. You know what the word 'emasculate' means."

"Oh, I know lots of things, little surfer dude."

"I'm sure you do."

"I'm sure I do too."

"I'm sure you--" Hoagie sighed. "This day is never going to end. Really, it's like an Eagles reunion concert."

"Totally don't get what that means," Luna shrugged. "Anyway--we do it upstairs, in the old abandoned offices. It'll be great. If you're worried, call up D. J., have him come, too. He's always good for a laugh. Maybe he'll bring that college girl he was flirting with on the clock. Call the whole crew. I mean, hey, if you and Roxy have the kind of relationship where you're so afraid of being alone with me for ten seconds ..."

Hoagie blanched, taken aback. "I'm not afraid of that. I'm not, why should I be afraid of that. I'm totally not. That, I mean." Red-cheeked, he changed the subject. "Besides, Roxy and I don't have a relationship, I wish people would quit saying that."

Luna shrugged, rolled her eyes, made several unflattering faces.

Hoagie jabbed his finger at her. "And I wish people'd quit making faces too. Let's get something straight right here and now: I do what I want. How I want. When I want it. That's how it is, I don't care what anyone says. Nobody tells me what to do, I don't care what you or anybody else thinks."

"Hmmm, really?" Luna tapped the counter. "Well, what do you think about that, Ouija board?"

She took Hoagie's hand, put it on the Ouija board pointer, started moving it around. Then, she got all mystical sounding, spelling as the pointer went from letter to letter.

"L" ... "A" ... "M" ... "E"...

Hoagie yanked his hand back. "Hey, I am not lame, okay. I don't have to prove it by doing this, but just to prove I don't have to prove it, I'll do it, because, as I said, I got nothing to prove. Okay? Fine. I don't care."

"Sounds good to me." She clapped her hands, gave her hips a victory wiggle. "I'll get the rest of my stuff."

She whisked away, leaving Hoagie staring at the Ouija board.

Hoagie pondered what had just happened. All that came to him, as he stared at the board: "I'm totally not lame."

He looked up over at the window. The old "whatever" lady was staring at him for no particular reason, as she was wont to do.

"I do what I want, and that's how it is," he grumbled to her, huffily.

The old "whatever" lady slipped him a "whatever" roll of the eyes, and walked down the boardwalk.

Hoagie muttered, looking longingly out the window at the ocean waves, so tauntingly close, yet so, so far away. "I do what I want, and Roxy can just ..."

He sighed morosely.

"...she's going to kill me, is what she's going to do."

~ ~ ~

She didn't kill him when she finally showed up, banging on the glass hermit crab (she'd forgotten her keys again), but Roxy sure looked like she wanted to.

"This is what you called me over for? To play a game? A stupid board game?" She gave him that simmering look of hers that could alternately be very intimidating or very sexy. Sometimes both.

This time a whole lot of both.

Hoagie stammered a bit, trying not to lose the argument before it even started. He tried to work up some of his ska charm for his feisty-eyed little non-girlfriend. Starting with his cool-crooked smile. Didn't work.

"You do know what century this is, right?" she huffed.

"I said 'Ouija' on the phone, you said you knew what it was," he insisted, quickly. Shooting a look over at Luna, who was enjoying this whole scene, he added, "I totally told her what it was."

D. J., a tall slacker looking fellow of somewhere next to 30, who was assistant to the assistant manager (so the store could justify his recent 25-cent raise), laughed lazily. "You don't know what Ouija is?" he asked Roxy, with a crooked grin.

"I thought he said something else," she answered, shooting random harsh looks at everyone.

Hoagie, trying not to sound to defensive, but failing miserably, protested, "Like what? Wheaties? Come on over, we'll eat a bowl of Wheaties in the dark?" He forced a laugh, looking around at everyone. "I told her Ouija. I totally told her."

Luna kept twisting the knife, "You guys aren't wimping out, are you? 'Cause it sounds like you're wimping out."

"No, I'm here, I'm down," Hoagie said, trying to sound all tough and throwing around faux-gang signs. "I'll do it. Totally."

Luna exchanged eyerolls with Roxy and D. J.

Hoagie gave D. J. a look: you traitor.

"Hey, I'm just standing here," D. J. said, shrugging one shoulder. "Whatever. Good research for my book."

"Your 'book.'" Roxy sniffed. "Yeah, whatever, Shakespeare."

"Don't you mean 'Shakespier,' there, little Miss Picasso? Or should I say 'Pikasso?'" D. J. snorted, gesturing at her artistic but very misspelled hermit crab handiwork.

Now Roxy was shooting glares everywhere again.

This was good enough for Luna, who clapped deliriously. "Good, then! Everybody's happy." Suddenly: very serious. "Now the thing is, we have to do this right, and to start it off, we all have to do one thing."

Roxy, never a big fan of anything instigated by Luna, asked, suspiciously, "What?"

"Glad you asked, Little R." Luna produced four weird-looking cups from the microwave. "Tea."

Grinning, she held out a platter with tea cups, giving one to everyone.

Roxy eyed D. J., "Tea?"

D. J. eyed Roxy, "Tea."

Roxy eyed the teacup. "Tea." Then, glancing up at Luna with the greatest of unenthusiasm, topped with a healthy heap of sarcasm, "So. Is it magic tea?

Luna ignored the tone, and explained, quite authoritatively, "Yes, it's Te Deum, a special blend the monks of Glousenbach Castle at the West Abbey used during their communions with the dead. It enables the aura."

Now it was D. J. giving Hoagie the evil eye. Man, what have you and your big-boobed chicks got us into?

"Sounds ... tasty," D. J. muttered, staring into his cup.

Roxy announced, stubbornly, "I don't want my aura enabled. I like it the way it is."

Luna ignored all their reactions, and clink-clink-clinked her cup against the other three. Standing there in front of the darkened window, with the waves of the ocean sparkling here and there behind her like fallen stars, she grinned.

"Well, boys and girls, here's to an interesting night."

And just then, a face appeared in the window behind her, and something POUND- POUND- POUNDed the glass. Everyone jumped, spilling tea on themselves. Roxy, who shrieked annoyingly at pretty much anything, really let one loose.

"AiiieeeeeeeEEEE--!"

They all turned. It was the old "whatever" lady, staring at them for no particular reason.

She stared at them; they stared at her.

Then: the old "whatever" lady slipped them all a "whatever" roll of the eyes, and walked down the boardwalk.

D. J. shook his head, wiping tea off the front of his Surfin' Safari t-shirt. "Man. I shoulda just went to the beach."

And then, slowly, with many assorted sighs, the four young folks headed toward the dusty, crusty, shadow-drunken OFF-LIMITS EMPLOYEES ONLY part of the store, lost bleakly somewhere in the back, in the splintery yuck--with at least two of those folks wondering with extreme grouchy sullenness what endless flavors of fun must be going out there on the beach--right this very minute--without them.

~ ~ THREE ~ ~

Out On The Beach:

The Surfer and The Hooters Waitress

The surfer--an 18-year-old weed-toker by the nickname "Jo-Jo"--flipped and, hitting his board on the way down, crashed beneath the late night waves.

Niiiiice.

As usual, Jo-Jo was feeling no pain. Wasn't his first wipeout, no reason to believe it would be his last.

Sooo niiiiiice.

Ah, no doubt--this was the life. Midnight boogie-surfing. While high. (As if there were any other way.) Sure, he was dragging a bit from his all-nighter last night, with the Hooters waitress. But, hey, if you had to be draggin' over something--there sure were worse things. Let's face it--Jo-Jo liked a lot of things, but he liked Hooters waitresses, a lot. He liked that sassy-subservient faux-Southern chipmunk voice schtick--something about that was so hot, dude. And the way they actually sat at your table to take your order--and that thing, with the crayon, where she wrote her name--

(Hi, dude, sir, my name is Cherry, and boy she wasn't kidding)

--that's how he got her to go out, he wrote it down, in crayon, and she played it up all shy and stuff, but he could tell she liked him. And stuff. Whatever. Girls usually liked him. Girls with names like "Cherry," anyway.

He just loved the way she sat next to him, taking his order, in that helium voice, like she'd just sucked the air out of a dozen balloons (could imagine her doing it, too--talk about niiiiice)--and, of course, that uniform. All orange and white and shiny. Man, you could see everything a dude needed to see when you're scoping out the goods. And she had the goods. Nice bottom, wow, no kidding--those satiny shorts hid no secrets, dude--and those legs, a little plump, sorta on the short side, but that's the way he liked them--compact and appetizing. Like their chicken wings, he thought, with a grin, even under the waves. Oh, and her top, can't forget about that, all plump and bouncing in all the right directions. Even there, floating carefree under the midnight waters, after his wipeout, letting the currents give him a sweet shakeup, he couldn't help thinking about that top.

Dude, I just love me some Hooters waitresses.

So, she played hard-to-get, or a Cherry-girl's version of it, but he knew it was in the bag. No offense, but hey--I'm a great looking dude. Facts are facts. And he was, he didn't even have to suck in his stomach or conveniently "make a muscle" reaching for the bar-b-q sauce, any of those Old Dude tricks, sitting around, sneaking stares, wishing for yesterdays. Naww, he was young, he was tall, strapping, had a totally ripped body in every direction, curly blond hair--like springs of sunlight, and why not, he spent many a sunny day beachbumming, weightlifting, sungrabbing, and, of course, just chilling out getting high. Organically handsome--it was living that sweet good life that obviously went to his hair. Then, of course, there were his blue eyes. The color of the ocean at dawn--'nuff said...

C'mon, no getting around it--I'm a great looking dude.

Not to be bigheaded or anything, but he didn't even really have to play the game to get girls. He was practically the kind of guy who could snap his fingers and they'd come running, certainly when it came to waitresses, chicks of that nature. Let's get real--he was the type of guy girls like that took those types of jobs to get! Hunks, man. Hunks with a headful of sunny blonde watercurls and muscles till Tuesday rippling under those baggy-but-sporty tube tops, and just a wink of those baby blues and his buttery Moviephone voice wasn't bad either--

Nah, he played the game for their benefit. You know, so they wouldn't feel like sluts for going out with a dude they just met.

Which is just what Cherry did.

He was waiting after her shift, and you should have seen those chipmunk eyes blow when they got a glimpse of Jo-Jo on his primo motorbike. If she wasn't a done deal before, she sure was then. So much so, she hardly put up a fight when he started making out with her on the bike, right there in the Hooters parking lot--

Hey, no, wait, I could get fired--

Or some blah-blah like that, about it being a wholesome family restaurant (was she kidding? If you're Howard Hefner or whoever, maybe) so he just felt her up a little and then said, okay, we'll be cool, we'll take it back to my place for some toke and some poke, or words to that defect, and then laughed and she laughed back and then they left but not after first talking her into buffaloing his chicken wing there in parking lot, just to keep things in perspective, nobody was looking, and she was like sure, that's a compromise--

Yeah, Cherry, she was an all right kind of girl. So he took her back to his loft, there on the beach, or nearbouts, took the long way, showing off a bit, letting her get all hot and bothered riding on his hot machine, her plump arms around his tight abs--enjoy my ribs, little waitress--why not, give her a treat. Then, finally, after a quick snack run, took her back, and they got high, and he had sex with her right on the fouton, he asked her to keep the Hooters uniform on while they did it, the shorts were so silky and whatnot, you could just push the crotch-part to the side, and she said sure, cool, I get that a lot, and he thought about that for a second, but a second goes by real fast when you're high and hot and horny, so zoom, went real fast, and so did he, so they sat around, watching "From Dusk To Dawn" with either Cheech or Chong being all vampire and such, and then, she buffaloed his chicken wing again, just for something to do, and fell asleep, and he decided, how to round of a sweet day of toke and poke...?

Hey, how about some Midnight Boogie-Surfing?

But Cherry was worn out and high and pretty much satiated in every plump direction, so he was like, hey, cool, and decided to go out in the moonlight boogying by himself.

All this replayed in his mind underwater.

Now, he wasn't unconscious, or drowning, no--he could hold his breath a long time--he just liked floating, it was cool, soothing, it was like flying or something, like being high all over your body. But he was in control, even as wasted as he was, even as submerged as he was, even as totally yow-wow-wiped out as he was, he knew to let his body bob up until he could take a nice deep breath of fresh air, and let himself sink and float back under. I'm like a submarine or something, he mused, thinking about Cheech or Chong turning into a vampire.

Which is why he missed seeing Cherry blink awake, sleepily, and suddenly realize she was alone--took her awhile, but she figured it out--saw a note, that said, yo gal, out boogin. She didn't know what that meant, or was supposed to spell exactly, but she noticed his fine Darth Maul surfboard was missing--he'd made quite a show about it, kinda boring actually--but it was gone, and so, even a Hooters waitress could put two and two together...sometimes...she might not get four exactly, but she could narrow it down...

Then she had a naughty thought.

Then another, somewhat conflicting thought, but what eventually came about, is she slowly took off the Hooters uniform--first the tight shirt, and-- oh yeah! there they are!--and even though the initial plan was just to go topless, hey, why not, you know, let's have a bit of play--

So off came the orange shorts, and the white socks with the orange marshmallow fuzzballs, and this and that...

And out she streaked, into the night, across the glowing sands of the late night beach.

What a sight--too bad Underwater Jo-Jo missed it--but what. a. sight. That plump little waitress, that tasty little titbit, in all her plump chipmunk glory--she was amazingly put together, helium voice or not--and she just ran like nature's little naked unicorn, practically leaving little Tinkerbell sprinkles in her wake. She hopped, and frollicked, and thanks to the eerie glow courtesy of the bashful moon, she looked like a nude female astronaut on some delightful sandy lunar surface.

She didn't notice, and probably wouldn't have been able to "two plus two" it together even if she had--that that glowing lunar surface was, in select spots shifting in little rolling dune trails, undulating and rushing with a sudden frenzied rabidness straight for her.

~ ~ FOUR ~ ~

In The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:

The Splintery Stairs

He kicked open the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

Roxy balked. "What? Upstairs? I didn't know we were doing this upstairs."

"Were you not informed about any part of this evening?' D. J. grinned.

Hoagie, frustrated, said, "Where did you think we were going?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she said nonsensically, as she led the way into the badly-lit back office.

"Why don't we just do it down here?" asked D. J., gesturing vaguely at the messy piles and cartoons of unpacked books.

"No, we have to do it upstairs," said Luna. "It's more harmonic up there."

"That's where the homeless beach man lived," Roxy warned vaguely, with a grumble.

D. J. responded with "Homeless beach man? There was a homeless beach man?"

"He was here before you got hired," Roxy said. "Stayed up there a week. No showers or anything."

"So?" Hoagie said, trying to change the subject.

"So? So what!" Roxy gave him a dirty look. "So he was up there. A whole week and everything."

"But he's not up there now," Hoagie said dismissively. "It's not like he was a haunted homeless man." He turned to D. J., said, "It's just upstairs. A bunch of deserted offices. You been up there."

"Apparently, so has a haunted homeless beach man," D. J. nodded.

Hoagie shot D. J. another you traitor look.

"It has to be upstairs," Luna said, decisively. "No phones, no electricity -- no interruptions. At least not... mortal ones."

Before everyone else could stop rolling their eyes, Roxy came up with what she thought was a sure dealbreaker, which in turn would allow this whole nonsense to be over with so she could spend the rest of the night with Hoagie being a ballbreaker.

"Well," she said, like Perry Mason wrapping up a case, "if there's no electricity up there--how are we all going to see?"

She enjoyed a moment of total smug before Luna suddenly turned around and--

--produced four candles.

Four extremely weird-looking candles.

"Got a match, anyone?" she asked, with a victorious grin.

~ ~ ~

Upstairs, up those splintery stairs.

"Could these candles be tinier?" Roxy grumbled, holding hers out in front of her like it was radioactive.

"Oh, man," Hoagie said suddenly.

"What?" Roxy seemed instantly suspicious.

"What?" Luna repeated, in a mock-nag voice.

Hoagie said, in a totally manufactured tone, "Dudes, I've got to--seriously, I like totally forgot--I got to fax something."

He grinned, shrugged, gave that sheepish look of his, and quickly headed back down the splintery steps.

"Be riiiight back," he called out as he disappeared around the corner.

"Lame," everyone said in unison after he disappeared.

"Fax something?" D. J. chuckled. "What is this, 20 years ago?" Nodding shrewdly, he added: "I detect treachery."

"Off setting up one of his stupid practical jokes," Roxy muttered. "Special Halloween idiot edition."

D. J. nodded: ahhh, that explains why he agreed to stick around tonight.

"Whatever he does, don't fall for it or act surprised," Roxy muttered. "He'll be crowing for days."

They all stood there on the splintery steps, nodding, agreeing not to fall for anything.

Then: they all continued up the stairs, guided by the erratic candlelight.

~ ~ ~

Hoagie scurried to the front of the store, chuckling to himself. He pretended to set up the fax machine, but when he was sure no one from upstairs had followed, he picked up the phone and dialed.

"C'mon, Dickie, pick up." He waited, still checking over his shoulder. "C'mon... Oh, man, Dickie. What's the point of a cell phone--"

Grumbling, he hung up the phone, and checking his watch with the clock on the wall, then checking again, he pressed his nose against the front window, peering out into the dark, past the painted hermit crab claw, the boardwalk, the long beach, out into the soft moonlit waves.

"Okay, buddy, I assume you're on your way. Don't leave me hanging."

He kept looking for a moment, then, chuckled out loud.

