The palms had begun to lean in the wind as the storm clouds swept across the shore. Storm season had come to the South Carolina coast.
   
The National Weather Service had issued a hurricane watch spanning all the way from Georgetown to Little River only a few hours before. In Pawley’s Island, wind gusts had been reported up to seventy miles per hour. Further north along the coast at Murrells Inlet, Garden City, and Surfside, wooden planks covered the glass storefronts. In the heart of Myrtle Beach, Ocean Boulevard was deserted, the traffic lights rocking in the rain that had started falling around noon. Piers stood empty as the waves increased in their fury. It was three forty in the afternoon on Friday, September 19th, and the storm that forecasters had tracked for the past week was coming in hard and fast.
   
Her name was Dominique. Having been born in the warm oceans near Africa, she grew from tropical depression status to full blown hurricane in a matter of hours. For the past several days, thousands watched as it rapidly moved towards the eastern United States. At first, Wilmington was the target determined by the experts at the National Hurricane Center. Then, the massive storm veered from its northern path and began to move northeast. Still having the memory of Hugo in '89 fresh in their minds, residents of the Carolina coast wasted no time in preparing themselves.
   
Traffic poured out of the city of Myrtle Beach on Highway 501. Through the little towns of Conway and Aynor, a line of cars moved at a snail's pace. Some were heading to Florence, some even further inland. Being separated from the rest of the state by the intercoastal waterway made the entire strand an island of sorts -- only so many ways in and so many ways out. On a normal day, all locals had to worry about was staying out of the tourist traffic. This day, they had much more to concern them.
   
On 2nd Avenue North, thirty two year old Chad Moore stood at the end of the public beach access lane and stared at what was coming across the Atlantic Ocean.
   
He wore a rain slicker, his head covered by a hood. His sandy blond hair was soaked and matted to his forehead and the rain was cold against his clean-shaven face. In his right hand was a pair of binoculars that allowed him to view the raging sea at a safe distance. Soon, he would have to retreat back to the shelter at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. Every few minutes, a solitary police car would appear, cruising the streets for as long as the storm would allow. If they saw him, Chad knew he would be herded into the car and taken to the shelter immediately. Then he would be robbed of the best seat in the house for what was sure to be a magnificent display of nature’s wrath.
   
Chad had been fascinated with storms since he was a small boy. As an adult, his interest only grew. He had spent a large part of his life storm watching. Growing up in the town of Scranton, he would sit on his parents' porch swing and watch the lightning in the distance. His father had an interest in storms as well, especially tornados. Always wanting to know how something “ticked”, James Moore had taken the then twelve-year old Chad chasing after a tornado once. The two of them had followed the funnel right through town as it ripped the hell out of everything in its path, always hanging back just far enough to remain safe. Though Chad nearly pissed in his pants from fright, it was the most exhilarating experience that he had ever had -- an experience that stuck with him. His mother wanted to kill James and Chad both when they returned home from the chase, but they assured her that they were okay and managed to calm her down. They were so excited that they could barely contain themselves. It was Chad’s first experience with adrenaline and it made him feel alive -- more alive than he had ever felt before. It was a feeling he liked. His father had passed away from prostate cancer when Chad was twenty-five. Had James Moore been alive on this day, he would have been standing in the driving rain right next to his son.
   
Chad had heard about the category 4 Dominique approaching the coast a few days back. He took some time off from his job in Florence just so he could drive down and be a part of it. He had checked in to the Waterside Inn on Wednesday evening, when forecasters still weren't sure about the storm's path. Once the landing point was determined, everyone was told that they would have to be off the streets and in shelters by Friday at 6 p.m., which was when it was expected to make landfall. If it were left up to him, Chad would stay on the beach for as long as he was reasonably safe doing so. His hotel was right next to the access lane and his truck was parked in the public garage across the boulevard. When things got too rough, he would run to the vehicle and simply haul ass to the shelter. It was less than two miles to the Convention Center so it would be a quick trip. Once there, he would sit the storm out and then marvel at the damage with the rest of the local population. He would take dozens of photographs to add to his “Storm Album” and be able to recount the fury of Hurricane Dominique to all who knew him -- simple as that. James Moore would have been proud.
   
Chad was right behind the Waterside Inn on the wooden steps that led down through the sea oats into the sand. Off to his right, a white and blue beach patrol jeep appeared in the distance for a just a second and then vanished in the rain. Most likely searching for people who hadn't heeded the warnings and left the beachfront.
   
People like me, he thought to himself.
   
