Ocean Grave

by Matt Serafini

  His meal was delivered fifteen minutes later. The officer balanced a tray containing a plantain sandwich and piping hot coffee.

  Kaahin waited for him to begin fumbling with the key ring and sprung. He struck with the reflex of a tightly wound cobra, catching the iron door the second it unlocked, and shoving it back into the officer’s face with a thick and brass-filled clang.

  Steaming coffee scalded the officer and his skin began sizzling. Screams filled the room and escaped through the opened windows like liberated prisoners.

  Kaahin was not finished. He seized a fistful of the uniform and tugged it. The officer tumbled into captivity, his scorched and blistering face smashing the ground.

  Kaahin slammed the door as soon as he was beyond it, leaving the officer begging for mercy. Kaahin snatched the handgun off the desk and considered ending the man’s suffering. Only the entire island would hear the gunshot and then they’d never escape.

  So he headed outside, down the winding path. No matter how far away from the police station he got, he heard the officer’s desperate cries hanging in the sky.

  ***

  He got off the road and moved toward the western shoreline.

  First thing he did was retrace his steps from last night. He reached the spot where he’d stashed the gem. It sat against the base of the palm tree, obscured only by a few discarded fronds and broken branches.

  Once it was tight in his fist, he raced toward the water.

  Last night’s officers were presumably off duty and so there was only one man they needed to worry about. Maybe the American would take care of him.

  He suspected the American would be his obedient whore right to the end as long as treasure was involved. They’d never be able to resolve their differences. Too much spilt blood for men of their type to simply forget.

  Through the fronds he spotted a fishing party standing in the shallows off the beach. Three women in cotton sundresses waded out alongside two shirtless men. They spread outward into a circle and cast a wide net across the space. They closed in, drifting toward one another, making the net smaller and smaller, hoping to catch a day’s bounty.

  Kaahin stuffed the gun into his waist where it was obscured by his shirt. He waded out to join them, arms outstretched and wearing his best smile.

  “My friends,” he said in their tongue. “Help me with my bearings, please. The last time I was on your island, I visited by ship. We had to dock at a port five hundred meters from your jetty.”

  One of the women pointed up beach. “Follow and you will find,” she said.

  “There is not much use for ship travel these days,” one of the men added.

  “What does that mean?” Kaahin asked.

  The fishermen fell quiet. Nervous chatter skittered around the circle, but nobody wanted to confide in the stranger.

  “Please,” Kaahin said.

  “Tell him,” demanded the woman.

  The other man strode inland. “Most of the supplies are delivered by plane these days. That is all.”

  Kaahin smiled warmly. He looked at the woman, who seemed disappointed by the group’s consensus to remain silent. She stared helplessly for a second and then returned to her task of bundling the net.

  “Plane would be good for you, too, friend,” the man said and tapped Kaahin on the shoulder. He hurried back to the task, dragging the overflowing net from the ocean. There was enough catch in there to feed half the island.

  Kaahin laughed. The catch he sought wouldn’t be captured by plane. He started down shore, toward Point St. James, turning back once to catch the group staring.

  They were bunched together while behind them, the entire ocean seemed to be creeping up on them.

  He knew what they feared because he feared it too.

  Thirty-Eight

  Land was a half-mile out. The ship was anchored and rocking on calm water. Carly took Sara by the elbow, nails drawing shallow blood as she pushed her against the wall and whispered into her ear.

  “Are we sure we don’t want to get out of this?”

  “Carly,” Sara said, so startled by the actress’ urgency that she returned the whisper. “We can’t.” She didn’t have a good excuse as to why. Not one that she’d admit. She hadn’t told Carly about the Baroness’ offer.

  “Why?” the actress snarled. “It’s right there, goddammit. We could swim and—”

  “We don’t know what’s over there,” Sara said. She pushed the blonde off and gave a threatening look as she wiped trickles of blood from her forearms.

  Carly acknowledged her mistake with a measly nod.

  From this distance, the island looked to be all trees. Whatever civilization supposedly lived there looked like Guillaume’s Sentinelese—a world trying to hide from progress.

  “You go there,” Sara said, “and there’s no telling what happens. I know these guys are shady but—”

  “I’m famous,” Carly said. “They’ll help.” The first truly stupid thing she’d said in Sara’s presence.

  “They look like they’ve seen too many movies?”

  That shut Carly up. “I hear you,” she said. “It’s just, seeing land right there... hard not to think about making a break for it.” She walked off toward the bow, chewing her fingernails.

  “What the hell are we whispering for anyway?” Sara asked, and both women laughed at their stupidity.

  Guillaume and Jean-Philippe had taken the Zodiac boat inland. There was no refueling mechanism here, meaning they were going to have to bring the gasoline back in cans. Their plan was to enlist the help of however many boats were willing.

  They’d been gone a little over an hour now, and Sara was beginning to swear them off until she spotted a growing speck zipping toward them. One Zodiac boat flanked by a fleet of dinghies.

  They reached the Star Time and loaded jerry cans at the stern, passing them boat-to-boat until the entire set was offloaded. Jean-Philippe and Guillaume climbed aboard, and Jean-Philippe negotiated to bring a few hired hands on deck to help get the cargo below and begin the refuel process.

