I didn’t know if seeing his face again would give the geologist comfort or a bigger shock, but I seized it by the hair and lofted it onto the ship’s deck as carefully as I could.
I’m sorry. I cannot change what happened to your friend, but I swear to you my son will pay for this.
Had the young man been her friend? I wasn’t sure. She had some motherly instincts toward him, almost as if they were family.
Almost as if he had been her son.
Perhaps that’s just the way females are.
My own son hadn’t gotten far. It was easy to catch him. When he saw me coming after him, the terror in his eyes was gratifying—he was finally giving me the respect I’d always wanted. Always wanted, but never gotten. Shame it had to come to this.
Strengthening my resolve, I pursued him with a roar that reverberated through the ocean. I knew the woman would hear it—creatures from worlds away would hear it. My wife rushed to attack, as I expected. It was her duty to protect her son, no matter what kind of despicable hell spawn he was.
My tail ripped a hole in his side. Instead of fleeing, he lunged at my face, baring his fangs. A new burst of fury consumed me. Closing my jaws around his scaly neck, I bit down. It would be over soon.
Don’t, Nøkken. He’s our only child. Our kind will die out, my wife pleaded.
How could I explain what had to be done? In spite of our best efforts, our son resisted every attempt to mold him into a merciful creature. As he grew to full power, nothing would be safe—not our fellow marine life, and maybe not even us.
Even if Draugen killed me right then, which she surely could, my death throes would only make me bite down harder.
Either way, it was finished.
I snapped my teeth together, severing my son’s head from his neck, exactly like he’d done to the unfortunate mechanic.
My wife screamed again, but this time in rage. She came after me with murder in her heart, and I suspected she’d wanted to for a while. No matter how we try to suppress our true nature, it is always there, lurking, waiting for us. It’s in our blood.
As I steeled myself for the last battle, I spared one more thought for the human.
Start your little boat and get far away from here. I won’t be able to distract her for long.
I only hoped this time she would follow my advice.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Flora clung to the deck, which bucked and rolled underneath her as the immense creatures fought it out below.
Cradling Thor’s head in a towel, she hurried downstairs, blinking away the tears that stung her eyes. There was no time to get emotional. Archie was still alive, and she had to get him away from here. Far away.
“Flora.”
She could hear him calling now, as he’d probably been calling since Thor was attacked. Yes, attacked. A violent word, but vague enough for her purposes. That’s how she would choose to remember what happened. She would not let her mind stray to the terrible way he’d died.
Was it her imagination, or did Archie sound weaker? The thought made her knees buckle. Not now. Not after everything.
“It’s okay. Thor fixed the ship. I’m going to start the engine, and then I’ll be in to see you.” Please, God, let it start.
She was terrified he would ask why Thor wasn’t taking the helm, but perhaps he already knew.
“Okay,” he yelled back. A series of racking coughs followed. He didn’t sound good.
Hurrying to the control room, Flora started the ship the way Thor had shown her. When it sputtered and died, she struck her fist against the console in spite of her resolve to stay calm.
We’re dead; it was all for nothing.
Then the engine caught. The lights on the control board flickered to weary life as she plugged in the coordinates Apostolos had scribbled down. For the first time in days, the ship began to move, an old woman rising from her wheelchair.
“Thank you, Thor,” she whispered. “You did it.”
There was every reason to worry the repair wouldn’t hold, or that the fuel would run out before they reached home, but she knew Thor would want her to be optimistic. She owed him that much. Her only job was to keep Archie alive. Just for a few more days.
She stood at the helm, mesmerized at the sight of the prow cutting its way through teal water. There was a beauty about it, even to the slight tilt under her feet that made her feel like she would topple over at any moment. It had been too many days since she’d needed her sea legs.
Tearing her attention from the view, she headed to the messdeck with the cherished bundle tucked under her arm. Even though she’d tenderly dried Thor’s face and hair after rinsing away the salt water, he was still damp when she placed him in the freezer. Flora hoped he would forgive her.
