"Guy N. Smith - Night Of The Crabs 1 - Night of the Crabs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

Occasionally he caught glimpses of her amidst the rising swell. At last! He
breathed a sigh of relief. At feast she was turning now, even though she had
come too far out to sea.

He decided to strike out diagonally, and head her off. A faint stirring down
in his bathing-costume told him that things were getting back to normal. Soon
they would be lying on the sun-drenched golden sand of some desolate cove, far
from prying eyes where they could strip off, and...

Her shrill scream disrupted his daydreaming. A wave obscured his view of her.
Christ! If she got cramp out here ... He trod water looking for her. Suddenly
the sea around him was empty. There was no sign of Julie Coles!

'Julie!' he yelled desperately, a note of panic starting to creep into his
voice. 'Julie!'

For the first time in his life he felt completely helpless. She was gone. How
the hell was he to look for her here?
Strangely, even this far out, the water was comparatively shallow. As he trod
water he realised that he could just touch the bottom. He' was above some sort
of sandbank. Then he espied a large ripple between the ever-increasing waves
heading towards him. He blinked and looked again. There was no doubt about it.
It had to be Julie. What a stupid trick! She had screamed to frighten him and
now she was trying to sneak upon him underwater!

He rested his feet on the sandy bottom, and laughed, almost hysterically.
Well, so long as she was all right...

Suddenly he staggered back, his own piercing scream muffled by the water as
his head went under. He fought to free himself from whatever it was that had a
hold on his left leg that could only be compared with a pair of garden shears
with serrated blades, biting deeper into the bone with every second. He fell
full length on to the sea-bed, already gulping down mouthfuls of the murky,
sandy water. He began to panic, kicking out with his free leg. There was no
escape. That much was quite clear to him. Furthermore, he knew that he was
going to die. He knew, too, that whatever it was that was attacking him had
also claimed Julie Coles!

There was a red mist before his eyes. No, it wasn't a mist... he could taste
it, taste it like that time in his boyhood when he'd fallen on the beach and
cut his lip. If was blood! For a second, he almost felt that he was free. That
grip had lessened. He made one last, desperate effort to surface, being
wrenched back instantly as his right leg was grasped by his unknown attacker.

It was as consciousness began to slip from his fear-crazed mind that he
realised what had happened to his left leg. It had been amputated! Then he
felt his right leg cracking. Mercifully he lost consciousness.

Cliff Davenport was in his laboratory shortly before seven o'clock on that