"Man, this is going to be sweet. The sweetest punk-prank ever." Another chuckle. "I'm going to be crowing about this one for days."

He considered dialing again, but--nah. He's on his way. He wouldn't miss a primo prank like this. Not ol' Dickie.

"Prepare to reach, my friends," he whispered, whipping out a little air guitar, "the Prank Island of Rock--!"

Looking over his shoulder again, he hurried over to the double doors, fiddled with his key chain and--

Click--

Left the front doors to Hermit Crab Used Books totally unlocked.

And scurried back to the festivities.

This is going to be...

...sweet.

~ ~ ~

They were all on knees and crossed legs, huddled underneath exposed pipes, ragged wires, peeling walls, circled around the Ouija board. The candles had been stuck-waxed onto the corners of the board. Shadows flickered over bored faces, annoyed faces, nervous faces, and Luna's wide-eyed talking-mystical-again face.

"Let the night begin," she intoned, melodramatically. Wriggling her overly-painted fingernails-- and her overly-penciled eyebrows --she puckered and eyed everyone ominously.

Roxy sighed, and offered, under her breath, "Whoopie."

D. J., smirking, wondered aloud, "You know what would be scary?"

"Yes, and I don't want to talk about it," Roxy warned.

"Let's play this thing," an annoyingly chipper Hoagie suggested, clapping his hands.

"You don't play Ouija," Luna corrected. "You experience it."

"What-ever," Roxy grumbled. "D. J.'s touching me."

"I am not. I'm over here."

"What-ever," Roxy grumbled.

"Hey, I got an idea," Hoagie said suddenly. "We should draw a pentagram."

"No, no, no--no pentagrams," D. J. protested. "None of that 666 stuff."

Hoagie sniffed. "Pentagram's hardcore."

"Yeah, well, save it for the next seance, there, Professor Snape..."

"CAN WE, LIKE, JUST DO THIS ALREADY!" Roxy bellowed.

Luna nodded, completely unruffled. "Yes. Let us... begin."

"Okay, okay, already," Hoagie said. "So. What should we ask?"

There was a long pause in the room.

"How 'bout ask it if it's okay to ask it something," D. J. suggested.

"What? That's stupid," Roxy said.

"Why? Maybe nobody wants to talk to us." D. J. shrugged. "I know I wouldn't."

"That's stupid," Roxy snapped. "You're stupid. This whole thing is stupid."

D. J. said, delicately, "Maybe you're stupid."

"What! Excuse you!"

Appalled, Roxy and D. J. began shooting middle fingers at each other. D. J. grabbed Roxy's middle finger to stop it; she shot him one with her other hand. D. J. said, "Oh, that's how it is, then?" then he shot her a middle finger back. She returned fire, and suddenly they were flipping and poking each other with their middle fingers.

Hoagie: "Oh, id-iots..."

They ignored him, fingers flying.

Hoagie: "...don't make me sic the haunted homeless man on you two."

Bug-eyed, D. J. and Roxy abruptly stopped, crossing their arms nervously in front of their chests. They shot pouty looks at each other, and a couple of one-for-the-road somewhat discreet middle fingers at each other. (Roxy stuck out her tongue for good measure.)

Luna, very calmly, asked, "Can we start, please, thank you."

"That's not a bad question, really, though, asking if we can ask. No harm asking permission, right?" said Hoagie. Now he was the nervous-seeming one, all of a sudden. "Probably a good idea, huh?"

"Asking permission," Roxy snorted. "How hardcore."

Ignoring her, Hoagie nodded. "Get us off on the right foot. Spirit-wise. And whatever."

Luna smiled discreetly. "Fine with me."

With that agreed, everyone slowly glanced around at each other, questioningly. After a shadowy pause, Luna asked, in that still very overly calm voice. "So ... who wants to ask?"

~ ~ ~

A few jumbled moments later, D. J. and Roxy were sitting across from each other, shadows flickering over their faces, as they stared at each other with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The Ouija board was between them.

"How come we have to ask first?' D. J. muttered.

"Scared?" Roxy asked, with a grin.

"Of you." D. J. copied her grin.

Roxy stuck her tongue at him.

"Don't point that wriggly thing at me," D. J. countered.

"Man, get a room, you two," Luna smirked, casting a wicked glance over at Hoagie, who was trying to decide if he should be jealous or not.

"If the room has electricity, I'd actually go, even with him," Roxy muttered, sticking her tongue at D. J. again.

Luna said, "Are you two going to do this seriously or what?"

"Uh ... 'or what.'" Roxy rolled her eyes.

Luna squinted. "Hoagie, you're the manager. Make them do it right."

"Assistant manager," Roxy muttered.

"Do it right," Hoagie muttered back.

D. J. rolled his eyes. "Sure told you."

Roxy stuck her tongue out again.

"I'm warning you." D. J. shot Roxy a look.

Luna, sing-song: "Hoa-gie!"

"All right, all right, we're serious already," Roxy sighed. "How do we do this dumb thing, then? What are the dumb rules?"

"Just put your fingers on the pointer, real gentle," Luna explained. "Just the fingertips, but don't push. You have to let the pointer move on its own. Don't push it, don't guide it..."

"Then why even touch it?" Roxy scowled.

"Why even be here?" D. J. drawled.

"Hoa-gie!"

"We're doing it, we're doing it, don't split a seam." Roxy glared down at the stupid board, with all the stupid candles, and all the stupid stupidness. "Just tell us the question."

D. J. gave the board and candles a bored look. "Yeah, what are we asking again?"

"I thought we were asking it if it was okay to ask it if we could ask it something," Roxy said, confused. "Or something."

Hoagie waved his hand. "Eeh, ask something else. Something cool."

"Okay ... here we go," said Luna, in a very comforting voice. "Is there anyone -- or anything -- here with us? Go ahead, ask it that."

D. J. and Roxy looked at each other, then they muttered, incoherently, "Anybody... anything... out there... here... blah-de-blah... whatever."

Everyone paused, looking at the pointer, which was not moving.

"I think it's broke," Roxy said.

"Okay, concentrate, everyone," Luna said, and, to Roxy, "No pushing now."

"I'm not pushing," Roxy said crisply. "It's not even moving, how can I be pushing?"

Luna soothed. "Just don't push, let it move of its own ..."

"I told you, I'm not--"

And suddenly, it slowly... began to move.

Everyone gasped.

Even Luna seemed surprised. "It's moving...."

Roxy blinked. "It's moving ..."

"Woaah, dude, look, it's totally moving." Hoagie pointed. "Look! Mooov-iing! It totally is!"

Roxy eyed D. J. suspiciously. "Are you pushing?"

"I'm not pushing. Are you pushing?"

"I'm not pushing."

"Don't push," Luna instructed.

"We're not pushing," D. J. and Roxy growled.

"I promise I'm not pushing." D. J. said.

"I know I'm not pushing," Roxy insisted.

"Both of us are not pushing," they said.

"Just no pushing," Luna whispered.

"WE'RE NOT PUSHING!"

"Wait, look," Hoagie pointed out. "It stopped."

Roxy, grinning at D. J. "Did you stop?"

"I didn't stop," said D. J. quietly. "I wasn't moving it in the first place."

"Where'd it stop?" Hoagie said, leaning in with cautious eyes.

Luna, leaning in as well. "On the word 'Ouija.'"

Roxy scowled. "What kind of lame-o answer is that?"

D. J. shrugged. "I forgot the question."

"Maybe it wasn't finished answering," Hoagie offered. "Or maybe it's confused."

"I knew this wasn't going to work," said Roxy.

"It said 'Yes,'" pointed out Luna.

"What?" said Roxy.

Said Luna, "It did answer you. It said 'Yes.'"

"It did?" Hoagie stared cluelessly at the board. "How do you figure that?"

Luna said, "The pointer's covering the last two letters of Ouija. J-A. Ja. That's German for yes."

Hoagie leaned in even closer. "Really?"

Roxy scrunched up her nose. "She doesn't know."

Luna, with utmost calm, said, "Where do you think the name Ouija came from? 'Oui' -- which is French for 'yes,', and 'ja' -- which is German for 'yes.'"

"Good for the French," Hoagie said.

"And the Germans," D. J. added.

"I'm surprised you didn't know that," Roxy said, pointedly, to D. J.

D. J. shrugged. "I'm just sitting here."

"'Yes-Yes?' What kind of name is that for a game?" Hoagie wondered.

Luna stated, "Well, that's what it is. Don't believe me, then."

"I won't, thank you," Roxy said.

Hoagie said, "Hey, I know. Ask the board."

Luna said, "We just did--"

Hoagie said, "But I mean--"

While they were arguing what "Ouija" meant, D. J. leaned over the board to Roxy, whispering, "Boy, you're cranky tonight."

Roxy answered by sticking her tongue out again.

"I'm telling you," D. J. whispered, "You better watch where you point that thing--"

Hoagie suggested, "Okay, really, ask the board if that's true, the French-German yes-thing--"

Luna replied, "Yeah, that's good. Fine. Do that--"

Roxy scowled, "Fine, whatever, who cares."

D. J. and Roxy repositioned their fingers.

"And don't be touching my fingers," warned Roxy.

"I ain't touchin' your old scabby claws," growled D. J.

"Well, see that you don't--"

"That's cootie-ville. Who knows where they been--"

"Guess where this one's gonna be--"

"Hoa-gie--!"

"Fine, we're asking, already, keep your hose on," Roxy said. Then, to the board: "'Is Ouija French and German for yes?' There. C'mon ... let's concentrate. Yeah. And no pushing."

"Yeah, no pushing," said Hoagie.

"I'm just sitting here," D. J. sighed.

D. J. and Roxy concentrated on the board again. Eventually the pointer moved -- one short move, then it stopped.

"It stopped," said Hoagie. "On the letter 'C.' But that's not even a whole word."

D. J. shook his head. "Rox, wait, don't lift your fingers--"

"I didn't. They slipped. It stopped on its own. I think it's broke. And don't call me 'Rox.'"

Luna commented, "No, it's not broken. It answered your question."

"How?" Hoagie stared at the board. "It's just one letter."

Luna grinned that mysterious grin. "The letter 'C.' Si ... Spanish for yes."

Hoagie tapped the board suspiciously. "Get out of here."

"You made that up," said Roxy.

Luna just shrugged.

Roxy winced with irritation at D. J. "You--you're not allowed to ask any more questions."

D. J. looked around, vaguely. He started to say, you're the one that asked the question, nitwit, but stuck with: "I'm just sitting here."

Roxy shooed him. "Not no more, you're not. Move. You're done."

"Fine. Nuts, all of ya. Who cares. I was getting a cramp anyway."

Roxy pushed D. J. away from the board. "Hey. No pushing, remember," he protested, as he wobbled against a dirty box.

Roxy stuck her tongue again.

D. J., mocking, "'Hoa-gie--!' C'mon, man, you're the manager. Man up, here. Manager man."

Roxy glared at Hoagie. "Don't even dream of telling me what to do off the clock."

"Fine, fine," D. J. sighed, standing up with a splintery creak. "I need a break anyway."

"Hey," said Roxy, pointing as she also stood up. "If he doesn't have to stay, I don't have to stay--"

"Copycat," cooed D. J.

As D. J. and Roxy jostled to leave, Luna intoned, very calmly, "Well, what everyone seems to be overlooking is... someone's here. In this room. With us."

Everyone looked around, semi-nervously-- except D. J., who made snoring sounds.

Luna pointed out, "You are not taking this seriously."

D. J. rolled his eyes. Roxy gave him a ha-ha-you-got-in-trouble look.

Hoagie, swallowing, said, "Well, if someone's here, we should maybe probably ask him something." He paused a moment. "Like what?"

"Hey, how 'bout this," D. J. offered. "Ask his name. Find out who we're talking to. It's only polite, seein' as you're grillin' him so much." D. J. waved to Roxy. "Let's go, Rox."

A pint-sized glare.

"I mean, Roxy."

"Fine, leave then." Luna quickly arranged the board between her and Hoagie. Roxy grimaced slightly as Luna and Hoagie positioned their fingers close together.

Luna nodded, "Wow, doesn't that give you a chill? I'm chilled."

Hoagie nodded, wide-eyed, "Oh wow. Right."

Luna nodded, "It's a definite chill aura."

Hoagie nodded, "Totally. I'm way chilled."

Roxy, standing in the doorway, made a gagging face.

"Look, it's moving... it's going past the letters," Luna narrated, "... it's searching ..."

Hoagie noted, "It's going off the board ..."

"He's totally pushing it," Roxy hissed to D. J., who really didn't care at this point.

Luna, soothing, "Don't push it, now... careful... careful..."

Hoagie said, "Totally, I'm not, not at all. Wait, look. It stopped on ... Ouija." He gasped. "He's saying... I AM OUIJA."

Luna's eyes widened, her hands touching Hoagie's. "Oh... wow... now I am chilled."

Hoagie nodded. "Me, yeah. I'm so totally chilled I can't believe it."

Roxy sighed, muttering, "I'm so totally going to throw up. And you can believe that."

"Totally chilled," Hoagie nodded.

Roxy yawned exaggeratedly in the background.

Hoagie smiled, inspired. "Hey, maybe we should ask it -- him, her, whoever -- a question that'd prove this is real."

Luna looked wide-eyed. "Yeah, that's a good idea." Eyeing Hoagie silkily. "You have great ideas."

"Thank you." Hoagie's cheeks were reddening.

If steam could shoot out a person's ears... now it was Roxy's face that was reddening. D. J. noticed this, shrank away from her slightly.

Luna soothed. "Just relax ... keep your long strong fingers calm ..."

She managed to brush one of her fingers sloooowly against Hoagie's.

Luna grinned. "Relaxing?"

Hoagie: "Uhhhh...yeah. Oh yeah."

Roxy gave D. J. a rueful look. D. J. just shrugged.

Hoagie, wide-eyed, said, "Nothing's happening.

"Take your time." Luna winked. "Got all night."

Roxy's steam was about to blow. "I've gotta go pee," she seethed evenly.

As she turned, she whacked D. J. on the shoulder.

D. J. sighed, rubbing his shoulder. "Huh? Oh. I got to go too. Apparently."

Luna squinted. "Have fun."

Said Hoagie, distractedly, "Uhm, we'll think up some good questions for you two when you, for when you, you know... get back."

Roxy glared. "You do that."

She turned on her heel, drilling splinters out of the warped floorboards as she skulked down the hall, tugging D. J. along with her. Hoagie, seeming a bit guilty, started to get up to go after, but Luna gently pulled him back into place.

Luna whispered, silkily. "Concentrate, now." She and her big boobs leaned in close. "Are you ... concentrating?"

Hoagie bit his bottom lip, very distractedly. "Uhhhhm, wha?"

Luna nodded gently. "Okay, good...good ..."

She gently traced her finger over Hoagie's, on the pointer.

Her voice dropped even further. "You concentrating? You thinking... hard?" A long arching pause. "Real hard?"

Hoagie trembled. Opened his mouth, meant to say something--but only a tiny airy squeak came out. Managing a blink, Hoagie looked down hard--real hard--at...

(Many attempt...)

... at ...

(...but only a few reach... the island of...)

... Luna Bloodlove's very big boobs.

Then, as if reading either Hoagie's addled mind or his too-tight t-shirt... she whispered silkily...

"'Only he who does nothing makes no mistakes.'"

~ ~ FIVE ~ ~

Out Somewhat Near The Beach:

Naked, Beautiful, Pissy

She was naked, she was beautiful, she was full-blown pissy as all get-out.

About 5 foot 10, with a face like a teen model--man, she looked young, hope that ID wasn't faked--and a body like, well... just look at it. A super-model. Better than a super-model--she had curves and some meat on her bones--in all the right places, of course. Okay, maybe not a super-model, but still--

Those lips, those eyes--ocean green, sky blue--something like that. Who cares, she was major-hot, that was that, and it wasn't just the alcohol either. She was something.

But man oh man--did she have an attitude.

No denying, she was a real pain in the every-which-what...but, there, for about a moment, laying there across the fake leather seats of the darkened Camaro, out in the moonlight shade of the little curl of a semi-secret hideout parking nook known as "Boner's Point"--just off the road from the beach boardwalk--a smoking hottie by the name of Kirsten was-- it did certainly appear-- more than willing--

But Eddie, well, he just went too far.

"C'mon, you little tease, don't--"

And then, well...

...he just went too far.

~ ~ ~

Kirsten kicked--hard--placing the thick heel of her hot real leather boot securely and precisely in the meaty softness of Eddie's crotch.

The familiar bugging, bulging, surprised betrayed man-eyes ... the hopeless feeble whooosh of air pushing through limp, defeated lips... the utter and total deboning, muscle-crimping, stance-melting slump of the body...the wobbling of knees --

Uh oh.

She realized.

Now it was she who'd gone a little too far.

Oh well, too late to turn back now--

So Kirsten pile-drived her other boot right next to the first...

Eddie's rag-doll body tumbled clumsily to the left, against the car horn, blasting into the night--

"Why you--gasp!--stupid--choke--!--little--!"

Kirsten sat up, intending to --

The car door was locked.

She reached--

Eddie threw a wild punch--!

Oh, man, now I know you didn't do that, mister--!

A shock of light behind her eyes -- it was as if a fuse in her brain blew --

~ ~ ~

Her next semi-conscious thought was that she was running.

