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  Finally the crowd began to disperse as the coast guard came in to see what was happening.

  Actual, on duty police officers raced in.

  Mendoza refused to get involved on such a rare thing as a day off.

  He watched from afar, drinking his beer.

  The crowd finally broke up enough to give him a proper look at the shark.

  It looked as though it had been mauled by a bear.

  There were bloody craters of it missing everywhere, like something had taken bites out of it.

  Something big.

  But what had been eating it puzzled him, as this was a great white. A big one at that.

  It should have been top of the food chain.

  What the fuck could be chowing down on the king of the sea?

  The answer wouldn’t greet him that day, or the next.

  It would wait until he was back on duty.

  He was in the car, flying down the freeway, when his comms unit blared: ‘Proceed to Crimson Cove.’

  He pulled up to see a veritable sea of sirens and flashing lights.

  ‘What’s happenin’?’ he asked one of the other officers he saw there.

  ‘Not sure. But it can’t be good.’

  Jim Darling was out for the afternoon surfing.

  He needed the break, for his sanity.

  His job was driving him up the wall.

  He was not a people person, so working in a supermarket was his idea of hell, but there was no other career path open to him.

  The time he spent on his board always served to make his life better.

  His wife had suggested he come here for some chill out time.

  He’d been coming a year or so and was getting pretty adept.

  It was a perfect day for it; decent waves, sun, low wind.

  He looked behind him, seeing the wave begin its charge.

  Grinning – it looked big – he began to paddle.

  The wave took him with it as it hit, and he popped up in perfect time.

  He was always amazed when he managed to stand.

  The wave continued to take him.

  He seemed to be flying towards the beach.

  It was a rush that never got old.

  But then, as happened – although admittedly less and less these days – he went one way and his board went another.

  Still grinning, he landed headfirst in the waves.

  He bobbed back to the surface, seeing his board behind him.

  He grabbed the leash around his ankle and pulled the board back to him.

  Fighting to keep the board straight, he shoved the tip into the wave and began making his way back out.

  When he reached roughly the point he’d been before, he jumped a few of the waves, keeping his board clasped to his side.

  He waited for what looked like the perfect wave, then he spun round.

  As he turned, he caught sight of a large black mass beneath the water, maybe ten feet out from him.

  He squinted into the waves, trying to see what it was.

  He hoped it wasn’t a shark. They were common around here.

  His mate Mitch had actually lost a foot to a Great White a few years back.

  He couldn’t see a fin, but the thing looked big.

  He turned his board back to the beach, now impatient to catch the wave and get the hell out of there.

  When he looked back, the dark mass had gone.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then the wave was on him.

  Jim barely had time to react, but somehow, his muscle memory forced him to his feet.

  He was unsteady, but this was a big wave, so adrenaline swamped him.

  After roughly five feet, his board was wrenched from beneath him.

  He landed hard in the waves, eyes still open.

  Though it was blurred by the water, he caught a glimpse of something big and black and alien-looking in front of him.

  His board seemed to be close to it.

  He was stunned slightly from his impact with the water – the landing had been hard and unexpected – and struggled to comprehend what was happening.

  Then there was a sharp tug on his ankle leash.

  Finally, he realised that the creature was pulling on his board.

  The leash was pulling him towards it.

  He fought to release the Velcro strap, but his fingers refused to work.

  But when he looked down, he saw that his leash was floating beside him in the water.

  The thing wrapped around his leg was black, cinching tight enough to cut off the blood supply to his foot, bringing about a pins and needles feeling.

  He pulled at it but it was a futile exercise; whatever the thing was made of was tough like high-tension wire. Slimy too, like the skin of a hotdog. His hands just slid off it.

  A huge pull dragged his feet out from beneath him and he landed on his face in the water. A second pull sent him flying back out to sea.

  He tried to power himself to the surface, but more of the thick black appendages grabbed his legs and pulled him down.

  The features of the thing were distorted by the water, but were obscured completely when the water around him began to turn red.

  Belatedly, he realised that it was eating his legs.

  He lashed his legs out, kicking something as hard as iron.

  Then his legs were gone, ending in ragged stumps halfway up his thighs.

  The pain was like nothing he’d ever felt.

  Blood stained the water around him red.

  He felt the tide tear him from whatever the fuck had been eating him, then he blacked out, never to wake up.

  Marla Summers was swimming in the sea not far from where Jim had been surfing.

  She’d been enjoying the day, as he had.

  The water was a perfect temperature for a hot day like this – mid to late twenties, no breeze – and she’d been in and out of the sea all day.

  She’d been drinking a little – on a day like this when you had a ride home it was rude not to down a six pack – so was at first suspicious of her senses.

  The water a few metres away from her had seemed to turn red.

  Unlike Jim, she’d been at the beach the day the shark’s head washed up, so she was ultra-wary of seeing anything out of the ordinary.

