Gianfranco Mancini’s Reviews > Shadows Beneath the Surface: An Anthology of Aquatic Horror > Status Update

A tooth-capped tongue sliced down her spine, accompanied by thousands of tiny, clear filaments. They meandered through her body, following the same paths as her own nervous system. Electrical impulses sparked contraction in inanimate muscles. Her eyes opened, glowing spheres illuminating the darkness. She waited once more.

He still held on to the fishing rod, but the pull had stopped. As if the thing on the other end was giving him time to take it all in. It took a moment before he noticed the thing at the other end of rod, the thing that had brought him there. The creature had been right: it was no fish. At least, it wasn’t like any fish he had ever seen before.

Vaughn watched, feeling the pain in his chest. Losing that ship hurt like the loss of a lover, but he had what he wanted. Besides, there was no escaping the inevitable. A full naval fleet was sailing in their direction and their only choice was to run, or fight. But they had something the others didn’t. A ship with something living in its belly.

From somewhere below came the sound of a deep rumble. The boat shook. A great black head reared up, eyes bulging, mouth gulping. The girl screamed. The ferryman struck with his pole, prodding the thick sinewy neck as it stretched across the boat. Knotted jaws opened and picked up the girl up as if plucking a flower.

The two-foot giant shipworms that had bored into the wooden pallets had absorbed nuclear waste into their bodies, growing to double their size. Including their teeth. The exposure to the waste had also enhanced their instincts—and the internal mechanisms that they used to seek out wood.

It was night by the time the movie reached the crowded beach scene. It was a tense moment; Police Chief Martin Brody was pensive and worried. The moment in the movie when the shark attacked another swimmer. Michael looked away. The moon shone bright enough to see the island clearly. That was when he noticed all the Tiki torches were gone and the resort’s lights were out.

“What about the legend, then?” Edwards gestured at the helmsman with his own spoon. “That rhyme you began earlier. What’s all that about?” Delmar pressed his lips together into a thin, white line. “It goes: ‘The big Grey Ghost was mighty and strong, until His Majesty’s guns came along. One and two hits to the hull took her down… forever hunting the fog for British sailors to drown.’”