Pain seemed to be coming at her from every direction, making nothing but direct hits. Her hand was a crumpled mess; her back seemed to be harboring a living, growing burr, a sawblade of sparking, electric spasms ... her feet felt like rubber, thumping with fishy flatness against the uneven ground ... her eyes vibrated with fierce harshness....her throat tore, ripped with each roaring, hoary breath.....even her gums throbbed...

Well now, I just don't feel good at all.

The landscape waved, weaved and wobbled...she had no idea where she was, and less where she was going...

She was topless.

It took a moment--or several moments, who keeps track under such conditions?-- but --eventually-- she realized--

She was topless.

This, she thought vaguely, is probably not good.

But she had bigger problems than that right now. Noises from the night wind merged with the surprisingly diminished huffs and coughs coming from between her chapped, lipstick-smeared lips ... I got drunk, he got me drunk ... tomato, to-mah-to ... somebody got somebody drunk...airy sounds whirled in her skull, seeming to tickle the back of her eyes... suffocating... disoriented... and, yet, strangely focused as she plowed on through the pain, the night, the--

(no idea where she was going, no idea where she was going)

I'm topless.

That is probably not good.

The only fixed point on her careening, gyroscoping compass was: behind you. The Great Back There. Lover's Peak, Makeout Lane, Boner's Point, whatever that horrible nookie nook was called... I suggested the beach, but noooo ...

Did you--really?

Did you have all your clothes on then?

(because you sure don't now--)

She hoped, she desperately wished beyond wishes ... was falling further and further behind...

(no idea)

She was afraid to look, afraid to see that makeout parking spot, the car, all was just a few feet behind her... and that instead of running she was just staggering around lamely, making no ground ...

(no idea at all)

That would probably not be good either, huh?

But what was worse, what was a hundred times scarier, was the idea that she would see, just inches behind her, Eddie, running with those demon-wild eyes, that Exorcist-face grimace, gripping his crotch with one hand, and waving who-knows-what in his other --

Exorcist!

He looked totally like that! Except being a man! And drunk!

I hate that movie!

"No!" she gulped, in a spectacular burst of phlegm and spit, as she lowered her head, and kept barreling through the night.

Don't think about it, Kirsten, she commanded herself, and narrowed her eyes to razor slits, looking everywhere but (behind, never behind), searching for escape, or a place to hide, so she could just grab a few moments to think, think, think --

You should have gone to that bookstore, the one with the turtle, or crab painted on it.

The guy there, the writer, he seemed nice, bet he doesn't drive a Camaro with hair-dice and an 8-track tape deck...

What was his name--

(Not Eddie)

"No, probably not," she giggle-hissed, smiling crazily.

(probably not)

"Just keep going. You put the man in a vindictive frame of mind, is all." Her feet throbbing... thump-thump-thump... gimpy shocks of electric, ravaging...

aaarrrghhhhhh...

...oooh, whatever.

(give up, what's the point, why-why-why bother, you know he's right behind you ... right BEHIND YOU --)

And in the night, in the breezy, gasping whirlwind ... a gimpy thump-thump-thump...

Her foot suddenly hit something, a rock probably, and her ankle twisted, she just knew, just knew she broke it...she was sure she heard toe-bones POP... her leg suddenly jerked...well, this is it, girl, you're done, you're gonna get it now, this is how it happens, yo momma was right, messing around with boy after boy after man after man was going to get you in the end, and this is where you're --

"Uhhhnnnn..." She grit her teeth and bit her lip, and somehow, impossibly, kept running. More pain, but at this point, really-- a teaspoon of water in an ocean of agony.

Oh, and by the way?

He's. Right. Behind. You.

That thought gleamed, bright and unbidden.

"Maybe so, maybe ... no," she managed, in an airy grunt. "But just keep going, girl. You got no chance, but if you stop, you got less than no..."

(Hey, I still got two feet, and I'm still in a high-kickin' mood--)

Thump-thump--

Kirsten felt a crimp in her wounded claw-of-a-hand... the one that broke his car window... oh boy, if he wasn't out of his mind angry before... then a burning sensation, that sparked wild, a flame-torch, from flesh down to the bone... her fingers were curling, gnarling, like a spider's corpse on a gridle...

She thought she heard him, thought ... no, knew that Eddie was behind her, right behind her... no, he's not, he's back at the car, nursing his poor boot-heeled round ones...

You should have gone to that bookstore, the one with the turtle, or crab painted on it.

Kirsten tried to increase her speed, but it wasn't happening...

He seemed nice.

(pay attention now)

(here comes eddie)

He doesn't have to catch up with you, you know. All he has to do is get close ... wait for you to drop, to fall--

(Maybe so... but trust me -- this time, Mr. Edward, Mr. Slob Knob, I ain't going down easy--)

--wait for you to drop, to fall--

Closer--

Closer--

~ ~ ~

Eddie was mean.

But, man, he was a really mean drunk.

And now he was a mean drunk with a busted-out car window.

So, right about now, Eddie was officially: out of his freakin' mind.

~ ~ ~

Slowly, she turned. Even then, after what must have been a good half-hour of running and climbing and pushing through weeds and stickers and thorns--I am soooo drunk--steep hills and wadding through muddy pebble puddles, even then she expected nothing less than to turn around and see Eddie standing right there, all fists and alcohol-blistered vengeance, his tattooed arm up and high in wicked-bright pre-swing --

But no: nothing.

Nothing but horizon.

My. HOW BORING.

She laughed loosely. I've gone delirious. Well, she mused vaguely, if you have to go nuts, this is the time to do it...

She couldn't even see the makeout hideout, or the road that had led to it -- or the twisted escape path that led away from it-- couldn't see any of it-- which for an instant set off a manic burst of static in her chest -- pure jolt of panic, with a hot anger chaser -- that she had lost track of her way, and perhaps was not as far away as she'd hoped --

Kirsten stood there, hanging by an invisible thread, bobbing and weaving from her hangover of bad choices and pure pain. Her skin was hot, and seemed to be peeling off in her mind. She wanted nothing more than to just ... let go, tumble to the ground and hope for a miracle. She just needed, above everything to rest ... to sleep this whole nightmare away--

--a pop-flash! strobe of pain!--

And a stumble, and she fell, and began to roll down a steep grassy hill, and then suddenly the grass disappeared, and then she was covered in--

Rolled to a stop.

"Uhhhhnnnnnnn... okay, 'kay... I give, I give...let's be friends, do-over, do-over..."

And she laughed.

Sure.

Why not?

Go for it.

Drowsy realization, there, on her back, on the--

Beach.

Beach?

I ran all the way to the beach.

Wow.

Sounds good to me.

"That's far, I think. That's pretty darn far." And then, with a sigh--she started to slip away, so exhausted, to fall asleep...

~ ~ ~

Bliss.

Kirsten settled back into the cool sand.

"Yessss," she said, hissing with incalculable, immeasurable relief. It felt so good, lying there... seemed to push the pain... out... somewhere. Reduced it to a low-vibrating numbness. "Oh yesss..."

Kirsten curled, slowly, to a fetal position. Somehow, being compacted with all her wounds and bruises, felt better for some reason. Like all things that feel temporarily good, she mused ruefully, she was probably doing herself more damage in the long run. But she didn't care. Later was later, but now, at least ...

... bliss.

~ ~ ~

(white noise)

Her eyes popped open, as if launched from their sockets. Her body, suddenly ravaged by shudders, clenched ...even as she tried to sit up...

Clenched, man.

Kirsten blinked through goopy tears, looking around in the darkness. Strange, jagged shadows...where? She moaned, trying to focus her eyes, her mind. A stab of panic, then...

Why do writer types have to be so... weird?

I wonder if I'd have my top on right now if I went out with that guy?

Wonder if he'd write about it?

Suddenly--a series of cruel shudders.

Still--he seemed--

(clench)

Still--he seemed nice--

(clench)

--seemed--

(CLENCH)

"--niiiiice!" she gasped, laughing and crying at the same time.

The shudders increased--then, just as suddenly, lessened, and she began gently calming herself down. She wiped away the sand from her face with her good hand, trying to clear her vision. Her eyes adjusted, a little, though for Kirsten it was like watching a 3-D movie without the glasses. Her good hand gripped her bad shoulder--she wanted to force herself awake, shove clarity into her skull, so she could figure out what, if anything, her next move might be...should be...

"Focus," she insisted, gritting her teeth. "C'mon, girl."

Focus.

She felt so hot, so cold at the same time. Occasional quivers- instead- of- full- shudders. Thick blankets stacked high in her brain.

"Focus," she commanded, staring unblinkingly at a small, particular shadow somewhere on the horizon. "This is kinda, you know... serious. For what that's worth..."

It took a few moments, and more effort than she thought capable of, but her mind slowly began to clear... and she became less aware of her own being and personal pain... and more aware of the shadows around her... the sounds of the night, the sounds of... the sounds of...

"Well, well, well. What have we here?"

Kirsten froze -- her heart double-clutched. But she never lost her smile.

Ahh Mr. Edward! You're... here! So we meet again!

What a nice surprise.

How are your balls?

"Look at you, pathetic. Girl, I can't believe I bothered to get you drunk."

It was as if there was no other sound at all. No wind, no birds, no echo, no ambient sound of any kind. She let her eyes flutter open, and--

Eddie, with his wild, blazing demon face, those gotcha! eyes, laser-sharp with evil intent. Up at the top of the sandy dune. Limping. Scratched where she'd scratched him. Kicked where she'd kicked him. Wounded where she wounded him.

Carrying a rusty crowbar.

Ohhh, look, how sweet--he brought me a gift.

She thought about trying to crawl backwards, away. Trying to stand up, that was out of the question.

Ahhh, why bother.

Still topless, huh?

Well, at least I'll go out in style.

Eddie just laughed, a real condescending bark.

"You know what you look like to me," he growled, with a hateful lush's grin, slowly limping down the dune. "Nothing. A big piece of nothing. You're not even worth thinking about. You're just a waste. A waste of time, a waste of thought, a waste of life. And I'm going to do you a favor, you nothing..."

Now, this one, Big Ed here, he's not nice, nope, he's not nice at all...

She lay back in the sand-- could hear the edge of the water getting closer, could hear the lapping waves, feel the sting of salt on her bruises...

That writer, from the bookstore, he suggested we come out here in the first place; funny, it threw me, because--you'll never believe it--I thought it was a little forward. Going to the beach, on the first date. Can you believe it? Doesn't he know proper etiquette is to tear off a girl's top and threaten her with a crowbar? I mean, get it together, writer dude!

"...I'm going to do you--and the world--the biggest favor there is." He hefted the crowbar. "I'm going to turn you from a nothing...to a burden. A cripple, some ugly twisted heap someone will have to take care of. Someone you can't tease. Someone you can't kick a cheap shot. And that'll be the only way you'll have some one care about you. And you'll finally have a purpose."

He grinned.

"And me, well... I'll finally get some fun off you."

She shrugged.

Fine.

Have your way with me.

"You're such a stud," she whispered weakly. And then she spit on the beach sand.

Water splashed against her back, spattered into her hair. She was trapped. And, funny enough, now that it was over, no more options, she no longer felt any fear -- matter of fact, she felt a surprisingly sweet sense of relief. She was tired, wounded, drunk, and what about it. She'd had enough. After all, a girl can only deal with so much. Especially when you got a date, who...

(went-too-far)

"Well, if you're gonna do it, big boy," she husk-whispered, "you're gonna do it looking me in the eye. 'Cause here I am..."

Naked. Beautiful. Pissy.

And with that, she wiped her nose with her good fist, took a deep, steadying breath, and glared at the son of a bitch.

Then she passed out.

Then--back in.

Damn.

He's still here.

Eddie grinned wickedly.

She grinned right back. A grin that said, Well, at least I got a couple of good kicks in. I did do that.

His grin wilted a bit--but just a bit.

But Kirsten didn't care. She knew where this was going. And sure, she knew she could scream, just as she knew it would do no good, no bloody good at all.

Eddie lifted that crowbar.

And mean as he was, mad as he was, out of his mind as he was...

He took the time.

Took his sweet time.

To aim.

Kirsten just smiled. What else could a girl do? No one would hear. And if they did, it would be too late. So no point wasting the breath, of giving him the satisfaction.

And then she went blank again.

(sure)

(hey, why not)

And that's why she was as surprised as anyone, really, when suddenly, a scream pierced the air anyway.

Kirsten's eyes widened--skeptically--as Eddie's looming form suddenly buckled, underwent a huge wrenching twist.

(boy, that sure looks--)

His face exploded with pain.

(exactly)

And then, suddenly, it turned into quite a show:

His eyes widened. The muscles in his neck whipped and clenched. His scruffy jaw stretched and made a tiny musical popping sound, locking open. His nostrils tremored, went flat. His face flushed hot-crimson, morphed into a mottled pink, then blanched bone-white. His whole body flexed and then locked tight. He looked as if he'd stabbed a fork into a fuse box, a thousand watts of paralyzing pain circuiting wildly through his form.

His scream careened, then abruptly cut itself off--what came out of his mouth next: a sharp glassy choke of an airless yelp.

After that: silence.

(bravo! encore!)

Silence.

The crowbar dropped from his outstretched fingers, splashed dully in the ebbing tide a few inches from Kirsten's thigh.

It was then Kirsten saw that Eddie had--somehow--sunk in the beach, about a foot, maybe two, past his ankles, right below his knee--

Quicksand?

That was her initial thought.

Until she saw the tentacles curling up from the sand, wrapping and wriggling up Eddie's legs.

And, of course--

The blood.

Kirsten could only watch, in her for-sure dream state (did he hit me with the crowbar already?) as Eddie started whipping around like he was being electrocuted, as blood started soaking his pants, as he--whoop!--dropped another foot into the sand. The tentacles hurriedly reasserted their grip. One tentacle whipped right into Eddie's crotch, and if Eddie thought those Kirsten-kicks were painful--

(oh, his poor balls)

(almost feel sorry for the jerk)

Eddie's teeth chomped together with a harsh, horrid click--

She grinned droopily. Wow. This is one wicked-ass dream.

And then, that's when Kirsten noticed another click... and another... and another--

...click-click-CLICK-click-CLICK...

...a whole rapid-fire machine gun clip of clicks...

And that's when--now, I know I'm drunk, but this is getting ridiculous--she saw the teeth, coming out of the sand, chewing on Eddie's leg--

The beach is eating Eddie? she thought dimly. Good times. Good times.

Suddenly, Kirsten didn't want to watch--even for a dream, this was getting a little too surreal. And kinda sick, to be honest. But, funny enough--she couldn't turn away.

So: she lay there, in the surf, and watched Eddie slowly--and bonelessly--get pulled down into the sand.

All the way down to his neck.

She looked into his eyes.

He looked into her eyes.

And then--

Some creature, some creature's head--

(man, I got me some drunk imagination)

--burst out of the sand, like a shark--that's what it looked like, a shark's head--but with tentacles and pinchers and who knew what else--

(maybe I should be a writer)

And that shark-creature-tentacle-thing just rose up and swallowed Eddie's big stupid dumb stupidjerky bloated head--

A chomp. A loud chomp. And then--eeeew, gross--a sickly guttural swallowing sound... And then--

Mr. Tacky Camaro was gone.

Kirsten blinked. Then--she blinked again.

Well. That was fun.

A slow cool breeze overtook her. She let it. Wow. That was... wow.

Kirsten stretched, listened to the waves. Then started to drift off again, for how long she didn't know, because--suddenly--she felt something.

The sand, beneath her, starting to...

...shift.

(when's this dream gonna be over, let's skip to the hangover and be done)

...undulating beneath her.

(feels kinda good)

Whatever. She shrugged, and sank back into her wet, sandy beach hallucination... began to sink...

(felt a pinch... kinda painful, actually...)

(but, hey, beats a crowbar, no?)

...sinking ...

... sinking ...

... sinking --

Her gaze slipped, and wandered. Found herself looking out, into the ocean, those waves. As her vision slowly began to blur.

Look.

How interesting, yes?

A little island of rocks. Just out there, in the water.

Just like that t-shirt the guy tried to buy for me, at the crab used bookstore... the book used crab store... the...

Welcome to Rock and Roll Island.

Something like that.

Man.

I should have let him buy it for me.

After all...

He seemed nice.

~ ~ SIX ~ ~

Downstairs In

The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:

The Prank

The next bit of action unfolds like a scene from one of those teenage scary movies. Imagine sitting in a darkened theatre, the lights low, the atmosphere tense and mysterious, and then, the following:

TIGHT on the unlocked front glass doors of the bookstore, as a hand slowly -- and quietly -- gives a nudge.

A YOUNG MAN peers his way inside, sneakily. He is carrying a black bag. Taking a few cautious peeks around to make sure the coast is clear, he sneaks behind the register counter, and looks inside his bag.

He pulls out a black robe, a fake rubber knife, and a couple of Halloween masks. And, a small packet of fake blood.

YOUNG MAN: (chuckles) This is going to be sweet.

~ ~ ~

Now, we CUT to the back of the bookstore--

Into the shadows of the hallway, down the splintered steps.

As Roxy slams open the EMPLOYEES ONLY door (with no particular restraint), stalks across the hall to the bathroom door (with even less), waiting--quite impatiently, what else?--for D. J. to unlock it.

Roxy: Don't even try to defend him.

D. J.: (sighing) I'm not defending anybody. No part of any of this was even close to my idea.

Roxy: Just unlock the bathroom and don't say anything else, because I'm tired of you men taking up for all you other men.

Shrugging, he unlocks the door.

