by William Oday
It came to rest with the camera pointing at the soldier who’d just lost it.
Inez tried to bring his rifle up to fire on the lizard pinning him down.
The lizard snapped it out of his hands and flung it away. Its jaws opened and its head darted down with astonishing speed. It bit down and ripped away the battle vest.
Another bite and the soldier’s chest was torn in half. A beating heart dangled from the beast’s jaws before it snapped its head back and the crimson muscle vanished inside its mouth.
Still alive, if only for a few seconds, Inez stared up in shock.
Zhang turned away from the screen but heard the gristly end nonetheless.
He turned back as the sickening sounds moved away.
With the view on its side, the camera showed a wide expanse of ground. The lizards were all visible, broken into small packs gathered round each of the bodies.
Like a pack of hungry lions, they fought each other to bite off a share before the meal was gone.
The screen tracking the biosigns of every member of the team showed the same for all of them. Flat lines where there had been the spikes and valleys of beating hearts before.
“Bravo Team is gone, doctor. Not a single survivor.”
Zhang pinched his eyes shut.
What would Hari do or say right now?
How would a real leader respond to such a tragedy?
Not being one himself, nothing came to him.
21
EMILY choked and sputtered as salt water blasted down her throat. Her eyes blinked open as she coughed it out. A yellow light blinded her with every flashing strobe.
A wave came in and she briefly floated up a couple of inches before it receded and she settled back into the sand.
She pushed the emergency beacon hanging around her neck out of the way.
She was alive?
She almost laughed out loud, but then spotted another wave rolling in and clamped her mouth shut before it hit. After it reversed course, she struggled to her feet and stumbled forward beyond the water line.
Without necessarily deciding to, she dropped to her knees and sat down hard.
How was she still alive?
A shudder rattled through her frozen body and banged her teeth together. The survival suit kept the water out, but not the cold. Not all of it, anyway.
She swallowed and winced at the sting in her throat. Her throat felt raw like it had been worked over with a power washer, which it more or less had.
The sun hung low in the western sky.
Emily pulled the zipper down on the tight-fitting collar cinched around her neck.
Better.
She took a deep breath.
And promptly started hacking out the last dregs of salt water lingering in her lungs. After the fit passed, she wiped her arm across her mouth.
“Where am I?”
She hadn’t realized she said it out loud until the stinging in her throat erupted. She groaned and rubbed her neck.
How was she still alive?
The impossibility of it made her doubt the reality.
Maybe this was heaven.
If so, it sucked.
If there was a heaven, she expected a lot more from it. For one, she wanted to see her father again. Life had lumbered on for ten long years without his presence in her life.
He’d never been that religious, but he was a good man and the best father. If God hadn’t let him in, Emily doubted she’d be let through either. Besides, she didn’t want to go anyway if he wasn’t there.
Another shiver quaked through her. She squeezed her eyes shut and they burned like they hadn’t blinked in a couple of days.
She was miserable and cold and starting to feel sorry for herself.
No. This couldn’t be heaven.
And as bad as it was, her understanding of hell with all the lakes of fire and sulfur stink and tormented souls made it an unlikely scenario as well.
Which meant only one thing.
Well, maybe it meant a lot of things, but it meant one especially important thing.
She was alive.
She’d somehow survived drowning and ended up on this beach.
Which again brought up an important question.
Where was this beach?
She scanned the tree line a few dozen yards further up the beach. The interior dwindled to darkness not far beyond the closest towering Sitka Spruce trees.
This could be anywhere in Alaska for all she knew. It looked like any number of places she’d been to on Kodiak Island, and she was willing to bet it looked like plenty of other places in Alaska.
She traced the beach in one direction until it curved around a bend maybe a half a mile to the north.
Nothing.
Doing the same in the other direction, she spotted something on a prominent point to the south. It was further in this direction, maybe two miles away following along the shoreline.
Emily pushed up to her feet to get a better look.
Whatever it was still looked like a dark blob on a pale beach.
The details were impossible to make out this far away, but it was big.
Was it a broken off part of the sunken boat?
