by Tim Waggoner
The only sound that came in response was the water lapping at the Mass’ edge.
Jarrod looked up. No seagulls. He thought the birds would’ve been attracted to the Mass’ organic matter, but then he realized that any gulls – or any other creature – foolish enough to come near the Mass would be absorbed. And Susan and he were standing on its surface.
“This is a bad idea,” Jarrod said. “We need to get back in –”
The Mass released its grip on the bay boat, and the craft began to drift away. Jarrod thought they could swim for it, but then crimson-threaded fins broke the surface and began patrolling the water between the Mass and the boat – which still held the fuel container they’d planned to use as a weapon.
“Too late,” Susan said. “What’s wrong? Getting cold feet? Not that I’d blame you. This is scary as fuck.”
“I just realized we’re standing on top of a creature that’s like a gigantic amoeba. It can absorb whatever it wants.”
Susan looked down at the surface of the Mass, her eyes widening in terror. “Shit! Why did you tell me that? There’s a reason they say ignorance is bliss.”
Jarrod couldn’t argue with that.
“Let’s start looking for Tasha,” he said. “That’s why Inez brought us here – to attempt her rescue – and I don’t think Inez will kill us before we reach the climax of the story she’s telling herself.” Not a comforting thought, perhaps, but it was all he had to offer. Susan evidently didn’t have anything better to say, for she remained silent.
They began slowly making their way across the Mass, walking side by side. The surface was rough and difficult to navigate. There were numerous cracks and crevices in the creature’s outer hide – could you call it skin? – and it would be only too easy to take a wrong step, get your foot caught in a crack, and break your ankle. Jarrod didn’t know how long they walked or how much distance they traveled. Without any sort of landmarks, it was difficult to tell, but eventually Susan pointed and said, “Look!”
Jarrod tried to see what she was pointing at, but even with the moon’s light to aid his eyes, at first he didn’t see it. After several seconds of staring in the direction Susan indicated, a lump on the Mass’ hide, which he’d taken as another bit of the rough terrain that formed the creature’s surface, resolved itself into the shape of a person lying down. A person who wasn’t moving.
“Tasha!” Jarrod shouted. He headed toward her, moving as fast as he could without heed to where his feet came down. In the short time he’d known Tasha, she’d become a friend. An intimate one, as they’d literally shared thoughts. Risking a broken ankle was the least he could do for her. Susan followed as best she could, but Jarrod reached Tasha first and knelt beside her. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms, but he feared she might be injured, and he didn’t want to cause her any further damage.
“Tasha? It’s Jarrod. Can you hear me?” He repeated this last sentence in his mind. Can you hear me?
No response.
She was lying on her side, her back to them, and Jarrod reached out, took hold of her shoulder, and gave her a gentle shake. She rolled over – no, she flopped – onto her back, and when she did, Jarrod saw that her forehead was missing, as if the skin and bone had been eaten away by acid, and her skull was hollow. He cried out in horror and fell back on his ass. Tasha’s dead eyes stared at him, almost glowing in the moonlight. Susan made thick gulping sounds as she fought to keep from throwing up.
“The Mass took Inez’s mind,” Jarrod said. “And it took Tasha’s, too.”
They were too late, but then, they were always meant to be too late, weren’t they? In her twisted mind, Inez was making a horror movie. Jarrod and Susan never had a chance of rescuing Tasha. It wasn’t in the script.
The area of the Mass beneath Tasha’s body subsided, forming a depression which widened and opened into a hole. Tasha’s body began to fall into it, and Jarrod reached for her out of some half-assed notion that he might at least be able to take her body back to land for a decent burial. But the hole sealed over and Jarrod’s hand only struck the Mass’ damp, spongy surface. Now that the goddamned creature had had its fun with Tasha’s body, it was going to absorb her. In the wild, no animal ever wasted food.