It was no way to treat a friend, but she was doing her best.
She knew he would respect that.
Read on for a free sample of Megalodon: Apex Predator
About the Author
Raised in the far north, amid Jack London’s world of dog sleds and dark winters, J.H. Moncrieff has been a professional writer all of her adult life.
Harlequin recently conducted a worldwide search for “the next Gillian Flynn” to launch their new line of psychological thrillers, and Moncrieff was one of two authors selected. Her novella, The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave, was featured in Samhain’s Childhood Fears collection and stayed on their horror bestsellers list for over a year.
During her years as a journalist, she tracked down snipers and canoed through crocodile-infested waters. She has published hundreds of articles in national and international magazines and newspapers.
When she’s not writing, she loves to travel to exotic locations, advocate for animal rights, and muay thai kickbox.
J.H. loves to hear from readers and fellow writers. You can email her at [email protected], or connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jhmoncrieff
and Twitter: www.twitter.com/JH_Moncrieff
Visit her website at www.jhmoncrieff.com
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Steve Bornstein for generously sharing his experiences working in offshore drilling with me, and to Rhonda Parrish for connecting us. I’ve had to take some creative license when it came to The Cormorant, so any errors are mine, not Steve’s.
The folks at Severed Press have been great to work with, and I’m thrilled to be one of their authors.
Being a writer is wonderful, but it can also be isolating. I’m lucky to have a tremendous support system, especially my copy editor and spouse Chris Brogden, Dee-Dee Gould and Drew Kozub from my writing group, my personal cheerleaders Christine Brandt, Anita Siraki, Nikki Burch, Kay Deveroux, Brenda Furst, Maxine Brogden, and Lisa Saunders, and all of my blog readers, friends, and my parents for their years of encouragement. The horror writing community has been incredibly welcoming and supportive, in particular Don D’Auria, Mercedes M. Yardley, Hunter Shea, Chuck Wendig, Ronald Malfi, Theresa Braun, Catherine Cavendish, JG Faherty, Brian Kirk, Somer Canon, Jonathan Moore, Tausha Johnson, Brian Moreland, and Russell R. James.
I’m truly blessed to be surrounded by such talented people.
I’d like to also recognize and thank the people of Standing Rock for sacrificing so much to protect their water and environment. Stay strong.
Prologue
The young boy stood on deck long after everyone had gone to sleep. He liked the rough seas and cold air of the Drake Passage. Even at the young age of ten, he was fascinated by experiencing actual exotic places in real life, and his father indulged his every whim.
The moon was near-full, stars bright and twinkling, and the boy could see the ocean lit up in magical silver and blue. He grasped the frigid handrails with bare hands and tried to see as far as he could into the night.
A slight, freezing breeze picked up, and the boy burrowed into his fur-lined leather jacket. On the wind, the boy could’ve sworn he smelled something like rotten fish parts. Specifically, the kind that alr
eady had bugs eating them, lying in the heat for days. But here, it was ice-cold.
Despite his thick coat, his arms brought a chill. He didn’t like that wind and the smell it carried. This wasn’t the ocean he knew. Then again, he had come here to experience a new sea. Right where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans met, as far south on Earth as he could get. Maybe this was part of these waters, but the boy felt in his gut that smell wasn’t supposed to be there, and it especially wasn’t supposed to be so close and strong.
He wasn’t allowed to be out of bed in the middle of the night, and suddenly, he was so frightened that because he’d disobeyed, he was now going to be punished in a most awful way. Waves kicked up around the yacht and the boy’s tender stomach heaved. He puked right onto his hands, still grasping the icy handrail, as the boat shifted high and low in the now incredibly rough seas.
The boy heard yells, but when he tried to turn and run to the voices, his hands had frozen to the metal handrail. His vomit had stuck them stiff to the bar in moments in the sub-temperature Antarctic night.
