Johns Pass Tides Novels & Stories

Gasps filled the hall. “Where is this?” someone asked. Lena replied calmly, “Latitude 32° north, longitude 118° east. Three years ago, this was a thriving coral reef system with over two hundred species of fish. Now it’s a dead zone.” She paused—then fixed her gaze directly on Ethan Grant. “And the cause was a cargo ship called Sky Titan. Owned by Grant Maritime Group.” The hall exploded. All cameras swung instantly toward Ethan. His hands tightened on the armrests, knuckles turning white.

What to do? Two twenty-seven changed to two twenty-eight. What to do first was get herself into that water. The best place to think was in her natural environment. She unlatched the lock on the door and squeezed through the opening onto the deck, glancing back at Logan. His shoulder rose softly in time with his breath. “A few hours, Logan,” she whispered, tugging the door closed behind her. The moonlight trailed across the massive deck and over the railing to the blue water beyond. High tide had just started to ebb, and the soft waves lapped against the pylons in the inlet below, their crests breaking into hundreds of iridescent bubbles.

Just a black, glassy surface stretching out into the fog, reflecting scattered points of fairy‑light in a way that made it hard to tell where the boards ended and the depths began. But if I squinted, I could see a faint line along the algae‑slimed pilings. A mark, just above the current surface. As if the water had been higher, and would be again. “In my notes,” I said slowly, “the tide comes in, and everything above gets swallowed. Anyone still here when that happens… joins the attractions.” “Lovely,” Jax said. “Ten out of ten, would not vacation here again.” Beyond the carousel, the boardwalk branched.

They stumbled to solid ground, breaths ragged, just as the tide swallowed their tracks. The first trial lay stretched before them, a cruel test of nature that bore the name "Shifting Sands." Gabriel took charge, confidence thick in his voice as he directed the crew. "Formation now! Fast as you can!" His words were crisp, commanding, but Amelia sensed the impatience of the rising tide. They didn’t have long. She squinted at the sands, saw the way they undulated, predictable if one dared to look closely enough. "The sands move in a pattern!" Her voice broke through the noise. "We need to time our steps with the shifts."

While I was being transported limply into the ambulance on a gurney, the paramedic placed an oxygen mask over my face while shouting out, "Where's her family? How long has she been pregnant? Is there any information about her pregnancy?" Chuck Gorman was busy wiping the minor wound on Sandi Lemming's temple with a piece of tissue as the paramedic shouted the question again. He looked at me and told the paramedic, "The baby is 29 weeks old… That's all I know about it." That was all he knew about it.

The water didn’t roll or break; it watched. And beneath that silence came the sound. Low. Endless. Like the world itself was humming through stone. I’d heard that hum before the night the fog rose. The night Clara fell. James found me there, cloak half-fastened, breath visible in the chill. “The tides,” he said. “They’ve stopped moving.” I looked past him. “No. They’re moving just not for us.” He frowned, following my gaze. “You think it’s her?” “I know it is.”