  She began to back away, fearing a shark attack.

  She knew they’d be attracted to the blood, even if they weren’t close by.

  The patch of red seemed to draw a bit closer, then a man popped up out of the water.

  She was relieved when it was a man and not a shark, but then she saw the pallor of his skin, the anguish hewn into his face, the growing cloud of crimson in his wake.

  When she looked closer, she saw that his legs ended in bloody stumps.

  She popped out of the water and began to scream with all of her might.

  Behind where he had surfaced, she saw something big and dark.

  ‘Shark,’ she screamed. ‘Shark! Shark!’ It seemed to be the only word she could muster.

  Then she came to her senses and began to swim away.

  She kept glancing behind her.

  The surfer’s body was bobbing along behind her, as if he was following her.

  Closely behind that was the big black thing.

  The shark, she believed.

  Her heart was seemingly pounding hard enough to ruffle her stars and stripes bikini.

  Her limbs pumped harder and harder and she was grateful she’d spent so much time in the water recently, or it might have been a different outcome.

  Something was chasing her, she could sense it.

  The sand miraculously appeared beneath her knees and she hauled herself to her feet and staggered out of the tide.

  ‘There’s a shark out there,’ she panted. ‘It got some surfer dude. He’s…’ and then she began to sob as terror overwhelmed her.

  The coastguard boats began circling. They could see something under the water, but it seemed to have moved out a little
from where it had been.

  Jake Cray was first on the scene.

  ‘There’s the fucking body,’ he said, pointing it out to his colleague, Kyle.

  Kyle grimaced as he saw the cloud of red around the surfer’s body.

  He was floating face down in the water, barely visible among the rough waves.

  Kyle reached out and grabbed the hand, grimacing at how cold it felt.

  He pulled hard.

  Jake came over and helped too.

  They hauled the body into the boat, grimacing at the state of the surfer’s legs.

  It looked as though they had been bitten clean off.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Kyle said. ‘Surprised the sharks left him.’

  ‘It wasn’t sharks that did this. Didn’t you see the state of that shark the other day? There’s something new out there that’s feeding on the sharks.’

  Kyle’s face dropped. He’d been on holiday last week and knew nothing about the shark that had been killed, save for a minute-and-a-half team briefing to which he hadn’t been listening.

  The dark thing seemed to be moving towards them, then the boat shook.

  ‘Holy shit, this thing’s fast,’ Jake said as the boat rocked hard.

  Something hit them from underneath and the back end of the boat came a full six inches out of the water.

  ‘Fuck!’ Kyle said. ‘What the hell is that?’

  The boat bucked again.

  Another boat approached.

  A man on a jet ski sped over too.

  The black mass grew smaller as it sunk deeper beneath the waves.

  Jake was concentrating on steering the boat back to shore.

  Kyle was looking back, watching what was going on.

  ‘What the hell is that thing?’ he asked.

  ‘Whatever it was, it’s gone,’ Jake said, taking a quick glance around.

  A few seconds after he had said it, the black mass came barrelling up through the water.

  The jet ski was still speeding.

  The creature hit the bottom of it, launching it a full six feet into the air.

  The driver was hurled from the vehicle, left floundering in the water.

  ‘Help him,’ Jake shouted.

  Kyle grabbed the wheel and thrust it back towards the shore.

  Jake was furious but relief swept over him when he heard the man’s screams and saw the water around him become a thrashing mass of red.

  The man was pulled beneath the water.

  It seemed like he’d gone, lost beneath the crimson tides, but then his hand and head parted the waves once more.

  He was gasping for breath, but managed a saline-choked scream before he was once more dragged beneath the roiling tides.

  Jake headed for the shore, but some of the other coastguards and jet skis followed the billowing cloud of red which seemed to be going ever deeper.

  9

  Jake and Kyle unloaded the surfer’s body onto the sand.

  Already a crowd of slack-jawed onlookers had gathered, in hope of a selfie in front of the surfer’s mutilated body.

  Hank, the coastguard manager, was having a hard time keeping people away.

  ‘Get outta here. Show some fucking respect,’ he hissed.

  He nodded a greeting to Jake and Kyle.

  ‘Thanks for getting him, guys. I guess first aid is outta the question here, eh?’

  Jake laughed in spite of himself.

  Screams were coming from further down the beach.

  The reporters were coming now; dozens of news vans had converged on the promenade that led to the beach.

  Closely behind them were the cops.

  Lots of them.

  They looked out into the sea. There was nothing there now, save for a tiny patch of pinkish water. The blood had dissipated and, if it hadn’t been for the dismembered body before them, it would have been like it had never happened.

  Mendoza was late to the party.

  He cursed as he saw a full-blown media circus at the beach.

  He hated the press.

  ‘Parasitic fucks,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ he asked Hank.

