by Tim Waggoner
The ride through Sailor’s Walk was not a smooth one. Grady bounced and juddered across the cobblestones, and the constant impacts made Tasha’s body ache, and she soon began to develop a fierce headache. This latter effect could be due, at least in part, to her recent psychic exertions. She’d never exercised her abilities as much as she had this night and never to such a degree. So she was unable to do more than go along for the ride and endure the bumping and jostling as best she could.
Eventually they left Sailor’s Walk and its cobblestone streets, and the ride smoothed out some after that. They passed a number of landsharks. Most of them were either carrying severed body parts to the Mass or, having already delivered their loads, had returned to the land in search of more. She saw few people and fewer vehicles, but she heard shouts and screams, footfalls as people ran, tires screeching. It seemed plenty of prey remained in the area for the Hunters to chase. She prayed the people would escape, knowing that too many of them wouldn’t.
Before too much longer, Grady’s body slid off the pavement and onto the sand. Tasha smelled saltwater and heard the shhushh of surf, and she knew they were nearing the ocean. Grady’s grip continued being as strong as ever, but the man – or Inez – hadn’t said a word since they’d left the alley, and she wondered if he could speak now. Being dragged across the ground so far and so fast had to have torn the shit out of Grady’s back, legs, and ass. How badly was he hurt? Could the Mass continue exerting control over his body if he was unconscious, or even dead? Maybe.
She tried to steal herself against the shock of entering the water, but it still took her by surprise. She swallowed saltwater, and it took all her control not to breathe it. But then Grady rose to the surface, and she was able to breathe safely. God, the water was cold! She began shivering, teeth clacking together, and she wondered if this was due to the emotional shock of the evening’s events finally hitting her. But what did it matter? Either way, she was fucking freezing. The water gleamed with reflecting moonlight, and she saw dark fins gliding through the glow. They appeared to be keeping pace with Grady and her, although none came closer than ten feet. This suited her just fine.
She continued looking up at the night sky as they traveled farther out to sea. But they hadn’t gone far before she felt a malevolent presence drawing closer. Or rather, she was drawing closer to it. She craned her head to look behind her so she could see what they were approaching. At first it looked like an island, but as she got closer the stench hit her – saltwater mixed with congealed blood and rotting meat. She knew then that what she saw wasn’t an island but rather a living thing.
The Mass.
In the moonlight, it looked like a great mound of black rock, but when Grady was dragged up onto its surface, Tasha could feel the Mass give beneath their combined weight, as if it was semi-solid. The Mass stopped pulling Grady, and he came to a stop. For a moment he continued holding onto Tasha tightly, but then his grip relaxed, and his arms fell away from her. She immediately rolled off him, her body coming into contact with the Mass’ surface for the first time. It was spongy and moist, and touching it made her feel queasy. The Mass bobbed gently in the water, but even this minimal movement made her nausea worse until she feared she was going to vomit. There was a breeze blowing, and the touch of it on her wet skin made her shiver.
Grady sat upright with a motion so sudden it made Tasha cry out in surprise. His face was expressionless, and when he looked at her, he did so without the slightest sign of recognition. He stood then and started walking back toward the water, moving stiffly. When he passed Tasha, she saw that his entire back – from the top of his head all the way down to his heels – was a ragged bloody ruin beneath the tatters of his uniform. He continued to the edge of the Mass, and when he reached the water, he threw himself in without hesitation. The water around him immediately began to churn and froth with violent activity, and Tasha could see the sleek dark shapes of sharks attacking Grady, biting into his flesh and tearing away great mouthfuls of meat.
Grady didn’t make a single sound as he died.
Booze, bar food, and swallowed seawater spilled up out of Tasha’s gut then, hot and acidic, and she leaned forward and emptied her stomach onto the Mass’ corrugated surface.
It’s like a scab, she thought. Only one the size of a football field.
She heard Inez’s voice in her mind then.
