Risen (Haunted Series Book 22)

else?”
“I need two boats - Zodiacs will be fine - to ferry us to the island and to retrieve us once we make a scan of the beach.  The coming storm may destroy any evidence of what really happened to the cruise passengers.”
“I applaud you for being thorough,” Captain Holloway said.
Whit hopped out of the boat and waded into shore.  He carried a metal detector.  If there had been gunplay on the beach, it would have been impossible to recover all the spent shells.  If he could get some evidence to back up his theory, he could hand this off to the DEA.  One less unexplained case on his books.
“Agent Martin, there’s a storm coming in.  One hour, no more,” the crewman from the Ross Bell reminded him.
Whit nodded.  He motioned for his group to begin.
Simpson and Boullé put together the metal detectors and started moving in a grid pattern while Whit and the junior agent walked the perimeter of the white sandy beach.
“I think I have something!” Agent Boullé called out.
Whit signaled for the others to continue their work while he walked over to assist Boullé, who was carefully moving sand, looking for the expected bullet shell.  With every swipe of his gloved hand, he used a smaller metal detector to make sure he hadn’t swept it to the side.  He had worked his way down two feet when the clouds broke briefly and the sun overhead illuminated something shiny.
“I’ve got something,” he said.  “But it’s not…” Boullé stopped talking.  It wasn’t the horror of finding the remains of a human hand closed in a forever fist with the man’s wedding ring reflecting in the sunlight; it was the unexpectedness of it.  “It’s attached,” Boullé said, probing downward with his small trowel, “to his arm and, I assume, his body. Damn, it’s his left hand, so over here should be the top of his head…”
“Stop,” Whit said, pulling the agent away.  “Attention, everyone!  Stop what you are doing.  We may have some quicksand pits.  Probe the ground before walking,” he instructed.  He turned back to Boullé.  “Mark the area.  We need to bring in a forensic team, geologists with ground-penetrating radar.”
“Sand’s moving over here,” Agent Simpson called out.
“Get to the boats,” Whit ordered.  “This beach is too dangerous without the right equipment.”
“Help!” Simpson called out.  “Something’s got my leg!”
Whit and the other agents ran to Simpson.  They watched helplessly as the agent disappeared under the sand before they could reach him.  Whit dug frantically, trying to reach the man before he suffocated.  The sand moved behind him.  Whit saw something, he would later swear was a tentacle, break the surface moving towards him.
“Boats, now!” he ordered.
The remaining three men dodged tentacles that burst out of the sand, running for the water’s edge.  They assisted the crewmen in launching the boats and soon were heading towards the reef.
The motor of the boat carrying Boullé seemed to have a strange whine to it.  Whit looked over and saw the Zodiac being lifted out of the water by a large version of what attacked them on the beach.  It was wrapping the boat, flattening the men inside it like the contents of a closed freezer bag.  The boat was pulled into the water.
“Zigzag!” Whit ordered.
The movement might have saved them if the beast hadn’t already started to wrap the Zodiac.  The junior agent shot six rounds into the arm. The bullets seemed to have no effect aside from producing a second tentacle which grabbed the agent out of the boat.
Whit pulled out his knife and dove after the man, only to see him disappear into the sandy bottom of the cove.  He twisted around in the water and watched, horrified, as the large monstrous arm which was wrapped around his boat pulled the boat across the bottom of cove where a large hole appeared.  The boat was pulled into the opening, and the sand closed in around it.
Whit let his natural buoyancy draw him to the top of the water.  He turned on his back and breathed.  He theorized that motion and water displacement must be how the apparently eyeless arms found their prey.  With this understanding, he kept his body still, letting the waves pull him towards the shore, only making small corrections with his hands, trying to direct himself towards the rocky outcropping.  Whit knew that, as he approached the shallow water, there would be a buoyancy problem.  He anticipated this by slowly turning over, preparing himself to run as soon as he could no longer float.  He didn’t let his mind dwell on anything but survival.  He was going to get out of this.  Whatever this thing was, it was paranormal in nature and acted intelligently.  It brought its victims underground, be it from the beach or the water.  Sand seemed to be important to it.  It used it as camouflage, much like a sea predator will bury itself in the sand and wait for food to come to it.
In this case, they may have been custom ordered.  The drug informant was part of this somehow.  How, didn’t matter right now.  Whit had to concentrate on getting safely to the rocks and waiting for the cutter to send out help.
His knees brushed the sand.  Whit launched himself upwards and ran like he did when three-hundred-pound linebackers were chasing him across the football field.  He pushed through the water.  Just before he hit the shore, he jumped, shooting upwards, and landed in a summersault on the beach which pushed him closer to the rocks.  Whit made it to the rocks safely.  He climbed and collapsed on the top.  He lay on his back until he caught his breath.
“Funny thing about these rocks,” a man said, leaning over him.  “They may be a bit of a problem for my pet, and they do give her