"No One Leaves The Beach" by Jill Lincoln

NO ONE LEAVES THE BEACH

by Jill Lincoln

She whimpered loudly as her foot continued to drip and bleed after catching it on a sharp rock,  which was poking its creamy coloured stone out of the hot sand.  It had caught the underside of her foot right in the fleshy pad and had cut deep.  The blood was pooling onto the sand creating a mad scene of red and yellow congealing in the hot sun.  She grabbed the towel at her feet to try and stem the flow whilst shouting for Damien to come back from his swim, but he was too far out and couldn’t hear her.  She bit her lip as the sand was mixing into the wound and stinging as she tried to stem the red thick liquid.  She was between a rock and a hard place – how could she clean it  in the sea all around her, when it would be salty and would definitely hurt and she didn’t have any other water with her, only red wine from the lunch.  Who comes to the beach with no water!  But when a man packs a lunch on his own this is what happens.  She could however hop down to the waters edge as the seawater would help heal and cleanse it, not really knowing whether to do this or not, she noticed that the blood that should have been all around her had suddenly and bizarrely vanished.  Not one drop remained.  It has all gone – but where?  She really didn’t know what had happened to it.  She tried to drop some more onto the sand,  as she was curious as to what was going on, macabre she knew but where had all the blood gone?  She moved her leg over the edge of the towel and removed the small piece of  material covering her foot,  which had now stuck lovingly to the bottom as the blood had gathered and soaked and stuck to it.  She winced and cried out as she pulled it off and it took more skin with it, covering her hand in the sticky blood too .  The fresh wound dripped a new batch of Type O onto the baking sand and she watched and she waited.

She saw a small movement around the new blood pool and then the sand opened up and a heavily toothed green and red mouth slithered up and out and noisily ate the blood and sand in one gulp , disappearing just a quickly as if it had never been there.  She jumped back in terror and screamed moving backwards away from it and then off the edge of the towel she was sitting on, on the other side.  She did not see or hear the creature move out of the moving surface towards her bloodied left hand which was now on the sand,  before it had sunk its massive long teeth into her and removed her hand with one quick and dreadful bite.   The new blood dripping down from her stump encouraged more of the creatures to emerge and within a few minutes there was very little left of Olivia bar some hair strands and bits of her towel.

Damien had had enough of the water and was making his way back from the cool blue sea when he began to notice that the beach was empty .  Where had everyone gone and why was everyone’s things still there, deckchairs towels lay abandoned ?  He rubbed his face and eyes to clear his vision and in doing so he tripped over a lone beach chair and fell headlong into a sandcastle sending glittering loose granules everywhere.  He gulped and choked spitting out the sand from his mouth and nose and tried to look around himself again.  He couldn’t make sense of the silence,  bar the sound of the ocean splashing and crashing in the background.  He spun around looking for her “Livi?  Where are you ? I can’t see you?” he shouted loudly and it echoed back at him.  It was then he noticed not one bird was in the sky.

He continued on around the beach and then it dawned on him, he was totally alone and he began to get angry.

Why has she gone and left and took everything?  The picnic wasn’t that bad, well that’s it I’ve had enough now we are done – he thought to himself.  

He headed on up towards the path to where the car was parked and was just about to head up the walkway  when a shooting pain came into his lower calf stopping him in his tracks – what now ?  It was a split second before he looked down and saw his lower leg was shredded like mince as the creature was making its way up his leg and up to his back, he fell down in excruciating pain and slumped back on to the sand beneath him.

He looked up and saw an old metal sign on the wall , half covered with mould but still visible  it said :

BEWARE BEACH INFESTED UNKNOWN ENTITY – EX MILITARY TEST SITE – DO NOT ENTER DANGEROUS!

SEPTEMBER 13TH 1958

BRITISH FORCES