Sorry you had to see that, but I’m a big believer in recycling. And since Grady wouldn’t have survived his injuries much longer anyway, it was time he served me another way.
Tasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then pushed herself into a sitting position. She felt weak and more than a little woozy, but at least she didn’t feel like she had to throw up anymore.
“You mean as food,” she said.
Yes.
An image flashed through her mind then, the sharks carrying pieces of Grady to the underside of the Mass where orifices opened to suck the sustenance in. It was a sickening sight, and she was doubly thankful that she’d already thrown up everything that had been in her stomach. As it was, she still had a couple of dry heaves.
You’re a remarkable girl, Inez said. More than you probably imagine. You might very well possess the most highly developed mind on the planet. She paused, then added, On land, anyway.
“You’re not Inez,” she said. “Inez is dead. You’ve just put her on like a mask. But the real you is still underneath.”
Perhaps. But if I’ve absorbed the chemicals and electrical impulses that made up the consciousness called Inez, then she’s not truly dead, is she?
Tasha didn’t have time for existential arguments with a prehistoric sea monster.
“Call your Hunters back, all of them,” she said. “You don’t need to hurt anyone else. You’ve got me and you’ve fed well tonight. Why not just head on out to sea once more and forget humans ever existed?”
You’re trying to protect your friends. At least the ones that are still alive. How touching. I didn’t bring you here to critique how I’m managing this production. I brought you here because I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with you – about your future.
Tasha felt the part of the Mass she was sitting on soften beneath her, become almost liquidy, and then an orifice yawned open and before she could do anything to prevent it, she fell inside. A moment later, the orifice closed, and the Mass continued bobbing gently in the water, as placid and serene as it had been since before the first dinosaur had trod the Earth.
Everything was going – Inez almost couldn’t bring herself to think the pun – swimmingly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“We need to find a car,” Tamara said.
The three of them made their way down the sidewalk, moving as fast as they could given Pete’s injury, which wasn’t very. Tamara – holding the machete – was on Pete’s left, Shari on his right, and all three kept watch for landsharks. The street was clear, for the moment, but Tamara wasn’t foolish enough to believe it would stay that way. They needed a vehicle not only to get Pete to a hospital, but also to get them far enough away from the ocean that the sharks would no longer be a threat. There were numerous signs that they hadn’t been the only ones who’d had to deal with the sharks tonight. There were smears of blood on the sidewalks and streets, along with the occasional severed hand or shoe with a foot still in it. Storefront windows had been shattered, cars had hit lampposts, buildings, and other cars, and several vehicles had simply been abandoned, their drivers nowhere to be seen. Maybe some of them had managed to escape with their lives, but if so, Tamara didn’t think the number of survivors was very high.
Pete surprised Tamara then by laughing.
“Can you believe this shit?” he said. “I knew Inez could be something of a monster, but this is extreme even for her.”
Tamara couldn’t help laughing at that herself, and Shari joined in.
When they finished laughing, Shari said, “When we get back to LA, maybe we could, you know . . .”
“Stay together,” Shari finished. “The three of us.”
That took Tamara by surprise. It hadn’t been that long ago that Shari and Pete had been pissed to learn that she’d been fucking them both. Now Shari wanted her to shack up with them?
“I’d like that,” Pete said. “And not just because of the sex. Although don’t get me wrong, that part would be great. We just seem to kind of, well, fit.”
Tamara knew what Pete meant. Somewhere along the line tonight they’d gone from being an extremely uncomfortable love triangle to a cooperative – and complementary – trio. She had plans for her career, though. Big ones. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to be tied down to any one person, or in this case, two persons. Still, it could be fun . . .
“Let’s worry about that later,” Tamara said. “After we get Pete fixed up.” She looked at Shari. “Can you hold him up by yourself for a minute? I want to see if any of those abandoned cars have keys in them.” And if they’re still driveable, she thought.
