Reaching Black Rock Cove felt like crossing a border into another country. A dead country.

  The jagged black rocks they had to climb over were slick with sea moss and felt strangely cold, suckdarking the warmth from Frankie’s fingers and the soles of her sneakers. On one side, the ocean roared, the waves of the coming storm crashing against the coast with angry fists. As they cleared the outcrop and dropped into the cove, the sound vanished.

  The roar of the ocean became a dull, muffled whisper. The wind, which had been whipping their hair and clothes, died completely. Heavy, still air filled the cove, thick with the smell of ancient things—of dark water and wet, rotting stone. A place of profound and unnerving silence.

  “Whoa,” Dee Dee breathed, her voice sounding small and thin in the dead air. “This place is… atmospheric.”

  Ted shook his head, his face pale. “This place is creepy. This was a bad idea. I am officially complaining with the ‘Bad Idea Committee,’ which is you, Dee Dee.”

  Frankie didn’t answer. She stared at the beach. The sand here differed from the familiar golden-white of Norchester Bay. A pale, sickly grey, littered with tangled knots of black seaweed that looked like clumps of drowned hair, and the splintered, sun-bleached bones of driftwood. The cove, a half-moon of this grim sand, walled in by the black cliffs that rose like jagged teeth.

  It felt wrong. Deeply, ?wrong. Like a place the sun forgot.

  Frankie took a step, then another, her sneakers sinking into the wet, packed sand. A strange feeling pricked at the back of her neck, a hum of energy that made the hairs on her arms stand up. More than just the oppressive quiet or the gloomy light from the storm clouds overhead defined the atmosphere. Something else lingered. A feeling of… waiting.

  There!

  Half-buried in the wet sand near the base of the cliff, the tide had retreated from it. At first, it just looked like another piece of driftwood, dark and misshapen. But as she drew closer, its form became clear.

  A chest.

  A large, sea-worn chest, made of a dark wood that seemed to drink the light. Bounded with thick iron straps, so corroded with rust and salt that they looked like scabs of dried blood. An aura of immense age and deep sorrow seemed to emanate from it, a coldness that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  “No way,” Dee Dee whispered, coming to stand beside Frankie. “A real-life treasure chest.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ted said, though he too drew forward, his earlier fear momentarily eclipsed by scientific curiosity. “It’s probably just an old trunk that washed ashore. Full of mud and crabs.”

  But Frankie knew it wasn’t just an old trunk.

  She didn’t know how she knew. A deep, resonant hum inside her bones seemed to answer a call from the chest. A feeling of recognition struck. Of destiny. A cold, terrifying thought that she tried to push away: It’s been waiting for me.

  “We should open it,” Dee Dee said, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “We should absolutely not open it,” Ted countered immediately. “First of all, it’s not ours. Second, it could be unstable. Third, tetanus is a real thing. Look at that rust.”

  They were both looking at Frankie, waiting for her to be the tie-breaker. But Frankie wasn’t listening to their arguments. The strange, inexplicable compulsion in her blood pulled her forward. A silent, invisible rip tide caught her, dragging her toward the chest.

  She had to open it. She had to.

  “Frankie?” Ted’s voice sounded concerned.“You okay? You look… weird.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, but her voice sounded distant to her ears.

  Ignoring their protests, she knelt in the sand beside the chest. She ran her fingers over the splintered, waterlogged wood. Cold, so cold, and felt strangely soft, like decaying flesh. She reached for the lock, a massive, rust-eaten block of iron. Frozen solid.

  A wave of frustration, sharp and unfamiliar, shot through her. She needed it open. Now.

  Her eyes scanned the beach, looking for something, anything, to use as a tool. Her gaze landed on her surfboard, which she’d carried with her and laid on the sand. The fin. Hard, reinforced fiberglass might be strong enough.

  “Frankie, what are you doing?” Ted asked, his voice sharp with alarm. “Stop.”

  But she couldn’t stop, no longer controlling her own body. She walked back to her board, unscrewed the central fin, and returned to the chest, the smooth, curved plastic feeling solid in her trembling hand.

  “This is how every horror movie starts,” Dee Dee murmured, though she didn’t make a move to stop her. She shared Frankie’s captivation.

  Frankie jammed the tip of the fin into the gap between the lid and the body of the chest, right next to the lock. She put her weight into it, gritting her teeth. The wood groaned. The sound deepened, guttural, like a man stirring from a long, painful sleep.

  She pushed harder, levering the fin back and forth. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The muscles in her back and arms screamed in protest. A compulsion, like a fever in her brain, drowned out everything else. Open it. Open it. Open it.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  CRACK!

  An explosive sound shattered the dead silence of the cove. The fin didn't break. The lock didn't yield. The ancient, corroded iron clasp snapped in two, the pieces falling silently into the sand.

  Frankie stumbled back, panting, her heart hammering against her ribs.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. The three stood frozen, staring at the chest. The lid hadn’t moved.

  “Well,” Ted said, his voice a shaky attempt at normalcy. “That’s that, I guess. Can we go now? The tide is coming in.”

  He was right. The water crept higher up the beach, the foam from the small waves now only a few feet from where they stood.

  But it had not ended.