“Dada!” he cried out, but his own voice was squeaky and weak. Nobody could have heard him. He turned to the handrail again, hearing more people onboard calling out. The boy yanked as hard as he could on his hands, but they wouldn’t budge. Panic gripped him hard as that god-awful smell hit him again, but this time, it was in a blast of warm air from seemingly nowhere.
The people on deck behind the boy silenced all at once, and he saw flashlights and torches turn in his direction. He started shaking all over, slowly, ever so slowly raising his head to see what the lights had fixed on.
The warm air blew again, bringing the dead scent. He stared right into the most enormous, gaping, pointed-toothed white mouth ever imagined by a boy in his most secret nightmares. Teeth so big they were the size of his arms. His whole body would fit four times over in that mouth…
He dropped his jaw and wailed, “Dada!” He yanked on his hands and freed three fingers, not caring a lick about the blood pouring out from under his grip.
The mouth came closer. It had seemed like it was right about to eat him, but the boy realized the beast was so huge that there was still distance between the boat and the creature. The mouth. The ever-so-sharp teeth. Its breath, so strong it made the icy air warm, and so putrid only death could be the beast’s insides.
He screamed now.
Arms grabbed him from behind. “Got you, son, now let go!” It was his dad. His dad would save him.
“My hands! They’re frozen to the rail!”
His dad wrapped his huge, gloved fingers around the boy’s bleeding hands and pried them off with a quick rip. The boy didn’t make a sound. His eyes stayed fixed on the beast bearing down on the boat from the water.
He let himself fall limp in his father’s strong hands, one arm under the boy’s tush and the other under his arms with his heavily beating heart pressed against his father’s own. His father dashed them across the swaying, rocking deck to the far side, back of the boat, away from the lifeboats and other people. The boy didn’t ask questions. His hands now ached and he peeked at them. The moonlight showed flesh torn from them in strips, and black blood soaked his palms and fingers. He’d left his father’s coat arms discolored from tops to elbows.
“What is it, Dada?” the boy whispered into his father’s ear.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know, but we have to get away from it.”
As they stood at the edge of the water, the boy couldn’t stand it, and looked over his father’s shoulder. He had to see how close the teeth were because the smell was worse than ever, and a burst of screams had risen up from behind them.
Now the boy saw the side of the thing, and it had to be some kind of great white shark. But it couldn’t be a great white. Great whites weren’t that big! The boy had seen them before. This thing was at least twice the size of one of those. Its gaping mouth rose high into the air above the boat, and it was as though it had neck bones because it turned its massive white head down to the deck, and the boy swore its teeth popped out of its mouth as it demolished the ship easily into a million pieces.
The boy flew off into the night sky and into the rough, freezing water, but his dada didn’t let go for an instant. His grip didn’t loosen in the slightest.
The boy couldn’t breathe once in the sea. He’d never felt cold like this, and it was as though he’d never be able to unclench his chest again to take another breath.
“Come on, son, we have to swim. We have to swim far and fast, so you climb on my back, wrap your arms under my armpits, and don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid, Dada.” His weak voice shook from the lie and the air finally leaking into his frozen body. His father shifted him to his back and he gripped his father under his arms as tightly as possible.
The boy had to look back. The screaming was too much. He’d met these people and sailed with them for a week now. They were dying, he wondered, weren’t they? That giant thing was killing them, eating them.
Or they were drowning.
He hoped that’s what it was.
His father swam and swam, but the boy kept smelling the rotted fish as his hands burned in the frigid salty sea. Was this happening? Could this be real? He had to look again.
The boat was in pieces. The boy saw people in the water, but no sign of the giant beast…until the boy noticed a long, pointed thin fin sticking out of the water. It was so huge that to the boy, it seemed like the creature was inches from him and his father, and he screamed without thought.
“Shh, now, son. Quiet.” His father’s voice was labored from the icy and frantic, desperate swim.