Jarrod rose to his feet on legs that trembled from a combination of exhaustion and fury. He snatched the shotgun out of Susan’s hand, turned away from her, worked the pump, shouldered the weapon, aimed it at the Mass’ corrugated hide, and fired. Chunks of the Mass’ gelatinous meat flew through the air, and Jarrod continued working the pump and firing, yelling wordlessly as he did so. He continued until all the rounds were spent, and he would’ve continued working the pump and pulling the trigger even then if Susan hadn’t taken the gun from him.
His clothes, face, and hands were splattered with the Mass’ liquidy substance, and he stared at the holes he’d made in the creature’s surface.
“Fuck you,” he said.
As he watched, the holes filled in until the damage Jarrod had caused was repaired. Jarrod didn’t need to be telepathic to understand the Mass’ message.
Fuck you, too.
Susan removed more shells from her pants pocket and began reloading the gun.
“I only have three rounds left.” She said this in a non-accusatory tone, but Jarrod still felt like a fool. He’d wasted ammunition and hadn’t hurt the Mass at all.
He heard sounds then, a chorus of whssk-whssk-whssks, coming from all around them. A moment later the sharks came into view, undulating across the Mass, umbilical cords stretching out behind them. In the silver moonlight, they looked surreal, like creatures ripped out of some fevered nightmare and plunked down in the real world. There were – he made a quick count – eleven of the things coming toward them. The sharks were still far enough apart that space remained between them, but their ranks were closing fast. If Susan and he didn’t make a run for it now, they’d lose whatever small chance of escape they had. He was about to yell for Susan to start running, but before he could do so, his feet sank into the Mass. He kept sinking until he was almost in up to his knees, and then the Mass solidified around his legs, trapping him. He looked at Susan and saw the same thing had happened to her. No running for them, not now, not ever again.
The sharks kept coming. Whssk-whssk-whssk-whssk-whssk . . .
Jarrod struggled to pull his legs free, but it was no use. The Mass held him too tightly. He and Susan were less than three feet apart, but there was nothing they could do to help each other. They couldn’t free themselves, and the shotgun didn’t have enough ammunition to fend off eleven sharks. Anguish welled up inside Jarrod. He’d failed Tasha, and he’d failed Susan, too. She’d followed a dying man on a doomed quest, and now she was going to pay the price.
Susan looked at Jarrod and gave him a sad smile.
“Remember when I said I had three shells left? Turns out that’s one more than we need. Goodbye, Jarrod. I always thought your movies were fun.”
At first Jarrod had no idea what she was talking about, but then she worked the pump, turned the shotgun around, pressed the barrel against the soft flesh under her jaw, and pulled the trigger. Her head snapped back in an explosion of noise, and the top of her skull was blown off. Her body fell backward, bending at the knees, and she lay there, face reduced to ragged meat and shattered bone, except for her left eye which actually blinked several more times before falling still. Based on what Susan had said before pulling the trigger, she’d expected the shotgun to fall out of her hands and land where Jarrod could pick it up and use it on himself. But her hands retained their grip on the weapon in death, and there was no way he could reach it, not trapped like this.
You should’ve shot me before killing yourself, he thought, with no small measure of disappointment. Now he had no choice but to wait for the sharks to reach him and begin tearing mouthfuls of meat from his body. He hoped they’d be quick about it, but this was going to be the climax of Inez’s “movie,” and he knew she would milk his dying fo
r all it was worth. His death would be messy, slow, and agonizing. He almost wished someone was filming this. It was going to be spectacular.
* * * * *
Deep inside the Mass, Tasha had finished preparing her mind and was ready to make her move.
So she did.
* * * * *
When the ring of sharks was about to close in on Jarrod, several rushed past him and attacked the others. Five sharks went after the other six, and they were not fucking around. Instead of trying to sink their teeth into their opponents’ bodies, they went for their umbilical cords. They managed to get a couple, tearing them apart with ease. The sharks affected began thrashing about, their exertions growing weaker with each passing second. But the sharks that were under assault quickly moved to defend themselves, and a savage battle broke out, with Jarrod in the middle, trapped.
He felt the Mass’ grip on his legs ease then, and he heard Tasha speaking in his mind.
“Go get the boat.”