  With a low, agonizing creak of ancient wood, the lid of the chest lifted. It moved slowly, just an inch at first, pushed from within by some unseen pressure.

  Frankie stared, mesmerized. Thoughts of treasure vanished, replaced by an immense, suffocating dread. What had she done?

  The lid swung fully open, its hinges screaming, and slammed back against the sand.

  They peered into the opening.

  No gold. No jewels. No pirate treasure.

  The chest’s interior contained a profound, inky blackness. This darkness seemed absolute, a tangible void that didn’t reflect the sky’s grey light but swallowed it whole. It embodied the darkness of the ocean’s depths, of a sealed tomb, of a place that had never known light.

  But it contained something.

  Before their eyes could adjust, before they could even process the impossible depth of that blackness, something launched itself out.

  They couldn’t recognize it. A blur. A frantic, winged shape of pure, panicked motion. A shadow against the grey sky, impossibly fast. It appeared and vanished in the space of a single, terrified heartbeat.

  A high-pitched, chitinous chittering—and the sickening smell of ozone and spoiled meat—filled the air.

  And then, pain.

  A sharp, searing pain exploded on the side of Frankie’s neck. Hot and piercing, a hornet sting of fire and ice.

  “Ah!” she shouted, stumbling backward, her hands flying to her neck. She tripped over her own feet and landed hard on the wet sand.

  “Frankie!” Ted and Dee Dee shouted in unison, rushing to her side.

  “What was that?” Dee Dee shrieked, her eyes scanning the empty sky. “What was that thing?”

  “It’s gone,” Ted said, his face a mask of shocked disbelief. “It just… vanished.”

  He proved correct. The creature, whatever it might be, vanished over the black rocks as if it had never materialized. One moment it presented a blur of frantic energy, the next, nothing. Only the sky, rocks, and the oppressive silence of the cove remained.

  “It bit me,” Frankie gasped, clutching her neck. The spot felt fiery, a throbbing, venomous heat spreading under her skin. “It got me.”

  “Let me see,” Ted said, his voice taking on the calm, clinical tone he used when trying to control his panic. He gently pulled her hand away.

  He stared at her neck. Dee Dee leaned in, her face etched with fear.

  Frankie watched their expressions change from terror to utter confusion.

  “There’s… nothing there,” Ted said, his brow furrowed. He touched the skin on her neck gently. “Nothing at all.”

  “What are you talking about?” Frankie demanded, trying to sit up. “It hurt! It felt like a… a needle.”

  “I’m telling you, there’s no mark,” Ted insisted. “No blood, no puncture wound. Not even a red spot. The skin feels completely unbroken.”

  Frankie scrambled to her feet and looked down at the cause of all the chaos. The chest remained, its lid thrown open. But the impossible, light-swallowing darkness vanished. Now it just appeared as an old, empty box, its inside slick with damp, black mould.

  It looked pathetic. Mundane.

  They stared at it, then at each other, their minds reeling. What had they just seen? Could it be real?

  “Maybe… maybe a splinter from the old wood flew out when the lock broke?” Dee Dee offered, though her voice full of doubt. “And it just startled a bird or a bat nesting inside?”

  “A bat that moves that fast?” Ted scoffed. “And what about the smell? And the sound it made?”

  They had no answers. The entire event happened so fast, it felt like a hallucination. A shared, waking nightmare. But Frankie knew the pain felt real. It felt sharp and violating. She could still feel the phantom ache of it, a deep, pulsing throb the others couldn’t see.

  A wave washed over their feet, cold and shocking, snapping them out of their trance. The tide came in fast; the water swirling around the base of the open chest.

  “We have to go,” Frankie said, a new fear taking hold. A fear of this place, of what she had unleashed. “Now.”

  They needed no more convincing. They turned and fled, scrambling back over the cold, black rocks, not stopping until their feet found the familiar sand of Norchester beach and the roar of the ocean sounded loud in their ears again.

  They didn’t look back.

  If they had, they would have seen the tide creep into the cove, washing away their footprints. They would have seen the water swirl into the ancient sea chest, filling it, before a larger wave lifted it, rocking it gently, and pulling it back out into the deep.

  Leaving the beach empty and undisturbed as if they had never been there at all.

  That night, the storm broke. Rain lashed against Frankie’s bedroom window, and wind howled around the corners of the house. But the storm didn’t keep her awake.

  She lay in bed, staring into the darkness, one hand resting on the side of her neck.

  She had checked it a dozen times in the bathroom mirror. Ted felt right. Nothing appeared there. Not a scratch. Not a bruise. Smooth, unbroken skin.

  It had to be in her head. A splinter. A weird bug. A moment of shared panic in a creepy place. That’s all it could be. It had to be.

  But she couldn’t shake the feeling of violation.

  And she couldn’t ignore the pain. It no longer felt like the sharp, searing sting she’d felt in the cove. Now it felt like a low, dull pulse. A phantom ache, deep beneath the skin, throbbing in time with her own heartbeat.

  A cold, unwelcome guest took up residence inside her.

  Frankie closed her eyes, trying to force herself to sleep. But in the darkness behind her eyelids, she could see it again. A frantic blur of wings. A flash of impossible speed.

  The skin on her neck felt smooth and perfect.

  But underneath, something stirred.