***

  It’s two hours by her count before she manages to stop shaking, another half before she can muster the fortitude to roll to her knees and elbows.

  The sound of Allison’s screams are the only thing she can hear. She vomits again, and again—the helpless cries repeating in her mind ad nauseam.

  She stays there for a time, replaying the fever dream of her last few days over and over, trembling and sobbing. Her shoulders have cramped from incessant shaking.

  Gradually her thoughts coalesce, the various components of her predicament jostling and vying for attention. Eventually the puzzle of Exactly Where The Fuck She Is And Why, although deeply troubling, seems a little less pressing than simply how to get the fuck out of here.

  With dawn now approaching she examines again her wrist and the strange bracelet that binds it. She presses her fingers along every surface and into every curve, hoping to find some seam, crease, point of weakness—she finds none.

  She bites into the metal, maybe it is gold. Gold is soft, right? Maybe she can chew through this cuff and—

  No, it’s not gold. She feels an old filling shift, chipped teeth won’t do her any good.

  She begins examining the links of her chain. No seams, no welds. She bites a few—also not gold. She’s examined four or five feet of the chain before her knees give out again. She looks at where it wraps around one of the thing’s… arms. The lock sits there, glinting in the sunlight… some sun’s light—but she can’t will herself to go near it. She can barely look in the thing’s direction out of some fear she’ll wake it.

  They hibernate… maybe this one will just lie dormant, stay asleep instead of…

  She remembers what Ethan said: I’ll see you tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. She has until tomorrow—and that’s today. And one of those puffy-faced fucks in the crowd had said they wanted to watch a—a feeding they called it—in the daylight.

  It’s daylight now… fuck

  She knows she doesn’t have long, time’s almost up. Today is her last day on this beach—her last day period—if she doesn’t find a way to get her wrist out of this fucking cuff.

  The realization propels her. She rises to her feet—and walks very slowly to where the chain wraps around the almost-imperceptibly undulating stalk. She moves deliberately, her right hand held low to the sand, trying desperately to avoid the chinkchinkchink of the shifting links. Feet from the branch she stumbles forward, catches herself, freezes and grits her teeth at the sound of metal-on-metal dancing. After a few deep, trembling breaths with eyes closed, she continues.

  The links wrapped around the stalk look identical to all the rest, she doesn’t dare confirm by feel.

  The lock still has no key port that she can see, and she wonders how she’d even thought to pick it if it had.

  She looks to the basket that she had torn apart in a fit, she can see nothing of use amongst its remains.

  Suddenly she is struck by a foul odor. A thick, moist breeze overtakes her. Reflexively she looks in the direction it came from—and instantly regrets doing so.

  At the center wherefrom the stalk-arms radiate, what had originally looked to her like the rippled, knotted forking of any tree, is now… open.

  She backs away slowly, instinctively. A primal urge moving her legs for her as she stares aghast at the quivering maw. She sees only the first few feet past the rim, not deep inside—and for that fact she is thankful to each and every one of those gods that she doesn’t serve.

  What she can see reminds her of the esophageal illustrations from her old high school biology textbooks. It is smooth and moist, with regular ribbing. The rippled surface shines with a translucent film. Looking closer she sees what look to be thousands of tiny barbs—teeth she supposes—all of which point downward.

  She remembers the pitcher-plants that so fascinated her as a child, with their downcast hairs meant to impede the escape of the unfortunate insects, arachnids, and even small animals, that ventured in. Those unlucky souls struggling and struggling until, exhausted, they fell into the water below to flounder and drown. Soggy corpses leisurely digested long afterwards.

  Sasha imagines such a death preferable to the one she’d witnessed. Drowning, sure, that wouldn’t exactly be ideal—she’d had a friend often recount his childhood close call in a motel pool, by his account drowning was agony, pure distilled terror—but it was quick, relatively speaking. That was the real blessing: a few brief moments of ineffectual struggle and panic, and then… nothing. No pain. No snapping of bones. No tearing of flesh. Just blackness. A quick ride into oblivion. Feeling none of what comes after.