D. J.: Look, you brought it up. I'm just saying --

She SLAMS the door on him.

D. J.: Fine. Whatever. Who cares. Not me. I hate this job. Buncha cement-head nitwits, soap opera 'Days of Our Lives' bookstore numbskulls...

He looks over out into the body of the store, as if hearing something. Takes a step into the shadows, takes it in.

Various shelves and shadows out in the store.

D. J.: Pretty darn dark out there.

He heads back to the bathroom door.

D. J.: (muttering) C'mon, don't take all night.

Suddenly: a sound, out in the darkness of the store.

D. J. (grunts a la Scooby-doo) Ruh-roh.

He considers banging on the bathroom door, but decides against it. He reluctantly takes a look -- peeking around the corner again. Pretty much what he saw earlier. Shelves and shadows.

He obviously wants to see what's out there -- his curiosity is overwhelming his fear -- but he can't commit. Another SOUND.

D. J.: This can't be a good idea. Yet, I must investigate ...

He steps out into the darkness. A moment passes.

Roxy peeks out of the bathroom -- no D. J.

Roxy: D. J. ... don't be funny. Where are you?

Nothing.

Roxy: I'm going to scream. Truly.

Nothing.

Roxy: Very loudly, and very long. Just lettin' you know. Big heads-up, and whatnot.

Nothing. She acquires an I-told-you-so expression, takes a beep breath, then an even deeper one, and lets out ... a very small:

Roxy: Eeeep.

Nothing.

Roxy: Jerk.

She disappears back into the bathroom. A moment later, she peeks out again, armed with a big spray can.

The bathroom door slooowly opens, and after peering both ways, out comes Roxy, armed and ready.

Roxy: (ominous singing) "Everything is fine, everything is o-kayyy..."

After a few steps, Roxy peeks her head, hesitantly, around the corner.

The store is festive with shadows and creaky noises.

Pointing her spray can defensively, Roxy steps out into the shadows. Looks around, suspiciously, to the left, the right -- then abruptly sneaks behind some shelves--

--as she gathers her courage, and sprints across an aisle to another hiding place behind some different shelves.

She peeks around the corner of those shelves.

More shadows, but nothing specifically scary.

More courage gathered, our Roxy takes another deep breath, and--zoom!--makes a wild sprint toward the front of the store -- managing a few Peter Sellers style now-you-see-me now-you-don't hiding maneuvers behind various displays on her way.

Zoom again!--Roxy dives behind the front desk, and peeks over the counter to make sure everything's copacetic. After a moment, she heads over next to the register, opens a drawer and pulls out some spare duplicate keys.

She pockets the keys, then peers over the top of the front desk.

Shadows but still nothing specifically frightening.

It's hard to tell if she's disappointed, or just plain annoyed. Knowing her, it's probably both--but either way, she starts to retreat to the back of the store -- but then, notices something on the floor: an empty black bag.

Cautiously, as if it might contain some sort of slumbering Roxy-eating beast, she... checks... it.. out, and finds some white gloves, a bottle of fake blood, a spare Halloween mask...

She immediately glowers up at the ceiling.

Roxy: Oooh! Bastard!

She says a few angry things not-quite under her breath. Heads over to the front doors, gives a tiny nudge. Pushes open slightly, unlocked.

Roxy: Oooh! I knew it! Bastard again!

Annoyed and vengeful, she locks the doors and -- abruptly, tilts her head. Hears something out in the body of the story.

Roxy: (grinning) Oh. You want to be funny, Mr. Prank Man? Well, let's get funny...

Gangly-limbed, she darts into the shadows.

Roxy now stalks the aisles, listening carefully for any clues of -- ahhh, she hears something. Sidles up slyly against the shelves, making her way toward a section from which a long shadow is moving suspiciously.

Making her way, and, armed with air freshener in hand, LEAPS AROUND CORNER!

Roxy: AHHHHHHYYY!

She immediately SUPER-SPRITZES a seemingly endless barrage of air freshener into the CAMERA.

Which turns out to actually be D. J.

Who is now on his back, spritzed beyond belief.

Roxy: (realizing) Are you ... okay?

D. J.: (groaning) I've been ... disinfected.

With great annoyance and endless woe-is-me, Roxy helps him up.

Roxy: Fine. Who cares. Whatever. Let's get out of here.

They get up, slowly start to head to the back of the store.

D. J.: (rubbing eyes) That's the last time I go to the bathroom with you...

They make their way to the back office door--EMPLOYEES ONLY--jostle keys to see who gets to open it--while making sure, of course, to take turns looking over their shoulders--and finally make their stumbling way back into the office, and up the splintery stairs.

Meanwhile, back at the front of the bookstore...

Through the front glass windows we see our costumed prankster is outside the store for some reason (carrying a soda), and now when he tries to get back in -- finds the doors are locked.

We can't hear him, but can't help but see his total frustration as he tries to jiggle the doors open, and when that doesn't work, he shakes his masked face, and -- after a contemplative sip from his soda -- goes off, presumably to find another way into the store.

And--for the moment, at least--this portion of the horror classic "Dickie Fouls Up The Prank And Gets Locked Outside The Store" SLOWLY FADES...

~ ~ SEVEN ~ ~

Back Out On The Beach:

A Nerd With A Metal Detector

and An Odd Theory Concerning

The Alleged Misunderstood Quality

of "The Phantom Menace"

A real nerd by the name of J.J. Sully Chase was scouting the edge of the tide with his brand-new beach metal detector.

Unfortunately, something detected him first.

~ ~ ~

He had been drinking a bunch of beer, looking for treasure. He'd just finished pounding out a whole article on how "The Phantom Menace" was actually the best of the Star Wars movies, and had prepared to put it on the Kindle, sell it as a controversial article. Controversial, yes--but he actually believed it--or, at least, he did when he was drunk. Like here, now, looking for drunken treasure. It was the kind of article one could believe only when drunk, of course, but he didn't know that, and, in a few moments, wouldn't ever care.

Still, it kept running through his head...then, in a slurry monologue, out of his mouth...

"First--it was more realistic," he pointed out to the waves. "A lot of supposed complaints came from the movie focusing so much on space taxes and such. But let's be real--that would be a real problem, no? Space can't be all laser fights and hyperspacing. And even if it were--are lasers free? No, J. J. sure doesn't think so. And gas for the space ships--or dilithium crystals, whatever, it doesn't matter, that isn't the point, is it, no it isn't. The point was, and is, whatever you use for fuel, it's gonna cost money, or space coins, or whatnot. It certainly wouldn't be free. At least not for everyone. Obviously, if you were a member of the Empire, you'd get a good rate, but there would still be forms to fill out, and such. That's the point. So, c'mon--get real."

He laughed knowingly, with a condescending-- if somewhat wobbly-- smirk.

"Second--Jar Jar," he continued, as he twisted a dial on his metal detector. "Okay, he was an idiot. And annoying. I'll give you that. But before you celebrate, deluded readers, let me inform you of this undeniable fact--again, did you think every creature in space was going to be cool and neat, and well-designed? No. Of course not. That would be ridiculously unbelievable. There had to be some galactic creatures out there that were just plain out-and-out-annoying. That's a simple fact. And not 'cute' annoying like C-3PO, with a nice British accent, where you could just unplug him when he got on your nerves. No, that's not how it works--not on Earth, so how could you imagine it would be that way in space? Get real. You know there'd have to be some places that, truly, were like 'District 9'--and yes, that was a flawed film in itself--that's understood--but it showed that all aliens are not cute and cuddly or scary and cool. Excuse the series for wanting to be mature."

Nodding drowsily, he congratulated himself for his once-again impeccable logic.

"Thirdly, killing off Darth Maul... okay, there's no excuse for that."

Generously, he allowed that point; he nodded, accepting that as a given.

"But, now, fourth, Yoda's--"

And that's when the tentacles whipped out from the dirt, and wrapped themselves in a rubbery tangle around the end of his metal detector.

He paused, eyes swimming with uncertainty.

He'd seen pink elephants before--cliche though, admittedly, that was-- but he'd never seen--

"Hey!"

A strong yank. The detector came out of his lubricated grip, and sunk about half a foot into the beach.

Eyes narrowing frustratingly, he leaned down--

"Now just a rotten pickin'--"

--just as the detector was suddenly expelled out of the sand, smashing J. J. right in the forehead, and knocking him out--sending him tumbling like a sack of dirty Jabba the Hutt t-shirts, on his back, to the ground.

Where he sprawled, unconscious and just plain out of it--

--fortunately, so that he missed the rather gruesome details of his "Darth Maul-esque" exit from our story, as the tentacles rose up from the beach sand around him, did an ominous little dance, and slowly slithered tightly around him.

~ ~ EIGHT ~ ~

Back Up In The Attic Of

The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:

Oblivious Sex

Roxy, looking quite woozy, walked into the attic hallway, guided by her candle. She stumbled groggily--then suddenly stopped, glaring at her candle, deeply transfixed by the flame, which seemed to be changing colors.

"What's your deal, pokey woman?" asked D. J., stuck behind her.

Roxy grimaced, blinking thickly. "I think ... the whore ... put something... in my tea."

"You shouldn't call people names," said D. J. "It's judgmental."

Roxy leaned up to him, eyeing him carefully. "Huh. And yet, that's exactly what you're doing to me right at this..."

She blinked, cockeyed.

"...whatever." Roxy nudged him aside. "Let's just get back, neuron."

D. J. rubbed his forehead as she continued down the hall. Seemed he was feeling a bit of the tea himself. "'Neuron'...?"

He stumbled after her. When he caught up with her, he found her staring into the abandoned office, her arms crossed, her face scowling.

D. J. cautiously peeked around the doorway.

Hoagie and Luna were really going at it. Hoagie on top, Luna leaning over the Ouija board. They were deliriously oblivious to their witnesses.

"Many attempt..." Hoagie grunted feverishly, "...but few... reach... ohhhh... the I-I-Island of ROOOCKKK--!"

Luna giggled in a gaspy wicked whisper, "Oh, play me... plug it in and play me..."

Hoagie gibberished, played rapidly-diminishing air guitar with her very large breasts...

Roxy and D. J. just stood there, for a long moment. Watching. It was quite the sight. Then Roxy turned, and vaguely looked at D. J. with a dull, bored expression.

"Now can I call her a whore?" Roxy grumbled, giving D. J. a punch as she stalked back down the splintery hallway.

~ ~ NINE ~ ~

Yet Again Out On The Beach:

OPERATION: GETTING SOME

There was no getting around it, Beck was a teenage dork and that was that.

And Tara, she was officially semi-hot. Not cheerleader hot, by any means, not even majorette hot, really, but still sorta mostly near-hot. Certainly hotter than dork-hot. She was hot like that redhead girl on the Mythbusters show--she was that kinda hot. Tall, thin, great hair (though she didn't know what to do with it, really), and a nice chest--very nice--and great legs.

Great legs.

Her only minuses, really, if you had to nitpick--well, her butt was a little big, not too big--Beck sure didn't mind--but it was... a little thick, technically. Not even chunky, but with girls, thick was too much (in their minds, anyhow). So there was that. And she was a little pale--again, not by Beck's standards, he was an albino snowman on the best of sunny days--but, again, technically, she was a little on the non-tanned side, no getting around it. Now out here, in the moonlight, he thought she looked beautiful, but if you had to point out flaws, that technically was one. And the other one, was those glasses. They weren't cool glasses, by any measure. If she'd just get contacts, or that laser-thing, she'd be hot. Officially right-close-to-hot.

But then, if she were Officially Hot, or anywhere close, let's face it, she wouldn't be out here on the beach with him. Right now.

Susceptible to his big plan...

Operation: Getting Some.

He was 18, and had never had any. He didn't really like to think about it, but it was a fact, so--still, he didn't like to think about it. She was 18, and she never talked about that kind of thing, but he figured she had, at least a couple of times. He didn't really like to think about that either. Still, he knew on pretty good authority she made out with at least a couple of guys, so-- odds were, right?

But he didn't really like to think about it.

Still--on to better things! Operation: Getting Some.

No real point dwelling on how he managed to talk her even this far, to this point, sitting out on the beach at who-knew-what-time in the morning, in her bikini (and those awful glasses), with one sleeping bag between them. Suffice to say it involved a little bit of guilt-inducing, some begging, some more guilt, some accusations--"you owe me!"--some more guilting, a lot more begging, some twisting of the truth, just the barest hint of blackmail...

...and a whole lot of humiliation.

(Mostly, of course, on his part.)

But, those were basically the elements that made up his whole romantic repertoire--the sum total of his "move"--and he'd long since learned that if he was ever going to even get close to getting some--ever--it was no more Mr. Nice Guy. It was Mr. Whiny, Begging, Pity-Party Guy.

You had to go with what worked. And this, apparently...well...

He really didn't like to think about it.

"I don't know about this," Tara whispered, pushing her beautiful hair away from her hideous glasses. (A move that just completely turned Beck on more than he already was.) "Maybe we could, just you know..."

"You totally promised, but I knew you'd bail," he huffed, feeling a little pang of guilt for going immediately to "whine" mode. But he'd worked so hard to get her to this point, there was no turning back, no way. "Fine, even though, you know, whatever."

He sat there, really playing up the "sulking" thing.

They both sat there, a long time, in the moonlight. Beck started feeling a surge of panic--she was thinking too long! She was talking herself out of it! She was a shy girl, and prone to people-pleasing to a self-sabotaging degree--but he could tell--she was talking herself out the scheme! She was going to bail! And once again, he was going to be stuck, hanging in the wind--literally dangling!--in the beach air, all alone and abandoned, yet again--

Not getting some!

No way! He could feel himself turning red. He could feel things slipping away. Those sweet chunky thighs--

No way!

He was going to have to pull out the big guns! It was going to be embarrassing--who was he kidding, it was going to be beyond humiliating--but he couldn't just sit there and let her walk away, not after all the work he'd put into--

"No, no, I'll do it," she said, suddenly, working up a weary quarter-smile. "I said I would, so--" a half-hearted shrug of those pale shoulders "--let's do it."

His face brightened--still red, but a good kind of red now. Thank you, people-pleasing virus! Thank you, low female self-esteem! He felt himself gibbering a bit, so he took a big breath, and then, as calmly as he could--

(those sweet chunky thighs!)

"Okay," he said, with a bit of a wheeze, "let's go over the rules one more time, so we all can confirm we agree."

She nodded, sluggishly: fine.

"Okay, here's what, here's uhm... here goes." Interlocking his fingers slowly (and very tightly), he took another breath, and said, "We have the two of us, all alone, out here, by ourselves. We also have one sleeping bag. And, thirdly, we have a story--an original scary story, written by me, Beck. Which has never been read out loud to anyone before tonight. Are we together on the rules so far?"

She nodded: fine.

"So, okay, cool." Another breath. I can't believe it. This could actually happen. Tonight could be--in just a few minutes, I could ACTUALLY--

Beck paused a moment, as he was starting to hyperventilate. He forced a smile, as he bit his tongue. It made for a strange expression, but it did the job. (Though it did seem to unnerve Tara for a sec.)

"So-okay-cool," he squeaked. Then, yet another deep--but slow--breath, and he continued. "So what will happen is this: I will climb into this sleeping bag all alone. Then, from within this sleeping back--I mean, bag--I will read this brand new never-been-revealed scary story, aloud, and if you can listen to it, to the very end, without getting scared and crawling into the sleeping bag with me, then you win. I will get out of the sleeping bag, relinquish it to you, and spend the rest of the night sleeping out here in the beach sand. Alone, and I shall not bother you the rest of the night. Agreed?"

She nodded.

"However--" he said, feeling his hyperventilating starting up again (bit his tongue, made a weird expression), then continued: "--if at anytime before I finish, you become so scared that you tell me to stop the story, then you must come into the sleeping bag, and spend the night with me."

With trembling hands, lips--well, trembling everything, he added the capper:

"Without your bathing suit."

Then, an inspired ad-lib, out of nowhere:

"Or your glasses."

Surprised at himself, he grinned. Nice touch. Not only would he get her to (possibly) take off those ghastly specs, he'd touched an insecurity nerve that surely, he assumed (he hoped), would work in his favor. Somehow.

Tara sat there, unconsciously adjusting her glasses. (Hey, it worked!) She nodded, and said, "I agree."

"Agreed?" Beck had to work hard to keep his eyes from bugging out of his head, but he did. It didn't seem possible, but here he was--with her!--Operation: Getting Some... right at his fingertips! "You totally agree?"

"I totally agree."

"No backing out, no do-overs."

"No backing out, no do-overs."

He smiled. She smiled back--not as big, obviously, but she smiled, so it counted. Not a lot of respect behind that smile, but Beck had tossed respect out the window a long time ago. He was here, she and her chunky thighs were here, and that was all that mattered. The rest of it, well...

He didn't really like thinking about that.

So he didn't.

Besides, now it was all a matter of two things. One, if his story was as scary as he hoped it was...

And two, if she was as easily frightened as she was rumored to be.

Well, he thought with a here-goes-nothing shrug, only one way to find out.

And with that, he took out his crumpled, handwritten story. And, after a phlegmy clearing of his Ichabod Crane throat, began to read.

"This story, forever known as 'The Gob-Slime,' begins in a typical high school with two typical teenage males, at their lockers..."

~ ~ TEN ~ ~

A Great Beach Read:

Beck's Scary Story

"The Gob-Slime"

... two typical teenage males, at their lockers...