“Hey, I don’t need help to stand,” Pete protested. But his voice indicated otherwise. It was weak and breathy. He’d lost a significant amount of blood when the shark bit him, and while he was healthy as a fucking horse – as Tamara knew from their time in bed – even a strong, fit body could only take so much punishment.
“I got him,” Shari said.
Tamara insisted Shari take the machete, and then she smiled at them both and headed into the street. She hoped Jarrod and Susan would succeed in rescuing Tasha, but she knew odds were that they’d be shark food before they reached the ocean. Still, she admired their bravery. It seemed Jarrod had more than a little real-life hero in him. It was a damn shame about his cancer, but at least if a shark did get him, he’d die knowing he wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it was something.
The first car Tamara tried – a Ford Taurus – had an automatic ignition, but without a key, there was no way to start it. The windshield had been broken out, by sharks no doubt, and it would be no protection if any of the fuckers came at them. But the second vehicle – a Jeep Renegade – had smashed into the side of a seafood restaurant called Cappy’s on the other side of the street from where Shari and Pete stood. The vehicle didn’t appear to have sustained enough damage in the collision to render it inoperable. Its driver’s side door hung open and when Tamara jogged over to the vehicle, she saw a pair of jean-clad legs attached to a trunk sitting behind the wheel. There was no sign of the top half of the body, and Tamara wasn’t certain if it had been male or female. She supposed it didn’t matter. Everyone was equal in death’s eyes. There was a shitload of blood, of course, soaking the seat and floor, and splattered on the inside of the windshield. Bitten-off ends of intestine protruded from the trunk, and the sight of the viscera made her feel queasy. But when she glanced at the ignition, she was happy to see keys dangling from it. What had turned out to be a really shitty night so far had just taken a 180 degree turn for the better.
She turned back toward Shari and Pete and waved to catch their attention, and when they looked at her she gave them a thumbs up. They started toward her, Pete leaning on Shari and hopping on one foot, and Tamara turned back to the vehicle. The driver’s seatbelt was buckled, but since the body’s top half was gone, there was nothing for the belt to hold onto. The legs were skinny, and she didn’t think she’d have much trouble pulling them out. She didn’t want to touch the grisly jeans, but if she wanted to drive the Jeep, she would have to get her hands dirty. She grabbed hold of a couple of the dead person’s belt loops and pulled. The half body came out of the seat easily enough, tipped toward Tamara, and spilled what remained of its guts onto her feet as it fell. She let out a cry of disgust and skipped backward. The trunk and legs hit the asphalt and lay there, coils of intestine slowly oozing outward, as if she was watching a slow-motion anatomy film. Feeling queasier than ever, she examined the driver’s seat. It was covered with blood, so whoever drove it would have to sit in that shit as they made their escape.
Fine with me, she thought. It was a lot better than having to sit in your own blood.
Tamara had been in a half dozen cheap horror movies, all of them literally dripping with gore. She’d seen human heads and limbs get chopped off, watched someone being stabbed multiple times, saw innocent people torn apart. All of it fake, of course, but she’d thought these experiences might’ve hardened her to the effects of real violence. But as it turned out, her past self hadn’t known shit. Looking back now, all those special effects looked like the efforts of kids making their own amateur horror videos. She thought those effects were made to look fake on purpose, to insulate audiences, protect them from thinking they were seeing the real thing. If she managed to survive this night, she vowed never to make another goddamned horror film again.
She turned around to face Shari and Pete. They were halfway across the street when three landsharks came trundling around the corner. Tamara didn’t know if her cry of surprise had alerted them, if they’d smelled the guts spilling out of the half-a-body she’d just dumped onto the street, or if they somehow sensed Pete’s vulnerability and were attracted to it. Really, what the fuck did it matter why the goddamned things were coming? All that mattered was they were.
“Get in the car!” she shouted. “Hurry!”
She slid into the Jeep’s driver’s seat – slid being the operative word with all the blood – shut the door, and turned the key in the ignition.
Work, you bastard! she thought.
