A few years ago, I lived just two houses from the ocean, and so I spent most every evening after work and most of my weekends on the water or in the water, swimming, surfing, or else on a towel on the sand, enjoying a beer and the sunset. I could think of little better than simply being there, going there without a plan, then seeing who is there to make a day with.
It was one Saturday afternoon when I found myself on the beach with a group of friends. We were surfing for hours—it was great, I surfed a few excellent waves—when one of us, we’ll call him Ben, saw a shark fin in the water. A big one, gray, showing itself for a moment, then slipping back beneath the waves where we couldn’t see it. At that, we all paddled our way back to shore, swimming slowly, methodologically, until we were waist-deep and able to walk.
I had a cooler full of sandwiches waiting for us. Roast beef with horseradish sauce and extra tomatoes, that was for me. I had a few bites and set it down on the sand to go set up a speaker and put on some music and when I came back—my sandwich was gone.
That was odd. Was it a bird? But I looked up—there were none nearby, and none of the farther ones were carrying it. Maybe it had gone off behind a dune? Or maybe it was some kind of animal? But the dunes were dozens of meters away, too far.
I found it very odd, disconcerting even. I remember—I looked at where I had put it down, looking for any disturbance in the sand, or an imprint, or something. But the sand was normal. If anything, it was smooth. Maybe even too smooth.
I looked at a gal we’d started to hang out with recently, her name was Jackie. I asked her if she’d seen what the Hell had happened, and she said no, what the Hell was I even talking about? I told my—it was my bloody sandwich, and now it’s missing.
She looked at me like I was an alien at that. I suppose I can’t blame her. But I recovered, at least I think I did, by making some lame joke and then swigging a beer.
I let the whole incident go, for the most part. Put it out of my mind as best I could. But even then, I found myself wondering just what the Hell had happened. And how in the Hell it had happened.
—-
It was a week or two later when I was with a similar group at the same beach, not far from where we’d made our spread earlier. This time it was late at night, with the windows howling and the moon low and blue over the ocean. We were bundled up, even as Ben lit a little bonfire with scraps of wood we’d recovered from the beach.
In moments there was a crackling blaze on the beach. We were all huddled close to it, the wind biting at our faces and hands even as it fed the fire, stoking it to a dull roar.
There was something in the darkness, skittering across the sand. A crab, Jackie pointed it out. She thought it was cute. But it seemed spooked, terrified, like it was running away from something. And while it apparently recognized us as dangers and kept away from us, it seemed to have no fear of the heat of the fire. The damned thing was almost running into the fire.
Jackie tried to stop it and shoo it away from the blaze. But it darted around her and tried to get closer. So I got up and blocked its path, and off it went back into the darkness. It disappeared beyond a ripple in the sand and—
That was all. It disappeared. And then I saw, there was no ripple in the sand. It had vanished into the sand itself.
I took out my phone and turned on the light. Where the crab had vanished, the sand again was pristine, flat, almost manicured. There was no ripple, no miniature dune in it whatsoever. It had vanished into thin air—or into the sand itself?
I looked closer. Had the thing hidden itself? Maybe burrowed into the sand, staring up at me even now? I began to dig for it, scraping through the sand. But there was nothing there. Nothing at all.
—-
Again I let the whole matter go. At this point, I didn’t know what to think. Was it a sinkhole? An optical illusion of some sort? Perhaps a glitch in the matrix? I couldn’t know. So again, I put it out of my mind as well as I could and got on with my life.
Fast forward another week. I was with Jackie, walking along the beach with her little Yorkie. You could call it a date, though we didn’t. We were just friends, just talking, and laughing, and if we weren’t just friends, it could definitely be a date. Just me, and Jackie, and her Yorkie.
But the Yorkie seemed scared. On edge. A few times, I noticed it walking funny, almost limping, or yanking its foot up from the sand and looking back at the beach, terrified. I noticed that, and I wondered… wordless, shapeless thoughts began to form, and, fearing the worst, I picked up the little dog, to keep it from those tiny, barely visible ripples in the sand.
At least, I tried to pick it up. The moment I got hands on it, the Yorkie panicked, squirmed around and thrashed and I dropped it. It darted off behind a dune in the sand, Jackie and I chasing after it and—
It was gone. It had gone over the dune and it had gone. There was no grass, no other dunes, not for hundreds of yards; nothing, nowhere the tiny dog could have hidden. It was just the beach… just the sand.
