Excerpt: Surfing into the Storm

She hopped off her board, submerging herself back in the water and standing on the ground. Surprisingly, it was slightly warmer than being out in the wind. She could feel the leash dragging on her leg where it wrapped around her ankle to secure her board to her. It probably had a piece of seaweed tangled up in it -- there was tons of it strewn around the beach, lying in piles like coiled ropes and individual pieces winding their way through the water, just waiting to catch an unexpected traveler.
She tugged at her leash. Boy, she must have snagged a big piece of seaweed, because it was hea-vy. She grasped with two hands and dragged the leash up until she could see what was caught on it. But this seaweed didn’t look like any she had seen before here -- instead of green, it was mottled black and tan, and had five dangling appendages, almost in the shape of a swollen human hand. But it looked like nothing human she had ever seen.
Before her brain even grasped what her eyes were seeing, Rosalyn opened her mouth and screamed. And inhaled a mouthful of seawater.
Gagging and choking, she fumbled with the velcro clasp on her leash, her only thought focused on getting as far away as possible from the atrocity hooked on her leash. As long as she was still attached to her board, that, that thing, was still attached to her. As she pulled at the leash, the rest of it rose to the surface of the water, a decaying visage peering at her through lifeless eyes, chunks of its face gnawed away. It was an image that seared itself into the back of her eyelids. She couldn’t get away fast enough.