Handlebar stared at his own boots, which were soaked in blood. He seemed to be having some sort of internal crisis. He reached up with a trembling hand and twisted his mustache repeatedly. He came out of it suddenly and looked at Lonny.

"Hey. Kid. Listen." He walked toward him, changing clips. "You're taking all this too seriously. It's toying with us, that's all."

He held out his shotgun to him. "Here. The goo—Chin—he's right. It's still beneath the dock. Probably scared. Why don't you do the honors?"

Lonny hesitated, trembling. "Y-you mean it's just trying to scare us?"

Handlebar tweaked his nose. "That's right."

The fire returned to the young man's eyes—almost. He looked around the shattered dock, at the riddled corpse and the oily, bloody water, at the spitting power lines and the dead lights, the peeling boardwalk on the shore.

He shook his head. "No, it's not. It—it doesn't pretend, like you. It's gonna kill us, that's all." He stepped closer. "Can't you see that? You posing hillbilly? The spill's given it a—a lean season. It's sick, and it' s hungry, and …"

He glanced at the corpse. "We probably just killed its mate."

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