"Smith, Guy N - Crabs 05 - Crabs' Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

A peal of laughter that began in mirth and transcended into a shriek of pain. Something had hold of his left foot, something that gripped and cut sharply!

He felt himself being dragged under, his screams cut off as he swallowed water, kicking out wildly with his free leg, windmilling insanely with his arms.

Out of his depth and then his back grazed the rough shingle of the bottom. He tried to see but the murkiness of the water restricted his vision. His brain screamed logic; he had caught his foot in something, probably the hull of some old motorboat which had been lying just below the surface. It was . . . no, it couldn't be!

A shape, one that moved and shifted for a grip on his other leg, a tiny face embedded in the shell of a huge body, pincers the size of industrial acetylene cutters, securing the hold they sought and closing viciously. Agony ripped up into the man's guts, had him twisting and trying to scream so that he swallowed more water. The foaming sea around him was turning from pink to crimson, a watery hell in which the torment was only just beginning.

Baxter knew his foot was gone; he felt it go, the incision made by those pincers so neat and efficient. A moment of freedom, panicking blindly and striking upwards for the surface. He made it, gulped for air in the blinding sunlight, trying to scream for help at the same time.

The crab, for surely that was what it was in spite of its colossal size, came after him with unbelievable agility. A tearing and ripping, soft flesh this time, crunched to a bloody pulp and then torn out by its roots, sheer agony paralysing the threshing human, his hands clutching at the gaping wound where only a short while previously flesh had swelled-proudly with thoughts of Irey Wall.

Now he was beneath the surface again, convulsed and defeated, no longer trying to escape but offering what was left of his body so that the end might be quick.

That face, so close to his own, so malignant, blazing crustacean hate for a mortal foe. Holding him firmly but gently, swivelling him around in the way a killer cat plays with a half-mutilated captive vole. Look and see before you die!

Not just one face, dozens of them, a ring of hateful countenances in a wide circle just below the surface. Watching. Waiting. Gloating!

For Christ's sake, kill me!

Click-click-clickety-click. A crab castanets sound, a symphony of death; slow death.

For Baxter everything was suddenly happening in slow motion. He was being held by a bloody stump of a thigh, a floating captor who no longer fought his attackers. The physical agony was slowly being replaced by a numbness as Nature's own anaesthetic relieved his mutilated body. Blood poured relentlessly from his gory wounds, creating again that crimson underwater hell.

It couldn't be happening, of course. Well, not like this. These monstrosities were figments of his tortured mind. He had got caught up in something, his original theory. Sharp rusting steel that had severed his limbs when he had struggled. Of course, he was going to die. It didn't seem so bad once you were faced with it; you spent your whole life being scared of dying but it really wasn't so terrible after all.

A fleeting memory brought a twinge of regret to his brain that was having difficulty functioning. That girl, damn it, he couldn't even remember her name now. He wished he'd stopped in the dunes and screwed her. That had been his big mistake, leaving her there and going for a swim in this God-awful crimson sea. He gave a laugh-at least he meant to even if he didn't manage it-one thing was for sure, he wouldn't be any fucking good to her now!

And for Keith Baxter the awful crimson around him darkened so that he neither saw nor felt anything as the giant crabs closed in on him, ripping his torn body apart with unprecedented fury, then crunching on his remains in a bloody feast where sheer hunger predominated. Then the creatures moved away and the water cleared again.










Chapter Two

Friday Evening - Shell Island



IREY WALL awoke with a start, clutching at her nakedness in an instinctive action to cover it up until she had worked out exactly why she was lying here with her clothes strewn all about her.

The events of the past few hours flipped back in a staccato-like reconstruction of everything that had happened since she left the camp. Her lover-no, her friend, because nothing had happened between them yet and maybe it wouldn't anyway-had gone for a swim. She didn't know how long he had been gone; it might have been a few minutes or it could have been an hour. There was no way of telling because she wasn't wearing a watch.

Her emotions had cooled with sleep. She felt both guilty and foolish. Thank God he had decided to go for a swim first otherwise she might have let him do things she would have regretted later. She couldn't understand what had come over her. She must've been crazy even agreeing to go out with him for the day. Alan had his faults, and plenty of them, but she would never do a trick like that across him. She'd better get dressed and when Keith came back she would tell him that she'd changed her mind and would he please take her straight back to the camp. She was sorry if she had let him down but . . .