Owen McCuen

Grace fell to her knees but her body didn't stop at the deck but kept sinking into the brown flesh that covered her until only her head sat above it.

Her mind had fled and she only stared skyward.

Tyler had started to fling himself overboard but simply ended up flattened across the leathery body that had consumed most of the boat.

I thought of only one thing even as I felt my knee being tugged into the slimy body.

The dinghy.

Using all my strength I had to break free of the enveloping flesh, I pulled on the rope bringing the dinghy to the stern.

I grabbed Tammy's arm and pulled her, trying to get us both at least on the dinghy and away from the changing beast.

I managed to get my legs into the dinghy, the boat swaying under me.

I reached back for Tammy and began pulling her aboard, but she didn't budge from where she was.

I yanked harder, perfectly willing to leave her leg behind if necessary to have her safe with me.

She was held fast, that beautiful face staring at me in a way that drove me to scream and pull and cry.

The flesh crawled over her arms, covering her shoulders, leaving only her face staring down at me, crying, whispering something I couldn't hear, but knew what it was.

All I could think of was that I had failed her, but knew she'd want me to escape.

I untied the dinghy and the boat floated away from what was no longer wanderlust, but rather a coiling, undulating mass that was slowly taking on the form of some kind of watery creature.

As I drifted away, I could see Tammy, Tyler, and Tim attached like barnacles to the creature's body.

Tammy's mouth still moved, and I could see Tyler's and Tim's heads jerking.

And at that moment, I knew.

I knew what was being done.

the little glimmer of understanding I felt earlier became real.

The bone, the skull, and the half-dissolved face, along with assuredly many others, all of them food, slowly ingested, keeping the beast alive until it needed more, when it would again become a boat, a boat in distress or something else.