by Jake Bible
“No, you’re misunderstanding me,” Maggie said. “When I found out about your past, and about Nick, I didn’t report it. I kept it quiet. It wasn’t until those above me found out that it became an issue. I couldn’t lie to them, so I was suddenly in deep shit for keeping back important, usable information. I could either call it off with you and disappear from your life, or I could exploit your connection to Nick and bring him in as an asset. You were my perfect cover and those above me made it very clear they were not going to be happy unless I utilized that.”
“Awesome,” Ben said.
“Not so much, no,” Maggie said. “It tore me up, Benjamin. It racked my guts day and night and I nearly lost my mind for a bit there. Things were falling apart. Then Nick came to me with his idea to sell that damn boat of his.”
“Yacht,” Ben said and grinned in spite of himself.
Maggie grinned back. “Yacht. He needed to unload it and things fell in place. We knew some corrupt INTERPOL agents had come across info that Giraldi was planning something big, Nick had access to friends of friends of his, and the rest is sad history.”
“Sad history that killed him, everyone else, nearly me, nearly you, and also put my daughters in danger,” Ben said. “Don’t just wipe it all away with a wave of your hand. People died. My best friend died. A crazy international crime lord had one of his men watching Tanni, ready to kill her on his order if I didn’t play ball.”
“She wasn’t at risk,” Maggie said. “I had the Guillotine on it. Giraldi’s man wouldn’t have even been able to hand Tanni a beer, let alone harm her.”
“Is that argument supposed to make me feel better?” Ben asked.
“No, sorry, of course not,” Maggie said. “But I need you to know that I love your girls and I take Tanni’s wellbeing very serious.”
“So do I, which is why you in our lives is not a good thing,” Ben responded. “You kill people, Mags. You do whatever else it is you do, but that still includes killing people.”
“Only bad people,” Maggie said. “Very bad people. And that is over.”
“Is it?” Ben asked. “Can it ever really be over for someone like you? Can it ever be over for someone like me? You think those days won’t be sitting between us for the rest of our lives? Because you’d be stupid to think so.”
“They don’t have to be between us,” Maggie said. “They can bring us closer.”
“They can, but they won’t,” Ben said. “I’m sorry, Mags, but it ain’t gonna happen. You need to leave. We can’t get back what we had.”
“Whatever,” Tanni said from the sliding glass door.
Ben and Maggie turned their heads, surprised to see the teen standing there.
“I’m making stroganoff and veggie meatballs for dinner,” Tanni said. “I’m making enough for Maggie to join us.”
“Tanni, this isn’t something you get to butt in on,” Ben said.
“Bullshit it isn’t,” Tanni said and flipped him off. “You’re better with her in our lives. We all are. And it sounds like she can keep us safe, so I’d rather she was hanging around than up in some Alaskan fishing village.”
“You heard everything?” Maggie asked.
Tanni tapped at her nose. “Nothing gets by me, Magster. This sullen teenager pays attention to way more than you guys give me credit for.” She sighed and looked at her father. “Do you really want Mom to be the only female role model in my life? Have I told you that she’s thinking about starting a spiritual healing business for pets? Oh, and she wants to start a support group for pagans with gay daughters. Yeah, both of those things are happening.”
“Jesus,” Ben said and rubbed his forehead. “I am so screwed.”
“She’s staying for dinner,” Tanni said. “You guys can talk more, you can yell and scream, throw things, just not each other, even though Maggie will win, and then maybe make up, do it like bunnies, and then start over in the morning.”
“Jesus,” Ben said again.
“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” Tanni said. “Get another beer and keep chatting.”
They watched Tanni walk away, a cocky swagger in her hips.
“I know some people that would recruit her in a heartbeat,” Maggie said.
“Holy shit,” Ben said. “Really?”
“What? Oh, sorry,” Maggie said and frowned. “Old habits.”
She looked at Ben’s beer and stood up.
“You want another?” she asked. “I’m going to grab one. Teenager’s orders. You want one more? When did you have your last pain meds? I don’t want you OD’ing.”
“I’m off the meds,” Ben said. “It’s easier to deal with the pain as it comes and goes than deal with the fog of hydrocodone.”
“I get that,” Maggie said. “So…beer or no beer?”
“Beer,” Ben said finally after a couple seconds. “Go ahead and bring two. I’m going to need them.”
“It’s going to be one of those nights?” Maggie grinned.
“Could be,” Ben said. “But either way, I’ll need the beers.”
“Two beers coming up,” Maggie said and walked inside the house.
Ben watched her disappear into the shadows then turned his face back to the sun. He closed his eye and let out a long, slow breath.
Maybe, just maybe, what he needed wasn’t a new life, but a new chapter to build on his old life.
He had no idea if that was the answer, but as he heard Maggie come back outside, the sound of a bottle cap being popped off a beer, he decided that the day was too nice to be rash. He’d have his couple beers, maybe a couple more, probably yell and scream at Maggie while she yelled and screamed at him, and then he’d let things sort themselves out.
