The Lochtopus Monster
They stand by the water of the wave pool, staring as the shallow tide slides through their toes. The little girl in the one-piece swimsuit wades forward. One foot splashing the water like ice chipping from a climber’s cleat. And then the rest of them dissolve. There is something bulbous rising in the water. Swimming rapidly forward with torpedo speed. Static absorbs like an orb around the little girl in the one-piece swimsuit. She is desolate in her bubble, her ears bursting to emptiness. She can feel the surge of the oncoming water, how the thin lines of the tide have gotten stronger and shifted from low to high. Surging onward, a plastic orange head with cancer spots juts out of the water like jetsam from a shipwreck. She thinks the thing in the water must be stranded, could be hurt, but she does not move a muscle, and cannot. The head plunges down and a stringy, spongy tentacle whips through the air. The tentacle suctions to her ankle and pulls. The sphere around her