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"Are they? What do they say?"

"Funny things, things I don&039;t understand so good It&039;s made sooin&039; on"

"Are you afraid of it?" he asked

She paused, then sone "I&039;ve never seen nothin&039; like it before But I don&039;t know Mebbe A closed-up thing like that, as huge as it is, like so about it" She watched hih her as if she were invisible She picked up her purse "I should go"

"Let et dressed and I&039;ll walk you down," he told her as he got to his feet, but she shook her head

"No need I be all right You ever want to see ure to be leaving here soon" As he approached her she reached out and touched his hand It was as cold and hard as stone She sar cane, and then she was gone out the door and along High Street She headed for the dark village below, keeping her eyes away fro while Moore stood in the doorway and watched her walk away, knowing she&039;d be okay but wishing all the while he&039;d gone with her just so that he could be with someone And then he couldn&039;t see her anymore and he closed the door

He felt weary suddenly, and after a while he turned off the lights and clied in around the hulk, haain A dog howled in the village, and another began barking, brokenly, in answer

There was a ed black fisher its extended wings, the long, sweeping tail trailing after it It was a big one, he thought, plenty big enough bait for hungry snappers As he watched, the wide cloud changed, curled in upon itself, becaht its ocean brothers could only dreas melted and it became a man&039;s face with an open mouth He could see the wide eyes, the cheekbones, the point of a chin But there was fear in that face, and as he continued to observe the cloud, the look of the thing frightened him The mouth opened wider, wider, in the outcry of one who has seen a terrible vision but does not yet knohat he has seen He felt the breeze knife through his bones The mouth, opened as wide as possible, suddenly split froer a face but so in on itself like a aze away

There was a sharp bark, then a subdued growling

"Hey!" said the old man "Hey! You leave them be!"

The oldskiff&039;s ell, had been watching the bone-white squid as they darted and dived, their tentacles tangling together "You put your nose in there, Coconut," said the fisherman, "and one &039;o them boys bite it off sure as I tells you!"

The mutt scampered away from the ell and to the stern, where hisht to throw you to the ust

There were less than two hours until first light, and the fat squid that usually rose around Kiss Bottoht He had caught what he could, ht and then scooping the and coiled, with a net He could tell ti them from the reef that clock had never been off Where were they this led shape just ahead, hearing the soft thunder of the sea around it

It was that bastard scaring the squid away Da prob&039;ly rustin&039; into the sea, and the squids taste the rust and go back down for the sweeter depths He had seen the thing wedged onto the reef, and he&039;d marveled at its size He&039;d never seen a boat like that before, all tight and sealed shut How did the captain breathe, or any of the crew? Dao out this , but in all of twenty years only the storoing to scare him off, he&039;d told her "And besides," he&039;d said, "the thing is dead" "No, no," she&039;d told him, "you don&039;t know nothin&039; about it I was here then You don&039;t know &039;cause you came after it was over and done"

Superstitions They was all the tiet at a man too Not that he didn&039;t listen hard to the winds and the tides, or believe in the power of Rev Boniface But sorandfather had sworn by a long tio - he refused to put his faith in

The water hissed along the thing&039;s spine as he neared it Daht He looked toward the towering bow, ran his gaze past the rise of the conning tower The boat was battered pretty bad, but no algae growths marked the iron That was plenty peculiar As he watched, a swell rolled across the stern leaving a trail of dull green phosphorescence and brown seaweed It was an underwater boat, his wife had told hi bad and unnatural about it, she&039;d said How could it stay under and then coain? He shook his head It was a ain, stirring hi and brown as a woman&039;s hair, rolled across the reef His skiff was jostled by swells, and he put a hand on each gunwale to steady hi a little too close to the bommies, and he&039;d had a skiff peeled open before, so he turned his tiller to get away Across the reef the seaweed swirled, a dance of the leamed like liquid erinding noise

The oldju around broken railings

Coconut began to bark again "Hush! Hush, I said!" The old ht and snapped it on, pointing it into the water at the sub anything; he one dry Then the grinding noise returned, full force, and from the foam came a clump of coral and weed that looked like a decapitated head Water rolled in, ha At first he didn&039;t understand, but as he followed the beaht the realization came clear to hihtly, but it hadover the reef The currents were freeing it

"Great God!" he cried out; the hulk shuddered, and he al quieted, alain: a hideous screa coral "Hey!" the old e They had to hear it They had to, the sleepin&039; fools! "HEY! HEY!" But now the grinding was too loud, it filled his brain and ears and mouth so he could neither shout out nor hear his oords When the skiff rose over the next swell he tripped over the dog; as he grabbed for the starboard gunwale the flashlight fell froers and into the sea In blackness, he reached for the tiller

But before he could grasp it, he was riveted in place

His eyes, accustoin to slide off the reef with a low, o unnatural, his wife had said Water roiled across the boat&039;s deck as it settled down; it gurgled through vents and sloshed across the deck debris So

It&039;s sinkin&039;! he thought, glad to see it go He twisted the tiller around, his breath harsh and forced, andat his feet, but even when he shoved hi He could see the swirls of water at the entrance, and the two buoys were clanging siain He was only a few yards froo under

But there was so down on hiuts in utter terror and forced his o the tiller, held up his hands to try to ward it off The skiff, out of control, turned broadside in its path

The loo it, grinding it down; timbers exploded into the sky, then whirled in circles and fell back Iron roared, tearing through reef bo theh the entrance, struck sand botto boo it The submarine lay just inside the harbor, stuck on a narrow sandbar Behind it, spreading like an oil slick, was athat had been a hue, one yellow dot at a ti to scare the moon away