  Carly made her way over and grabbed two sloshing cans. She followed the men below, a sudden selflessness that Sara found uncharacteristic.

  By the time the last of the cargo had been lugged below, the islanders were set to return. The men looked absolutely eager, scrutinizing the water and discussing things in their nervous native tongue. With the empty jerry cans spread throughout five dinghies, the skeleton crew of the Star Time watched the islanders disembark.

  Carly stood at the top of the ladder with knees bent. She took one last glance at Sara, desperate blue eyes brighter than the sky with hope her new friend might reconsider.

  Sara went for Carly and took her by the arm, pulling her away from the ladder.

  “What are you—” the actress began to say.

  It was Sara’s turn to shove her against the wall, and Carly seemed about as furious as Sara had been.

  “Not going to let you make this mistake,” Sara said.

  “Take me!” Carly screamed at the islanders whose motorized dinghies began pulling away from the Star Time.

  Guillaume headed for the commotion but Sara’s glare warned him off.

  “Carly, I know you’re desperate to get home but this is the smart play. If you leave us now—”

  “I don’t need your protection,” Carly said, watching the boats shrink into the distance with defeated eyes. “You’re fucking with my life now.”

  “I’m protecting you,” Sara said. “Please, we’ve both been through the ringer. I can’t... I won’t lose anyone else. You’re the only person I trust.”

  “Then admit to me that it’s your selfishness that’s keeping me here.”

  “It’s not.” Sara couldn’t muster an argument. She began to wonder if that was the truth.

  “We’re two days out,” Guillaume told them. “Hold it together.”

  Sara was too shaken by Carly’s accusation. The actress was right. There was something abou
t being the only woman aboard she didn’t wish to experience. When she was on the water for work, she remembered the way men looked at her. Quick and perverted glances. Wandering minds. Nothing had ever come close to happening, but she couldn’t stand to feel that sort of vulnerability on top of everything else.

  Guillaume and Jean-Philippe didn’t have eyes for the opposite sex, though she remembered the way they’d eyed her at the resort pool and decided that distrust had served her well so far.

  Except, she trusted Carly.

  There was excitement on the ocean. Booming voices that drowned out the half dozen motorized boats. Sara and Carly looked at each other and took a few synchronized steps to the rail.

  The men in the boats screamed. Some waved their hands overhead. It was unclear if they were trying to signal the Star Time or those on the island. It was the same word over and over. A foreign tongue Sara couldn’t understand.

  Guillaume appeared beside them.

  “What are they saying?” Carly asked.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  “They’re never going to make it.”

  Carly had Sara’s arm again, squeezing it. The actress’ body pressed against hers, desperate for what little comfort contact might afford. “Oh my God.” Her breath was lower than a whisper.

  Two hundred feet separated the Star Time and the boats, but the expressions on those dinghies were clearer than crystal.

  The Star Time rocked hard. Beneath them, the hull gave a nails-on-the-chalkboard screech. Sara and Carly wobbled and fell against Guillaume, whose hands flexed and became fists that wrenched the rail, holding all three of them in place.

  The blurry shadow glided out from beneath the hull. The sparkling aquamarine water made the fish shimmer. It sliced toward the small boats as if guided by magnets.

  Sara couldn’t help it. She screamed. It might’ve been “watch out” or “hang on” or something just as futile.

  Carly buried her eyes in the round of Sara’s shoulder, hands squeezing Sara even tighter than before, only this time Sara said nothing.

  The men were helpless. The fish broke the surface and continued to glide right for them. Its stone-shaped head barreling down on the sputtering boats like a missile.

  Its head rose further so those aboard the Star Time heard the grinding of its self-sharpening teeth. Even at this distance, that sickening sound of scraping bone put goose bumps on Sara’s arms.

  The fish chomped away the first stern with a potato chip crunch. Its bites came fast, breaking through rubber like a blown tire.

  A few graceless bodies tumbled right into that mouth, and Sara saw blood explode into the air like paint splotches. Screams were loud and severe as diligent teeth shredded the bodies into silence.

  Those in surrounding boats began leaping overboard as if they could out-paddle the fish. The creature went next for a wooden boat, chomping its hull into mulch. The people onboard wobbled and fell, repeating the ghastly process over again.

  One of the men fumbled against the fish, his upper torso bending right over the creature’s eager head. For a second it looked as if he might scale the thing and escape down the length of its body. He looked up at the deck of the Star Time and his eyes locked with Sara’s.

  He never screamed. Wide eyes began to fade as the body slumped to one side of the fish’s head and then slipped into the water beside it. There were no legs beneath the torso, and what little remained of him quickly slipped beneath a stain of red water.

  The fish took each of the boats down without effort, zipping back and forth through the commotion, snapping up the survivors like an old arcade game.

  For a while, Sara watched. She felt obligated to witness it. She stared at the carnage until she grew numb to it. And after a while she turned her head and nestled it against Carly’s. The actress still burrowed into Sara’s arm as if eagerly trying to escape this grim reality.

