Jett wasn't joking about the harpoon.

When they set out that afternoon, the dark-haired young man steered the old outboard motorboat while Violet sat behind a harpoon gun mounted on the nose of the vessel. Cutting through the waves was not at all like she had imagined. It felt like riding a cool, humid motorcycle—one with a gun grip. The wind ripped through her hair, lashing it in her face like a whip. It was exhilarating. She decided she had to get Tate out on the waves. He would love it as much as she did, she was sure.

Jett slowed the boat when the lights from the beach house were pinpoints in the fog. Where they were at, the fog extended in all directions. The roll of the waves and the puttering motor were the only sounds for miles. Weak sunlight reflected on the mist and water in weird ways, throwing shadows and sparkles everywhere. It was dazzling and disorienting; a waking dream.

"Do you want to try?" Jett asked.

Violet glanced back and saw him gesturing to the idling motor in a welcoming way. She smiled and moved to join him. She cheated and just willed herself to the other side of the engine rather than rock the boat with an unnecessary physical display.

The move startled Jett. While he'd managed to consciously accept that the girl was dead, seeing such a blatant manifestation of the fact was still nerve-rattling, despite everything he had been through. "That's just creepy," he muttered to himself.

Any sympathy Violet might have felt for scaring him evaporated. "Says the guy who talks to dead mermaids." She put her hand on the boat's steering handle. "How do you work this thing?"

Jett stowed his surprise and looked at the motor. He would stew later over how she evaporated and reappeared next to him, but in the moment, he just rolled with it. She gave him little choice. "It's easy. If it's off, you pull this cord." He pointed out the starter pull. "But it's already on, so all you have to do is give it some gas and use the tiller to steer. That's the handle you're holding. It's just like a motorcycle: Rotate it back to speed up, forward to slow down. When you turn, push the tiller in the opposite direction from where you want to turn."

She did as instructed and they lurched ahead, veering sharply off to the right. "Whoa!" She eased up on the gas and soon they were going in a smooth circle.

"The boat can go two directions," Jett advised, trying unsuccessfully not to smile.

"I'm getting the hang of it," Violet said confidently. Still, she tugged the tiller the other direction and, after going in a half-circle, finally evened out so they were moving parallel to the shore.

"There you go," Jett encouraged.

"Hey, you're right," she smiled. "This is easy."

"Just watch out for the bigger waves," he advised as they were coming up on one. "You want to—"

She eased up on the throttle and WHAM! They hit the wave like a wall.

"Oof! Keep your speed up," Jett finished belatedly. "Don't slow down for big waves. You have to speed up or that happens."

He was soaked and a little winded by the rough ride. She threw him an apologetic look. "Sorry. I thought it was like a speed bump. It doesn't work like this in Grand Theft Auto."

"You play that?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Sometimes. Badly."

"I haven't seen that game in years," Jett marveled. "Do you have it at the beach house?"

She shook her head. "Nah. It's back home. You know, you—"

WHAM!

The boat was hit by something, but it wasn't a wave. Something huge and dark beneath them shot ahead of the small watercraft. Whatever it was, it was big and fast and circling back for another pass.

"Steer toward shore!" Jett hollered.

He didn't think. He just grabbed for the tiller. Violet, meanwhile, did as he had instructed. They both yanked on it, sending them in a full circle at top speed. The unsteady boat rocked violently.

"Let go of the motor and hold onto the boat!" Violet said. "Or shoot it with the harpoon!"

She had no fear for her own safety. She couldn't be thrown from the boat now that the thing couldn't surprise her. She wasn't so confident in Jett.

The young man didn't want to release control of the boat but he was smart enough to understand her logic. So, he grabbed the boat's side and scooted up close to the harpoon. Looking over to the right as they turned in toward shore, he could see the massive thing cutting through the water toward them. It was bigger than the boat.

"Shooting it would be a bad idea, I think," he said, sounding much calmer than he felt. "It'd only, uh, make it mad."

The aggressive creature was coming up fast. He secured his grip on the boat.

"Oh, shit!"

In the amount of time it took him to get the words out, the large thing cleared the remaining distance between them. It collided with the underside of the boat hard enough to lift it out of the water. The motor sputtered uselessly then choked out when it hit the water and went under. The creature surfaced and sank teeth the size of a man's hand into the prow. It was a huge bull shark, rotten and bloated, and very hungry. Fiberglass and wood splintered into the choppy waves as the undead creature thrashed.

"Swim for shore!" Violet hollered. "I'll distract it!"

Again, Jett had to check his instincts, reminding himself that the girl was dead and couldn't be harmed by the shark. It still felt wrong to abandon ship and leave her behind but he could have a moral crisis over it later, if he survived. He took a gulp of air and jumped into the frothing waves. The shark was so close, he was buffeted by the motion in the water.

He swam for shore, faster than he had ever moved in his life. He was certain the shark was right behind him but he didn't dare look back. He just kept paddling for the beach and praying with each kick that his foot wouldn't be bitten off. When he got to the shoreline he practically leaped out of the water. He didn't stop there: Adrenaline and a basic understanding of the undead propelled him well away from the waves. He had seen a living shark beach itself to get at an otter once. He wasn't taken his chances with a zombie one.

Once he was a safe distance away, he turned and looked for Violet. The fog obscured his view but he could see a shadowy form moving off-shore and could hear the sounds of his boat being bashed and torn to pieces.

"Daisy," he moaned, and he clamped his hands down over the top of his head as the full implication of the loss of the old boat hit him. "Shit! Shit-shit!"

The sounds of destruction slowed and tapered off. Jett continued to watch the hazy beach as his initial reaction burned off, leaving dejection in its wake.

"Hey. You okay?" Violet asked, suddenly right beside him.

