EXCERPT:

Lyle continued, “Julie had got hot from laying out in the sun and decided to go for a swim. Nothing out of the ordinary, you know. People always take a dip after sunbathing, helps cool their bodies down.”
The two scientists nodded.

“Then came the screams.” Lyle paused, his eyes welling up at the memory of Julie’s horrific screams. He‘d never be able to stop hearing them.

“You don’t have to keep going, Lyle, if you need to stop,” Robert stated, his original apprehensive demeanor now gone.

“No, it’s cool.” Lyle rubbed his right hand across his eyes. He had to do this. If what he knew could help others, then at least Julie’s death wouldn’t be in vain. Not to mention, his own loss of his left arm. “At first, I thought it was a shark attack. She was screaming so loud.” More tears dripped steadily down his face like a leaky faucet. Lyle didn’t look at the two men, instead he stared at the blank wall behind them, recalling what he had witnessed.

“I just kept thinking this wasn’t happening, you know? Shark attacks were always a danger, but not to us. We had a life to live. A future. We weren’t two deadbeat kids running around behind their parents’ backs. These kinds of things didn’t happen to kids like us. Guess I was wrong.”

He lay silent, the tears freely flowing from his eyes. He wasn’t going to wipe them away anymore. Why should he? He’d suffered two major losses in one day. Dad always said men didn’t cry, but Dad had never lost his arm and his future wife in the same day. If his dad were here, Lyle might have tried harder to hold back the tears, but these men seemed nice, gentle, understanding. So, he allowed his body to do what came naturally, and wept for his losses.

“I ran out into the water. All I could think was that a shark was attacking my girlfriend. I had to do something. The others just stood there gawking at me, and at Julie, flailing helplessly in the water. Her screams sent chills down my spine. I was terrified. Not for what I was going to be up against out in the water, but for her—for her pain and for what I‘d find once I reached her.

“When I got to her, she wasn’t there. Her body parts were—some of them, but not enough to make up an entire person.” The image flashed brightly in Lyle’s mind. Julie’s arm floating in the water, then a foot, and he swore there had been an ear bobbing in the waves.

“Was there blood?” Cam asked.

Lyle shook his head. “None. But there was this black stuff floating in the water. Like oil or a huge patch of tar. At first glance I thought it was the shadow of a shark beneath the surface. Then the black stuff lunged for me.”

“What? Wait a minute. This black stuff—what did it look like again? Exactly.” Cam sat forward on his chair.

“Like that costume in the last Spiderman movie, that Venom thing. It was stringy and thick. When it reached for me, it was only a few little tendrils at first, wrapping around my wrist. That’s when the pain started.”

“What did it feel like?” Robert asked.

“Like someone was cooking my skin. I guess, looking back now, I’d say it’s what I’d always imagined acid would feel like if you poured it on yourself. Instantaneous burning. At that point, I started screaming. The black stuff was steadily moving up my arm. It hurt everywhere it touched me. Craig and Jimmy came out into the water and grabbed my right arm, and dragged me to the shore. I know I passed out, at some point.”