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attack her at any moment. 'Don't let him near me!'
        A youth scrambled from the shallows, a dripping whirlwind of terror. He didn't use words; instead he screamed in mindless panic as he ran up the beach, cannoned off April, then sped away into the bushes. April recovered her balance only to find the man in the yellow shirt had grasped her wrist and then lifted her arm so he could examine the wound in her side.
        'What's happened to us? Look, we've all been bitten.' He roughly squeezed her flesh to open the wound. 'See? Teeth marks! They've gone right through the skin.'
        Now, that hurt. With a gasp April pulled away. Even so, she asked, 'Do you remember your name?'
        'Of course, I do. Do you think I'm crazy? It's…' His face muscles slackened as the shock hit. 'My name is…' He clenched his fist. 'It's… oh, God. Wait. I'll remember in a minute…' He backed away with his eyes down on the beach as if he would find his identity there.
        'You were there, weren't you?' This came from a woman with copper-coloured hair. 'Did you see what he did to me?'
        The image flashed back of this woman being held down on the wall at the edge of the river as the brutish figure sucked blood from her stomach.
        'Yes.' April stared into the woman's face. The expression of pure horror had the power to hold her. 'I was there. We-'
        'For God's sake, why didn't you stop him?'
        'We tried. My boyfriend-'
        'You bitch, you just watched, didn't you? You probably thought it was funny!' The woman backed away with her arms folded. She panted as if her lungs couldn't draw enough air into her body. 'Bitch,' the red-haired woman gasped. 'Someone should do the same to you.'
        'He did, look!' April pointed at her own side with the raw flaps of the wound raised above the skin. 'See? Everyone else has the same kind of wound.'
        The man in the yellow shirt appeared in a daze now. 'How did we get here? Why is the sun so bright?'
        'That's not the sun, it's the moon.'
        'You're lying,' he told her. 'Bitch. You must be in on this. Did you put something in our drinks?'
        Alongside panic a sense of violence crackled in the air as if that bunch of terrified victims on the beach were desperate to find someone to blame.
        'Listen.' The man pointed at April. 'She knows what's happening.'
        'I don't. I'm the same as-'
        The redhead glared at her. 'That woman stood and watched me being mauled.'
        'I didn't. My boyfriend tried to stop it. He was knocked down.'
        Fear drove these people now. They were desperate for answers. Approximately twenty men and women formed a circle around her.
        The man in the yellow shirt snarled, 'She said that was the moon. Look how bright it is? It's got to be the sun, so why's she telling us it's the moon? This is a trick. She probably drugged our drinks, then followed us outside.'
        April felt close to weeping. 'Listen to me. I'm just like you. I was attacked. I was thrown in the water. I woke up here on the island. Yes, that's the moon. I don't know why it's so bright.'
        'See, she knows all about it.' This was a kid in his teens. The denim jacket he wore had chains stitched to it so they clinked as he pointed at her. His bite mark disfigured his face. 'How does she know about an island?'
        The man in the shirt rubbed his stomach. The wound must have started its maddening itch. 'She knew I wouldn't be able to remember my name. There's a drug that does that to you.'
        'You were washed up here, like me,' April insisted. 'This is a Glory Hole for bodies. My brother said that the tides and currents gather objects-'
        'What the hell is the bitch talking about?'
        'Listen to me. Like coins, and stones of a certain size, the river currents grade them naturally and then deposit them on beaches. If you look down here all the stones are as big as