"Dude! What...is that?" says one.

"What's what?" says the other.

"I dunno. It looks like like a weather balloon, or something -- just bouncing out in the front of the school!"

"Woop-de-do, a weather balloon," Ryan sighed; shoved his head back deep into his Junior class locker; dug through his Junior class mess. Gotta find that stupid biology book, hiding in here somewhere, stubbornly, had to be --

"I dunno, dude. Doesn't look like any weather balloon I've ever seen."

"Oh really? Well, gosh, golly, gee, Einstein, how many weather balloons you seen, 'zactly? Ever?" Ryan's voice was deep with locker-echo. "You don't even watch The Discovery Channel, so--"

Derrik suddenly banged his fist against a nearby locker, setting off an ear-blasting metallic explosion rip-roaring through Ryan's head.

"Heyyyy!" Books and papers and scribbled-on Cliff's Notes tumbled to the hallway floor as Ryan emerged, cross-eyed and disoriented. "What'd you do that for! That seriously popped my ears, jerkoid!"

Derrik, his dilated eyes wide and shock-bright behind thicker-than-thick lenses, stammered: "Did you see that? Did you freakin' see that --?"

"No, I was too busy going deaf, thanks to--"

"Oh man, it ate that kid!" Derrik shouted, slamming the locker a second time. "It just... ate that kid!"

"Man, I told you, you do that one more time, and --"

"It! ate! that! kid!" Derrik pointed insistently at the glass front doors of Hamilton High. "Out there, the weather balloon -- whatever it is -- rolled over a kid, kid on a skateboard -- dude!-- sucked him in like... like a big freaked-out jellyfish or something!" Impossibly, his eyes widened even further. "That's it -- a jellyfish with no legs! Dude, I'm totally telling you! It... oozed ... over the kid... sucked him up... and... ate him!"

"Are you high?" Ryan asked in a why-am-I-bothering-asking whisper. "You know what's going to happen to you if you get caught again on school grounds with --"

Derrik wasn't listening. He had his face pressed against the glass doors, gasping, breathlessly: "I saw it, man. I saw it. It ate that kid. And -- oooh no ..."

"I'm telling you right now," Ryan said, rolling his eyes as he headed toward the door. "Whatever this is, it better be something, 'cause otherwise I'm going to stick your head into my locker and pound on the door until the --"

And that's when he saw it.

~ ~ ~

At first, he thought it was one of the smudges on the door-glass.

But then it moved.

It was no weather balloon.

What it was, was big, and round, and rubbery and -- man, it did look like the bell of a giant jellyfish -- minus tentacles -- rubbery and blubbery and globular and --

Ryan blinked, then squinted --

And then he saw the boy inside.

The boy floated, inside the quivering, slithering bell-thing. His little boy legs kicked feebly, his fingers curled and clawed, his whole body struggled and spun, as if inside a goopy Hefty-bag aquarium. More struggling, then the very insides of the... creature ... whatever it was... seemed to jell and thicken around the little kid's body until his jerking movements became small quivers... became odd shudders... became tiny twitches... then...

Became not much at all.

The boy hung inside the creature, completely still.

"Ohhhh... dude."

The boys stood there, at the glass doors, watching, as the ... thing ... quivered slightly...

(as if swallowing, Ryan though, with a queasy shock)

The kid's body faded... and disappeared.

"Ooh dude no my oh dude no..." Derrik turned, looked at Ryan with marble-glass eyes. "He ate that kid, too. He... it... ate... both of them."

Ryan's mouth blinked. Numb, he reached over and rubbed away some of the smeary fingerprints -- hard -- then peered through the clean spot. It was still there, in all its shimmering, glimmering, gloopified jellified glory. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. Like it was waiting. Like it was --

"All right, what are you two up to?"

Ryan turned, for a moment looking without seeing.

"All this noise you two perpetrators are making! Why aren't you at the pep rally like the rest of the school? Pep isn't optional, you know!" Ryan's face slackened, as the large, matronly figure of Miss Babcock, secretary to the principal, pigeon-toed her way toward them.

"I --" Ryan started to say, but was immediately interrupted by Derrik.

"Miss Babcock, they -- it ate those kids!" His glasses slipped as he hiccupped her name: "Ba-hic-cock! It's going to eat another one --!"

Instantly, she snapped her fingers at Derrik, not breaking stride. "Detention: Sass-mouth." She snapped at Ryan next. "Detention, you, too: Collaborating. Perpetrating."

"But Miss-hic-ca-cock --"

"Double-detention. Keep it up. You'll be washing school windows until you're thirty. And whoever's out there, too," she said, pushing past the two boys. "Game over for them, too."

She shoved the doors open and headed out into the schoolyard.

"No! Miss Babcock, it's dangerous, it's 911 out there --" Ryan called out, trying to stop her. But Derrik, moving faster than anyone had ever seen him move in his 16 short, slacker-choked years, whipped his skinny arms out, grabbed the bars of both doors, and, yanking with all his 96-and-a-half-pound weight, slammed them shut with a wall-shaking, trophy-case-shuddering BAM.

"Derrik, we can't let her go out there like that!"

"You saw what that thing can do, and how fast it can do it," Derrik hissed. "I ain't letting go-a-this-door!"

His grip tightened.

"Derrik! You're trapping her out there! We have to warn her!"

"Well, warn her then, but you're doing it through this closed door!"

Helpless, Ryan pressed his face against the glass, and saw Miss Babcock making her way down the walkway. She was using her "angry walk," which made her look like even more of an old hen than usual -- elbows flapping about like wings, shoes twisting inward, ever pigeon-toed... her head twisting bird-like side to side, looking for partners-in-crime...

The jelly-thing wobbled across the grass, loping and wriggling -- and then came to a dead stop about 10 yards away from Miss Babcock. It was almost as if it just then noticed she was there, and was...

And then, Derrik said, in a choking voice: "Ohhh nooo... look over there!"

Ryan, taken aback, blinked dumbly for a moment, then pressed his face back against the glass.

Someone else was approaching.

~ ~ ~

Her name was Gina Lancy, and she was without a doubt the sexiest, hottest, most popular, most feared, most lusted over, most hated, most desired, snobbiest, snottiest, heart-taking, heartbreaking, heart-stopping female form to ever wander the hallways of East Hamilton High. She was making her way across the grass in her patented "I know you want me I'm so bored bow beneath my beauty you wish you were me get out of my sight" manner she'd perfected over her 17 years of thorough and intense self-worship. Even now, as Ryan and Derrik peered at her helplessly through the smudges and glassy smears of the high school double-doors, both her undeniable beauty and savage ego throbbed with every flounce and bounce and step.

"Oh no," Derrik croaked. "Sweet Gina's heading right into it!"

Ryan reached for the door-bar.

"No. Not letting go," Derrik insisted, his fingers tightening around the steel door bar. "Not even for --"

"But it's going to get them. We can't just stand here and watch --"

"I am not... letting go ... of this door."

Derrik's fingers tightened, his knuckles flashing bone-white. But his voice was wobbling, uncertain. "Gina," Derrik whispered through the glass. "Turn away. Run..."

Ryan squinted harder through the smudges.

Outside, Gina kept walking toward the school. Then, suddenly, her head tilted, bored eyes curious -- but when it was obvious she'd noticed Miss Babcock, her expression immediately went slick and jaded -- oh, it's just you -- and Gina's eyeline corrected itself. She kept walking.

"C'mon, Gina, keep walking, girl, just keep walking," Derrik muttered in a tiny pleading voice. "Keep trucking, maybe it won't notice you, maybe it --"

Suddenly, in an odd double-take, Gina turned slightly.

And finally noticed the ... thing.

"Ohh no," Derrik choked.

Ryan grunted, frustrated. He knew he should do something, go get help, call out... something... but everything was happening so fast. Miss Babcock suddenly noticed Gina, and Gina was staring at the jelly-thing, and there they were standing there... all three of them... staring at each other...

(yes, even the thing, it was staring... it had no eyes, but it was moving, the top of its... globbiness ... back and forth, "looking" at Gina then Babcock, Babcock then Gina...)

Gina had a scrunched look, appalled and annoyed. Why are these two ... creatures ... in my field of vision, her expression seemed to complain. It was that same how-dare-other-things-exist attitude Gina whipped out at anything that didn't directly involve her pleasure in some way.

Miss Babcock simply seemed puzzled.

The "thing"... kept looking... back and forth... back and forth...

"Why isn't it... attacking them?" Derrik wondered in a dry, far-away whisper. "What's it waiting for?"

"Maybe it's confused," Ryan offered. "Maybe since there's two of them, it can't decide what to--"

Derrik interrupted by busting open the front doors.

"What are you doing?" Ryan croaked, feeling mountainously exposed.

"GINA! RUN! THAT GOOP'S GOING TO EAT YOU!" Derrik bellowed. He was on his knees, looking like he was proposing -- and, what he said next came close to it: "GINA! I LOVE YOU! I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU AND THAT THING IS GOING TO KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T RUN RIGHT NOW --!"

He held the door wide open, a desperate pleading expression wrenching his face. Ryan wanted to hit him, slam the door, but he was frozen -- he couldn't -- move --

Miss Babcock looked over her bony shoulder with an a-ha! expression, sure she'd caught the three of them in cahoots --

And Gina, she stood there for a moment, looking at the jelly-thing, then Miss Babcock, then over at Derrik... she looked a little confused, a lot irritated... as if some big prank were being played at her expense...

But then her eyes set upon Ryan, and even from this far away, the look on Ryan's face -- helpless, horrified -- told the slender cheerleader that even if she didn't know what... something was...

... horribly wrong.

Her eyes took on a panicked quality, and after quickly darting back and forth to all the people, finally ended up on... the thing.

Something -- and the world will never know exactly what -- dawned on her.

In her hand was a cell phone.

With a sharp cheerleader shriek, she threw it at the globular glop.

The phone entered the skin of the creature and came to a rubbery halt, as if it had been dropped into a large gelatin dessert --

And then, suddenly, the cell phone darted and dove in quick jerky circles, like a startled fish...

It took a moment for what he was seeing to sink in, but when it did, Ryan's heart thumped hard against his ribcage as he said in a breathless mumble: "It's... tasting ... it!"

And the phone swirled and jittered for a second or two, before being spit out quite unceremoniously onto the ground.

That's when all pretense fell from Gina's eyes... leaving only pure, unbridled fear.

"OH MY LOVE MY SWEETHEART OF MY LIFE," Derrik shrieked, as he fell facefirst to the ground, the effort of his pleas sucking all energy from his body, "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF RUN LOLA RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN--!"

And that's exactly what Gina did.

Or tried to.

~~~

A few torturous moments later, the thing shivered slightly and effortlessly spit out one of Gina's bright red pumps. Then, with a tiny after-shiver, seemed, calmly, to come to rest.

That, and the slimed-over cell phone, was all that remained of Gina Lancy.

Then, and only then, did Miss Babcock finally scream.

It instantly lunged for Miss Babcock, but somehow, impossibly, it missed. Meanwhile, Miss Babcock, all 292 pounds of her, swivelled around on those pigeon toes of hers, and was mad-running down the cement walkway toward the still-open school front door. It was an impressively grotesque sight -- so much excess human flesh bobbling and wobbling -- she seemed almost like a pink-hued version of the goopy creature that was now slither-bobbing after her. Miss Babcock's mouth was open in the shape of a beyond-terrified scream, but no sound was coming out -- both the boys gaped through the smudge-glass, as if from the insides of their own personal overwhelmed Simpson's Treehouse of Terror--

Then, a switch snapped in Derrik's brain.

He pulled the door closed -- hard.

"But Miss Babcock needs to get --" Ryan started, but was stopped silent as Miss Babcock hit against the door (as if she expected it to open inward), and the whole front of her body went flat against the glass with a sickening, fleshy SLAP.

Ryan staggered back a half-step, mesmerized by the distorted, smudgy version of the school's front office secretary splatting against the door, her face and lips Silly-Puttying against the glass, as her drooling, muffled voice commanded, "LET ME IN YOU LITTLE RAT --"

Whatever else she said flooded away in a whirlpool of a shriek.

As gruesome as Gina's death was, it didn't compare to what happened next, close up, right against the glass, as suddenly the door looked like someone had dumped a barrel of Vaseline on it, all over and around Miss Babcock. Impossibly, she pressed herself even flatter against the smudge-glass, her teeth gritting, and muscles-out-of-nowhere tightening in her face and neck and... and then, she went slack. Just like that. Her body stayed pressed against the door, but no longer under her own power. The "Vaseline" around her thickened, and Ryan winced -- it looked like fifty kids had all sneezed against the window in gross unison -- and her body, still pressed against the glass, twitched slightly, to the left, to the right...

(It's chewing her, he realized with stomach-hollowing resignation)

And, simply put...

Miss Babcock began to peel.

~~~

When Miss Babcock was finally gone, every last ounce and scowl and wrinkle, the goopy creature slithered back from the window, spit out a pair of black trifocals, and then, casually, bobbled away from the door, paused, spit something else out, and, with a satisfied shimmer, wobbled out of the door's view.

Derrik looked at Ryan.

Ryan looked at Derrik.

And, with a scream, they both went running down the front hallway.

~~~

"Dude! What are you doing!"

"The principal's not here," Ryan grunted, climbing over the counter into the front office. "Nobody's here. All the offices are gone-empty! Everything's locked!"

"What? Where are they!" Derrik's jaw popped. "Did they... did that thing ... get them?"

"No --" Ryan slipped and fell into the office with a clumsy CRASH. A few seconds later, he was on his feet at Miss Babcock's desk, heading for her multi-line phone. "The pep rally... the stupid pep rally... stupid Homecoming... they're all in the stupid gym ..."

"No way, dude! No freakin' way!" Derrik slammed his fist down on the counter. "YOU want to go, fine. I'll buy flowers for your funeral. But no funk-a-freakin' WAY I'm STEPPING out of this building."

Ryan threw him a sour look. "Man, I'm not saying we should leave. I'm in no hurry to get out there with that thing either. I'm just telling you where everybody's at and why they ain't here, okay, dude? Now stop the freak-out and let me see if I can get a hold of somebody..."

"As long as we do it inside, that's fine!" Derrik, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable alone in the hall, starting climbing over the office counter.

"That's what I'm sayin', idiot," Ryan muttered, taking in the phone system. "Let's get some help going here..."

"Hey, dude!" Derrik awkwardly threw up his hands as he fell to the office floor. "I'm, like, all ears! Whatever!"

"There's got to be a way to call over to the gym, warn them." He squinted at the badly-labeled buttons. "Damn Miss Babcock," he grunted, then dropped his head, feeling a flash of guilt. He blinked it away. "I assume one of these buttons gets us the gym," he said, not all that convincingly. He picked up the receiver, and began pushing random buttons. "Hello?... Hello?"

"Push the 'gym' one," said Derrik, standing in a corner near the front, shooting nervous glances at the front door. "C'mon..." He crossed his arms over his chest, gripping his shoulders with shivery jerks. "Yo! Dude! C'mon!"

"I can't even get a dial tone on this thing!" Ryan snapped. "And these labels, I can't read Babcock's handwriting! She scribbles like a serial killer!" His frustration overshadowed any residual guilt he might have felt smearing Miss Babcock's memory. He kept jabbing buttons. "Hello! Dammit -- hello-- anybody-- somebody --"

"Call out! Call the cops!"

"I did! It ain't working!"

"Dude!"

"Dude yourself! I'm doing my --"

"I-saw-it-I-saw-it-I-saw-it-I-SAW-IT!" Derrik suddenly gasped. The white had returned to both his knuckles and his face. "The jelly-thing! It just passed by the front door!" He turned to Ryan, eyes popping. "It was... looking... inside..." His whole body shuddered, thumping him against the wall. "It's looking for us, maann --"

"Screw it, screw it, screw this stupid phone!" Ryan bashed the receiver back onto the cradle, and kicked aside the chair on his way to the front counter.

"Where- you- going- what- you- doing- where- what --"

Ryan pushed aside some papers, stepping on them as they fluttered to the floor. He grabbed a hold of the announcement system microphone. He clicked some buttons, randomly.

"Oh great," he snarled. "Now this piece of crap is going to give me crap..."

He kept punching buttons until finally a wiry screech of feedback filled the halls.

"Nooo!" Derrik wailed, pushing himself against the wall, bopping the back of his head loudly in the process.

Ryan adjusted a few knobs, trying to get a grip on the growling waves of feedback. Finally, he just pressed the mike button, and in a electric-loud reverb-voice, boomed through the halls:

"Anyone... in the halls... in the school, I mean..." He shook his head, then: "Look, anyone who can hear my voice. We need help, right here right now. Emergency help -- anyone who can hear this please -- PLEASE -- come to the front office. Especially any adults." He let loose the button, thought for a second, then: "And anyone, bring a cell phone. Hurry. Hurry, please!"

He released the button; stared with limp resignation at the microphone. Then, with a shrug, he set it back on the counter.

"Dude." Derrik's voice was flat as a slab. "That's the best you could do?"

Ryan didn't respond. He kept staring at the microphone.

Derrik turned his unblinking attention toward the glass door at the far end of the hall.

And they waited.

~~~

"Dude. Nobody's coming."

Derrik voice was low; mournful; resigned.

"Nobody's here but us. We're here, alone, in the school... by ourselves." His eyes turned pleading. "We're the only ones left."

"That's stupid," Ryan insisted. "The whole school can't be at the pep rally."

