Richard was pinned against the far wall. His dry suit was in ribbons. The monster’s central mouth—a vertical slit running the length of its belly—had opened. And Richard Mann was being pulled into it. Not swallowed whole. Split open. The creature’s inner jaws extended like a second skull, cracking his ribcage outward with a sound like breaking kindling.

Bella Bare never married again. She sold the property and moved to the desert, where the ground is dry and nothing can hide in the water.

He kissed her forehead. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Bare?”

She pulled the rope. It came up easily. Too easily. The end was frayed, cut clean through—not by rock, but by what looked like serrated teeth.