Part of the true horror of the moment was that Ryan realized he'd been sitting and looking at it for several seconds, perhaps for half a minute, before his brain finally accepted that the thing was realnot just a rippling in the water beneath the matted, tangled lengths of seaweed, not some freakish combination of the broken driftwood that was caught up in the carpet of weed.

It was a pair of eyes.

Eyes on stalks.

Stalks that were over two feet in length, as thick as a human femur.

The eyes seemed to hang suspended in space, swiveling from side to side, out to the ocean behind it, back again to the short expanse of beach, the single, wakeful human, the eight sleeping figures.

Ryan swallowed hard, making a conscious effort to tear himself away from the hypnotic glare of the twin eyeballs. As he started to stand, the thing made its own move. Beginning to emerge from the slime that had kept it concealed.

"Fuckin' fireblast!"

He was sickeningly aware that he and six of the others had been working out there, amid the green layer of weed, waist-deep, soaked and cold, possibly moving within a few feet of the hideous monstrosity.

There was a faint rustling sound, like pieces of old leather rubbing against each other, a creaking noise, overlaid with water dripping off the armored carapace.

And a distinct clicking sound from the giant claws.

It was by far the largest crab that Ryan had ever seen, larger than anything that a fevered imagination could dream in the deeps of the worst nightmare.

As it slowly emerged from the weed, green fronds draped all across it like the rotting robes of a long-dead monarch, Ryan realized that it was at least fifteen feet across and stood taller than a full-grown man. The main claws, opening and closing very gently, were six feet in length and looked as though they had the power to slice through the center of a human body like a power press crushing a peach.

The eyes had stopped moving on their long stalks. They had centered on Ryan, seeming to lean toward him, trying to entrap his mind.

Now that he knew what he was up against, Ryan's combat reflexes finally came to his aid and he snapped himself clear of the murderous spell.

A shout might bring the crab rushing at him, giving no chance for anyone to wake properly. At the moment, it seemed to be apprising itself of the situation, moving with an exaggerated, almost delicate air through the weed, gradually drawing closer to the strip of shingle.

Ryan was sitting by the smoldering fire, the SIG-Sauer now in his hand, though he doubted that it would do much to stop the huge mutie crustacean.

He shuffled very slowly backward through the tiny damp pebbles, toward the others, keeping his eye fixed on the creature. But it didn't seem concerned by the small movement of the puny little animal in front of it.

J.B. and Krysty were the two nearest to him and Ryan woke them both, using the old and tried technique of the hand laid firmly over the mouth. Krysty first. He whispered into her ear, seeing the bright startled eyes looking up at him.

"Mutie crab. Triple huge. Lie real still but get ready to move fast."

He gave the same message to J.B., the Armorer doing nothing except cautiously placing his glasses on the bridge of his narrow nose, reaching for the Uzi.

Ryan woke Mildred and Trader.

The woman nodded her understanding, keeping still, her right hand moving toward the butt of her 6-shot revolver.

Trader was more difficult.

His first gut reaction was to fight against the dark shadow that had gagged him. Ryan had expected it and lay his whole body weight on top of the struggling man, keeping his arms pinned to his sides.

"Quiet, Trader, quiet. Me, Ryan. Quiet. Get ready to move. Big mutie crab in the bay. Don't move yet. Might bring it in at the charge."

Trader finally relaxed, his right hand on the butt of the battered Armalite. "Yeah," he breathed.

Abe didn't even wake up at first, snoring gently, only opening his eyes when Ryan squeezed harder across his mouth and nose, the moist hairs of the drooping mustache against his palm, pinching off the air. When Abe heard the message he nodded once, already holding the big Colt Python.

Surprisingly Doc came easily out of sleep, the deepset, intelligent eyes taking in what Ryan whispered in his ear. His leonine head nodded to show that he understood. But the old man was unable to resist the temptation to raise himself a little and peer at the leviathan, now much closer to the edge of the beach. "By the Three Kennedys!"

Jak was the next around the circle, his tumbling white hair making him stand out in the semidarkness. As Ryan reached him, the dark eyes of the skinny albino were already open. "Seen it," he said quietly. Dean was the last.

Ryan eased himself toward his son, glancing back to see if the crab was showing any signs of surging into an attack. But it was still moving slowly, the great claws held clear of the water, opening and closing with a menacing, velvet softness.

Just as he was about to wake the boy, Ryan spotted a change in the crab's movements. It had stopped, about twenty paces from the shingle, claws lifted higher, its long legs dancing up and down in the scummy water. It seemed to be gathering itself, bracing for an attack.

"Now," Ryan said in a voice urgent enough to be heard by everyone around him.

Simultaneously the gigantic mutie crustacean at last made its move.