The roar of the waves was constant, not growing and fading as it normally would. Rain stung Chad’s face and the wind relentlessly ripped at his clothing. Visibility offshore was becoming non-existent, even with the binoculars. The palm trees by the hotel pool were leaning at a sharp angle now, their leaves flailing wildly. Sand mixed with debris filled the air, which hung thick with the salty odor of the ocean. The storm was almost here. Chad felt a surge of excitement run through his veins and stood in awe of nature’s wrath. He realized that he would have to be leaving quicker than expected. He wanted to be at the shelter before this baby hit land full force. Thunder rolled across the dark sky and the lightning followed. The pier was a ghostly image, visible only as a dark silhouette in the downpour.
   
He was turning to leave when he saw something down the shoreline.
   
What the hell was that?
   
Chad lifted the binoculars to his eyes. Something was moving in the surf beneath the pier; something big.
   
He looked through the binoculars. The rain pelted against the lenses and made it hard for him to see. All that was visible was a blurry view of where the posts supporting the pier vanished in the churning surf. He wiped away the water with his hand, not improving the image much at all. Still, he looked on, struggling to see the source of movement.
   
A post beneath the pier snapped violently in two.
   
Chad was startled by the sound. The pier still stood against the furious tide, even minus one support.
   
But what broke it? The storm or...
   
Another post burst in half, the top portion staying attached to the wooden walkway above and the lower half sinking beneath the waves. Chad ran down the wooden steps and onto the wet sand, the tide stopping only a few feet from his hiking boots. He was trying to gain a better view of the unknown entity. Whatever it was, if it had taken out two telephone pole sized supports, it had to be huge. Maybe it was the force of the waves, because there was certainly no sea life capable of reaching up and...
   
Craaaa-aaaack!
   
Another post went under. The pier leaned menacingly at the loss of one support too many. A single lamp that was shining at the pier's end danced crazily in the wind. Chad knew that if one more pole went, the pier was gone. He lifted the binoculars and looked again, and just for an instant, thought he saw a stream of seawater spiraled around one of the posts for its entire length, as if it were a great snake or tentacle curled around it. It seemed to be squeezing it. Then, with frightening speed, it uncoiled from around the post and retreated beneath the water’s surface. Chad strained to see more, but there was only white foam and gigantic waves breaking angrily on the shore. Beneath the pier, there was no more movement. Whatever it was had moved on. Chad felt relieved at first, but now where had the damn thing gone?
   
"Excuse me, sir, but what the hell are you doing out here?"
   
The cry came from behind Chad, startling him. He turned and lifted his sagging hood to see the beach patrol jeep sitting at the end of the access road, headlights directed at the ocean. The girl driving it looked to be in her mid-twenties. She wore a beach patrol shirt and shorts and was battling the wind, which was trying to tear her rain jacket away. She held her hands out to ward off the blowing sand, her dark hair blowing about and matted to her face.
   
"Did you see the pier?" shouted Chad. "Did you see the posts go?"
   
The girl stepped closer, seemingly in a drunken stumble caused by the wind.
   
"Yes, I did," she yelled against the storm. "We really should get off the beach right now. This thing's comin' fast,”
   
Chad looked back at the pier, but saw nothing. Then, he turned to the girl.
   
"What’s your name?" he shouted.
   
The girl cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted back "Stacy! Stacy Warner! I'm beach patrol, so can you please move your ass to the jeep so we can get to the shelter?"
   
Chad glanced at the raging water, suddenly thinking that standing here on the beach wasn’t such a great idea.
   
"Stacy, you got a deal!" he shouted back to her.
   
He ran back towards the wooden steps as Stacy stepped back into the hardtop jeep, grabbing her radio and speaking into the mike.
   
"Yeah, this is Stacy and I'm at the access ramp near Waterside on 2nd. I've got an adrenaline nut down here storm watching. I've called him in and the both of us will be on the way to the shelter in a few minutes. This storm is almost on us. I'll be heading down the boulevard and coming in on 21st Avenue so be looking for us. Who knows what the roads are gonna be like. I’ll call back in when we get closer. Stacy out."
   
She snapped the mike back into place as Chad pulled open the jeep door and got in. The wind tried to take the door from him, but he managed to slam it shut. He pulled his dripping hood back, wiped the water from around his eyes, and fastened his seat belt. Stacy looked at him as she shifted into reverse.
   
"Hope you’re ready for an interesting ride. If you have a vehicle around here, you'll just have to hope it doesn’t get damaged in the storm."
   
