Before They Were Sisters

Chapter 5: Horrid Shores

Despite his old age, Craig moved fast. Within the hour, he was at the coordinates given to him by Don—just in the nick of time too, as the black device containing the coordinates ran out of power and shut off.

Craig knew he was in the right place. The black unmarked vehicles parked on the shoreline kind of gave it away. The vehicles looked damaged, but he couldn't tell for sure from a distance.

Craig's attention shifted to the makeshift tents that the vehicles surrounded. He expected there to be a whole lot of movement. If there's one thing he knew about shady bunches like this, it's that they never liked being out in broad daylight, especially not in the open like this.

Despite his experiences, Craig's expectations betrayed him, as everything was still. Shell, he didn't even hear anyone speaking. The place was dead quiet, with the only sounds being the waves softly crashing against the shore.

It also reeked. Immensely so. The smell wasn't one you'd expect from the ocean—It was more like the smell of rotten or spoiled flesh.

Craig hid behind a tree near the sandy beach for what felt like hours, waiting for some indication that whoever was behind his granddaughters' squidnapping was still around. Unfortunately, he never got such indication.

Eventually, he grew tired of waiting and cautiously moved from cover to the tents and cars. Craig raised his weapon, expecting a fight. What he got was far worse.

Upon nearing the scene, he realized the ocean wasn't the source of the rotten smell that bombarded his nose. Strewn across the beach were corpses of various inklings. Their clothes and body parts were horribly shredded, and severed tentacled limbs were scattered everywhere. Some of the inklings' bodies were so terribly disfigured that they were beyond recognition.

"Wow. I haven't seen anything this gruesome since the siege of Arowana Castle..." Craig commented, hobbling his way through the sea of corpses. There didn't seem to be any survivors. The worst part about the scene was that the bodies were fresh, very fresh. And not in the good way either. Craig guessed they weren't even a full twenty-four hours old.

Whatever killed them didn't do it through the use of an ink-weapon. Otherwise, Craig would've seen puddles of ink rather than fleshy remains.

Dread set in on the old inkling as the possibility of him finding the corpses of his granddaughters' entered his mind. He desperately hoped that whatever or whoever attacked these people didn't touch his girls.

After thoroughly searching through the carnage, he found good and bad news. The good news was Callie and Marie were not among the casualties. The bad news was they were not here, neither was any sign that they had been in the first place.

Just as Craig contemplated what to do next, something shifted within a pile of corpses. He whipped his bamboozler up and aimed at the source of movement.

"C...ommander....is....that....you...?" a weak voice mumbled from the pile of bodies, barely conscious.

Craig approached the figure, seeing it was a male inkling with yellow hair. Surprisingly, they were still breathing, but they were severely injured.

Without wasting any time, Craig moved with speed not fit for someone his age and gathered the necessary supplies to patch up the dying youngster. He collected everything he needed from the corpses and cars, then carefully moved the survivor into one of the tents.

Craig did everything to ensure the man's wounds wouldn't take him from this world—not from the kindness of his hearts, mind you. No, of course not. He was probably the one responsible for the squidnapping of his granddaughters, and if not, he was definitely a part of the group who were. By that logic, he was also the only one who could tell Craig what happened here and where his girls could've possibly gone.