A tanned young folkie, deck-hand of the Albert Hansell, sat on the gray, weathered beams that marked the boundary of sand and boardwalk, changing strings on his scarred but sturdy Martin. He hummed as he rolled the old set into neat coils and tucked them away for emergencies. A, D, G...the afternoon sun was pleasant on his shirtless form and his legs beneath the ragged cutoff jeans he wore, and he hummed a shanty to himself as he worked.

Ye bully boys of Liverpool, I would have ye to beware
And when ye sign to a packet ship, no dungaree jumper wear.
But have a good donkey jacket, all ready to your hand,
For there blow some cold nor'westers....!!!!

He looked up in astonishment as the waters of the gentle surflline seemed tp part with shimmering awe, revealing the form of a beautiful and bounteous woman wading out from a swim. Her ringlets, plastered to her fair brow, dripped graceful rivulets of sea water onto her gleaming, suit-less shoulders. The boy's jaw began to drop as he took in the monumental eloquence of this shimmering form.

He nearly choked on his next words, a mixed gurgle and shout driven by fear and infatuation in roughly equal volumes. "Looo...looo..loook OUT MISSSS!!"

He leapt to his feet, tearing across the sands at a surprising clip. From the slightly darker water behind the beautiful lass, a froth and a rippling sound broke out, and a huge, writhing tentacle, lined with suckers and dotted with barnacles, snaked through the warm after noon air, seeking and sensing....

He tore past the puzzled but beautiful damsel, who only began to shriek after she followed his flight past her into the shallows behind her. He slugged the leading tip of the nearby tentacle as hard as he could, feeling it was futile, but knowing he had to do something. The giant, serpentine form veered away and then back, sensing and seeking revenge. In an instant it had begun to wrap itself around the sturdy deck-hand's shoulders, blistering his tan hide with sucker-marks and barnacle scrapes. The woman screamed louder, numbed with terror, as a second tentacle loomed out of the deep and writhed toward her.

Struggling to free his shoulders, the lad twisted mightily and got one arm free. He looped the used B string rapidly, once, twice, around the base of the massive snakelike arm; and gritting his teeth wrapped the ends around either hand and drew tight; tighter and tighter. The blood began to spurt from the cuts in his handfs where the wire dug in, but he closed his eyes and heaved harder on the ends, and the wire cut surely and deeply into, and finally completely through, the foul tentacle at its thickest part.

A spray of ugly dark blood spouted from the shorn stub, which thrashed angrily. A storm of heaving waves, froth and flying tentacles began at the surface just a few yards off shore, and with a huge hissing and screaming sound the body of the giant monster through itself into the air, landing with a towering splash of water and dark clouds of blood, and thrashed its way into the deep waters, away from the shallows along the tip of Point Sharp, thrashing and foaming the surface as it went.

The lad staggered ashore and put one hand on the lovely woman's trembling shoulder as they watched the monster's wake disappear beyond the point.

"Are...are....are you all right, ma'am?", he asked timidly.

She looked at his lacerated shoulders and bleeding hands, and at the bloody stump of tentacle still slopping in the surf-line, and she looked at him.

Still dripping seawater from her naked form, she smiled....