“You!” Hook pointed at the surviving pirate. “Swim out there and kill him!”
“Y—yes sir!” Any hesitation that pirate might have had about getting in the water with killer mermaids was gone.
That was, until he was about to put a foot in the water.
And everyone froze as they heard a very strange noise.
It was a low, vibrating sound. A deep and resonantvhmmmmmmmmnoise that set her teeth on edge.
The surface of the water in the cove began to dance with it, beads of water dancing up where the oscillation became too much.
SNAP!
A suddencrackstopped the vibration. A flash of light came from deep below the surface of the now-still water. The pirate jumped back from the water, his eyes wide with a new kind of fear. Hook’s expression had turned from hatred to one of pureterror.
A fish floated to the surface of the water. Belly-up. Dead. Blood was leaking from its gills. Then a second. Then a third.
Vhmmmmmmmmm—
The water started dancing again with the strange noise.
SNAP!
Another flash of light in the water. It had moved, whatever it was.
This time, the thing that floated to the surface was larger…and humanoid.
A mermaid.
Her eyes were glassy as she stared at the sky, unseeing. Dead. Silence stretched on as nobody spoke, staring in horror at the scene before them. The sound began again. That horrible buzzing, vibrating sound. The surface began to dance and shake.
Vhmmmmmm—SNAP!
This time, she noticed that everything on the surface jolted when the snap sound hit. As if it were being…
“Electrocuted,” she said out loud in an exhale. “Oh god. They’rebeingelectrocuted.”Taking a quick step back away from the water, she climbed to a higher rock.
Peter was badly injured and Sidney was near-drowned. What were they going to do? How were they going to escape? Hook certainly wasn’t going to help them.
Vhmmmmmm—
An enormous shape beneath the water came close to the surface. She couldn’t see much of it, save for the size, some fourteen feet long. Flickers of electricity sparked like it was shorting out between sections of ribcage that resembled an old generator.
Its huge head broke the surface. Part bone. Mostly flesh. Electricity arced between its vicious, jagged teeth and the water’s surface.
SNAP!
That time, it was so close to the surface that the sound was deafening. Sasha ducked her head, covering her ears, as the smell of ozone filled the air. The sound was its generator shorting out in the water.
The corpses on the water jolted in unison. The creature thrashed in its own pain. Blood oozed from sores and wounds on its gums and flesh—clearly not immune to its own power.
It opened its maw and grabbed the dead mermaid, who was now bleeding from the corner of her eye and the edge of her mouth. The sound of snapping bone and crunching tendons was only softened slightly by the knowledge that the woman was already dead by the time the crocodile clamped down through her midsection, turning the surface of the water a dark crimson with blood.
The crocodile disappeared into the darkness. But its presence was still obvious.
Vhmmmmm—SNAP!
The water had risen considerably in the time she had been standing there, staring at the monster, aghast. Now, there was a stretch of ocean between her and where Hook and the surviving pirate were standing.
