The Breach

by Edward J. McFadden III

  “We’re taking on water, sir,” Jansen reported.

  “Oh, shit,” Tanner said. “All pumps at full.”

  “They’re already at maximum capacity. Go check how bad it is.”

  Tanner almost told her he gave the orders, and then realized how stupid that would be, so he said nothing. He was barely her superior officer at the moment, anyway. He ran out onto deck and jumped down the ladder leading to the main deck. He stopped at a sealed bulkhead hatch, spun the dog handle, and pushed it open. The passageway beyond serviced all sections of the ship, and it was dry. He walked down the passageway ten paces and climbed down a ladder through an open deck hatch.

  He landed in water.

  “And I repeat, oh shit.”

  Bay water shot through a hole the size of a baseball in Big Boy’s hull. To Tanner, it looked like a tooth hole. If he could get that flow stopped, it would buy them some time. The scent of oil and seawater filled the compartment, and steam floated above submerged hot pipes. The engine rose from the deck at the rear of the section and soon it would be underwater and unable to function.

  Tanner sighed, pulled free his flask and took a long pull, and then slipped it away. The vodka sharpened his senses and woke him up.

  A metal folding chair sat before a row of engine gauges. It was steel, with a flat metal seat. Tanner folded the chair and sloshed through the water to a bulkhead where a fire extinguisher, a portable defibrillator, and a bottle of spray sealant were mounted to the bulkhead. The sealant was made of cutting-edge expanding polymer technology and was designed to make emergency repairs on all types of metal: boats, dames, and pools; plus, it hardened while immersed in water.

  Tanner sprayed the sealant on the underside of the folding chair and pressed it against the inflowing water. He threw all his weight against the chair, driving it as hard as he could into the bulkhead. The water lessened considerably, but didn’t stop.

  Big Boy shuddered and listed hard to port, and for a heartbeat, Tanner thought they might be going three-sixty. He slammed against the bulkhead and fell beneath the water. He emerged moments later, coughing and spitting. The chair patch held, and he tried to get up as the boat rocked back and forth, slowly settling.

  Jansen’s voice burst from the comm speaker mounted on the bulkhead. “It’s attacking us. Need you up here. Randy and Jefferson are in trouble.”

  Tanner examined his patch, and saw a trickle of water running down the bulkhead beneath it, but he’d stopped most of the flow.

  The water was still rising fast.

  Tanner searched the compartment for more leaks, but saw nothing and realized there must be additional damage below the flood line. He dove beneath the water as it sloshed around like a pool that’s been disturbed by playing children. His eyes stung as he opened them beneath the water; the salt and accumulated grease and dirt and dust all clouded the water and hurt his eyes. Despite this, he detected the problem easily.

  When the sea scorpion bit them, it left a series of small puncture holes beneath the larger one where the beast’s smaller teeth couldn’t fully pierce the thick aluminum, leaving only small holes instead.

  He surfaced and grabbed the can of sealant, which was almost empty. He dove again and felt along the bulkhead for inflows of water, and as he did so, he sprayed the sealant wherever he felt a hole. After two minutes, the tank of sealant ran out, and he surfaced, tossed the can, and headed for the door. As he left, he saw the flooding had slowed significantly, but not enough for the pumps to keep up.

  Slowly, inexorably, Big Boy was going down.

  ***

  “How bad is it?” Jansen asked as Tanner entered the bridge.

  “Not good. I’d estimate we’ve got about ten minutes before Big Boy is sitting on the bottom and we’ll have no maneuverability.” The sonar said they were in twelve feet of water, and Big Boy’s lower levels would be flooded, but the bridge would stay above water.

  “Great.”

  To starboard, the creature thrashed about, its claws snapping, mouth open, its spike stabbing at the water, causing spires of water to shoot into the air.

  “Before we’re dead in the water, ram it again.” Tanner’s voice was harsh. He was lost in the frenzy of battle and thought of nothing else but killing the creature. If he went down with it, so be it.

  Jansen increased speed and headed straight for the beast. Randy, realizing Tanner’s last gambit, backed away from the animal as the remaining coastie boat fired at the scorpion.

