Lies

the pall of smoke.
    Quinn jumped onto the pier.
    “Hey there! Hey!” he yelled. Quinn was responsible for the boats. The marina was his.
    The kids kept moving, like they were deaf. They headed down a parallel pier toward the two boats that were kept fueled for rescues: a bass boat and an inflatable Zodiac.
    “Hey!” Quinn yelled.
    The foremost of the kids turned to face him. They were separated by fifty feet of water, but even in the faint fire glow Quinn recognized the shape of shoulders and head.
    And he recognized the voice.
    “Penny,” Caine said. “Keep our friend Quinn busy.”
    From the water a monster erupted in a tremendous geyser.
    Quinn bellowed in terror.
    The monster rose, taller and taller. It had a head like a tortured, deformed elephant. Two black, dead eyes. Curved teeth. The jaw gaped open to reveal a long, pointed tongue.
    It roared then, a sound like a hundred massive cellos played with garbage cans for bows. Hollow. Tortured.
    Quinn fell back. He fell from the pier. His back hit the edge of his boat. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and he fell head-down into the water.
    Panicked, he breathed. Salt water filled his throat. He gagged and coughed and strained with all his might not to breathe again.
    Quinn knew the water. He’d been a good surfer and a very good swimmer. This was not his first experience of being upside down and turned around underwater.
    He grabbed onto his fear and kicked hard to bring himself around. The surface, the barrier between water and air, death and life, was ten feet up. One foot kicked dirt. The water was not deep here.
    He began to rise.
    But the monster was reaching beneath the pier. Insanely long arms, with impossible clawlike hands.
    The arms reached for him and he backpedaled away. Panicky, kicking, pushing at the water, lungs burning.
    Too slow. One gigantic hand closed around him.
    The fingers went through.
    No pain.
    No contact or sensation at all.
    The second claw swiped through the water. It would disembowel him.
    But it passed through him.
    Illusion!
    With the last of his strength Quinn reached the surface. He gagged on air and vomited seawater from his stomach. The monster was gone.
    Big Goof hauled him like dead weight into the boat. Quinn lay on the bottom of the boat, uncomfortable atop the oars.
    “You okay?”
    Quinn couldn’t answer. If he tried he knew he would retch again. His voice was not yet back. He still felt as if he werebreathing through a straw. But he was alive.
    And now it all fell into place. That monster. The sound it made. He knew them.
    Cloverfield .
    It was the monster from the movie. The exact monster, the exact sound.
    He sat up and coughed.
    Then he stood up in the rocking boat and saw Caine and his crew climbing aboard the two motorboats.
    Caine caught sight of him and sent him a wintry, ironic smile. There was a strange girl with him. She, too, stared at him, but she did not smile. Instead, she bared crooked teeth at him in a grimace that was far more threat than smile.
    An engine started, throaty and rough. Then a second.
    Quinn stayed where he was. No chance he could take on Caine. Caine could kill him with a gesture.
    The two motorboats chugged slowly, cautiously, away from the pier.
    There came the sound of running feet. A rush of kids, some armed. Quinn recognized Lance, then Hank. Finally Zil, hanging back, letting the other two get out in front.
    They reached the end of the pier. Hank stopped, aimed, and fired.
    The shot hit the Zodiac. The air blew out in a sudden exhale. The boat’s motor chugged beneath the water as the stern collapsed and sank.
    Quinn climbed halfway up onto the pier to see. His jaw dropped.
    Caine, wet and furious, rose and levitated above the sinking Zodiac.
    He yanked Hank and his gun up into the air. Hank soared, twisting, crying out in terror, helpless. Up and up and up, and all the while Caine floated as his companions foundered.
    A hundred feet in the air, Hank came to a stop. And then, down he came. But not falling. Too fast to be a fall. Too fast for it to be mere gravity.
    Caine hurled Hank down from the graying sky. Like a meteor. Impossibly fast, a blur.
    Hank hit the water. A huge spout went up, like someone had fired off a depth charge.
    Quinn knew the waters of the marina. It was no more than eight feet deep where Hank hit. The bottom was sand and shell.
    There was not the slightest chance that Hank would come bobbing back up to the surface.
    Caine floated as Zil