Dark Beach by Lauren Ash

I’d rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.”
    “You better let him know—or I will.”
    Carl pointed to the dry dock. “Just get those damn doors off so the Admiral can have his sub.”
    “Security is toast. This sub is open to air for anyone to see, and you don’t care?”
    “Ah’ve got men burned —dead an’ injured,” Carl yelled. “Ah do care. Ah’ve been workin’ this dock for seven years. Don’t you come in here an’ tell me otherwise!”
    Ron backed up. “Fine, but I have to document this.”
    “You can take your document and stick it where you will.”
    “Carl, what the hell?”
    “What?”
    “We have to work together here.”
    “I am workin’. Why don’t you stop wasting my goddamn time.”
    “Fine!”
    “You just send the Admiral a message, short an’ brief. There’ll be an’ investigation anyway,” Carl said as he watched Ron walk away. Then he turned his attention back to yelling at the welder.
     
    * * *
     
    The line rang and rang.
    “Hey, this is Ron,”—his voicemail picked up—“I’m not available at the moment, please leave me a message.”
    “Ron, I have called three times now—once this morning, twice now! What is going on? Please call me. I don’t even know if you got there okay.” Jenny snapped her silver cell phone shut and tossed it inside, on the bed. Where the hell is he? She continued to pace the paint-peeled deck outside. It was freezing out, but she stayed there anyway, shivering. The dark ocean matched her mood.
    “God, Ron!” She slammed a fist down on the white balcony railing. “I need you.”
    “Mamma?”
    “It’s okay, honey,” she soothed, calming down a bit, not wanting her daughter to notice her frame of mind.
    “Mamma, play me?”
    “Sure. What would you like to play?”
    “Puzzle.”
    “Come on. We can do a puzzle. We’ll go inside.”
    After three animal puzzles and two storybooks about color and numbers, Jenny decided that, despite the overcast skies, they should go and explore the town.
    The roads were dead; it was midweek, the tail end of tourist season. The car wound through the ocean side streets, then further in, closer to town.
    “Look!” Kip pointed. “Looooooook!”
    “What, honey? What do you see?”
    “Shark!”
    Slowing the car, Jenny looked left, following the direction of Kip’s tiny finger. A huge grey shark with razor-sharp teeth leered back at her. Her heart skipped for a second, but it was only the specially designed entrance to a souvenir shop. She kept driving.
    “Mamma! See, see!”
    “I think we’ll skip that one, honey. We can get ice cream.”
    “Uh-uh.” Kip shook her blonde head emphatically. “See shark!”
    “Oh, honey. There’s chocolate ice cream, or vanilla,” she said, hopefully. “I can hear them calling us over there. Yum, yum,” she tried to sound as sweet and convincing as possible.
    “Uh-uh!” The toddler’s mind was made up.
    “Fine.” Jenny turned back and parked in front of the looming entrance, trying not to look at it too closely.
    Kip just clapped in excitement. “Shark! Shark!”
    Jenny got out. What am I thinking? She unbuckled Kip.
    Hysterical with happiness, Kip ran to stand inside the creature’s enormous maw. Its blood-red gums seemed about to chomp down, like Kip was being eaten alive by a store.
    “Just don’t look,” Jenny said. “Just don’t look.”
    Somehow, she managed to get them both inside without glancing at the teeth. The door opened with a jingle to reveal a shop packed with hundreds of shark-themed trinkets—shark T-shirts, shark candy, shark hats, inflatable sharks for the pool, and much more. Jenny felt dizzy. Teeth jutted out from the shelves—from everywhere.
    “Hi there! How can we help you?” a young girl asked in a sour, bored tone.
    Jenny just gulped. 
    The girl was joined by a coworker, an enthusiastic young man who was obviously in love with the subject matter. “Someone’s been bitten by the shark bug.” He