  The creature turned north and fled.

  Tanner opened the comm channel. “Follow me, we’ll drive it to the marina’s edge and finish this.”

  “That’s 10-4, Big Boy.”

  The sea scorpion was fifty yards ahead, but they were closing. Randy and Jefferson were on the starboard side, the remaining Coast Guard boat to port.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Jansen said.

  She had a point. Sal had been cut in half, another coastie was dead, Big Boy was sinking, one of the coastie boats had been crushed, and the monster still powered on as if made of metal or some unknown indestructible material. They’d damaged the creature, that was proven by the blue blood covering the surface of the water and Big Boy’s deck, and yet it appeared unaffected.

  “You see that, Tanner?” Randy’s voice came through the comm speaker. “The claw?”

  Tanner strained to see the creature in the darkness, the floodlights only penetrating a hundred feet into the blackness, which was now complete. A giant claw floated in the water before them, and Big Boy almost ran it over, but Jansen made a last-second adjustment and avoided it.

  “What the hell happened?” she said.

  “Must have broken off when it attacked us and or maybe it fell off when the beast ran.”

  “Gonna need an Olympic-size pool of butter for that thing,” Jansen said.

  Tanner’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since the moldy bread in the abandoned house, and even though that was only a few hours ago, his stomach ached with hunger, and his throat was dry as ash.

  “Is it slowing?” Jansen asked.

  They were almost at the northern edge of the marina and once they reached the submerged bulkhead, the creature would have nowhere to go.

  One of the many things Tanner had learned about prehistoric sea scorpions was that they were one of the first species of marine life to leave the sea. The scorpion’s distant relatives had crawled from the primordial ooze millions of years ago, only to be driven back into the ocean by larger predators. So Tanner wasn’t that surprised at what happened next.

  The leviathan rose from the water: first its spiked tail, then its black carapace.

  “All hands prepare for impact!” Tanner saw nothing but the red-hot anger of war.

  “Are you seeing this?” Randy’s voice came through the comm.

  In the harsh light of Big Boy’s exterior floodlights, Tanner watched as the beast climbed from the canal and lumbered through the floodwater, which once out of the marina was only two feet deep.

  “Full stop!” Tanner said.

  Jansen, mesmerized by seeing the creature’s full size for the first time, hesitated for an instant, then jammed the throttle into neutral, then reverse, but it wasn’t enough to stop Big Boy from slamming into the submerged bulkhead. The jolt threw Tanner to the deck, and Jansen barely stayed on her feet as she clung to the ship’s wheel. The boat creaked and groaned as it settled, and a few seconds later, seawater leaked beneath the wheelhouse door.

  “End of the line,” Tanner said. Then he yelled into the comm, “Randy! I need you.”

  “We know.” It was Jefferson. “Port side.”

  Tanner looked out the port side window and saw Randy pulling his twenty-two alongside Big Boy. The water was up to Tanner’s ankles, yet Jansen griped the wheel, the creature only twenty yards in front of them. Tanner put a hand on Jansen’s arm. “That’s enough. Let’s go.”

  She looked at him with dazed eyes and nodded.

 
They made their way out onto the deck and down the ladder to main deck where Randy waited. Big Boy hit bottom, and a shudder ran through the old boat. A twinge of sorrow passed through Tanner. He and Big Boy had been through a lot together; now, the vessel was scrap. Another score he needed to settle with the sea scorpion.

  Randy eased his SAFE boat to the dive platform, and Tanner stepped aboard. Jansen waited for the next PD boat, which would take her to safety.

  “How ya doin’?” Jefferson said as Tanner hopped aboard.

  He leaned against the transom, his legs rubber and his stomach howling with pain. “Alive,” he said.

  Jefferson threw her arms around him and said, “You’re one crazy son-of-a-bitch.”

  Ahead in the darkness, the creature splashed through the shallow water and disappeared between two houses. Without orders, Randy nudged the SAFE boat’s throttle down, and continued the pursuit.