  ‘Lady over there saw the whole sorry scene,’ he said, jabbing a nicotine-stained finger in the direction of a large throng of people.

  Mendoza shoved his way through the crowd until he was face to face with the lady in question.

  She was blonde, pretty, obviously in shock. She had one of those funny silvered blankets round her. A couple of empty beer bottles sat at her feet.

  The cameras had flashed at least a dozen times in the few seconds since he’d seen her.

  ‘Hi, I’m Detective Mendoza,’ he said, offering her his hand. ‘You want to get outta here?’

  She nodded. ‘That would be great.’

  He took her hand and helped her to her feet. Then he led her through the crowd, shoving people out of the way until he got back to his car.

  He estimated he’d been photographed a couple of hundred times by the time he’d got into his car and pulled away.

  ‘Sorry you had to be a part of that,’ he said, coaxing a smoke from the packet. ‘You want one?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s the same every goddamned time. When something finally does happen they’re like flies round shit.’

  He looked over to her briefly. Her face had dropped.

  ‘I’m sorry that came out wrong.’

  ‘None taken,’ she smiled, a little awkwardly.

  ‘We’ll get back to the station, take a statement.’

  She nodded.

  At the station, he noticed her tanned skin was goose-bumped and she was shivering a little.

  ‘I’ll be back in a mo,’ he said, ducking out of the room.

  He came back with a black tracksuit. ‘These are my partner’s,’ he explained. ‘She’s roughly your size.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking them from him.

  ‘I’ll give you five,’ he said, ducking out again.

  He came back with two coffees, then proceeded to complain about them for a few minutes.

  ‘So what happened?’ he said.

  He wrote it all down long-hand, even though he was recording it on his battered tape recorder. Mendoza was old school to a fault. ‘Sounds like a shark attack,’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t it? But it didn’t look like a shark to me.’

  He muttered under his breath. He’d got that impression the other day too, when the shark’s head had washed up.

  ‘If there’s anything else you can think of,’ he said, giving her his card.

  ‘Thank you. You’re the first one who actually treated me like a person out of all those other cops and reporters.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Reporters bothering you, call me, I’d be only too happy to smash some cameras.’

  ‘Thanks again,’ she said.

  Then he remembered he’d drove her there.

  He was about to call her cab, but then he changed his mind.

  ‘I’ll give you a ride home,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she said.

  ‘Make sure you get some sleep. And have a damned good drink tonight to forget it.’

  She smiled. ‘Best idea I’ve heard all day.’

  ‘Night.’

  ‘Night.’

  Mendoza watched Marla go in, then pulled away.

  He typed up a report of what she’d told him, then went back to the beach.

  There was still a media circus on the sand, undeterred by the ever-approaching tide.

  The light was beginning to fade, but he couldn’t see anything under the water any more.

  His gut told him that it wouldn’t be the last time he was out here.

  10

  The beach was closed the next day, while crime scene teams did their best to hunt for evidence.

  It was a futile exercise.

  Crime lab tests showed strange results; the DNA they recovered from the dead
surfer didn’t match that of a shark.

  The closest match they could come up with was a shrimp.

  ‘Doesn’t make any goddamned sense,’ Mendoza muttered.

  So he did what he did best; in the field research.

  He shoved his way through the crowd of media and eager onlookers and onto the beach.

  A few officers gave him disapproving looks but didn’t say anything.

  He moved down to the coastguard station.

  The staff were all gone, the place locked up.

  The boats were secured. He tried to get one loose, but he was unable, even with his lock picking skills.

  His eyes lit up a bit further down the beach – he saw the jet ski hire shack.

  ‘Sir, you can’t go in there,’ one of the other officers said.

  ‘Watch me,’ he said, ducking the crime scene tape and moving into the building.

  While they followed, he grabbed the keys from the wall of the jet ski office – the staff had been ousted before they had time to lock up – and had started one of the jet skis and pulled away.

  A rush of cold water sprayed his face as he pulled away.

  Mendoza was an adrenaline junkie, so this was all a great adventure to him.

  Keeping one eye on where he was going, the other on the slate grey water, he headed out to sea.

  Nothing stirred beneath the waves.

  He moved around for a while, seeing only the roiling tide.

  Shaking his head, he began to return to shore.

  An idea struck him.

  Marla.

  He went back to the station and dug out her file.

  Her phone number found its way into his cell phone and he gave her a call.

  She sounded sleepy.

  ‘Sorry to wake you,’ he said.

  ‘Oh I wasn’t… ok, ya got me. It was snoozeville over here.’

  He laughed. ‘Listen, I went out there today to see if I could see anything.’

  ‘Out where? The beach? I thought it was closed off?’

  ‘It is. I got a jet ski and went out.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous? This thing is bad news.’

  ‘Probably and definitely. Now listen, I don’t have a hope in hell of finding this thing. Do you fancy showing me where you saw it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can remember.’

  He groaned.