He understood what was happening. Tasha was attempting to wrest control of the Mass and Inez – or at least the part of the Mass that thought it was Inez – didn’t intend to go down without a fight. But neither did he. He pulled himself free of the Mass one leg at a time, then he stood and started running. He had to dodge sharks, most of which were bleeding from battle injuries now, and try not to trip over their umbilical cords. One of his feet got stuck in a crevice and he went down, but he was far enough away from the fighting sharks that none of them noticed him fall. He rose to his feet once more and continued running, but more slowly this time.
He realized he had no idea in which direction he should run. Not only that, but the boat had likely drifted away from the Mass, maybe too far for him to easily spot it. How could he – And then he felt Tasha touch his mind, and he knew which direction to go in. He veered to the left and kept on running. His heart pounded and his head felt light, and he was having difficulty catching his breath. Dark spots danced in his vision, and he thought how ironic it would be if he dropped dead from a heart attack now. Still, he continued onward.
He kept an eye out for sharks, but none appeared. He didn’t know how many Hunters the Mass possessed, and of those, how many had died during the assault on Bridgewater. But however many remained, it seemed they were all busy, and his progress was unimpeded. When he reached the edge of the Mass, he almost ran right into the water, but he stopped himself. He saw the boat floating maybe fifty feet from the Mass. Not very far away at all, unless you were an old man with a cancer-ridden body who’d exerted himself more this night than he had in the entire last year. To Jarrod, that fifty feet might as well have been fifty miles. And while he saw no fins cutting the ocean’s surface, he knew there was a chance some of the Mass’ Hunters were swimming between him and the boat, waiting for him to be stupid enough to jump into the water.
Fuck it, he thought, and dove in.
The cold water shocked his system, giving him a much-needed jolt of adrenaline. He began swimming toward the boat with swift, strong strokes, but the energy burst was temporary and quickly faded, leaving him feeling heavy and slow. It would be so easy to stop swimming and allow himself to sink. Maybe a shark would get him or maybe he’d simply drown, but either way, it would be over. But he didn’t give in to the temptation. Tasha was fighting hard to stop Inez, and he couldn’t abandon her. And if Inez won and regained control of the entire Mass, she wouldn’t stop killing. She’d do what any producer would once a film of theirs was complete: she’d start planning a sequel. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
He forced himself to continue on, his arms and legs feeling heavy as stone. But he kept them moving, and after what seemed like hours but could only have been minutes, he reached the boat. He reached up and grabbed hold of the side, then hung there for a moment, trying to catch his breath. This would be the perfect opportunity for a shark to grab hold of his legs and pull him down into the depths where it would finish him off, most likely with the assistance of several of its friends. But he simply had to rest a bit before attempting to climb aboard. No sharp teeth sunk into his flesh, and he wasn’t yanked beneath the surface. If any sharks remained in the water, they were probably fighting each other, just as the ones on the surface of the Mass were, which Jarrod figured was the only reason he remained alive. Tasha still had his back.
He hauled himself up and into the boat. The effort proved almost too much for him, and for an instant he blacked out, but his vision quickly cleared, and he was, if not in stellar shape, good to go. The fuel container was under the back seat, and Jarrod – wet, cold, and shivering in the night air – picked up the container, unscrewed the cap, tossed it aside, and began dumping gasoline onto the boat, splashing it randomly across the boat. He didn’t worry overmuch about not getting any gas on himself. He wasn’t intending to survive this next little trip. When the container was empty, he discarded it and went to the control console. He turned the ignition key and the craft’s engine rumbled to life. He didn’t shove the throttle forward right away. Instead, he reached into his pocket for the pack of matches Susan had given him. It was wet from his swim, but he hoped he could find at least one match that was dry enough to still light. He pulled a match free and ran its head across the striker without success. He tossed it aside and tried another. And another. And yet another. He was beginning to fear that the Mass was going to win simply because the goddamned matches had gone for a swim with him. But the sixth match sparked and caught fire. He was so surprised he nearly dropped it, but he held the flame to the rest of the matches to see if they would catch, too. At first they didn’t, but then a few of the drier ones ignited. The flame they produced was feeble, but Jarrod thought it would be enough.