Claws waving, eyes revolving on their stalks, it began to rush toward its prey. It added a perspective of

horror that the thing made almost no sound, apart from the lethal noise of its serrated claws closing and opening.

Everyone opened fire at once.

Right at Ryan's side, Dean woke up at the sudden bedlam of gunfire, scrabbling for his own automatic, his eyes catching a sight of their gigantic adversary. "Oh, shit."

In the ragged mist, and with the poor light, it was impossible to see precisely what sort of damage the hail of bullets was doing. Ryan could hear some of them ricocheting away, howling into the darkness, while others were actually striking sparks from the barnacle-crusted armored shell.

The crab didn't exactly stagger away, but it did stop its advance, crouching, belly in the ocean, its claws waving faster as though it were trying to deflect the flying full-metal jackets from itself.

"Pick your target!" Ryan yelled. "Mildred, can you take out its eyes?"

"I'm already trying, for Christ's sake!" she shouted back. "But the bastard's moving too much."

She was standing up, feet planted firmly apart in the pebbles, shooting as though she were in the butts at the Olympic finals, picking her shots.

Ryan was also trying for the eyes, until he decided that it was too difficult and he was wasting bullets,

shifting his aim to what he imagined was the creature's face.

Doc was struggling to shift the movable hammer on his commemoration Le Mat, so that he could begin to shoot the nine rounds of .36-caliber ammo.

"Coming at us!" yelled Trader, who was firing the Armalite from a kneeling position.

The crab had started to move again, edging sideways toward them. But it was clearly hurt. One of the legs, with spikes of thick hair at the joints, was dangling uselessly behind it, and a sort of dark, phosphorescent ichor was leaking over its shell in a number of places. Mildred had succeeded in picking

off one of the questing eyes, and it seemed to have affected its sense of direction, so that it now crept parallel to the beach, rather than directly toward the blasters.

"Hold fire!" Ryan stood watching the mutie nightmare as it lurched, splashed and staggered, nearly falling

over. One of the giant front claws had almost been severed by a burst of 9 mm bullets from the Uzi. In a few seconds, the fearful specter from the ocean's unplumbed deeps had become something tragic.

Dean was up on his feet at his father's side. "Looks like it's done for," he said.

"I could probably take out the other eye, now it's slowed down," Mildred called.

Ryan shook his head. "No. Let's wait and see whether it still wants to fight."

"Chickenshit's had enough," Trader crowed, his exultant cry sounding oddly flat and hollow.

The crab was standing still, at the edge of the cove, its one eye glowering balefully at its intended prey, its

single huge claw clicking open and shut.

"Had enough," Abe said, echoing Trader.

"Looks like it," Ryan agreed, reaching around to start reloading the SIG-Sauer, noticing that J.B. was

doing the same with the Uzi.

"Yeah," Dean breathed.

The monster finally decided that the meal wasn't worth the suffering and turned clumsily, starting to make

its way back through the sea of weed and driftwood toward the safety of deeper waters.

Above the constant smell of sulfur seeping across from the mainland, Ryan could taste a fresh, incredibly

bitter scent in the night air, like a mixture of cold iron and hot blood. Then the crab finally vanished from sight under the dark ocean, and the smell also stopped. There was the instant burst of nervous chatter among the nine companions that always broke out after such a close brush with death.

"Think it'll die, Dad?"

"Upon my soul, but that was a creation worthy of the talent of Hieronymus Bosch."

"I think I could've put out the other glim if Ryan had given me the word."

"Shit-eating bastard! Wish it'd gotten closer so we could have chilled it. Always liked crabmeat. Mebbe

we can take the raft and go after it."

"I thought I was going to shit myself, Trader. I never saw anything like that."

"Might be others. Crossing to mainland on raft could be dangerous."

"Used up a lot of ammo on that. How're you fixed for 9 mm, Ryan?"

"Got enough. You all right, lover?"

"Once I stop shaking I'll be fine. That what the Bible means by the works of the Lord and his wonders in

the deep? If it does, then the Lord can keep them."

THEY ALL SCOUTED among the jagged rocks above the strip of beach for more dry wood for the fire, bringing it back to flaming life. Though none of them actually came right out and said it, the idea of having a good blaze helped to dispel the demons of the night.

J.B. went over to sit by Ryan, taking off the Uzi and starting to fieldstrip it, wiping the moisture of the night away from the metal, cleaning the action with a piece of oily cotton, removing any fouling from the blaster.

"How about the raft, Ryan?"

"Seems solid enough. We've got some pieces of wood about the right size and weight for paddles."

"More worried about that crab. Dark night, but it was a true monster!"

Ryan nodded. "If something like that came at us out in the strait between this island and the mainland" He

allowed the thought to hang between them.

"Be somewhere between a triple-small chance and no chance at all."