Chad was watching the ocean. "It’s parked in the garage across the street,” he replied. “Not really worried about it right now. If you saw whatever the hell it was that I saw, you'd be blocks away from here."
   
Stacy gave him an odd glance and backed up, put the jeep in drive, and pulled out of the access lane onto the boulevard, bumping right over the curb and taking out the landscaping in front of the hotel. They were running parallel to the shoreline, a continuous row of motels and condos separating them from the beach. The rain made visibility beyond a few feet in front of the jeep impossible, even with the floods on the roof turned on. The vehicle rocked in the mighty gusts coming from the storm.
   
"So," Stacy said, looking at Chad. "You always stay around till the last minute in a category 4 hurricane? Y'know, the cops could have arrested you for not following the curfew."
   
Chad divided his attention between her, the road ahead, and the intermittent view of the sea that flashed between buildings as they moved through the storm.
   
"Done it most of my life," he said. "This one came in quicker than I thought. But there’s something else with it."
   
Stacy was practically crouched behind the wheel, struggling to see. She looked at him with a confused expression.
   
"What did you see?"
   
Chad looked to the sea. "The pier,” he said. "There was something beneath it. I don't know what it was, but it had some size to it. The storm itself didn't take the posts out. There was something... different. It's like the water itself took form, slithered up the supports, and was purposely snapping them in two. It was the damnedest thing I've ever seen."
   
Stacy shook her head. "Nothing that big would be up so close to the pier, even in a storm like this. You sure it wasn't just your eyes playing tricks on you?"
   
"Pretty sure," he replied.
   
"Pretty sure? So you could have made a mistake?"
   
Chad noticed that she seemed inquisitive, more so than disbelieving, and he wondered why. He really thought she would laugh him out of the jeep. Instead, there was a spark of belief in her tone.
   
"No, I didn't make a mistake," Chad said. "I saw something and I'm sure of it."
   
She turned and looked at Chad. "There have been a few calls coming in about similar strange events. We had a chopper out doing fly-overs this morning. They saw something unusual out by the Frying Pan Shoals buoy. They thought it was a waterspout at first."
   
"What was it?" Chad asked.
   
Stacy slammed on the brakes. A palm tree was lying across the boulevard about ten feet ahead of them. She backed up and took to the sidewalk, going around the fallen tree. A trashcan blew from the direction of the ocean, slamming into the front quarter panel and rocking the jeep. Somewhere blocks ahead, a transformer blew in a blinding shower of sparks. Things were going from bad to worse fast. Still, they plowed on through the rain and flying debris.
   
"What it was, no one knows,” Stacy continued. "The pilot claimed that what appeared to be a funnel formed right in front of them, only it started at the water and went up instead of coming down from a cloud. They claimed that this column of water took on a shape, like it was alive. They say it was... snakelike or tentacle-like. It actually took a swipe at the chopper."
   
Chad had heard enough to know that what he saw earlier was the same thing that this chopper pilot saw.
   
"Anyway," Stacy went on. "They got outta there unhurt but they reported seeing a large object moving in the sea just below them, right where the waterspout formed. It was as if the water was a part of it. The part I didn't like is that it was heading towards shore, moving right through the swells."
        
Chad didn’t like the sound of that either, but he had little time to think about it before all hell broke loose.
   
Glass exploded around them. The windshield shattered and rain poured in. Chad reflexively threw his hands up to block the flying glass. Stacy swerved and the jeep tilted at a dangerous angle, nearly rolling.
   
"Damn it,” she shouted. "I don't think were gonna make the shelter! Hang on!"
   
She floored the jeep. They were only three blocks from 21st Avenue. Chad shielded his eyes from the stinging rain and turned towards the ocean once more.
   
Oh, my God.
   
It was coming for them.
   
A serpent-like appendage of seawater burst forth from between two oceanfront hotels, ripping palms up by the roots. It was as if it were a living thing, capable of thought and reason. The length of the thing ran all the way down to the beach and ended beneath the churning surf. It rolled across the boulevard and halted directly in front of the jeep, coiling like a liquid snake and seeming to study the vehicle.
   
"Jesus Christ, what is it?" screamed Stacy, stopping the jeep.
   
At the sound of her voice, the tip of the tentacle-like liquid form began to narrow, forming a point. It bent at an angle, as if it could see them without eyes. Stacy realized with horror that the pointed appendage of sea water was aimed straight at her. Then it struck, the solid spear of water thrusting forward.
   
