Minutes to Burn

There was a sudden movement in the water, a wake headed directly at him. The furrow of water was about ten yards away when he heaved the flashlight as far as he could to his left. He folded his arms around the speargun and sank with it, motionless.

The wake had nearly reached him when the shark switched directions, veering off after the flashlight. Underwater, Justin caught a glimpse of movement and then a wall of water struck him as the shark turned.

He kicked to the surface and swam as quickly toward the beach as he could without splashing, sidestroking and keeping his eyes on the waters behind him. When his feet hit sand, he crept forward, still keeping his splashing to a minimum. Sunrise was a good half hour away, but the lines of the beach and the cliff were visible. He continued wading until his chest was clear of the ocean, and soon the water was down around his stomach.

He froze, eyes trained on the shadowy form on the beach ahead. Fat, round, and lifeless, it could have been a segment of log. Focusing on the form, waiting for the beach to lighten, he inched forward. He held the speargun above his head, wincing each time water dripped from it and made a vibration in the water. His lips trembled as he stepped…waited…stepped.

His arms and his knees were starting to wobble slightly when he paused. He stepped forward once more, easing his bare feet onto a rib of lava.

The beach lightened infinitesimally, and large footprints came into view, leading from the top of the trail to the form on the beach. They were the tracks of a four-legged animal, each one forked at the top where the bifid claw had pressed into the sand. He looked back at the form on the beach, now visible-it was a grown sea lion, viciously halved, its tail and rump missing. Fresh blood leaked from the wound, staining the pro-truding plugs of blubber. The eyes were black and glossy like dark mar-bles.

The sand around the body was kicked up, but the footprints became clear again a few feet over, continuing down and disappearing into the ocean. Justin's eyes immediately went to the waters around him. He piv-oted slowly, silently, lowering the speargun.

Behind him and to the side, mere feet away, the mantid pulled her body from her underwater crouch, the water draining from her head and gathering in her broken eye. The spray from the splash covered the back of Justin's head.

He lowered his chin to his chest, teeth clenching. "Cameron," he whis-pered, just as the mantid tore into him.

Cameron's transmitter vibrated once, startling her from sleep, and she shifted her weight, nearly falling from the tree. She activated the unit, and the air immediately filled with the sounds of thrashing. She heard her husband's screaming, and she knew she had lost him.

She leaned back, trying to block out the horrible sounds. Her entire body started shaking, her arms quivering so severely she almost lost her hold on the trunk.

Justin's cries lessened, and then she heard an awful rasping noise, splashing, and what sounded like flesh tearing. The transmitter clicked off.

The mantid attacked Justin even before he could turn to face it, but her legs were unaccustomed to the water, and she mistimed her strike. Hit-ting Justin with the outside of her femur, she sent him tumbling over himself in the water. He yelled, sucking salt water into his lungs, his shoulder scraping against lava. When he surfaced, the mantid hovered over him. The smooth backside of a flying leg struck him on the jaw before a hook swiped a chunk of flesh from his left shoulder.

Stumbling, he spit hard as if clearing vomit from his throat. The blow had cracked his tooth and spilled blood through his mouth. He gagged against the thick fluid, staggering on his feet in the water. The spines of a sea urchin sank into his feet, but he did not respond to the pain.

The creature loomed before him, nine feet of spikes and armor. She lowered her head, regarding him for a moment as her jawlike legs scraped together and then apart.

He dived to his side, rolling over his right shoulder and readying the speargun for when he surfaced. He fired as soon as he came up, aiming for the broken black hole of the eye. It hit the edge of the cuticle around the socket and stuck. The mantid's body contracted, air screeching through the spiracles and bubbling the water as her legs flailed. She stumbled back, shaking her head from side to side, the spear protruding ridiculously.

Justin dragged himself toward the beach on weak legs. He was losing blood at an alarming rate from his shoulder, and he blinked hard, as if trying to clear his vision. The water splashed around his thighs, slowing his pace. Behind him, the creature thrashed in the water, but he didn't turn around; he plodded heavily toward the beach.