"Why not?" Derrik asked dully. "They're supposed to be. Right?"

"Not everybody. There's got to be janitors... somebody. Hall monitors, something. Somebody to keep an eye on things. They wouldn't leave the whole place deserted."

"Well... ain't nobody coming, far as I see. Unless they're, like, all ganged up just illin' and chillin' in the bathroom and didn't hear your little morning announcement."

"But they can't all be --"

"Dude, whatever," Derrik sighed, desolately. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about anything right now..."

"But --"

Ryan looked over at Derrik, who was no longer staring at the door at the end of the hall. His red head was in his hands, and he was slumped lifeless over the counter.

Great, Ryan thought. He's going to be even less help than usual now. He felt a surge of anger towards Derrik, an overwhelming urge to go over... and punch him in the face. Mannn ... Why can't he keep it together, for once? I'm scared, too, you know. I'm scared out of my mind, but at least I'm trying to --

"... still there please --"

Ryan blinked.

That sound -- That voice --

-- a girl's voice.

Ryan leaned forward, as far as he could over the counter, and listened hard.

For a long moment: nothing.

Then:

"... anybodeee still there... pleeeasee... oh pleeeaase..."

"Where... where you goin'?" Derrik gasped, watching as Ryan began to climb, clumsily, up onto the counter.

"Heard somebody," Ryan said, squinting with a distant intensity, as if searching the air for more sounds. "A girl. There's a girl somewhere in the--" Suddenly, he flipped his palm up sharply, demanding silence. He listened. "I think... she's in the library," he said, tasting the theory in his mind. He grew decisive: "Either the cafeteria or --"

Again, the palm flipped.

"... PLEEASE ooohhplease PLEEEASE ohIamSO aloneALONE alone --"

Ryan snapped his fingers.

"The library," he said simply, as he leapt over the counter into the hall, and headed around the corner.

Derrik, suddenly alone, scowled deeply. "Mannn, sometimes... I really hate that dude."

He stood up, desperately wanting to follow, desperately not wanting to be left behind...

Wobbling, he took a step toward the counter, carefully -- delicately -- placed his palms on the counter, took a deep breath, then--

Held it.

His lips went white.

Suddenly, Derrik heard a sound of his own.

~~~

Ryan carefully stepped around the corner, and into the open doorway of the library.

Everything seemed normal -- deserted, but normal.

Cautiously, he stepped in. He was three steps in when something hissed, and he felt his heart lunge up his throat. He swivelled, almost ran into a bookshelf when, out of the corner of his eye:

There was a girl -- he recognized her, Lina Lancy, Gina's younger-by-two-years little sister. She was sitting on a large dictionary that was sitting on a chair that was sitting on top of a table. She had her legs pretzeled compactly beneath her plaid skirt, her arms crossed tightly in front of her dark sweater. Her eyes were wide and pleading.

Ryan cleared his throat gently, carefully whispered: "What are you doing up there, Lina?"

She shook her head.

"No?" he asked dumbly.

She shook her head again.

He didn't know what to do or say, other than to ask if she were alone -- but that thought sparked the image of her sister, floating inside that big jelly-thing...

She doesn't know, he thought.

Again, slowly: "Lina... why are you up there? You're going to fall if you don't --"

She pointed to a spot over his shoulder.

Behind him.

~~~

Derrik felt bad about defiling the front office American flag, but that hadn't stopped him from standing on his tip-toes on top of the counter and ripping it down with a splintery crack so he'd have the jagged sharp end of the flag pole as a weapon.

He saluted the remains of the flag, hopped off the counter, and slowly went down the hall.

Turning the corner, he saw one of the classrooms was open -- the foreign language room -- and could see all the way to the back wall, which featured a thin, floor-to-ceiling set of windows. His grip tightened around the flag pole.

Suddenly -- and he wasn't sure why -- he didn't want to go to the library.

He looked down the hallway. A Hitchcock "Vertigo" wall of lockers stretched zoom-like in front of him. Slowly, his gaze lingered on the foreign language room windows.

"Screw this," he said, finally, and deserted the hallway, into the foreign language room. Derrik tip-toed up to the window, and pressed his nose up against it.

Unlike the front door, the foreign language window glass was fairly clean and clear.

His eyes scanned left, scanned right.

Nothing.

Nothing but green grass. A tempting bit of teacher parking lot. A nice not-too-steep hill. A delectable bit of sidewalk.

"Freedom," he sighed lingeringly. "Sweet, sweeeet freedom."

He felt a flash of guilt, but it was so small it wasn't even worth acknowledging. It was Ryan's lame-ass idea to go to the library, not his. It was Ryan who was hearing lame-ass non-existent girls' voices, not him. It was --

He pressed his nose harder against the window, his face filled with longing. Just open the window, run across the yard, the parking lot, up the hill, and ...

"Freedom," he repeated softly.

He gripped the jagged flag pole in one hand. Gently placed his other hand on the glass.

The glass felt cool, invigorating.

He traced his hand up the glass, and over to the latch, and --

-- click.

~~~

It happened with lightning speed -- a thick, smudgy, congealing flash -- and the window was covered with gross, slobbering jelly-pus --

"Aiiyy NOnoNONO!" Derrik gaped as a twisty, licorice-like tendril oozed through the tiny gap that unlocking the window had presented. It grazed his hand before he could yank it back -- just grazed it -- and the slobbering gelatinous feel of it sent bile gorging through his throat. Every part of his body wanted to throw up, he flailed madly, poking at the air, the wall, and in incidental mad sweeps, the window, as he staggered backwards, hit his pelvis against a desk (pow! stars! it got me! he thought hysterically) -- and then he tumbled, painfully, to the floor, still slashing the air with the splintered flag pole as he went down.

"NOnoNOnoNONONO--"

Holding his forearm over his eyes, he swung the pole at -- wherever! whatever! just get away --

Finally, despite every screaming voice in his alarm-throbbed brain warning him not to, he moved his forearm, and commanded himself to look at the window.

"--nononono..." he continued, his screams dribbling to a trickle.

The window was partially open. Some of the creature was flapping through the gap, creepy little tendrils and sickening jelly-fingers fap-fap-fapping against the glass... most of the horrible thing's mass was outside the glass, pressing against it... throbbing and pulsing and blobbing and looking like a huge snot-filled lava lamp churning and --

It's trying to get in, Derrik realized with a jolt. But its huge jelly fat was pushing against the window at the same time those little ... jelly-probe-fingers ... or whatever they were, were trying to pry the window open...

A thin crack spider-webbed across the top half of the glass.

More jelly-snot managed its way past the window.

That crack sobered Derrik like he'd never been sobered before.

It's getting in ...

"You... got to get out of here, right now, Big D.," he coolly informed himself, as another crack sheered across the top third of the window. A guillotine slice of glass tumbled forward, shattering into three even shards at Derrik's feet.

He stared at the glass, drop-jawed, then forced his vision back to the window--

The creature began oozing upwards, "feeling" its way toward the new opening.

Fingernail-against-chalkboard sounds clawed their way into Derrik's ears, into the helpless meat of his brain.

More spider-cracks began appearing.

"This white boy has... got... to... go," he decided, and, still unable to tear his dry-eyed gaze away from the window, tossed aside the fractured flag pole, and began crabwalking backwards on the floor, toward the door.

The creature pulsed, spattered, undulated, jelly-groped, glob-shimmered...

And began to make more of its globular way past the ever-cracking, ever-sharding window glass into the foreign language classroom.

~~~

"Do you have a cell-phone, Lina?" Derrik asked again, with a desperate delicacy, in a gotta-keep-trying whisper, glintily eyeing the tiny "Sugar Ponies" purse she was stone-clutching in her crossed arms.

She answered as she had the several times before: folding her arms even tighter against her chest, and slowly, stone-firmly shaking her head.

"Lina, please --"

"It's trapped! I trapped it!" Derrik cried, waving a bright yellow yardstick over his head as he stumbled backwards from the hall into the library. "It's in Miss Pizo's Foreign language -- it came through the window -- tried to -- broke the window -- came for me -- but I made it out and I slammed the door and I pushed a desk in front of it and I-- I-- I-- and so now it's trapped and trapped and I totally trapped it --"

His eyes were bright with accomplishment, but began to dim -- just a bit -- as he looked at Ryan and Lina in their chairs on top of the table.

"I, uh... it can't get us, we're... we're okay now," he said, a small shadow of confusion greying his expression.

Ryan carefully raised one finger of his right hand and placed it against his lips. Pointing with his left, he indicated a spot over near the front library desk.

His confidence curdling, Derrik reluctantly looked over in that direction. All he saw was the door to the library office.

It was open.

There was jelly-slime dripping off it.

"Ohhh, mmannn," he groaned, in a tone that sounded like he was being cheated at poker. "There's more than one?"

"Don't freak, Derrik!" Ryan said quickly. "I've got it figured out -- those things, they only attack if you get scared. If you don't show fear, they don't even know you're there! Think about it -- Miss Babcock stood there and it didn't do nothing -- until she started to run and --"

"Dude! I know! I figured it out in foreign language class!" He waved his flag-sword. "And back when it got Gina, and --"

He blanched.

Ryan froze.

For the first moment since he'd been in the library, Lina took her gaze away from the door, and planted it hot and whole on Ryan's face.

"Gina?" she said, in her heartbreaking 14-year-old voice. "One of them got... Gina?"

"No no no," stammered Derrik lamely. "She was -- no, she was-- she got away. That's what I meant to -- she just walked away. She just --"

And then, though he fought against it, he grew quiet, in that way that guilty people do when their mind can't think faster than their lies.

"She's... nothing happened," he said with a swallow.

"GINA!" Lina cried, in a wounded howl.

Ryan tried to hold her, comfort her, quiet her, something, but she pushed and kicked him away.

"Ginaaa," Lina wailed plaintively, her eyes fixed on the slime dripping down the back of the open door.

She had tears in those eyes... and, unmistakably...

Fear in her voice.

Fear.

From behind the front desk, up rose a thick glob of that awful gelatine... small tendrils poking and probing the air with a wicked, twitchy delight.

"Oh, dude," Derrik choked, then -- his eyes narrowed and his jaw went grim. "No. No way." Then -- "NOOO!" he screeched, suddenly, madly, "I LOVED HER! AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET!"

He picked up one of the small metal-and-mostly-plastic library chairs and hurled it at the front desk. It ricocheted off the corner and clattered to the dull green carpet.

"TAKE THAT! AND THAT!"

He picked up another chair and hurled that, too. It flew over the top of the desk into the open library office door. It disappeared into the dark and crashed against something.

"NO! NO WAY! I'm going to kill it just like it killed Gina," he said, and he picked up another chair. He flipped it over, and wrenched off two of the protective plastic bits on the bottom of the legs, revealing nothing cut sharp chrome metal. One leg already was missing its protective bit, and the fourth wouldn't come off. He left it.

Jabbing the air slowly with the metal legs of the chair, he started skulking around the counter, heading to the dark area in back.

He lasted until he noticed a trickle of blood slipping down his cheek. A piece of glass, from the floor of the foreign language room...

"Hey, dude, I'm bleeding," he said to himself, his eyes -- for a flash of a second -- showing the slightest frightful concern.

Fright.