Except…
There was one part of the sand that was smooth, and too flat. Like it had been raked over and smoothed out to hide… something. For a moment—just a moment—I thought I saw a bubble in the sand, like escaping air. The final desperate gasp of… something. I went to dig at it—but even a foot down, there was nothing. Just loose, dry, shapeless sand.
We put up signs, of course, and went to the police, and posted online and all that. And we did get a few calls, but I can confidently say that Jackie’s little Yorkie was never seen again.
—-
By now, I couldn’t stand the beach. Couldn’t stand the sight of it or the smell of it, and the idea of being there on the sand terrified me.
And yet, in my horror, I noticed a few things about… whatever was going on. Whatever it was—whatever demon, whatever aberration—it only seemed to exist in dry sand. Grass and wet sand kept it at bay. Everything that had vanished—my sandwich, the crab, Jackie’s little Yorkshire—they’d all been on dry sand. So perhaps grass or the thickness of wet sand could be safe.
Even so. I wasn’t taking my chances. And I knew better than to tell anyone. Can you imagine—hey, blokes, I think there’s a demon living in the sand. In just a matter of weeks, it’s graduated from eating sandwiches, to crabs, to Jackie’s poor little missing Yorkie!
No. It’d never work. I left the matter be and when everyone wanted to go surfing or what have you, I just told them no, I was scared of the sharks. I made up some cock-and-bull tale about getting too close to one, and seeing that merciless black eye turn to white as it made to bump me, and that was convincing enough.
But one evening, a Saturday evening, I got a call. They were out and about, at a popular bar that had a patio overlooking the beach. They were a few drinks in and missing me—so I thought, what the Hell. Fifteen minutes later, I was dressed up and taking shots, together with my friends again.
It was an excellent evening. Ridiculous stories were told, and lifelong memories made. By midnight we were all wasted and it was time to take a cab, or in my case, a stumble, back home. We gathered at the front of the bar—but then I noticed… Ben was gone.
Where the Hell was he? I asked—and it was Jackie who said that he’d gone to take a piss. I laughed and made some joke about it, but she clarified that… he’d gone to the dunes to take a piss.
I felt my blood run cold. I made another joke, or tried to, and said, let’s wait here until he comes back.
And… he didn’t come back. Not after five minutes, or ten, or fifteen. I played it as cool as I could before I grabbed a few others and set out onto the sand.
In moments, we found his footprints, deep and recent in the wet sand. Thank God, I thought, maybe if he stayed on the wet sand—maybe if he went to the grassy dunes, maybe he just passed out.
But then I saw that… his footprints left the wet sand. And entered the dry. There was a little stream, an estuary that led to the ocean, but his footsteps stopped just a few meters from it and… vanished. Instantly, immediately, totally vanished.
We called the cops and then we called the coast guard. In under an hour, volunteers were all over the beach, combing every inch of it for a sign of Ben, the whole place was lit up. There were helicopters patrolling the water, several boats—but there was nothing. Not a sight, not an article of clothing, not a single—it’s too horrible—body part, even. The only thing anyone could think was… at a point, the helicopter caught a view of the fin of a shark. A bloody fucking big one, too.
A shark that big, so close to the surface of the water, at that time of night… supposing Ben got confused, or perhaps fell into the estuary or something and was washed out to sea. Even if the shark didn’t get him, the ocean itself well could have.
They kept up the search for a day or two, no more. And then Ben was considered missing. Gone, but not forgotten, they said at his funeral.
That was accurate, I thought to myself. Gone, but not forgotten. My friends and I, we promised that, that no matter what happened, we’d never forget Ben. We toasted to that, and as we did, I told myself… I’m not just not going to forget Ben.
I’m going to avenge him.
—-
I made a show of it, stumbling around the bar, swigging beer after beer, taking shot after shot. I could feel it watching me—something was watching me. There were ripples in the sand here and there, I could see them, just at the periphery of my vision. It was watching—it was waiting—and it was hungry.
It was just before dusk when I made a show of it, carrying my beer, spilling my beer, stumbling into the sand. I was careful, though. I kept to the west sand and the grass, and although I saw a few ripples, and perhaps felt a dull threatening vibration, I was left be. At least for the moment, I was left be.