The boy kept looking over his father’s shoulder. He simply couldn’t take his eyes off that fin—and then the giant creature’s head came out of the water again. This time, the boy got a complete eyeful from the light of the bright moon.
Its pitch-black, gleaming eyes had to have been the size of cars each, and its awful mouth never seemed to close. The giant shark bent its strange head again, but instead of devouring a ship, it chowed down, hard, on passengers from the boat in quick, stabbing chomps. The boy finally closed his eyes right as he saw Ms. Engle, her shirt ripped off, disappear into the beast’s cavernous jaws, its head tilted up as though drinking her like a milkshake, and he heard her terrorized, pain-soaked but short-lived screams of horror as the giant thing chewed her to pieces in a few short bites.
“Hold tighter,” the boy’s father said. “There’s a piece of the ship ahead. We have to get out of this freezing water, but keep quiet. I don’t know what that thing is, but we cannot draw any, and I mean any, attention to us whatsoever. Do you understand me?”
The boy kept his eyes closed, wishing he could plug his ears from the wails of the others from the ship being eaten and gored. He nodded against his dad’s neck.
It could have been hours or minutes, but the boy’s father got them to a piece of debris, hauling the boy out of the water before pulling himself up next to his son.
“You can open your eyes now,” he said softly.
The boy didn’t.
“They’re all gone, son. It’s just you and me.”
“And it?” His voice was as weak as a baby pup offering up its first whimper.
“It’s gone. I promise. Open your eyes.”
The boy opened one eye. The sea had settled, and there was more ship debris floating all around them. He closed his eye when he spied what looked like the captain’s arm, still in its skipper jacket, floating a few feet away.
“Don’t you realize what we have just seen?” his father whispered. A freezing wind answered him before he continued. “That—thing. It shouldn’t be here. Did you see its skin?”
He opened his eyes. The boy shook with adrenaline, fear, cold, and pain in his hands, but his father didn’t seem to notice. His eyes gleamed in the starlight settling over the freezing sea, and for a moment, the boy allowed his father’s enthusiasm to sink into him. He had just seen the un
believable. Yes, he had.
But he had also seen Ms. Engle get chewed up alive by eight-inch shark teeth in a mouth big enough for four people.
His father continued. “The Megalodon. They were giant sharks, dinosaurs. Some say they were as big as sixty feet long. That one, that one was about forty feet, wouldn’t you say, son?”
The boy didn’t want to stop his father’s excitement, but his hands wouldn’t stop bleeding. They had to find some way to land, away from the giant beast, the huge teeth, and the ungodly cold. “Dada,” he started hesitantly. He could barely talk, he was so weak. So much blood lost.
His father’s eyes stayed focused on the ship’s wreckage as he murmured, “Megalodon. There’s one alive, son, and we found it. Do you have any idea what this means?”
“Dada, my hands.”
His father looked down at the boy’s shredded palms. “Oh, son. Oh my god, son.” He wrapped his wet arms around the boy and tucked his head under his chin, rubbing the tops of his son’s arms. “I’ll get you out of here. It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll get out of here, and then we’ll tell the world what we’ve found here today. I know you’re scared and cold, bleeding, but we made it. Now, we have to survive. We have no choice. We must tell the world a prehistoric creature is still alive down here. We have to—”
The boy smelled the rotten fish smell so strongly that he felt bile rise up in his throat again, and he pulled back from his father, peeking over his shoulder to the warm gust of air accompanying the foul stench.
Nothing but jagged, sharp teeth filled his vision. The giant shark was right on top of their little island of debris, their piece of momentary and illusionary safety. At this range, the boy noticed each tooth seemed to have jagged teeth of its own. Teeth with teeth.
Then the jaws did that thing again. They seemed to shoot out of the massive creature’s head, but this time, the beast snapped the chunk of metal they had been floating on in half, leaving the boy alone on his side, and his father in the teeth of the beast.
Monsters In Our Wake Page 18