  “We need to go,” Guillaume said. “Away from here.”

  From the helm, Jean-Philippe was already beginning to pull away.

  “What about Holloway?” Sara said.

  “He wasn’t in the jail,” Guillaume said. “Pirate must’ve killed him.”

  “What do we do now?” she said.

  “We find that island.”

  Sara started to follow but Carly held Sara by the shoulder. She turned back around and the actress let her go. Cleared her throat and passed Sara an unspoken “thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Sara said. “I think you might’ve been right about me.”

  And then she hurried off to rejoin Guillaume.

  Part Three

  ANGATRA

  Thirty-Nine

  Kaahin found the second policeman unconscious on the floor of the procurement office. Blood darker than motor oil pooled around his head.

  “Had to crack him a few times,” the American said, hunched over the receiver. “Could’ve just taken a dive, but that Frenchman had some real gilets jaunes fight in him.”

  The waterfront was visible through the windows. A few small boats had delivered gasoline to the Star Time, which sat just a few kilometers at sea. Reunion was close, but entirely out of reach.

  “Maybe they will spend a day or two in port,” Kaahin said. A display of optimism even he did not believe.

  “As soon as word gets out the island’s got unwelcome visitors, they’ll skip the magistrate and throw us in the ocean.”

  The scalded officer in the station had probably fallen unconscious by now, but someone must’ve heard his screams.

  “Still got the jewel, pal?” the American asked.

  Kaahin opened the palm of his hand.

  “That’s our leverage,” the American told him. He lifted his chin and gestured toward the ship. “They need that and they know it. Gonna have to find us.”

  The commotion out there was suddenly familiar, panic rising in the throats of every islander nearby. The two men swapped looks, realizing what that meant.

  Frenzied screams. Frantic splashing. Kaahin succumbed to curiosity while the American refused to look.

  Less than a mile out to sea, right before the ocean floor crept up and became shallows, Kaahin’s worst fears were confirmed. Death’s Head was there, chomping boats into oblivion like what it really wanted was to eat its way ashore.

  Islanders swam for safety but the creature swept through the water and made pieces of them all.

  “The airstrip,” the American said. “Use that fucking thing to our advantage while we can.”

  They went. Bounding down wobbly stairs away from the water, sprinting like the thieves they were.

  “The hell is that thing?” the American said once they were out of sight.

  This was not a conversation that Kaahin wished to have with a westerner. But something else bothered him more.

  Here was the first time the American sounded terrified for his safety.

  ***

  The airfield was a brisk jog away.

  They passed several locals hurrying toward the shore as word of casualties spread.

  “It ails them just as it does Madagascar,” Kaahin said. “Only its presence is much harder to ignore on an island of three hundred.”

  The American didn’t respond. He stared at the single plane sitting outside the runway hangar, fear draining from his eyes, swapped out for a hopeful shimmer.

  “Can you fly that?” Kaahin asked.

  “Does a yeast infection smell?”

  “I am thankful I cannot say.”

  “That’s a Dornier Do 228. Twin-turboprop STOL. Once you learn, it’s like riding a bike. Can I fly it? The hell do you think?”

  The American gave him a forceful shove and trotted off. The terminal building was the size of a small roadside garage and couldn’t house a large pick-up truck, let alone a plane.

  Every light inside was off. The plane departed in the afternoon and certainly not every day if the handwritten schedule was any indication. The comms room was to the back and the plane key dan
gled off a single nail on the wall there.

  “Let’s flap her wings, hoss.” The American took off for the runway.

  A few curious people had taken up position on the side of the airfield, staring gape-mouthed at the unusual break in ritual.

  The twin engines were spinning up before Kaahin hopped aboard through opened cargo doors. He closed them as the American buckled into his seat.

  “Might want to come up here,” he said. “Plane ain’t pressurized or air conditioned. Cold’s gonna bite your ass deeper than a polar bear no matter what, but it’ll be much worse back there.”

  Kaahin buckled in, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the American who started to accelerate down the small runway.

  “Hope they refueled or this will be a short trip,” Kaahin said.

  “We’re right as rain,” the American told him, easing up on the yoke.

  The small plane achieved lift and zoomed off over palm trees where it glided as a distorted shadow over treetops. That same shadow chased them over emerald seas, shrinking as the American took them higher.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” the American screamed, punching the ceiling like he was trying to tear through it. “We live to fight another day. Again. Goddamn it, I thought we were dead to rites down there.”

  Kaahin tried to suppress his grin. Failed. In another life, under different circumstances, he could’ve liked this man.

  “What’ve you got for me, hoss? This ain’t exactly my neighborhood.”

  “There is one airstrip on Madagascar that might take us,” he said. Without greasing the appropriate gears, however, there was no guarantee the government wouldn’t have real problems with a rogue plane touching down out of thin air.

  “I’d like to know for sure,” the American said.

  “We’ve got time,” Kaahin told him. “A three-hour flight, I believe.” He dropped a headset over his ears. “Let me try and raise my people.”

  “Do what you gotta,” the American said. “Unless you think we can land there?” He pointed to the luxury yacht pulling away from the island, already in open water.