  But these things, whatever they were, she’d seen what they did. If she was lucky, hers would simply rip her head off straight away. Otherwise she would likely still be awake and aware as she was dismembered. And if she didn’t pass out from that, or if her particular creature’s preferences differed from what she’d seen, well then she might very well be lucid even as she was pulled into that hideous maw, feeling thousands of tiny teeth flaying her, preventing escape, forcing her lacerated body down towards the larger, far more capable mastication organs that the creature surely possessed.

  As though outside of her own body, she continues her slow shuffle backward. Befuddled as she is by the sight in front of her, her faculty of proprioception is mere milliseconds too slow—she bumps into the stalk.

  “Huungh!” The gasp is out before she is even aware of it.

  Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  It takes every ounce of willpower not to run, screaming, away from the thing. Instead, she crouches to the sand and begins a slow crawl backward, trying not to notice the stalks have started slowly rising skywards.

  As she moves she is overcome by memories of Allison, her tears wet the sand as she hears again the snap of bones and the screams of a terrified girl and the gnashing and crunching of teeth.

  An idea begins to take form in her mind. She pauses and looks at her hand, then violently shakes her head and keeps crawling.

  She is nearly to the end of where the stalks reach when she hears it and freezes: the low moaning sound. It is coming from Allison’s tree, its stalks are waving in a slow serpentine dance—slow, but still faster than she’s seen any of them move before. It moans again, she shudders at the sound.

  She has just resumed her crawl when she hears it again. But this time it’s coming from her tree. Her stomach drops, a cold dread overcomes her. She looks slowly to the stalk nearest her, its gentle undulations have increased, most of the other stalks have risen higher. But there’s something else… the ends of the stalks… where they curl… it dawns on Sasha that they are all curled toward her.

  She turns around, looking to the tip of that nearest stalk, mere feet away. Like the others it curls back around, pointed directly at her. For a moment she imagines it the stinger of some gargantuan scorpion, ready to strike—but it is close, enough to see that it conceals no barb or fang, in fact, it looks… soft.

  A small wave of relief washes over her, she peers closer at the end—yes, soft indeed. Rounded. Nothing that might puncture or impale. She reassures herself that it’s not about to stab her, it’s not at all like a scorpion’s tail.

  No, it’s just a giant fucking tentacle monster that’ll tear me in fucking half when it wakes up.

  She takes a deep breath, brings her shaking under control.

  Stop, Sasha. Stop. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack. Calm down. Just move back a little bit more and figure out what to do from there.

  She’s crawled back two more feet when it catches her eye. She looks again at the rounded tip—she can’t help but notice it has followed her movement—it is glistening, as if wet. Staring intently, her eyes go wide in horror as she leans in for a better look.

  The flinch jolts her entire body as she watches the three pairs of nictitating membranes flick open.

  FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

  She is on her feet and to the end of her chain in a flash, shrieking. Tearing futilely against her binds, she creates deep purple welts around her wrist. She stomps on the chain, beats it against the sand, even as she screams herself horse.

  It’s the deep moan that sings out across the beach that cuts her off. Looking to the stalks she can see all have risen and now sway in a synchronized rhythm. She is no biologist, certainly no exobiologist, but such activity doesn’t strike her as something belonging to the category of dormant behaviors.

  She looks again to her hand. She pulls at the cuff, not really trying, knowing there’s only one option left. Tears stream from her eyes as she looks to the thing.

  Fuck you you fucking fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! You fucking fuck! Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuc—

  Her eyes catch the slithering of the chain through the sand mere moments before it goes taut at her wrist. She is jerked forward a foot, then two—she grits her teeth—then the pulling stops, stalks swaying absently.

  Okay, okay, Calm down, Sasha, you’re fine, just calm d—

  The links pull taut on her wrist, hard this time. She is pitched forward into the sand. She screams—and bites.

  The knuckles of her middle and ring fingers shift outwards, making room for her incisors. The first bite is tentative, exploratory, she is still determining if she has the willpower to do this—she doesn’t. But the creature’s moaning and the unnatural laugh-like hooting that follows spurs her on.

  Her second bite is decisive, committed. She shrieks through the rending of her own flesh. Like a dog she wrenches her head back and forth, opening her hand in a jagged laceration.

