The three teens huddled in the cave ten yards above the previous high-tide’s mark. A long strand of kelp, half-eaten with pockmarks, and a couple pieces of singed driftwood were the only barriers on the glassy sand separating Daryl, Beth, and Kristi from the deadly surf.
“Do you think Mitch is still out there or....” Kristi trailed off. Neither of the others wanted to think about forming a response.
A wave rushed up the sand, pushed a piece of driftwood a couple inches further up the beach. The wood smoldered as the wave receded.
“Try your cell again,” Kristi encouraged Beth.
Beth removed her phone from her bathing suit top, checked the display. “No signal.”
“It’s the rock,” Daryl said. He stepped toward the mouth of the cave and put his hand out for the phone.
Beth put it back in her top. “Uh-uh. Not after what happened to Mitch.”
Ordinarily, Daryl would’ve been game to hunt after the phone. Instead he put his hands in the pockets of his board shorts and watched the water. “Why’d we come here?” he asked.
Though no one said anything, no one wanted to speak ill of the dead, they all thought the same thing: Mitch didn’t believe the stories. They watched the kelp and driftwood smokingly swim a couple inches nearer.
“Tide’s still coming in,” Daryl said.
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