"The Beach" by Joel Austin

The Beach

by Joel Austin

The view is gorgeous, I think to myself. What could be better? 

Well, for one thing? Being able to leave. For another, having someone to talk to. 

An endless expanse of pristine beach to my left, and the same view to my right. The only other person—if you can call him that— is Ed, the rotting corpse of a cabana boy who brings me my cocktails. I don’t know what his actual name is because he’s never said a word to me, and if I’m being honest, what he brings me is definitely not my drink of choice. Each time I succumb to the thirst and choke down the chunky, metallic-tasting, red smoothie, Ed brings me another one. They get thicker in the sunlight and the sun is always shining. Motivation to keep drinking I suppose. 

I tried keeping track of how long I’d been marooned here. Lines in the sand faded as fast as I drew them, so I started using a jagged piece of metal on my folding chair to carve tallies into my arm right above my dragon's eye tattoo. I came here as pale as a sheet, and now my skin reminds me of the wallet I used to carry, brown and tough, but I can still manage to draw blood when I need it. 

I have only attempted escape twice. 

The first time, I sprinted as fast as I could away from Ed until he was out of sight. I slowed down and rejoiced. Having placed a good bit of distance between us, I wasn’t as worried about being chased down and drug back by the skeletal hands that kept making those vile smoothies. I was doubly excited when I saw a shape in the distance. 

Finally! Another person, maybe they know what’s going on, I thought.

My heart plummeted to the bottom of my stomach as I drew near and realized that I had gone in a giant circle. Ed was standing there, shit eating grin on his face, holding out a raspberry-colored beverage. 

The second time I fled, I decided to swim for it. The water was cool, a nice reprieve from the constant burning on my shoulders. I made it far enough that ol’ Ed was just a speck on the thin line of sand making up the horizon, I made sure to flip him the bird before I felt it.

I’m not sure what exactly the creature was, but the suckers on its tentacles felt like wet, open-mouthed baby kisses attaching themselves up and down my torso. I don’t know where the assumption came from, but I kind of figured that if I were eaten alive, I would pass out from the pain. 

I didn’t.

It was like being fed into a meat grinder, I was becoming a new kind of sausage. The monster’s teeth gnashed while my bones were ground bit by bit. I never got a good look at the entirety of the beast that devoured me. I only witnessed its mouth, filled with concentric circles consisting of jagged teeth rotating in opposite directions. I uttered a scream like a table saw cutting through wood as my torso disappeared below me. 

I’m sure you've heard someone say they “woke up feeling like a pile of shit.,” after a night of drinking? Well, I have now literally woken up as a pile of shit and let me be the first to tell you, I’d take the hangover any day of the week. I’m not sure what happened while the creature digested me, but I came out the other side still alive if you could call it that. 

I was nothing more than a jelly-filled meat sack. I could feel my squishy organs and bones reassembling themselves piece by piece under my wriggling skin. If I thought having my insides shredded like the files of a CEO caught embezzling funds was bad, having them slowly grow back and snap into place was a thousand times worse. 

When my body had reformed, I stood and hobbled like a baby deer learning to walk toward Ed. Smiling as big as he ever had, he held out the same large margarita glass, filled to the brim with the same mystery crimson goop.

I don’t know how I wound up here, on this timeless, endless beach. Although I think I'm beginning to understand why. Even though I was never a religious man, I’m pretty sure this is hell… see, I was what people called an arsonist, what the families of the people who lived in the apartment I torched would call a murderer. Some might even call me a pervert for standing across the street, touching myself as the screams blended with the crackling of flesh in a beautiful orchestra of death and purification. 

The cops didn’t even try and detain me. To their credit, I was wielding a rifle. The thing wasn’t even loaded, but in retrospect, how would they have known? There are worse ways to die than by a parade of bullets. 

I chuckle as I put the smoothie to my cracked and sunburnt lips. I realize what the liquid is that Ed keeps handing me as I notice a scrap of leather marked with a row of tallies above a dragon eye, floating near the rim of the glass.