Chad tried to grab her, but he wasn't quick enough. The tip of the thing burst through the already shattered windshield. Stacy opened her mouth to scream but had no time to. It struck her dead in the face. The force of the impact sent her hurling from the seat, her seat belt ripping from her body and the back of her seat slamming flat as the thing drove her backwards. The hardtop's back window burst outward in thousands of tiny fragments as her crumpled form was forced through it. Then the thing recoiled back through the jeep, vanishing down the same alleyway that it had appeared from.
   
The explosive spray of water from the blow blinded Chad for a moment. When he cleared the salt from his eyes, he saw that he was covered with a splatter of bright blood that trickled and ran down his arms and jacket in the rain.
    
It was Stacy’s blood.
   
Oh, sweet Jesus, the jeep's still in gear!
   
He crawled across the gear stick and threw the jeep in reverse. As he pulled away, he saw Stacy. The thing had driven her body straight through a plank-covered storefront window. Chad knew she was dead, even before he saw that her body was nearly cut in two from the impact with glass and wood. Where her face had been was nothing but a bloody, unrecognizable mass.
   
Then he stepped on the gas hard.
   
Winds along the boulevard were approaching the 90-mile per hour mark as the jeep plowed through the water. Chad looked in the rear view mirror, expecting to see the thing right on his bumper, or even worse, right beside him, ready to deal the same fate to him as it had to Stacy.
   
There was nothing there.
   
He looked frantically to his left and tried to get a glimpse of what was moving along the beach behind the hotels. Was it following him? There was nothing beyond the hotels but a dark sea and crashing waves. The storm was right on top of him.
   
Then the jeep rolled.
   
At first, Chad thought it was the wind that had tilted him. It came out of nowhere, and the vehicle flipped as though it were weightless. Water was on all sides of him, and he knew it wasn't the wind. The hardtop cracked like an eggshell against the sidewalk and Chad’s head struck hard as he fell from his seat, not having fastened his belt. What glass was left burst and flew madly about. Chad felt a burning pain in his left forearm and realized that the twisted metal of the passenger door had ripped into him, severing the skin and tearing through muscle. He tried to scream but water filled his eyes, mouth, and nostrils. It moved about his body as if it had purpose. Then, as quickly as it was there, it receded.
   
He had been "inside" it.
   
Chad lay there in the dampness, the rain falling into his face and the wind roaring over him. Debris sailed through the air. Lightning crashed against the blackened sky. He held his injured arm and tried to stop the flow of blood that ran from it, turning the puddles of rainwater beneath him a deep crimson. He rolled his head to the side and looked towards the ocean.
   
The multi-story Yachtsman Resort Hotel was visible through the downpour, stretching upwards into the dark sky. Beneath it, there was something moving.
   
The thing was sliding back towards the sea. It was an unbelievable image. The diameter of this seemingly living tentacle of water was at least twenty feet. It moved about as if it had eyes, seeming to look at things as it went. The solidity of it was amazing, as if someone had filled a perfectly clear flexible tube with water. Within itself, it moved and foamed, but it remained solid. It changed shapes as well, the tip or "head", varying from blunt to pointed to almost flat. As it crept down to the sea behind the Yachtsman Resort, it seemed to split into fingers and feel around the foundation of the structure.
   
Chad crawled from the destroyed jeep and slid up against the curb. As horrified as he was of what he was witnessing, he couldn't look away from it.
   
The fingers of water began to coil upward around the Yachtsman. Through the rain, Chad thought it appeared as a gigantic hand made of seawater, grasping a toy building from behind. He heard the sound of concrete splitting and glass shattering. The screech of bending steel filled the air.
   
Then he saw something behind the hotel in the sea.
   
Good Lord!
   
At first, it looked like an island was rising from the depths about 100 yards offshore. A great dark mass broke the water's surface. Its skin was a sickening red and brown color. A sound came from it, a shriek that rose and joined in the chorus of the storm. Then, from beneath the waves, the eyes surfaced. Eyes that were flat and fishlike, almost lifeless. They were monstrous in size.
   
Chad knew that he wasn't seeing all of the thing.
   
My God, it's only the top of its head.
   
Then, as the thing's shrieks came once more and the wind roared above, Chad saw that the tentacle of water which grasped the Yachtsman came from beneath the surface of the ocean just in front of the gargantuan eyes. It was a part of it, as if it commanded the very sea itself. Down the boulevard, he saw other serpents of water rise and slither about the waterfront. They waved madly in the air and crept from the beach access lanes to his left and his right. They were everywhere he looked, sent from beneath the waves by the hellish apparition that lurked just offshore. The body of the beast must have been gargantuan.
   