He tossed the entire pack aftward. It landed inside the hull and the gasoline Jarrod had splashed around ignited with a whoosh. It was the most satisfying sound he’d ever heard in his life. He eased the throttle forward and turned the steering wheel until the prow of the boat was pointed at the Mass. Once he had the boat aimed where he wanted it, he pushed the throttle the rest of the way forward and the boat raced forward, flames trailing behind it.
Jarrod felt a profound sense of peace settle on him. Whatever would happen next, he’d done his best to help Tasha combat the Mass, and that would have to be enough.
See you later, kiddo, he thought.
As the boat drew close to the Mass, he saw the battling sharks had moved closer to the edge. Only five of the initial eleven remained alive, but they were still going at each other as furiously as ever. Well, their fight would be over soon enough.
He’d lived a good life. He’d had an interesting career, had made many friends, and had enjoyed a modest amount of fame. Now he was going to go out on his own terms, giving his life to stop a real-life monster from claiming any more innocent lives. What more could a man ask for?
The boat was within ten feet of the Mass when Jarrod saw a shape emerge from the water on his left. The shark slammed into Jarrod, knocking him off the boat and into the water. He sank, arms and legs thrashing as he tried to stop himself from sinking.
He felt more than heard the sound of the boat colliding with the Mass. Orange light flared to life above him, and he knew his work was done. How much damage the Mass would take from the fire, he didn’t know, but he’d done all he could. He stopped moving then and allowed himself to sink. He was tired, so very tired, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and rest.
So he did.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jarrod opened his eyes and saw the first rays of dawn on the water. He was lying on the beach, stiff and sore, but very much alive. He sat up, his body protesting, and he tried to remember what had –
And then it came back to him in a rush. The landsharks attacking Flotsam, the survivors fleeing to the roof of Susan’s apartment building, Tasha being abducted by the Mass, Susan and him driving to the beach to rescue her, and everything that happened afterward. He remembered everyone who had lost their lives last nigh
t, with him – the man dying of leukemia – the sole survivor.
Irony’s a bitch, he thought.
After a few moments he got to his feet and walked down to the edge of the water. He scanned the horizon but saw no sign of the Mass. He wondered if he and Tasha had managed to kill it or if it had survived and was still out there somewhere, licking its wounds and preparing to kill again someday.
He heard Tasha’s thought-voice then.
“Hello, Jarrod. Don’t bother replying. This is a message I implanted in your mind before I left. It’s set to activate once you’re awake enough to make sense of it. Here’s what you missed.
Images flashed through his mind in rapid succession. The flaming bay boat colliding with the Mass, fire spreading across the creature’s surface. He heard Inez’s psychic scream of pain and anger as she tried to descend into the water to extinguish the flames, but Tasha prevented her from doing so. Inez fought to regain control of the Mass, and when all of her attention was focused on that effort, Tasha struck. She sent a bolt of psychic force into Inez’s mind, and killed the woman as surely as if she’d slipped a knife into her heart. With Inez gone, it was a simple matter for Tasha to take control of the Mass, and she commanded it to go underwater and douse the flames. The fire had never been any real danger to the Mass; the creature was too large. But it had served to distract Inez, and in that sense had aided in her defeat.
While all of this had been happening, one of the Mass’ Hunters – which Tasha had sent to keep Jarrod from sacrificing his life – took hold of his arm in its mouth, careful not to bite too hard, and carried him to shore. The Hunter, one of only a handful remaining to the Mass, returned to the ocean, and Jarrod was safe.
Tasha began “speaking” once more.
“The Mass’ biology possesses incredible mutagenic abilities, and Inez was able to use them to transform the Hunters so they could survive out of the water. I hoped I might be able to use the Mass’ power to cure your cancer, but I couldn’t. The best I could do was use my psychic power to alter your brain so you will no longer experience any pain related to your cancer. You will still die, but your last days will not be miserable ones.
