“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.” She pulled out a cigarette and placed it between her lips, lighting it. Cherri exhaled, smoke flowing from her mouth. “Shoot the Chief. He’s the one who asked me to pass the message along. Said it was a simple request.”
“A request would mean I have a choice, which I don’t when it comes to him.” I groaned, crossing my arms.
“I’d love to stay and bitch about your dad,trust me, but I’ve got to go, or I’m going to be late.” I nodded, ushering her to leave me. “See you later!” She opened the door, stopping as she smiled back at me. “Well, if things go well tonight, I might not.” She winked, sticking her tongue out. “Wish me luck!”
“Good luck, bitch,” I sang as Cherri shut the door.
Great, now I had to clean myself up and head over to my dad’s for a dinner I did not want to have. Fucking fantastic.
I knocked on the old,withered door of my childhood home, anxious and nervous to step inside the dusty old time capsule. Ever since my mom died, my dad had left everything in its exact place, as if preserving things would somehow keep her alive. Instead, it made Mom this untouchable ghost, turning the house into a mausoleum. Most people loved coming home, living in the nostalgia of their childhoods. Not me. I despised it, avoiding every opportunity to come back here. And yet, once again, here I was.Breathe, Delilah.
The door swung open, my dad standing in the doorway with a perplexed look on his face. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in.” He waved, leaving the door open for me to follow him inside. I hesitated, swallowing as I stepped forward. “I don’t know why you didn’t just open the damn door. It’s your home too, kid.” He stepped into the kitchen, rambling on about why I should’ve opened the door as I drowned his voice out, glancing at the photos that plastered the walls, covered in a thin layer of dust. The painful memories weighed heavily on me, pushing my body down towards the earth’s core. I tried to block them out, but they were too overwhelming, forcing me to acknowledge their existence.
“Well?” My dad’s voice broke through the chaos as he peeked his head around the corner from the kitchen.
“What?” I asked, startled by his question.
“I said I got those burgers you always liked, but they ran out of cherry milkshakes. Something about the machine and how it—”
“That’s fine.” I forced a smile, trying to shut him up.
My dad stared at me as, if deciding whether to poke at my mood or simply leave it be. “Okay.”Thank God.
I quickly made my way to the dining room, noticing piles of opened books and articles scattered along the table. Boxes upon boxes of files and paperwork were stacked around the messy room resembling his office. I scanned the text and covers, noticing a trend in the reading material as I read the titles aloud.
“The Natural History of Sharks. Kiss of Death Found on The Newest Victim’s Body. Sharks: Attacks on Man. Angel of Death Murders Migrate From West Coast to East Coast. Killer Sharks The Jaws of Death—” I stopped, spotting a pile of photographs. As I picked them up, I noticed they were not only prints of the shark attack victims, but my victims. I quickly shuffled through the pages, stopping as I came to the last one: the man I left on the beach the night I met Reef. Flipping through the photographs, I noticed close ups of my kiss marks, each identical to the last.Shit.
“You shouldn’t be looking at those.” My father’s sudden voice startled me, causing me to drop the photographs to the floor.
“Jesus, dad.” I placed my hand over my chest, my heart racing erratically.
“Hey, don’t use the lord’s name in vain. Not in my house.” He huffed, bending down to help me clean my mess. He snatched the pages from my hand, stuffing them into an empty file.
“What is all this?” I asked, pointing to the table.
My dad sighed, tossing the file into a box of papers. “Police work. I’ve been going over the case files of the victims of the Angel of Death, trying to findsomething, but my mind can’t focus knowing there’s a damn killer shark lurking in these waters.” He looked at me, his eyes falling to the bite mark on my torso peeking out from under my cropped summer top. “You know, that bite you have, it’s similar to one we found on a body a few weeks back.” He began shuffling through another stack ofphotographs, frantically searching until he found what he was looking for. “Here.” He tapped the page, handing it to me.
I hesitated, looking at the image of a woman’s body, mangled and shredded, the deep impression of a shark bite pressed into the tissue of her thigh. “W-what am I looking at?” I asked, slightly disturbed by the brutal condition of the corpse.
My dad groaned with annoyance. “Don’t you see?” He tapped the photograph. “The bites are the same. Except, well…” He glanced at my wound. “Yours is less—aggressive. You’re lucky, Delilah.” I didn’t feel lucky. Did that mean the killer shark hunting down swimmers had somehow attacked me? But why spare me? Why didn’t it kill me? “It’s odd, your bite mark is more surface based. Controlled. It’s as if the shark was getting a taste to see if it liked you.”
“Well, apparently, I wasn’t that appetizing,” I snapped, tossing the photo back onto the table. “Can we just not talk about this and focus on dinner?” My dad nodded, dropping the topic.
We ended up eating dinner at the breakfast table in the kitchen, consuming our greasy burgers in silence. When it was time to leave, I said goodbye, quickly leaving my chair, when my father raised his hand and tightly grabbed my arm. I froze, fearful to budge. “You need to be more careful out there, Delilah.”
I didn’t move, staring ahead as I spoke to him. “The beach is safe, Dad. I promise, no more night swimming, and I’ll only go out during the day and never alone.”
“It’s not just the beach, kid. The Angel of Death is roaming these parts, killing both young menandwomen. No one’s safe.”
I fought back a smile. “I don’t think I’m your killer’s type.”
FIVE
REEF
My eyes peekedfrom just above the water line, my face hidden beneath the dark abyss as I watched two men from below the dock. The smell of dead fish and stagnant blood hung heavily in the night air, tainted with a faint layer of fear and anticipation.
The older, heavier of the two whacked the younger man’s arm as he slung day-old chum into the ocean. “Hurry up, Ray! We don’t need anyone finding us out here.”