He startled and staggered to the side, nearly losing his balance on the shifting sand. It was the last straw. "Fucking hell!" he swore angrily. "Could you not do that? Please? Christ!"

Violet was taken aback by his anger. "Sorry. I'll knock next time." When he didn't thaw, she added: "That was a joke."

He stared at her. "My boat just got eaten by a shark," he said tersely. "I nearly got eaten by a shark! I don't see what there is to joke about! Jesus! I never should have let you talk me into going out there! I knew it was a bad idea!"

"If you knew it was a bad idea, then why did you say yes?" she fired back, unwilling to stand there and let him yell at her over something that wasn't her fault. If anything, it was the shark's fault.

"Because I like you!" Jett exploded.

There was an awkward silence that followed the bombshell confession. Embarrassment hit his anger like a bucket of cold water on a fire and suddenly he was angry with himself.

"I'm dead," she said carefully, trying to let him down easy.

"Forget I said anything," he said irritably, looking away down the beach.

"I didn't mean to—"

"I said forget it!" Jett fumed and turned to slog his way up the shore toward the damaged beach house he had claimed.

Violet watched him go. She wrapped her arms around her middle and let out a soft sigh. She felt rather villainous. She had almost gotten her new friend killed and she'd hurt him on the emotional spectrum as well. Destroyed his boat, too. All without even trying.

She rubbed her arms to chase away the goosebumps that popped up. Had the mansion infected her with its darkness? Was she as dangerous as any of the other denizens of Murder House now? The question echoed hollowly inside her with no answer.

…

Following the earthquake, the witches transported Constance to the hotel. Michael, Jeremiah, and Evangelina joined them. Most of the group gathered in the lobby sitting area while Misty Day sat with Constance in an upstairs room, while the woman slept. The hotel had sustained some damage to the façade and a few dishes in the kitchen broke when they hit the floor during the quake, but the structure was otherwise unscathed. It had seen worse in its time.

"Do you think we're ready?" Cordelia asked Fiona.

The blonde woman lit a cigarette and stuffed it into a filter stem. "Of course," she dismissed. "We can't afford to wait any longer. The next quake that hits could bring a tsunami. We need to be out of the valley when that happens."

"We don't have to fully retreat," Michael pointed out. "We could maintain this place and have a place in the Hills. We have enough people."

"We don't want to spread out too much," Desiree advised. "The Coven is strongest when we're together."

"And there's that church to think about," Parker interjected from the shadows of the bar. "What's it called? The New World Order?"

"New World United," Alec and Tisi corrected in unison. They were also seated at the bar. Meg was nearby, half-asleep in a chair close to the bar.

Fiona's nose crinkled with distaste. "Those idiots."

"Some of their members have been seen at the market in the Hills," said Cordelia. "I think we should deal with that before we consider trying to make the settlement our base."

Michael sat back and folded his arms. He didn't like the idea of holing up in the bunker settlement. He enjoyed feeling like he had the whole of Los Angeles to run around in. He couldn't drive fast in the Hills. The place was overcrowding and dirty, except in the inner corridor where the rich people were. Which meant retreating even deeper into the earth. Jeremiah had taught him that mortals hid under the mountains during the end of times because they were afraid. Michael was anything but afraid.

He looked over at the ex-priest. The man was leaning against a pillar not far from the fire pit where most had gathered. He had that same blank expression he had worn since his resurrection. It made Michael uncomfortable to see him so emotionless, so he looked away. He didn't understand why Jeremiah was so different. When Michael had brought his fish back, he was the same fish…pretty much. He just breathed water, didn't need to eat, and hadn't died again despite being past the age when most fish died. Otherwise he still did everything a fish should.

People were obviously more complicated than fish. Michael was sure there was a way to fix Jeremiah, but he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to ask Misty Day because that would be admitting he messed things up. He wanted to try and fix things on his own before he did that.

"I'm staying here," he interjected. "Jeremiah and me, we're staying. We'll help you take the Hills but we're not moving there. We need to stay close to the mansion and there's no point in abandoning the hotel when we've got it so well put-together."

He noticed Dawn, the bald Chinese punk girl, nodding along with that last sentence and was pleased he wasn't the only one who saw the merit in maintaining the place.

"Fine," Fiona dismissed with a negligently flick of her wrist. "We'll scout it out this weekend and decide who we need to recruit and who needs to go."

Where Michael stayed didn't matter to her. The hotel didn't need a physical presence to protect it from the outside world, thanks to the coven's spells, and the young man could easily fend for himself. She could also find him whenever she wanted: He was a psychic beacon on the astral plane. Even if she was struck blind she would still know where he was. If he wanted to play fort at the hotel, she wouldn't stop him.

"What about Mother Constance?" he asked.

Fiona sucked on her black cigarette filter and arched a brow at him. "What about her?"

"What happens next?"

The witch tipped her head and exhaled smoke slowly, considering her words carefully. Michael had been acting erratically lately and she didn't want a scene. "Next comes a ritual. It's complicated. We'll need time to get set up in the Hills before it can be done."

Michael found the answer too vague to be satisfying. "What's going to happen to her?" he pressed.

The corner of Fiona's mouth curled in a sadistic little smile. "She's going to have a baby."

...

Author's Note:

American Horror Story, the show, has ranged all over the horror field, from fictional to real life. They've tapped contemporary and historical horror from all kinds of directions. However, due to the locations, the aquatic horror sub-genre hasn't really represented. Hopefully these past couple of chapters will help balance that out. Inspiration thanks to Jaws, Call of Cthulhu, the Meg/Megalodon, Piranha, and the Abyss.

Almost done with spring semester. Next week's finals so I may not have an update till later in the week. That's when you'll meet Tate's pet.