THE SHELL
by Michael Lizarraga

The following excerpt is from 'The Seashell,' a story by Michael Lizarraga published by Schlock! Publications in an anthology titled 'Timeless Worlds.' An excerpt screenplay from an upcoming film version can be found at www.MichaelLizarraga.com, under The Shell (short)

Synopses: “Hold a seashell to your ear, hear the sounds of the ocean” is one of the biggest myths many of us believed while growing up. In addition to this is an even stranger tale – a captured “scream” heard within a seashell, from someone who had drowned near it while it was in the ocean. Forever echoing.

But suppose these were not mere ocean legends... 

Anna heard the noises again, from the shell's mouth, this time giggles. Children, echoey and distant, as if in a basement or cellar. 

It was the size of a football, a particular seashell known as Murex Ramosus, its rock-rough, spiny exterior blended white and brown with thin beige streaks, pinkish blotches and striations all around.   

The bewildered woman grabbed the seashell, studied its multiple pointy edges, its rows of short, long thick/thin finger-like arms jutting in different directions, one end like a spiraled drill or an Indian pagoda, swirling into a pinnacle. Anna listened as the echoey laughing of children continued. Holding the shell closer, she peered into its wide opening, its oval, lemon-shaped mouth the size of a large pomegranate, or a small bowl, ten centimeters in diameter. Resembled a clown with no eyes tilting his head, mouth wide open, laughing.

Then her head jolted back as a gush of water shot out from the seashell's mouth, splashing her face. Her eyes squinted, mouth gasped, and she was unsure whether to be startled or annoyed. Again, she heard the children's smirks from within the shell.

Then, silence.        

Her brows arched with intense curiosity, putting the shell's mouth to her right ear, its cold porcelain like interior against the side of her head. It was the sound of the ocean deep - the actual deep - far different than any seashell Anna ever held. The lapping and swishing of underwater currents, the movement and noises of marine life, similar to aquatic recordings played in Yoga classes, or therapists' waiting rooms. 
                                               
Keeping the shell pressed to her ear, she heard whispers again, sounding like a little boy and girl. The sounds shifted, from echoey and distant to girggling "underwater talking" sounds.
 
But curiosity switched to pain when Anna felt a sharp, powerful clamp on her ear. She wailed in agony and terror as she pulled the seashell away and gazed into the bathroom mirror. Attached to her ear and lower cheek was a thick, slimy six-inch leech, its dark body as fat and as big as a baby fig banana. Its anterior jaws were unyielding, hundreds of tiny sharp teeth slicing and digging further into the woman's flesh and bone the more she tugged on the blood-sucking creature, while the jaws on the leech's posterior end were equally stubborn. Extending from her ear almost to her mouth, it looked as if she held an opened flip phone to her cheek, blood now streaming down her jaw and neck.

 She brought the seashell back to her agonizing face, the screaming Anna again peering into its mouth, frantically searching the curvature of this shell's throat for any other signs of life as a confirmation that this experience was actually happening. She shrieked when thick, liquidy black/green sea sludge exploded from the shell, catching Anna's face. An overwhelming stench of waste and chemicals assailed her nostrils. The entire left side of Anna's face was now covered in slime, a pain like fire on an opened wound. She dropped the seashell, shouting and falling to her knees, steam and smoke ascending from both the sludge and her melting, drooping face. Her cheek showed bone, while flesh dangled from her jaw like shredded meat. An actual hole formed in the side of her face, revealing molars. On the other side, the hungry leech dug deeper, producing veins. Her screams raked out of her throat and bolted from her mouth in howling spates.  

Anna looked at the seashell on the floor, watched another phenomenon occur. Small, insect like sea creatures scurried from the seashell's mouth, by the hundreds, like popcorn bubbling from a popcorn machine. Assorted species - crustaceans, mites, worms, parasites - quick and fast, campaigning toward Anna. 

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For complete version of The Shell, you may purchase "Timeless Worlds," (titled The Seashell), a horror anthology from Schlock! Publications. Available on Kindle and paperback. http://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Worlds-Schlock-Anthology-Book-ebook/dp/B009EA05MK


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