Surf’s Edge
The ocean boiled.
Not from sun or wind.
From something else.
Something alive.
A black shadow circled beneath the surface. Slow. Confident.
A hunter. The kind that knew its prey was already trapped.
He braced in chest-deep surf. Saltwater slapped his face. His feet sank into shifting sand. Cold grit grinding between toes.
It was coming.
A dorsal fin cut the surface. Then nothing. Just bubbles.
He gripped his spear tighter—wood slick in his palm.
His heartbeat: war drums in his ribs.
A gull shrieked overhead.
The water went still.
Then—movement.
It surged from the left. A black coil thick as his thigh.
He lunged. The spear scraped across flesh—rubbery, warm, and recoiling.
Water frothed. His legs buckled.
The thing slapped against him. Cold. Heavy. Water bit into bone.
The stink hit—brine, low tide, and something coppery.
It wrapped his shin. A vice of muscle and suction.
He clawed at it. Wet tire rubber—slick, clammy, sucking at his skin.
It pulsed. Slow. Hungry.
“No,” he growled. “You picked the wrong man.”
He twisted, heaved, kicked. Blood thundered in his ears.
Another coil slid up his calf. Both legs pinned.
His belt knife—gone.
Sky dimmed. Gulls gone.
It pulled harder. His heel lifted. He kicked, splashed, clawed.
His lungs seized, every nerve sang. Then—pain. Fire behind his knee. Skin ablaze.
“Dad!”
The voice sliced through the surf. High. Annoyed.
“Dad, what are you doing?”
The horizon tilted. His grip loosened.
His “spear” was a grape popsicle stick. Half-melted.
He looked down.
A leech. The size of his hand. Clinging just below the knee.
His daughter waded in, calm as a nurse.
Plucked it off. Tossed it into the shallows. Gone.
She giggled. His wife laughed outright.
They turned and walked back toward shore, hand in hand.
He stood alone. Sticky with popsicle juice and humiliation.