  24

  The hamlet of Fireplace Neck had been around since the whaling days and had changed little in the last hundred years. Mainly composed of residential neighborhoods, the town itself was nothing more than Main Street stacked with old buildings and two cross streets. There was one traffic light, and Beaver Dam Road ran north to Montauk Highway two miles to the east.

  Tanner and crew had run out of water and abandoned their boat. They followed the sea scorpion’s tracks on foot, trudging through the mud and darkness. Randy, Jefferson, and a coastie named Ravac followed him, weapons drawn. Tanner didn’t want to think about what would happen if the beast attacked them. Without the Browning and Big Boy, they didn’t stand a chance, and neither did Fireplace Neck.

  “Randy, does your radio work?” Tanner asked.

  “I think so.” Randy unclipped the handset from his belt and gave it to Tanner.

  He accepted it, twisted the ON knob to full, and pressed the comm button. “Calling the Suffolk County PD. Anyone out there?” Nothing but static for a few seconds, and he tried again. Nothing.

  He was ready to give up when a raspy voice echoed through the static. “Please refrain from using this emergency channel. It is reserved for—”

  “This is Lt. Tanner of the Suffolk County PD marine division. I need to speak with command immediately.” A pause. “We don’t have time for bullshit. Fireplace Neck is in grave danger.”

  “Repeat, please. Over.”

  “Send everything you’ve got to Fireplace Neck. Now. Copy?”

  “Copy. What is the source of the emergency?”

  “Do you want me to teach, or are you going to act? Delay and the blood will be on your hands. I repeat, send all available units to Fireplace Neck. ASAP.” Tanner turned off the radio and tossed it to Randy. “Not much more we can do.”

  “You could have told them what was happening,” Jefferson said. She frowned as she considered her words. “I see your point. Even if they believed you, how long would it take to convince them?”

  “Should you call in your people, Jefferson?” Randy said.

  “They’re already standing down to the Navy, and they’ll be on the creature soon enough. Do you think I’d get through to them?”

  Randy shrugged.

  The creature lurched through the tree break a half mile in front of them, branches snapping as it went. It left a clear path of destruction and blue blood in its wake. No crickets chirped, no frogs bleated, nothing moved as the apex predator cut through the center of Fireplace Neck, heading straight for town.

  “What are we doing?” Jefferson said.

  “Good question,” Randy said. “What do you mean to do? What if it backtracks, or senses us? We’ve barely got any weapons.”

  Tanner said nothing.

  “No idea, huh?” Jefferson said.

  Tanner stopped and turned on his companions. “Look, I don’t have the answers, OK? Never said I did. What would you suggest? We do nothing? Let the thing escape and hide somewhere? We’re here and I don’t see anyone else.”

  To that, no one had any response, and they continued forward. The floodwaters hadn’t reached this far inland and civilization appeared all around them. House windows glowed with candlelight, generators rumbled in the night, and headlight beams cut the darkness ahead. The creature traveled along the road, not slowing or pausing, as if it had a destination in mind and it wasn’t stopping until it got there. Tanner heard its legs and pincers digging into the blacktop. It sounded like the scuttling of a million cockroaches.

  Headlight beams lit the darkness, and a loud roar and the sound of crunching metal brought Tanner to a stop. A scream pierced the night, and Tanner broke into a run.

  The scorpion attacked a car, crushing it with its only claw and stabbing it with its spike. A woman ran toward Tanner, panic spilling across her face, a smear of blood on her cheek. “Help. Please help. It has my husband.”

  Jefferson took the woman by the arm and led her to a patch of grass and made her sit down. As she consoled the woman, Randy grabbed Tanner. “This is getting real, brother. I think it’s time to pull back.”

  “Stay here with them. I’m going on,” Tanner said.

  Randy sighed. “Give me a minute.” He went to Jefferson and when he returned, she was with him, along with Ravac. “We’re coming with you.”

  “No way you’re getting all the glory after all this,” Jefferson said.

  In the distance, the sound of breaking stone and twisting metal marked the beast’s location.