The engine roared to life and Tamara threw the vehicle into reverse. The Jeep’s front end was damaged and the steering wheel didn’t want to turn all the way, but she managed to back the vehicle into the street and swing it around until it pointed at Pete and Shari. The sharks were still coming toward them, but Pete and Shari had stopped in the middle of the street, and it looked like they were . . . arguing with each other? Pete was trying to push Shari away from him – nearly losing his balance – but Shari stubbornly remained where she was.
He wants her to leave him, doesn’t want to slow her down and get her killed. But she won’t go, no matter how much he wants her to. She won’t abandon him.
At that moment she felt something very much like love for the two of them.
But their arguing had cost them precious moments, and the sharks were almost upon them. There was nothing Tamara could do to save them. She had no weapons. Shari and Pete had the machete, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop three sharks attacking simultaneously. And Shari and Pete stood between her and the sharks, so she couldn’t attempt to run the monsters over with the Jeep. Pete and Shari – her beautiful lovers – were going to die. Nothing she could do would prevent that.
She took her foot off the brake and jammed it down on the accelerator. The Jeep surged forward and Tamara aimed the vehicle at Pete and Shari. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes, but she thought she saw Pete and Shari look at her just as the sharks fell upon them. She closed her eyes just before the impact.
The Jeep kept going until it slammed into the front of a tattoo parlor across the street called Inkstained. The engine died, and Tamara sat there, gripping the steering wheel so tight her hands throbbed, tears streaming down her face. Were Pete and Shari dead? God, she hoped so. But what if she hadn’t hit them hard enough to kill them – or the sharks? What if they were still alive but horribly injured? They could be suffering terribly, and it would be all her fault.
She pulled her hands from the wheel, opened the door and got out of the Jeep. She turned and started walking into the street, then stopped and stared. Shari and Pete’s bodies lay in a twisted, bloody heap along with those of three equally bloody and dead sharks. And rooting around in the carnage, happy as a pig in slop, was a fourth shark, this one very much alive. It was taking huge mouthfuls of both human and shark meat and gulping them down with enthusiasm. She didn’t know where it had come from. Maybe she’d missed it when she saw the other three
approaching. Maybe it had come upon the scene from a different direction, drawn by the noise and blood. She wished she had the machete, but Shari had been holding it when the Jeep hit her. No way Tamara could get it now.
She didn’t want to abandon her lovers, but there was nothing she could do for them now. She could mourn them later. Right now she needed to get the fuck out of there. Keeping her eyes on the fourth shark the entire time, she began slowly moving down the street, in a direction she hoped would lead her further inland. She got less than ten feet before the fourth shark turned its head toward her. It didn’t hesitate. The instant it saw her, it started toward her, scuttling across asphalt on its insect-like legs, moving almost as fast as it could in water, umbilicus trailing behind it.
Tamara turned to run –
– and her left ankle twisted. A sharp bolt of pain, and the leg gave out on her. She went down hard, her left hip and elbow hitting asphalt. The pain in her elbow was especially bad, and she wondered if she’d broken the damn thing. She didn’t have time to worry about that, though. She pushed herself up onto her ass and turned around to see the shark coming at her, jaws opening and closing in an almost mechanical fashion, as if the thing wasn’t real, was nothing more than something Enrique had put together in his shop. Except this special effect was about to kill her.
She didn’t bother trying to crab walk backward to try and escape. There was no point. She knew she wouldn’t make it. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and waited for death to claim her.
And waited.
She could hear the shark’s mouth working, could even hear the whiskery sound of the cilia on its underside trying to propel it forward. She could even smell the goddamned thing. But she did not feel its teeth sinking into her flesh.
She risked opening her eyes.
The shark was less than three feet away from her, but although it strained forward, teeth gnashing as it tried to get its mouth on her, it moved no closer. At first she was at a loss as to why this was happening, and then she saw the umbilicus protruding from behind the shark’s second dorsal fin had been pulled taut. She burst out laughing.
