RIP Bennings

Suddenly Bennings's head finally vanished beneath the surface, his body jerked out of sight by something still unseen. The ice continued to ripple like boiling water. The activity moved around, coming toward the two men, then drifting away from them.

Part of the unfortunate meteorologist's body popped into view and just as quickly was sucked beneath the surface again. Macready and Childs watched for it to reappear, unable to aid their companion. "What are we going to do?" the frustrated Childs cried. He was trying to trace the course of the subsurface heaving with the tip of the torch.

"How the fuck do I know."

Suddenly Bennings's head and shoulders exploded through the ice close to the snowmobiles. Something had him in an unbreakable grip, though in the distant glow from the headlamps they couldn't see what. To Childs it looked like the jaws of a dog, except that no dog that ever lived had a mouth that wide.

Bennings's heavy outer clothes began to split, stretched to their limits as the flesh beneath burst its natural boundaries. The clutching jaws writhed, turning the body toward their center. A snake always turns its prey in order to swallow it head first, Macready thought wildly. Bennings face vanished into that fluid, shifting mouth.