"Allure" by Ju Collins

Allure

by Ju Collins

The sun was just rising over the ocean’s edge when Eric opened the door and stepped out onto his front porch. He sipped the last dregs of his bitterly strong drip coffee and headed out for the day. The morning was bright and warm, just the way he liked it. Spring brought a certain sense of peace and calm to his life, the best was yet to come. Summer was best for his business and therefore, his bank account. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness had never been flat broke in the middle of Winter, in Eric’s opinion.

He took his typical route towards the docks. It was certainly considered the scenic route as it added a good 10 minutes to his morning commute, but it went right along the shore the entire time. Eric had always had an intricate relationship with the sea. He both loved and hated it, he felt empowered by it and it scared the shit right out of him, all at the same time. 

Eric knew this place like he knew how to eat. It was always a part of him; he grew up here, he got a job, got married, had kids, got divorced, all within a 20 kilometre radius. He’d only travelled outside of it a handful of times, begrudgingly at that. Understandably, he froze mid-step when he saw what was in front of him. 

A beach. A golden, sandy, glistening beach. Eric was an authority on what was or wasn’t along this route, and he would bet his life that this was firmly in the “was not” category. He stepped off the sidewalk and got as close to the guardrail as possible. Goddamn, it was a freaking beach. Where no beach had ever been. There were no other beaches, either. He figured this had to be a figment of the imagination. That option was a little less alarming to Eric than accepting that a tropical beachfront had materialized overnight. 

He couldn’t ignore it, he had to get closer. He lifted one foot, then the other, over the guardrail and wiggled his toes over the edge of the embankment. He could already feel the slippery give of the sand beneath the sod he stood on. It abruptly slipped away from underneath him, sending him down a hot, silky hill of sand on his ass. He was ashamed to say, but he quite enjoyed the thrill of it. It reminded him of the unbridled joy of rolling down grassy hills when he was a kid. 

He found himself plunked deep in the sand at the bottom. He took a quick survey of his surrounding. The sand sparkled with a certain vivaciousness, Eric had never been so enthralled. A feeling of pure contentment and gratification fell over him, so he laid back and soaked up the beautiful blue sky and the warmth of the sun. The sand felt like it was vibrating under his body, lulling him into a level of comfort he had never known existed. My god, he thought to himself, maybe I really should have taken Shiela’s advice and gone South more often. He exhaled deeply and closed his eyes for just a moment. He felt like his consciousness was slipping away from his body, like he couldn’t move a muscle if he tried. A singular second of alarm and resistance flooded his awareness, and then that melted into complete surrender, too. 

The light he was able to perceive through his eyelids suddenly blinked out. The warmth of the sun quickly faded away and his skin prickled all over. He thought this might be what patients in surgery who claim to be present in mind but had no access to their body must feel like. The exotic ecstasy that continued to flood his brain felt artificial now that he was in complete darkness and felt as cold as ice. He tried to move his arm, his leg, his toes, but nothing registered. What is this?, he wondered, puzzled by having sensations but really no feeling around having them. There was a fear buried deep inside his most primal instincts that was scraping at his brainstem to take action; to do something, anything. But instead he felt his lips tighten into a smile, baring his teeth to the abyss beyond him. 

Then the crushing began. It wasn’t a uniform pressure like being buried. He felt his left arm crunch and bend in ways it never should, as if hundreds, no thousands, of teeth were masticating his limb. Then his chest began caving in and his lungs forcefully exhaled. His right leg began shaking and tearing at the hip joint, like something was in a frenzy to release it from his body. He felt it was rather successful in that endeavour. Last of all, he felt intense pressure to the top of his head. Pressure unlike any he had ever experienced, like a hydraulic press was squashing him from the top down. He heard a snap as loud as a firecracker at ear level, and then an instant of squishing and slurping. Finally, he felt nothing at all.

The smile never left his face. 

—

I’ve finally got it. If I can get them to enter willingly, it makes it much, much easier. The human brain just can’t resist novelty, the intrigue is a mind trick like no other. Although, I like to think my tricks are pretty impressive too, no? Once I discovered the ventral tegmental area of their headmeat, I realized I could manipulate their reward circuit. The happier they are, the better they taste. Before the beach ruse, I consumed a child once (more of an amuse bouche, really), and then the caretaker as the main. Bleh! Fear and grief tastes like bile and rust and ash all mixed together. Never again. 

The point is, the beach is working very well. My beach, to me, is as the esca is to the anglerfish. A perfectly irresistible lure.