That's all it took.

~~~

They were out there, a good dozen of them.

Dusk now. They'd been out there for hours. The jelly-things glimmered, blue, lime-green, deep purple, pulsing with lava-lamp phosphorescence, like giant globular fireflies.

"Colorrrrs," Lina slurred, touching the smudgy glass of the front doors. Ryan gave Lina another hit from Derrik's locker-stash, and he took a deep drag himself. Lina looked confused, somewhat distant, but she was giggling, and Ryan chose to take that as a good thing. Anything but fear, anything but fear...

(Does sweet-weed-induced paranoia count as fear? he wondered dully. He shrugged. Nothing to be done about that now, is there?)

"Uhmm, where we going again?" Lina asked, one eye squinting, as she tilted her head back loosely.

"Going to find a phone," Ryan nodded, trying to look authoritative. "Going to find a phone, before it gets dark, going to make everything all better."

"Alllll better." Lina blinked like a sleepy kitten. Then, wounded:"Gonna make Gina all better?"

Smiling tightly, Ryan nodded, just once. "Make it all better," he said, quietly, giving her another hit. "Everything..."

"Allll bettter," she lulled, blinking slowly.

"Now we might have to walk a short ways," he said slowly, "or we might have to walk far, but either way most likely we're going to have to walk through town, so --"

"Ooooh," she giggled. "Those lights look funny."

She pointed through the glass, at the glimmering, shimmery creatures.

The wounded look came back. "They going to hurt us?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"They're just all part of the song," he said, patting her hair gently. "Remember? Like back in the library?" He swivelled his hips, wriggled his lips, and started singing Elvis's "Good Luck Charm," with a couple of extra exaggerated "uhh huhs" and "oooh yahs" thrown in. She didn't want to laugh, but she did, and, like he hoped (thanks to Derrik's locker-weed), her giggles bounded and bounced and spilled all over each other, which made her giggle even more.

Ryan smiled hopefully.

A parade of questions, through the soft buzz of his gently-toasting brain: Would he be able to keep it up? Would Lina keep laughing if any of those glowing things got too close? It was only a couple miles to his house, but that was a long two miles to try to keep a girl who lost her sister entertained. Would the weed keep working? Was it possible to think she could walk all that way, with those things swarming around, and not get scared, not even once?

Seriously: would they make it?

They shared another hit.

He smiled again.

Does it matter?

He took her hand, and, gently humming "It's Now or Never", together they headed out into the rolling, wobbling colors of the night.

But just then, suddenly--

AAAAAAIGGGH! MY LEGS! MY LEGS! MY FREAKIN'--

~ ~ ELEVEN ~ ~

Still Yet Again Out On The Beach:

OPERATION:

NOT GETTING SOME

"--FREAKIN' LEGS! OH IT HURTS!"

Suddenly, Tara screeched, jumping up and backwards (almost falling over completely, but catching her balance at the last second). She gave her head a shake, to get out of the make-believe "Gob-Slime" world she had just been entranced in.

"--OHHH HELP ME PLEASE IT HUUUURTS SO MUCH--!"

Adjusting her glasses, she winced at the sight before her--

There he was, Beck, on the sleeping bag, wriggling and jerking about, with a geyser full of the fakest looking blood she'd ever seen. It was just spewing everywhere. Much too much to be coming out of a human body, let alone one as sickly and skin-and-bones as Beck's. Her startlement quickly turned to annoyance.

"Oh, real mature, Beck!" she shouted, over his whiny screams. "What a cheap trick! Well, the deal's off, you jerk! I agreed to listen to your story, not some cheap stupid Halloween prank! And it's too bad--I actually liked your story, but you had to go and ruin it by being childish and lame!"

"--OHH NO IT'S REAL HELP ME PLEEAASE--"

"Yeah, real," she snorted, picking up her towel. "Yeah, nice tentacles. Real convincing-looking! Enjoy sleeping in your loser-bed alone with your rubber toy! You stupid... stupid... you stupid nerd!"

"No! STOP WAIIT--AAAIIIGH!"

"Forget you, Screech!"

Spinning on her heels and sending a tart spray of beach sand into the air, Tara hurrumphed and headed off, sweet chunky thighs and all.

He can find somebody else's French tests to copy off of from now on, the nerdy smurf, she thought, as she climbed away from the beach, and the smoldering remains of Operation: Getting Some. Wanted to go shopping on the boardwalk, anyway...

Stalking off toward the grassy dunes, Tara didn't turn to look back even as Beck's screams trailed off into a warbly gurgle, then to silence.

~ ~ TWELVE ~ ~

From The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore

To The Beach:

ESCAPE

Roxy exited quietly out of the bookstore, and headed around the corner to the parking area in back.

With a tartly determined strut, she made her way toward her car. Suddenly, out from behind the nearby dumpster, came a discombobulated Dickie, still in "prank" regalia, still sipping his soda.

Roxy whipped around--"HI-YAAAA!"-- doing a quick, effective, and very impressive Tae Bo kick that sent him against the wall, sliding down unconscious.

"No offense, but you really picked a bad time for a prank, Dick-o," she shrugged, as she made her way to the car, finds the door locked, fumbling through her pockets for the keys.

~ ~ ~

"Roxy, where are--"

D. J. stumbled past the dumpster, where he noticed Dickie dressed in odd Halloween garb, all passed out. For some reason, that didn't seem as strange as it probably should have. But before D. J. had time to dwell on that thought any longer--

Out of nowhere, a dune buggy suddenly screeched up next to him. About an inch up next to him. Leaving him standing there, frozen, unable to believe he hadn't just been run over.

Roxy called out, almost bored, "Coming or what?"

She cranked open the passenger side door; he -- very shakily -- leaned in, muttering, "Who taught you how not to drive...?"

"Not in the mood! Get in already!"

And with that, D. J. found himself yanked inside the buggy, and they sped off into the night.

"What-what are you doing? Where are you driving?"

Roxy gave him a sour look. "I'm scared, I'm high and I don't know how to drive stick--how would I know!"

"This is Hoagie's car, isn't it!"

"I lost my keys up in the stupid attic! So he owes me!" she explained as they jerked and swerved across the road. "Plus, he's a man-skank. So he owes me for that too!"

"Well, fine, he owes you--but let me drive!"

"Why? Do you know how to drive stick!"

"No!"

"Then just--"

"Stop--!"

"Hands off, you friend of man-skank--!"

"Roxy!"

"D. J.!"

CRASH! --over a splintery picket fence up and over a ragged dune, through some bushes and down a steep hill--

"AAAIIIGH!"

"ARRRGH!"

--right into a tree.

"You know," D. J. mumbled, wiping leaves off his forehead, "this car could explode in the next ten seconds, yet, oddly, I would feel safer."

"BOOM!" yelled Roxy right into his ear. "There, smart guy, feel safer now?"

"You know, I hate to say this, but if your side of the buggy explodes and mine doesn't... I'm gonna so laugh."

"Fair enough. Who cares, but fair enough."

"And, you know, another thing--"

But Roxy didn't find out what that other thing was, as D. J. screamed when the naked Hooters girl jumped out from behind some bushes and started jabbering--

"He's gone! He got--EATEN!" she cried, wide-eyed and shocked. "Out there! Coming to get me! Don't get out of the car!"

D. J. and Roxy really didn't have time to be scared or puzzled, as the naked Hooters girl scrambled to get in the buggy with them. "What are you doing?" Roxy barked.

"Uhm, yeah, what..." D. J. was distracted.

"DON'T GET OUT OF THIS CAR! DRIVE AWAY NOW!"

"Well, as you can see, Miss--"

"NO! DRIVE! NOW!

"But ma'am--"

"Enough with this ma'am stuff," bellowed Roxy. "Get out of our buggy, tramp! This ain't no 'ho' buggy! I've had it with all you sluts!"

"Now, ladies--"

"DRIVE CAR! NOW NOW NOW!"

"Drop dead! Slut slut slut!"

"Girls ... gals ..." D. J. was gesturing nervously to the front of the bashed-in buggy, which was filling with smoke. "I think we have a problem--"

"PROBLEM IS OUT THERE! EATING! COMING FOR US! COMING FOR YOU!"

The naked girl wrapped herself tightly all over D. J. He looked over her naked shoulder, at Roxy, who was getting as steamed as the front of the buggy. "BOOM!" Roxy bellowed, and then jumped out of the buggy, running down the dune toward the ocean. "There! happy?"

"NO! DON'T! COME BACK!" the naked girl screamed--right into D. J.'s ear, breaking whatever mood might have been possible, with a naked girl on his lap and all.

"I... got to go... get her," D. J. said, part apologetic, part annoyed, as he stuck his pinky in his ear, to stop the ringing. He slithered out from under the naked girl --

"NO! IT'S OUT THERE!" --

--fell to the ground --

"NO! GET UP! IT'S IN THE GROUND! RUNNN!"

--got up, gave the naked girl a helpless look (oh, if this were any other circumstance), turned and ran after Roxy.

"NOOOOO--"

The smoke continued to billow, filling the buggy.

~ ~ ~

"Roxy! Wait!"

D. J. darted down the dune--stumbled, arms waving--but kept his balance--until he hit the bottom and started to flail, then fell--

--right on top of Roxy, knocking them both to the beach sand.

"Ooh! Get off me you creep!" She wriggled unmercifully beneath him, throwing a couple kicks in for good measure. "Why don't you go back to your naked slut girlfriend--!"

"Ooof! owch! C'mon, Roxy--OW!--We just met--I don't even KNOOOW her--ooof!"

They both rolled in separate directions. As soon as the plumes of beach sand settled, they eyed each other. Roxy, of course, was ready to give his one good working ear a nice bellow when--

"NO! IT'S COMING! IT'S EATING THE CAR--"

They both turned to see the naked girl, even more terrified than before, flailing around nudely at the top of the dune.

"--IT'S EATING EATING EATING EEEATINNGG IT--!"

"You stink, you know that?" Roxy said, resignedly.

"What did I do?" D. J. gave her a helpless, clueless look.

And that's when the naked girl took a step and stumbled down the dune--

--headed right for them.

When the dust plumes settled this time, Roxy just let out a big ole sigh, shook her head and said, "You know what? You two have fun. Whatever! Who knows! Who cares! I'm going for a swim. Why not! It's crazy time!"

And she stood up, dusted the beach off of her, and headed for the waves, clothes and all.

"NOO! IT'S GOING TO GET OUT! IT CAN SWIM! IT SWIMS BETTER IN THE GROUND--"

D. J. was on his feet now, covered with sand. He looked at the two girls, the screechy girl first--hmmm, sure was naked--then darted a few steps toward Roxy.

"C'mon, Roxy, don't be silly. You can't go out there at this hour. You're high, you just drank psychedelic tea, you'll get cramps or something."

"Don't care," she snapped, continuing toward the waves. "Nobody does, and I don't care about that either."

"NOOO! IT'S COMING!--!!"

"Oh, man, be like in the old-time movies and punch her in the mouth," Roxy called out. "She's driving me NUTS--"

"NOOO--" suddenly became a scream. An ear-piercing scream. An unnatural scream.

D. J. was transfixed -- Roxy, with another annoyed sigh -- "What now?" -- turned reluctantly--

And saw this:

The nude girl, up to her naked knees in beach, as if she were sinking in quicksand. The beach, rippling around her, almost as if it were water and not ground.

And, then, this: blood.

Lots of blood.

Spraying in a geyser of red, splattering all over the girl's naked body, as she whipped around in a frenzy of jerky, puzzled, panicky movements.

Roxy just went wide-eyed and froze, muttering, "No way--"

The naked Hooters girl went silent, her mouth popping open and shut like a fish trapped on dry land, as the blood continued to shoot up and out from the undulating sands. The girl's arms still waved, but much slower now, much more aimless, as she sank another foot or so.

The shark beast was visible now, crawling up out of the sand as it continued to devour the girl. It looked like a cross between a pitbull and a mako shark, and some sort of electric squid, with stinging tentacles whipping around crazily, along with four snapping lobster-like claws. It made no sound other than what came from the gnashing and chewing of those incredibly jagged dagger-teeth and a pair of long, sharp, twitching sabre-fangs.

Which gave D. J. the chance to be a hero, one he abdicated for about 20 seconds (he was a bit frozen in place by shock as well) and then, suddenly, wherever people get that burst within that makes them take action and do the right thing instead of just stand there and watch, numbly--

D. J. scooped Roxy up in his arms, and began running for the dune.

But then the shark beast--with an impossible gulp--swallowed the naked girl (or, well, most of her), and turned its shining silver eyes on D. J. and Roxy. They--and the creature--became suddenly, perfectly still. Eyeing each other. The moon glinted eerily in the shark beast's grisly stare.

It was a tense, long moment--

Then D. J. made a dash for the dune.

--but the shark beast scrambled to cut him off, wriggling and hissing, tentacles snapping in the air, forcing D. J. to retreat, edge backwards, carrying Roxy to the edge of the cold ocean waters.

This seemed to calm the shark beast, gave it an apparent sense of the prey is trapped, and it scuttled back to finish what was left of the Hooter's waitress. It never took its glinting eyes off of D. J. and Roxy, as it began chewing on the girl, wrapping its stinging tentacles around her for a better grip, slicing and cutting at the tough parts with those awful claws.

All during this those shark beast eyes kept glinting, unblinkingly, at D. J. and Roxy. As if to say...

Don't worry.

You two are next.

~ ~ THIRTEEN ~ ~

Back In The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:

MORE ATTIC SEX

Upstairs, in the attic, Luna was insatiable.

After a short break, enough to catch their breaths, enough to recharge their lungs (but not, Hoagie thought sheepishly, much else), she'd climbed on top of Hoagie, and had started at it again.

Hoagie, on his back now, exhausted but, hey--willing naked chick on board-- couldn't believe his luck. He'd always imagined Luna probably looked good in the raw and all--those tight tops of hers sure put thoughts into a guy's head, even if he didn't want them there--but, now, getting a good look in the candlelight--wow.

Sure, that tattoo on her right breast was a little creepy, but, other than that--

Wow.

Luna kept undulating, and muttering, and her breasts just kept swaying, and her hips--

Muttering?

What is she saying--? he wondered, but just for a moment. Almost as if she wanted to change the subject of his unspoken thought, she started grinding her hips in a slightly different, somehow even more seductive manner. Boy, did that send his thoughts spinning.

It just felt... so ... good...

He arched his back, as much as he could, but then--fine--let her do all the work. After all, she was doing pretty good so far. Amazingly good-- heck, let's be honest--shockingly, the best he'd ever had, and he'd had, well, he'd had his share. But nothing like her, like this-- the way she was, well... the whole... how she... just...

Wow.

It was hard to believe-- yes, yes, he knew she had a rockin' body, but man, she usually seemed so utterly, unabashedly (and somewhat proudly)... dumb. And naggy. And a total slob. And the whole "Witches of Downtown Eastwick" thing. And a turbo drama queen. And about a hundred other things she apparently assumed men overlooked because of what she had under her clothes. And most of the time, she was right. But all that--and something else--struck Hoagie unappealing. Not now, of course, obviously, but... uhmmm...

(but?)

(but what?)

(sooo... gooood)

His mind went in and out of focus, occasionally stopping on the odd rebel thought...

How come the candles are all back on...?

Why does the pointer on the stupid magic board underneath me seem to be moving...?

And Luna's eyes.

Why and by what reason how did they all of a sudden seem so--

So--

(so what?)

Luna twisted. And grinded. And rubbed. And--

... so ... good...

And all thoughts, rebel or otherwise, slipped away under a sweet tide of pleasure.

Luna smiled.

He smiled back, loopily. His gaze, foggy but cheerful, travelled over her body... her rockin' bod... down to those big...

Just as the tattoo on her right breast began to--

No.

It couldn't be.

Leaning his head up, squinting, he stared. Wait, it does seem to be--

Nah, mused Hoagie finally, with a sleaze-intoxicated grin. It just looks like that in the light. Still, it did look like it--

Luna swiveled, and that was it for any coherent thoughts in Hoagie's brain. His hands rose, and grabbed those big breasts, and began to squeeze. And twist. And this and that and...

Wow.

~~~

In the shadows of the ever-brightening candles... for a million different secret reasons...

...some good... some bad...

...and one really, really bad...

Luna just smiled.

~ ~ FOURTEEN ~ ~

Out In The Cold, Cold Waters:

ROCKS

D. J. took a quick look over his shoulder, hoping against hope that they'd lucked out, that maybe this was the spot where--

Yes.

There it was.

Roxy saw what he was looking at. She shook her head--no--you'll never make it--we'll never make it--but there was no energy in her opposition.

She knew they had no choice.

So D. J. tightened his hold on Roxy--and she rewarded this effort with a kiss--and that was more than enough to give him the burst he needed... to slowly... step back ... into the cold waves of the ocean.

D. J. was up to his knees, splashing backwards when the shark beast suddenly looked up from its Hooters meal straight at him.

"He sees what you're doing," whispered Roxy. Not in a nagging way, just in a that's-the-way-it-is way.

"I know, I know," D. J. whispered, not taking his eyes of the strange hungry creature that wasn't taking its eyes of them. "Tell me something new, like how far are we from the...thing?"

Roxy turned her head, dully. The "thing" was a little island of three rocks or so, sticking out of the waters about 50 feet away from them.

It was the little island of rocks that had inspired the t-shirt Hoagie had worn, and his band name, as well.

"Kinda close, kinda far," was all Roxy said, with a weary sigh.

D. J. kept slowly edging backwards. Up to his waist in water at this point.

"Kinda helpful, kinda not," he said, giving her a quick look. It lasted about a second, that look, but a lot of things swirled through D. J.'s mind in that instant. It was like his life suddenly flashed before his eyes--but not the one he'd had, instead the one he could have had--with Roxy--if only he'd have acted earlier, not wasted so much time, if only--

(what were you waiting for--?)

But then, now-- SNAP -- his full attention back to the shark beast, which was perking up on its hind legs, glaring at them from the beach.

"Well," D. J. mused quietly, thoughts of another life slipping off with the waves, as he kept wading backwards. "It's obvious that thing can crawl underground. And with that fin it's obvious it can probably swim ... the question is..."

Kept easing back.

The shark beast kept perking; glaring.

"... how fast can it swim?"

Roxy sighed, and nuzzled close, wrapping her arms around his neck, and then, with absolutely no touch of panic or fear in her voice, said, vaguely, "Think we're about to find out."

And with that, the shark beast emitted a loud angry hiss, spewing mist and blood into the night, clamped its jaws together tightly (after first spitting out some unchewed Hooters remains), and then, preening back, started gnashing its fangs together violently--

--clickCLICKclickCLICKclick--

And like some mad dog after a lame rabbit, burst forward in a cloud of virulent beach sand, and came barreling toward the water.

--clickclickCLICKclickCLICK--

"Time to ru-unn," Roxy said in a tiny sing-song voice, burying her face in D. J.'s chest, as she prepared to let whatever was going to happen, happen.

And what happened was--

D. J. choked and wobbled, then spun around and made his own mad dash for the kinda close kinda far little island of rock out in the sloshing waves.

He was up to his chest in cold swirling water, when he heard the angry splash behind him.

~ ~ ~

Roxy was humming.

It was a nice song, a very pleasant easy tune.

D. J. focused on it, focused on it very hard, holding her tight, leaning his ear to her, so he could hear...

Roxy was humming.

She held him close, her head soft against his cheek. It was right there and then--it just popped out of nowhere, this incongruous thought, but there it was:

I'm going to marry this girl.

Followed almost immediately by another:

If we survive.

Roxy kept humming.

~ ~ ~

He didn't want to acknowledge it--after all, the concept of time in moments of panic and stress--who could keep track? But he couldn't shake the feeling, irrational or otherwise: that thing... it's been in the water forever--it has to be behind us--it has to be right there--

(she's the one, you know)

(Many attempt, but few reach...)

He kept pushing through the freezing late night waves.

Roxy kept humming.

~ ~ FIFTEEN ~ ~

In The Water, Up The Incline:

THE BALLAD OF

D. J. & Roxy

He felt the water rolling.

Heart bursting, breath staggering, D. J. pushed onward, up to his shoulders in salt and foam and waves, then, suddenly, pushing his way up an incline, approaching the tiny rock island.

That thing has to be right behind us.

It's been hours since it splashed in the water after us! Days! Years--! DECADES--!

Then, D. J. noticed something odd:

Roxy had stopped humming.

"I love y--"

They were three feet away from the island of rock.

~ ~ EPILOGUE ~ ~

A Week Later

A sign, at the far edge of the dune.

PARROT'S COVE

BEACH

Will Be Closed Until Further Notice

We Apologize for the inconvenience.

Someone had scratched out the word "inconvenience" and replaced it with a crooked red scrawl that read "SHARK BEEEST."

Other than that, it was a beautiful day.

-- THE END --

And now...FREE "SHARK BEAST 2" SNEAK PEEK

Enjoy a bonus "taste" of the raging "Shark Beast" sequel ...

"Shark Beast 2: Paranormal Sharkitivity"

-- this time, a young and sexy band of film-makers make a quickie Sci-Fi style "Shark Beast" exploitation movie, on the very beach the attacks happened one year earlier.

Distracted by the sexy behind-the-scenes movie hijinx, they don't notice the REAL shark beast is about to make a guest appearance...

SHARK BEAST 2:

PARANORMAL SHARKITIVITY

by RUSS COOPER

~ ~ ~( Bonus Sneak Peek ) ~ ~ ~

Tentacle ONE

Two Brave, Horny Teens

They kissed.

A lot.

"I don't think we should do this."

"Oh, c'mon. It'll be fun."

~ ~ ~

Kali pulled her bikini top back in place.

She thought about stalking off; not seriously, of course -- just pretending to. Making him, she didn't know, jealous or something. That would show him. Theoretically. She didn't, of course. After all, he was sooo good-looking...

So: they kissed.

Then a little bit more.

Then a whole lot more.

Under Steve's bikini-grabbing, lip-kissing guidance, they stepped over the NO TRESPASSING wire, and stumbled over onto the restricted part of the beach.

~ ~ ~

"I don't think we should do this," she said, even as he removed her bikini top.

"Oh, c'mon. It'll be fun."

~ ~ ~

"I don't know ... I feel frightened," Kali whispered, "I mean, if we're going to do it" -- and obviously, they were -- "let's go back, get a room, or the back of your car, even..."

"You're scared?" he laughed, guiding her clumsily but persistently toward the sparkling water. "Being out here late at night all alone?" His expression, abruptly demented now, eyes poisoned, perverse and sly. "Then I guess you know ... 'The Story,' huh?"

(Working on her bikini bottoms now.)

"The Story...?" she said, shivering. Shivering. Not because of the cool night waters ebbing around her ankles, her legs, her thighs -- no. Shivering for a whole new set of reasons she wasn't sure she wanted to find out about.

He paused, just for a moment, wicked fun in his grin.

"It was a year ago, this com-iiing Halloween," he suddenly moaned in a movie announcer voice, "eleven months and one day ago this very night, when a strange, unbelievable creature in these very waters went wild, and took a half-dozen good citizens to the bloody depths--"

"Oh, come on, be nice," she whimpered, the waters rushing around her back. Shivering now, shivering. A lot.

"-- in this very town, this promenade, this boardwalk villa, Halloween came bearing teeth and jaws and tentacles. Bearing hard. It was a wild, terri-frrying night, that started and ended as quickly as it began, not to be seen hide nor... tentacle ... again."

He leaned in, close enough to withhold a kiss.

"Not seen since that horr-rrible evening, by this very sea, beneath these very waters. But ... one year later ... on the anniversary of those crazed events ... would it, could it, come back? Two brave horny teens ... were about ... to find out...!"