  The next bite is easier, the chain rips her forward just as her teeth close. The surprise clenches her jaw harder, hand nevertheless torn from her mouth’s grasp, partially degloved ring finger a bright wet scarlet.

  The chain jerks her forward in fits and spurts. Whenever she can’t bring hand to mouth, she uses the other hand. Driving her left thumb into the muscle and sinew, clawing, ripping frantically, shrieking all the while.

  She is close now, nearly within reach of the stalks. They are slow, but she can feel their strength, the effortlessness with which they drag her through the sand. She knows once they have a hold of her it will be over.

  A well placed stomp to her own hand cracks the ring finger free of its mates—mostly—lose binds of fascia and tendon linger between, and she still has the last finger to deal with.

  Another wrench forward and she can see the stalk just over her, undulating slowly towards her, unfurling. It loops wide, to encircle her—so calmly it will ensnare her, so wholly inexorably.

  With what little play she has in the chain, Sasha runs to meet the flanking stalk. Reaching its tip, shrieking, she grabs hold of it and bites down on the moist bulb at the end.

  Instantly the stalk’s end retracts, flicking—whiplike—smacking her in the temple. It is with tunneled vision that she hears the thing howling, roaring. Staggering back to her knees she sees the stalk curl back, as though back to the safety of its fellows. One of Medusa’s wisps seeking comfort amongst its sisters.

  Her knees buckle when she tries to stand, but no matter, she gnashes and tears frantically at her palm. Cracks and pops and snaps as she dislodges and crushes delicate bone. She spits out a mouthful of blood, along with two of her teeth.

  Again she sees the a stalk encroaching.

  No! I’m so close! Just a few more seconds!

  Stumbling, tripping, falling and then rising again, she scutters away. Ripping at the end of her chain, screaming.

  The beast pulls again. This time she is torn skywards and slams into the ground. There is a loud crack—her wrist. Or maybe her shoulder, she’s not sure. She looks at the thing. It is moving fast now. It’s angry, she doesn’t need a degree in biology or whatever-the-fuck to know that much. The stalks have all raised high, their ends curled, pointed down at her. Dark glistening tips flicking and narrowing. Cruel beads behind which something watches, appraising its meal.

  In the center something is happening. Something is rising, coming up from the mouth. A mound of shiny glistening flesh presses up from the maw. It is thick, distended, a rich red and purple. It looks like some horrific rectal prolapse, comically inverted. The pulsating trunk rises to nearly six feet before folding forward, large folds of wrinkled hide bunched at the end.

  In some detached part of her mind she recalls her first time, partner equally inexperienced, his hands fumbling with her bra, his belt, his fingers struggling to find their place. She remembers how strange his penis had looked to her, like a poorly rendered elephant’s trunk. She supposes it would’ve looked strange to her even if it had been circumcised. She remembers how she had tried so hard not to laugh.

  She doesn’t have to try not to laugh now though.

  With spasmodic throbs the small hole at the end of the trunk slowly dilates, retracting flesh revealing thousands of barbs—far larger than those she’d seen before. As the end of the quivering bulk grows wider still, the smell hits her. It’s a rancid, putrid odor, her throat catches.

  Dozens of smaller stalks blossom up from the well, rhythmically undulating tendrils surrounding the main trunk, which has fanned open into an obscene sort of meat-funnel.

  At the funnel’s throat a three-pronged beak emerges, viscous webs of mucous sloughing off. The three cutting instruments clack together in rapid fashion, and from somewhere deep within the creature comes another sound. It’s not quite a growl, or a howling laugh, or half-stoppered eructation, it’s all of those things. Unsettling in its foreignness, not a noise her mind can assign any nuanced meaning to beyond the reflexive primitives: Dangerous! Predator!

  But, for no reason that she can articulate, in this bellow she hears a key distinction: an imminence absent in all the others she’s heard from the thing.

  Fuckfuckfuck no! Nooo! I’m so fucking close, please! Please!

  As the Medusa wheezes out its phlegmy call, the stalks, writhing high above, converge on her.

  Her screams echo over the water for a long time.

  ***