“You can’t always control the cards you’re dealt, but you sure as hell can control what you do with them,” Ben thought as he felt a warm hand on his face and a cold beer pressed into his hand.
Damn if he didn’t like the feel of both.
55.
The doors opened and two of the most powerful CEOs in the defense world walked in at the same time.
“Mathias,” Agnes Marion said, surprised. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Hello, Agnes,” Mathias McDowell said. “OAS did develop this project, so why wouldn’t I be here?”
“Well, I just assumed this was an exclusive offer,” Marion said.
Both of the CEOs had heavily armed men flanking them. But the number doubled as a new man walked in, a wide smile on his face.
“Ah, I see this is to be a bidding war,” the man said.
“Bidding war?” McDowell asked. “I think you are mistaken.”
“No, he is not,” a woman said as she was wheeled into the room from a side door.
The number of heavily armed men doubled once again.
“Ms. Romanski?” Ms. Marion gasped. “But you died.”
“Did I?” Niya laughed from her wheelchair.
There was a blanket across her lap and she pulled it back to reveal only a left leg. She was wheeled closer and the room’s light caught the right side of her face. A side that was nothing but mangled scar tissue with a dead, white eye staring out at everyone. The other eye was alive with intelligence and stared at the people gathered.
“As people always find out the hard way, I am extremely hard to kill,” she said and laughed again. It was a harsh rasp of a sound and everyone except the hired guns shivered. “Let’s get started.”
“I don’t understand,” McDowell said. “Who is this man?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Niya said.
“How can he be here if he doesn’t have the first part of the research?” Ms. Marion asked.
“Oh, he does have it,” Niya replied, reaching into a pouch on her lap. She withdrew a USB drive. “Because I gave it to him. Well, I did not expressly give it to him, but he has the research in his possession.”
She withdrew a second USB drive.
“Which brings us to tonight’s proceedings,” she continue
d. “The second part of the research. The secret part that Dr. Glouster created where the creature can be controlled. Once you make a new one, that is.”
“I do not appreciate the deception,” McDowell grumbled.
“Then leave,” Niya replied.
He stayed where he was.
“That is what I thought,” she said and grinned. The scar tissue on her face pulled tight and the others grimaced. “Now…how about we start the bidding at one billion? I think that’s more than fair, don’t you? Considering everything I went through to bring this drive to market.”
McDowell glared but raised his hand.
“One billion? Excellent.” Niya grinned wider, reveling in the reactions from those around her. “Do I perhaps hear two billion?”
The End
Read on for a free sample of MEGATOOTH
Author Bio:
Jake Bible, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres.
Jake is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series set in Asheville, NC, the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash) and the Mega series for Severed Press, as well as the YA zombie novel, Little Dead Man, the Bram Stoker Award nominated Teen horror novel, Intentional Haunting, the ScareScapes series, and the Reign of Four series for Permuted Press.
Find Jake at jakebible.com. Join him on Twitter @jakebible and find him on Facebook.
1
Emily assumed that most twenty-three year-old single women came to Hawaii as a last exploration of single life. Maybe they came to stay on a resort with friends and meet an exotic single man. Or maybe they sat poolside with cocktails from ten in the morning until the sun went down. Perhaps they came to have those once-in-a-lifetimes adventures that were thick with self-discovery—adventures that were looked back on fondly in the years to come. And even for those not seeking romance, the beaches had their own allure, too; surely it was relaxing and nearly sensual to scrunch up your toes in sun-warmed sand right along the edge of where the ocean meets the land.
Emily had no idea about any of that. She was not in Hawaii to meet a man, live blissfully in a half-drunk state for a week, or to enjoy the beaches. Instead, she had come here from Minnesota, knowing that she’d only be on the land in Hawaii for about three hours. Her plane had landed in Lāna‘i and she had promptly rented a car, driving across the small island to the hole-in-the-wall boat rental business that she currently looked at through her windshield.
She parked her car in the cracked lot and got out, getting her one lone suitcase out of the trunk. As she started across the lot of the wooden building that sat at the start of a pier that jutted out into the ocean, she saw three other cars in the lot. She recognized the face of the older man reaching into the trunk of his car at once. She had seen his face on various websites and in magazines. He was no celebrity…that was for sure. But Emily had been following his work since high school and admired the man considerably.
She veered away from her straight path towards the boat rental building and walked directly towards the man. He was still fumbling around with something in his trunk and seemed to be oblivious of the rather attractive twenty-three year old heading directly for him.
“Mr. Zinsser?” she asked as she neared his car.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, closing the trunk and looking at her. Seeing him this close, she saw that Cliff Zinsser actually looked a bit older than his thirty-six years. Apparently, his many years out on the ocean had taken its toll, the sun beating down on him and giving his skin an almost leathery appearance. Emily supposed the growth of hair on his face was supposed to look like a beard, but it looked sloppy and almost sporadic. His hair was disheveled and his clothes were dingy.