She didn't like this. Didn't like it at all. Nothing but shivers now -- felt like she should just get up and go, get away-- for real, no pretending --

~ ~ ~

"I don't think we should do this," she whispered, one more time, but it was, of course, well past that point.

~ ~ ~

So, they kissed.

And kissed some more.

~ ~ ~

"Oh, c'mon. It'll be fun," he said, almost in a mocking voice.

This time, though:

She didn't say anything.

~ ~ ~

Like she was barely breathing, even, or something. It took him a long time to notice that, but eventually, even a good-looking guy like Steve comes around. Obviously -- this is him deducing -- obviously, she'd decided to just lay there and let him have his fun but act all like she was doing him some favor -- or, you know, something -- whatever --

Man, who could figure out these girls?

Who really bothered to figure them out?

Though he did finally feel a bit of a shiver himself -- a small one -- when the ocean splattered kind of sticky on his chest, and then -- she pinched him?

(Finally! Naughty girl!)

He looked down to see -- (red) -- in the middle of her chest --

(red?)

(red)

-- in the middle of her chest -- poking out of it, actually -- boring out of her chest, was what looked like --

(giant worm? snake?)

(red! lots of it!)

Nope.

Yep.

-- a tentacle.

~ ~ ~

Took a minute --

--but good-looking Steve, he came around.

He gasped.

He choked.

Then started bawling.

~ ~ ~

-- her arms (what) were at her sides (how odd) bobbing in the ebb and flow of the frothy, bloody-crimson splashing waters. So what was (confused now) wrapped around him (panic rising) holding him in a clinch--?

(no sense no sense at--)

He never found out.

The tentacles tightened on him so hard and fast his ribs cracked and his brain went fuzzy and (jolt) the tentacle boring out of his girlfriend's chest went (hello! goodbye!) boring straight through the side of his head.

He didn't scream.

He didn't anything.

Bye, Stevie.

~ ~ ~

The two bodies left long, sluggish drag marks in the beach, as they slipped away into the waters, leaving only a bikini and dimming, swirling trails of blood.

~ ~ ~

Eleven months and one day ago this very night...

Shark Beast was back.

Tentacle TWO

Meet The Girls

14 days later.

~ ~ ~

The first of the girls to arrive were, as promised, spectacular.

College girls -- junior college girls, actually -- from the local drama department, three hotties strutting (or trying to) awkwardly out of the back of the dune buggy. Mike recognized their types right away -- sigh -- mentally ticking down the college drama chick list of stereotypes sighted and confirmed...

First, ahhh, yes... the Blonde Ingenue. The 'usta be'. As in -- used to be prom queen, used to be head cheerleader, used to be homecoming princess ... usta be on and on until whoops-boomshakalaka -- high school graduation, the 12-year princess party over, done! Time to find something in junior college to replace all that lost LOOK AT ME attention suddenly gone bye-bye ... so, voila, hello drama department.

(Vital Stats: Very breasty. Lots of suspicious highlights. Usually had a name spelled with more vowels than you'd normally expect.)

Meet Britnee.

Next out of the dune bug, Cute But Oooh Sooo Angry Punk Chick. Something in her childhood happened you don't want to know about. Which she would never tell you anyway. Which, in a way, works out for everyone because, man -- you don't want to know. Very sexy-looking -- or would be, if not for that punky haircut, those -- of course -- obligatory, oh-so-predictably-"radical" tattoos, and the whole I might be a lesbian so what's it to you dude! vibe she's got going. If she had any talent she'd be in the art department, if she could sing she'd be in some contentious indie band, but, lucky you, she's right splat in the middle of the drama department. When she's not working both sides of the counter at Hot Topic, of course.

(Vital Stats: Surprisingly well-built and fashionable for somebody who supposedly doesn't give a crap. Beautiful eyes. Usually totin' a name that sounds like one of those bands from the Seventies with the album covers filled with bearded mushrooms and elves playing bass to an audience of unicorns.)

Meet Alysia.

And thirdly -- oooh, there she is. The rarest of them all -- the really real "drama student" drama student. The one who's actually heard of David Mamet. The one who takes the whole theatre experience seriously. A little too seriously. Oh, who's kidding who -- she takes it so seriously she makes you want to pull a little David Mamet on her. And you probably would, except -- she's so hot. Of course she is, all drama chicks are, they're crazy, damaged, mixed up, overly suspicious, freakishly vengeful and madder than the Joker on a box of Froot Loops -- but they're all so ... freakin' ... hot. "Normal" and "smokin'" never seem to go together, unfortunately.

(Vital Stats: Very mysterious. Odd but surprisingly sexy glasses. Transfixingly raven-haired. The creamiest (if somewhat pale) skin you'll ever see. Usually has a name from any other period of history aside from whatever's the current one.)

Meet Katherina.

"I don't think we should do this," Mike muttered, as the three smokin' hot drama chicks stretched and yawned next to the dune buggy, then -- after another take a niiice long look, boys pose -- headed toward the front porch of the large beach house.

"Don't listen to him, girls, all directors are insane," the driver of the dune buggy laughed (a little too loudly) as he hopped out and danced (actually danced!) his way to Mike's side. "Just go inside, relax, beers in the fridge, sodas too, but mostly beers, help yourself, we'll be right in."

The girls giggled -- well, actually, only Britnee giggled, that was her thing, giggling, the other two girls just scowled and gave vaguely suspicious looks -- as they sashayed their way into the beach house.

Jake the Producer gave Mike one of his patented you're killin' me, dude! producer smiles. Jake the Producer was good at smiling, he had a million of 'em, all of which came in handy when, say, he was hiring you (smile!), was firing you (different smile!), was rehiring you (third kind of smile), and when he was about to give you one of his also-patented "How Life Works" lectures (patented fourth kind of smile!)...

... that was the kind of smile he was smiling now.

"Didn't we agree not to mutter things like that in front of the talent?" he asked, all teeth.

"Huh, the 'talent,'" Mike chuckled derisively.

Jake The Producer's smile didn't dim one megawatt -- just shifted a bit (you're killin' me, dude!) then back to "How Life Works"...

"Mike, dude -- you're the director, I respect that. I'm the producer, nobody respects that, but I respect that nobody respects that, that's what being a producer is," Jake The Producer said, grinning away. "But The Talent is The Talent, and The Talent is where it's at, so we've both got to respect that, even if they are a bunch of airheads from a community junior college. Capice?"

"I know, I know, sorry for speaking out loud and all," Mike said, with a sigh.

"Hey, you're an artist, you've got a temperament, I totally dig that about you," Jake the Producer said, showing an almost legit-looking smile. "But those girls, I got to tell you, they're going to need a little coddling, even more than the usual. We're going to all be here snug as bugs for the next 2 weeks, so..."

"I know, I know."

"-- bed bugs, if we're lucky..." (That smile, now.)

"I know, I know."

"So, you dig? You copacetic?"

"Yeah, I'm just ... yeah. I know. I dig already."

"Look, Michael, my man, I know this isn't your idea of, you know, primo moviemaking, but--"

"Really, Jake the P, you don't have to--"

"No, Mike, let's get it out. While the girls, y'know, mark their territory. And set the groundwork for later catfights -- if we're lucky." That grin again. "Anyway, like I said, we've got two weeks, 14 short but sweet days, and, you know, there's not a lot of room for hesitation and second thoughts." His voice got a little more serious than Mike was expecting, which usually meant Cut the BS, m'man! Time To Listen Up! So Mike did just that as Jake the Producer continued grinning and spinning. "Look, we'd all like to be working for Steve Spielberg instead of some cheesy direct-to-video 'mockbuster' crap studio specializing in movies that sound suspiciously like more famous real movies -- but what it is is what it is, my man." He threw his arm around Mike's shoulders, my man! style, in case Mike didn't get it the first two times. "Our destiny has brought you and I to Beddlam Studioz, the home of 'The Dinosaur Code,' 'The Transforminators,' 'Bram Stoker's Aliens Vs Zombie Sherlock Holmes,' 'Snakes on the Titanic,' 'The Day The Earth Hardly Moved' -- slightly familiar-sounding masterpieces that occasionally showcase down on their luck pop stars from the 80's, semi-retired sitcom actors, and the assorted lesbian or two. Or ten. If we're lucky."

He gave Mike a producerly squeeze.

"That, like it or not, is destiny for guys like us," he said, wistfully, all teeth and suspiciously shiny enamel. "Face it, we're misfits, Lucky To Have Any Job Hollywood Misfits." He leaned his grinning face closer. "I mean, we're gettin' real, so let's get realer than reals real here -- we don't need to go into details, do we? Career histories? Our assorted tales of Tinsel Town woe?"

Mike shook his head.

No. We most certainly do not.

"Good," Jake the Producer said, switching to another variation of his almost legit smiles. "Then we're on the same page, then?"

Mike nodded.

Yes. We most certainly are.

Jake the P was a pain in the everywhere. But you had to give it to him -- he knew how to do the producer dirty work. And smile while he did it to you.

Mike nodded some more.

"Good," Jake the P mega-grinned, message delivered, message received. "Mood switch! You're really going to like this."

Out of one of his many cargo vest producer pockets, he pulled out a very crumpled slip of paper, and let Mike read it. Well, made Mike read it.

~ ~ ~

fresh smokin' hot dish

from the gossip-celeb website

GAWK OF THE TOWN

Street Date -- Next October 31!

Beddlam Studioz is known for many things ...

... 'Mega-Romeo and Juliet-a-gator,' 'Kung Fu Panther Vs Mega-Anaconda,' the multi-jurisdictional 'Star Wars Trek of the Avatar Kind' copyright court case, the unbroken streak of 'Worst Of Everything Ever' Razzie Lifetime Awards -- and who could forget that girl from the Go-Go's catfighting with that girl from that old 'Cars' "You Might Think" video...

But, all that's NOTHING compared to their next "disasterpiece."

Yes, bad movie lovers, Direct-To-DVD will never be the same...

SHARK BEAST:

PARANORMAL SHARKITIVITY

Either this is the most tasteless exploitation movie ever made, or it's a stroke of such demented genius that ...

Oh, who are we kidding, it's the most tasteless exploitation movie ever etc etc.

Though it does have a few "firsts" for the much-mocked "mockbuster" studio. Obviously half the movie is (depending on your point of view) ..."based" ... "inspired" ... "completely ripped-off-from" ... a much more original and already famous movie (in this case the sleeper hit "Paranormal Activity") -- of course, that's the usual Beddlam Moviemakin' M.O.  But what's new is the second "inspiration" -- in this case, the actual real-life "shark beast" attacks of a year or so ago, back in the now infamous Parrot's Cove. But -- as said, that was a year ago, and besides, there's already been a vaguely entertaining but exceedingly bland quickie cable movie version of the whole thing. Not exactly timely stuff for Professional Exploitationistas like the Beddlam gang, you might think--

Unless you've got an Internet connection, of course.

One of the biggest recent viral videos is the supposed late night security footage of two horny teenagers making out on Parrot's Cove beach -- and coming to a very grisly (and multi-tentacled) end. One can almost imagine the dollar signs going ping! in the Beddlam head honchos' bulging eyeballs, like something out of a Warner Bros. cartoon, when that clip made its way around the blogosphere. The teens were never found or identified, and that, combined with the unlikelihood that even a beach as notorious and scarily well-known as Parrot's Cove would have those kind of conveniently positioned security cameras, this raised the suspicion that Beddlam themselves might have manufactured the footage as a PR Stunt.

They've denied it.

And to be frank, we believe them.

First of all, this is actually too imaginative a bit for them to have come up themselves -- originality isn't their forte, as everyone knows -- and, more to the point (especially if you've ever had the misfortune to actually have sat through a Beddlam flick) the footage is actually too good and well-composed to be their handiwork. It's even in focus, for goodness sakes!

But stories from supposed "real life" is not all that's new for these cinematic geniuses ...

A typical Beddlam film budget is pretty miserly -- and, believe us, it shows -- which explains why the majority of their work takes place either in the woods or an abandoned warehouse. So it's a bit of a surprise (and a publicity coup), that "SB:PS" is actually being filmed at the actual beach house of one of the actual victims of the actual original shark beast attacks. Actually! Which house is unclear, at least to us, but shame and common decency kept us from asking, let alone printing it even if we did know. (Which, we repeat: we do not.) (And don't want to know.)... That, plus we didn't really want to know who would allow their house to be used for such tasteless exploitational blah blah blah...

But then -- such is the state of cinema these days. Oh well. We can't wait to see how they fit in the kick-boxing lesbians.

So, prepare to accidentally rent this movie come the next scary season when you're reaching for something else.

At least until 'Larry Potter and The Cauldron of Caribbean Mega-Pirates With The Dragon Tattoo' comes out to take its place.

Gawk ya later...

~ ~ ~

"You know the funny part of this," Mike said, handing back the crumpled paper. "You actually think this is complimentary."

"Hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity," Jake the Producer smirked. "Thank goodness, or you and I would be out of a job. Speaking of which ... let's do it to it, shall we?"

"Do what--?" Mike blinked, then sighed. "Oh, yeah, right. 'The Talent.'"

Jake the Producer gave Mike a quick look -- ( you're killin' me, dude! ) --

"No, got ya, I dig, all that," Mike said, with anything but a producer's smile. "Gotta wonder, though, do you really think it's a good idea for cast and crew to be living all together under the same roof here on location -- in the actual set -- for two weeks?"

"Hey," -- all producerly Jake-grins -- "it's camaraderie, we're family, that cinematic spirit of friendly good-fellowship ... besides, it's not exactly a full crew, anyway, is it? Never is, in BeddlamLand, where being a director means you hold your own boom mike. And that's on a good day. Plus, it's either that or we have to pay for hotel rooms, and you know what that'll do to our kickbacks."

Jake the Producer waved his fingers, magician's style, and made a disappearing poof! sound.

Mike, suddenly startled, let his eyes go wide--

"Hey, just between us, I know, I know," Jake said, smiling what seemed suddenly like a "Joker" smile. "But, let's face it, just calling it like it is. We made us a deal -- The Deal -- and I don't want either of us taking that lightly --"

"I'm not, but --"

"But nothing, partner. We made an agreement, you and I, whatever budget money we don't spend, we split, right down the line. That's why we're using this skeleton crew here. That's why we're cutting the costs even after we cut the costs that we already cut again. That's why we got the on-the-fly camera equipment. And that's why we're having this little mano-a-mano chat. Because I'm not putting us through all these hoops 'n hassles to save ourselves primo cash-skim that you're gonna blow if you keep attitudin' The Talent. We got to work together on this, we got to take this stuff seriously -- muy serioso, amigo -- am I right?"

"Yeah, yeah, let's -- not -- talk about it, you know? Out loud, at least? Not exactly legal..." Mike muttered, looking over his shoulder.

"Well, don't make me have to talk about it, out loud or otherwise. But when you're standing there, rolling your eyes and mutterin' and mocking the talent -- I mean, The Talent -- makes me think we're not on the same page, and that makes me nervous. And makes me talk loud."

"All right, all right," Mike sighed. "You've made your point. I'll behave. I'll treat this shoot like Citizen humpin' Kane, okay? I'll be a good bad director, from here on. I'll be fake Alfred Hitchcock, and this" -- Mike gestured toward the large beach house -- "will be my 'Psycho.'"

"Ahh, that's more like it," he said, biggest grin yet. "And I'll be the Bridge, and you'll be... my River Kwai."

"You got it, Jake. Uh, the P."

They 'high-fived,' and did an awkward but jubilant "funky" handshake. "Now we're back in showbiz!" Jake the P exclaimed toothily. "The outskirts, at least. Either way, Professionals, once again. Am I right?"

"You're right. Professionals -- that's us."

"Pro-fessionals!"

A super we-all-cool smile, then, after a look of deep contemplation and tepid consideration, Jake the P added, casually:

"Oh, that reminds me. The Goth Girl lesbian twins texted me, they're going to be a couple days late. Apparently, they're in jail for some reason. You want to go bail 'em out, or should we just send Cameraman Bob?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For more mystery, monsters and mayhem

check out these Russ Cooper favorites...

"SHARK BEAST"

"SHARK BEAST 2: Paranormal Sharkitivity"

"VAMPIRE LAKE"

"BONFIRE OF THE VAMPIRES"

"GIRL ON A LAPTOP"

and

"BY ALL MEANS, ROME"

action-packed romance, paranormal thrillers,

and juicy creature features

by RUSS COOPER

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All available from Amazon for your

Kindle, iPhone, or Mac/PC

Available for download today

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Excerpt from "Shark Beast 2: Paranormal Sharkitivity" All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2011 by Russ Cooper

Table of Contents

One--A Knockout Of A 19-Year-old

Two--Too Many Dumb Hot Chicks In My Life

Three--The Surfer & The Hooters Waitress

Four--The Splintery Stairs

Five--Naked, Beautiful, Pissy

Six--The Prank

Seven--A Nerd With A Metal Detector and An Odd Theory Concerning The Alleged Misunderstood Quality of "The Phantom Menace"

Eight--Oblivious Sex

Nine--OPERATION: GETTING SOME

Ten--"The Gob-Slime"

Eleven--OPERATION: NOT GETTING SOME

Twelve--ESCAPE

Thirteen--MORE ATTIC SEX

Fourteen--ROCKS

Fifteen--THE BALLAD OF D. J. & Roxy

epilogue

* * * Bonus "Shark Beast 2" Sneak Peek