  “It’s reached the neck,” Tanner said.

  Normally, the town would be visible from a mile away in the blackness, but with the power out, the only light was the traffic light, and a few emergency lights spinning blue and red.

  “They listened,” Randy said. “For once, they listened.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” Tanner told him. “It could be a deputy sheriff and a fire truck.” It was 9:47PM and he’d been going full speed ahead for over seventeen hours. His back ached, and his feet were so waterlogged and wrinkled that each step was painful.

  The party, led by Tanner, came up a side street, and what they saw when they arrived on Main Street reminded Tanner of a Godzilla movie.

  Two police cars blocked the creature’s way as it crashed through town. Fire trucks backed up the PD cars, but the monster didn’t pay them much attention. Its spike stabbed at the cops as they fired at the sea scorpion to little effect. Its remaining claw crunched a nearby building, and the old stone tumbled onto the police cruisers, extinguishing their lights. The creature’s hum echoed off the buildings and its underside pincers clawed at the road, tearing up sections of blacktop and concrete as it pulled itself forward.

  The scorpion climbed the pile of rubble, and to Tanner it looked as though the tooth-filled mouth opened in a grin. Smoke and fire consumed both police cruisers, and the monster bellowed and scuttled off the pile onto the road.

  Tanner froze, unsure what to do. Randy waited on his right, Jefferson his left. The creature turned and plowed into a tall wooden structure that housed a restaurant and card store, and the building came down with a horrible crash that sent a smoke cloud billowing across town, obscuring the sea scorpion from view. Every few moments, the beast’s spike tail would drive away the smoke as it searched for prey.

  The gunshots stopped, and someone wailed in pain. The scorpion rumbled across the remains of the building it had brought down and a minor explosion lit the night. “Take that you son of a bitch,” Tanner heard someone yell. Then the ground shook as a second explosion sent a fireball into the air and filled the area with more black smoke that smelled like gasoline.

  “Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail at the thing,” Randy said.

  “Yup,” Tanner said.

  From their hiding position behind a van, Tanner watched as the town of Fireplace Neck burned. The irony wasn’t lost on him, and as the beast disappeared around a building, the sound of helicopters approaching filled the night.

  “Let’s hang back now and let the big dogs handle this,” Jefferson said, but Tanner wasn�
��t listening.

  He walked forward in a daze, his eyes transfixed on the destruction the sea scorpion had caused.

  “Wake up, buddy.” It was Randy.

  Half of Main Street was on fire, and the creature’s humming faded as it moved east behind the buildings lining the main avenue. Two copters dropped in; one was the Coast Guard, and the other was gray and bore the logo of the US Navy. The Navy copter was equipped with two stinger missiles mounted beneath the fuselage.

  Tanner ran up an alley to a back street so he could see what was happening. He arrived at the rear of Ted’s General Store just in time to see the stinger shoot from its tube and streak toward the beast, which had taken up position inside the shell of a brick building.

  The missile hit what remained of the building, bringing the rest of the structure down onto the scorpion. There was a deep wail, then the creature vaulted upward, and bricks shot outward like bullets. Mortar dust filled the air, and bricks fell all around Tanner. There was a squeal of metal, and the Coast Guard copter’s rotor threw sparks as bricks and debris pelted it. The sound of tearing metal dominated the chaos, and then the helicopter was falling from the sky like a bird with a broken wing. It landed atop the bank and exploded, spraying metal shrapnel and fire over Main Street.

  Tanner dove for cover. As he lay prone on the road, he watched the Navy bird disengage, and the sea scorpion’s hum lessened as it moved east.

  To the east was Carmans River, a large waterway that ran from Bellport Bay all the way north to Middle Country Road. It ran through woodlands, under roads, and behind neighborhoods. If the sea scorpion found its way into Carmans, they would have a hard time finding it. The river gets shallow as it goes north, and most of the boats and their related weaponry would be useless.

  The creature moved away and Tanner followed it. He looked back; his three companions were behind him, and they didn’t look happy. When they reached the end of town, the creature turned right and rambled through low brush into the forest.