The rain continued to beat down. The wind screamed in his ears. He lay and bled in the street, the salt water stinging his wounds and the flying debris beating him about his body. As he felt himself start to scream aloud, he heard the sound of twisting metal and breaking glass. Then, it was as if he heard the loudest thunder in the world and he could feel the ground start to tremble beneath him.

*  *  *  *  *

"Hey buddy, can you hear me?"
   
Those were the next words Chad Moore heard. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on a cot amidst dozens of other people. Outside, the wind howled, but not with the fury it had earlier. Sitting next to him was a young paramedic wearing a Jimmy Buffett baseball cap and a first aid kit at his side.
   
"You look pretty confused, sir," the young man said. "We found you next to a Beach Patrol jeep that had crashed on Ocean Boulevard around the Yachtsman area. You took a pretty good knock on the head and gashed your arm really deep. We’ve had a police officer out there for hours trying to find the girl that was driving it. She never turned up, so I kind of fear the worst. All they found was you."
   
Chad sat up and rubbed his eyes, the pain in his arm bringing him back to reality. It had been neatly wrapped.
   
"I'm at the shelter?" he asked, looking around.
  
The young man nodded. "Yes sir, at the Convention Center. Hopefully, you can tell us if you saw Stacy or not before you got hurt."
   
Chad hung his head. "I think I did... everything’s unclear right now"
   
The young paramedic looked at him.
   
"Well," he said. "If you can remember later, I'd sure appreciate it. I hate to think that Stacy is a victim of the storm. Most of it has blown over now, but the boulevard took one helluva beating from it. Old Dominique was one mean bitch."
   
Chad looked around the room at the others. Families huddled together, sleeping, reading, playing cards, watching the television set up on a card table not far from where he was -- waiting to go home. Next to him, an elderly man lay on his cot, intently watching the news broadcast that had just come on the local channel.
   
"If I do remember,” Chad said, "I'll let you know. I'm still pretty disoriented right now. Thanks for wrapping me up."
   
"No problem," the young man said. "I'll be around if you need anything."
   
He walked off amidst the horde of people and was gone. Then, the voice of a young woman reached his ears.
   
"Tonight on News Channel 15, a devastating storm causes the fall of one of Myrtle Beach's most recognizable landmarks."
  
The announcement caught Chad’s attention immediately. He turned to watch the twenty-inch screen on the card table to his right. Others gathered around to hear the broadcast being read by the local news anchor.
   
"The hurricane came ashore late this afternoon and moved quickly along the Grand Strand, taking with it the Yachtsman Resort which toppled into the sea."
   
Chad leaned forward, staring at the screen.
   
"Though it has been determined that the hotel's foundation was weakened and was the main point of structural failure, it is a mystery as to why most of the debris fell back into the ocean side instead of across the boulevard with the direction of the storm's winds. Thanks to early storm warnings, the hotel had been completely evacuated of all occupants."
   
The wind was still gusting outside, casting phantom shadows on the windows of the Convention Center. The newscaster went on.
   
"Several reports of strange activity have come in since Dominique blew ashore, ranging from multiple odd shaped waterspouts to sea water bursting through high rise windows that were way above the level of flooding. These reports are being investigated as we speak."
       
Strange activity was an understatement to Chad. Had others seen what he had? Would anyone ever believe him if they hadn’t?
   
He put his head into his hands and closed his eyes tightly, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t waking from an insane dream. He ached all over and he wanted to go home. He wanted to forget the impossible thing that he had seen with his own eyes. Deep inside himself, he knew he never would.
   
"She takes what she wants," an old voice croaked.
   
Chad looked at the elderly man on the cot next to him. He had to be in his eighties or nineties -- barely more than thin skin on old bones. He lay there with a blanket held tight to his body. His eyes were fixed on the television.
   
"What do you mean, old timer?" Chad asked.
   
The old man slowly turned to him. "The sea," he said. "She commands respect. She's a livin' thing, she is. She takes what she wants. There’s a world of life out there beneath her surface. One that’s home to things the Lord never meant for man to see."
   
Then, the old man rolled over and closed his eyes, leaving Chad to sit and think. As the rain continued to fall outside, he sat and thought about what he saw. About the thing the storm had brought in from the Atlantic. About Stacy and the warmth of her blood as it splattered across his face in the cold rain.
   
The sea was more of a living thing than anyone could ever imagine.
   
He never watched another storm again.