I stumbled to where Ben’s footsteps ended, closer and closer. For weeks now, the beach had been deserted, as the news of Ben’s vanishing spread, people seemed… sad, or horrified, and since no one was sure how it had happened to such a strong swimmer and surfer as him, no one was keen on getting back to the water. So I knew that I was the only one, in weeks, to wander out onto the sand alone like that.
I made a show of it. I tugged my pants down to take a piss. Threw an empty beer can into the sand and in the corner of my eye, I could see it vanish below—and then reappear, as if coughed back out.
It was there. And it was smart. But it wasn’t so bloody smart as to be able to read that the beer I was drinking… wasn’t real beer.
It wasn’t alcoholic.
I stumbled out of the wet sand and onto the dry, just next to that pretty little estuary that flowed into the ocean. And then I felt something smooth, something strong, wrapping around my ankle. I waited for a second—then I dove into the water and began to swim for the ocean.
It didn’t let go. It wasn’t letting go. I swam and got into the water—and then it pulled back back into the sand. I could barely keep my head out of the sand, and I tried to scream for help—precious breath gone. I was still underwater. I clutched at the sand and kept my head in the water—and then, with herculean effort, I managed to pull the rest of my body into the water. My foot—something was cutting my foot—but I kicked free and swam into the estuary.
And it swam out after me. I made for the ocean as quick as I could. The current caught me and flushed me into the waves—and then I gasped a breath of air, then turned to face my foe.
It was a bizarre shapeless mass, sand in color and huge, like some overgrown mollusk or worm. It writhed horribly, squirming awkwardly—but it was strong. And it turned—it could see me. Its mouth, or one of its mouths, gaped open with ravenous hunger, and as quick as I could, I swam into the sea.
My plan was simple. I’d lure the thing into the ocean and let the current carry it out, where it would drown. I got to the rip current and trod water, splashing to taunt it—and it began to writhe towards me.
Closer. A little closer. Just a little closer. The current caught it—and so I swam away, lateral to the beach, as the damned thing drifted past me.
But then it turned again. It flailed horribly, but it managed to stop. It managed to follow me—and chase me.
Fuck. I had to change tactics—I had to decide. Swim for the beach and it’d get to its home in the sand and pull me under and eat me alive. Swim farther into the ocean and it’d be a contest of strength and endurance, and that was if the shark didn’t get me—
The shark. I saw its fin cutting through the surface. And below, I saw its body, massive and torpedo-like, swimming toward me, mouth full of razor sharp serrated teeth—and then it brushed me aside, hard enough to spin me around as it swam up to—the sand-creature.
The creature saw the shark coming for it. It seemed to panic and turn—but the shark was too fast and caught it easily. Its jaws gripped hold and it shook, cutting off chunks of muscular flesh, tearing it to shreds. The creature tried to fight back and bite at the shark, I suppose, but it couldn’t penetrate the shark’s armored skin. In seconds the shark was in a feeding frenzy—its black eyes had rolled back and were white and blind. There was blood—so much blood—and in moments, the creature, whatever it was, was in separate, twitching pieces.
I was staring, I realized. Treading water and staring. The shark spat out chunks of flesh, perhaps the flavor didn’t agree with it—and then it turned to face me.
For a moment, I thought that was it. I’d succeeded in my mission, but I’d pay the price for it. I prepared for death, as best I could, but then… the shark approached me, its eyes black again. It got right up to me, right next to me, staring at me with its lidless black eye.
Then its eye went white. Then black again.
In a stupor, I turned and watched as it swam away into the open ocean. Then I remembered myself—I watched as the separate chunks of the sand-creature, or whatever it was, or whatever it had been, sank slowly to the bottom of the ocean. Then I turned and swam parallel to the beach until I was out of the rip current, and then made my way back to the sand.
It was only then that I allowed myself to reflect that the story of how I avenged Ben’s death… the most unlikely and unbelievable part of it wasn’t the nature of the sand-creature itself, nor how I’d lured it out into the ocean to be ripped to pieces by a great white shark.
The most fantastic, incredible portion of this whole story is that the great white shark turned to me, and looked at me… and then, winked at me.