“I know,” Cliff said. “Not much to look at.”
“Oh, no,” Emily said. “I was just—”
He smiled at her and waved the comment off. “I’m just kidding,” he said. “Is this your first time out on a trip like this?”
“Yes, it is,” Emily admitted.
“Well then, you’ll understand the dress code in short order,” he said. “Now, which one are you? I know there were two young women coming but I am terrible with names, so…”
“Emily,” she said, extending her hand. “Emily Nevins.”
“Nice to meet you. So, are you ready for this?”
“I am. I’ve been wanting to do something like this since my sophomore year of college.”
“Good,” he said. “It’s always nice to see fresh, young blood getting involved in the good fight.”
The fight was the struggle to bring justice to those that continued to poach sperm whales. As of late, there had been several reports of such heinous activity forty miles off of the coast of where she and Cliff Zinsser currently walked across a parking lot to a boat rental shop. It was a cause that Emily had cared deeply about since she had been in high school, but a fire had been lit under her in college that had nearly consumed her. She’d seen enough videos and documentaries…she’d had enough friends that had wanly turned their nose up at her desire to do something to help the environment and its endangered species. This was what she wanted to do with her life and she was anxious to get started.
She had just started grad school, with just a single semester under her belt. She knew the road ahead would involve some very hard classes and quite a bit of travelling. But she was in for all of that. After all, if she was going to sincerely make a go of it, what better way to start than to get involved in an expedition that might help bring a few poachers to justice? She knew it might be dangerous, but that was part of the appeal.
Well, that plus the fact that someone as well-respected in environmental circles as Cliff Zinsser was heading the trip up. The man wasn’t much to look at, but something about the way he was so passionate about the cause had made Emily develop something of a crush on him a few years back. Now that she was standing next to him as they entered the rental shop, she felt that crush crumbling and transforming into something along the lines of pure respect. It was heartbreaking in a way but Emily couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such an adult feeling about a man.
Cliff opened the door for her as they reached the front door of the rental cabin. Alongside the pier than connected the cabin to the ocean, several different boats were tied. They ranged from speed boats to what Emily assumed was a tug boat that had likely been in the water during the Biblical flood. When she stepped inside, Emily had her first true doubts about this trip. Suddenly, her often-frigid home in Minnesota seemed incredibly far away.
The shop smelled like bait, which made perfect sense as the place also sold several forms of it behind the counter. An elderly man in a clichéd-looking floral Hawaiian shirt greeted them with a nod and a mumbled, “Aloha.”
“Aloha,” Cliff said. “I believe you have a boat reserved under my name. Cliff Zinsser.”
The clerk nodded and rummaged around under the counter. He retrieved a set of keys and handed them over to Cliff. “Can I please see your license and documentation?” the clerk asked.
Cliff removed the small backpack he was wearing and went looking for the materials. As he did this, Emily looked out of the window and back out to the parking lot. Another car was pulling in and when it pulled alongside her own rental, Emily knew who it was. She could barely see the shape of the driver, but she could see enough to know that it was Steve.
She frowned a bit, recalling the small bit of drama between them at the airport. She and Steve Locke had carpooled together for the trip from Minneapolis to Lāna‘i and then sat beside one another during the six-and-a-half hour flight. She knew Steve was very much into her and even though she had expressed no interest several times, he remained persistent. A large part of her was certain that the only reason Steve was on this expedition was to s
pend two days alone with her out at sea. Sure, it was a conceited thing to think about herself, but Steve made no attempts to hide any of it. Because of that, she had made a lame excuse at the rental car counter at the airport. She had insisted they get two cars because she wanted to do some sight-seeing when they returned and didn’t want to hinder him. He had objected but she’d gone to the point of being rude to see that she got her own car.
The bad part of it was that Steve was an okay guy. If he didn’t have what appeared to be an obsessive streak about him, Emily thought she could maybe convince herself to be interested in him.
When she saw him coming across the parking lot towards the rental shop, Emily stepped a bit closer to Cliff. She listened to Cliff and the clerk exchange a few pleasantries. With the key in his possession, Cliff gestured for the door.
“Shall we?” he asked.
She gave him a smile and left the shop. They had made it no more than five steps out towards the pier before Steve started coming in their direction. He stepped onto the pier, carrying a pack on his back and headphones hanging from his shoulders.
“You’re Cliff Zinsser, right?” Steve asked.
“I am,” Cliff said. “You must be… Steve, right?”
“That’s me.”
“Great. So glad you could join us!”
“Same here,” Steve said, although he was sizing Cliff up in the same way a jealous dog eyes a visiting dog moments before it starts pissing everywhere to mark its territory.
“Well, we have one more coming with us,” Cliff said.
“Yeah, that’s Zoe,” Emily said. “She’s…well, she’s dedicated.”
“That’s an understatement,” Cliff said. “When I spoke to her on the phone, she basically told me point blank that she wants in on this trip so it’ll look good on her college applications. How did you manage to meet her?”