Maybe an overturned lifeboat?
She couldn’t tell from here.
All she could tell for sure was that it wasn’t a log or seaweed or some other bit of flotsam from the sea.
And that made it worth investigating.
22
The good thing about walking the two miles to get to the unidentified object was her frozen core had thawed. Another good thing was that the emergency beacon had dried out and so the annoying flashing had stopped.
She had the hood of the survival suit peeled off and the front unzipped to her waist. A cold wind whistled in off the water. The suit was open enough to let in fresh air without sucking away too much warmth.
That part was an improvement on her previous condition.
But it wasn’t all rose petals and celebratory champagne because she was thirsty enough to drink rain water out of a street gutter. Her tongue was thick and fat in her mouth. Like a slug without the mucous.
She’d have to find water, and soon.
Maybe she’d get lucky and find some supplies in the washed up debris.
Emily skirted around the point protruding into the water and arrived at the final stretch of beach to her destination.
And she stuttered to a stop as she saw the thing she’d come to investigate.
It wasn’t a fragment of the ship.
It wasn’t an overturned lifeboat.
It wasn’t anything that would help her situation.
Because it was alive.
She broke into a jog and arrived a few minutes later.
Lying on the beach at the highest point of the outgoing tide was a massive orca whale. Blood gurgled out of its parted jaws. Its black skin dulled by the lack of water. Its eye blinked and tracked Emily as she moved closer.
It must’ve been twenty feet long with a four foot dorsal fin extending from its back.
Why had it washed up on the beach?
Emily had read about whales sometimes beaching themselves. Nobody understood why it happened. Some theorized that the Navy’s underwater sonar system was driving them crazy or damaging their sensitive aural organs or perhaps even damaged their air bladders and made it so they couldn’t dive.
No one knew for sure.
As she walked around the whale, Emily saw that there was no mystery why this one was dying. She approached it.
A bite mark showed on the orca’s back behind the dorsal fin. A huge chunk of flesh was missing and the pattern showed the jagged cuts of a shark’s teeth.
She drew closer still as the size of the wound became clear.
Whoa.
The bite was ten to twelve feet across. And had removed a half moon slice of the orca’s back.
No creature would survive that mutilation.
A high pitched squeal made her ju
mp.
A similar squeal echoed in from the water and Emily saw an even larger orca swimming in water that barely covered its back. It had a dorsal fin that reached six feet into the air. It would’ve reached another foot or two if the whole thing had been there. It looked like whatever got this one also took a chunk of the one splashing through the breaking waves. Several smaller orcas swam in tight circles in the deeper water beyond the break.
The squealing continued.
They were communicating.
Emily started around the back end of the orca to get a better look at the pod in the water when another discovery made her lurch to a stop.
A baby orca protruded from the underside of the dying orca.
It was a mother and baby!
The baby’s front half was stuck inside the mother’s body.
She realized with a start that it was going to die if she didn’t do something.
So she decided to act.
To try.
That’s all she could do.
She hurried over to the infant and grabbed hold of its tail.
The tail unexpectedly flapped and sent her sprawling into a face full of wet sand.
It was still alive!
But for how much longer, she didn’t know.
Emily scrambled up and got a tighter grip on the infant’s tail. She pulled as hard as she could, stumbling back and forth as the powerful tail dragged her side to side. Another pull using all her strength and a powerful flick of the tail sent her sprawling into the sand.
She got up and tried again until she was breathing hard and fast. A wave of dizziness made her pause and grab her knees to avoid keeling over.
The infant wouldn’t budge. He or she or it was stuck.
The mother squealed and what Emily guessed by its size and dangerous position in the water was the father answering back.
How could she help them?
Maybe she couldn’t.
She hadn’t been able to help her own father or mother. What made her think she could do any better for this struggling family?
“Stop it!” she muttered to herself. “The pity party can wait. There will be plenty of time to starve and feel sorry for yourself.”
She walked around to the back of the mother, trying to figure out how to get more leverage on the infant.
There was nothing nearby like a tree trunk or other suitable anchor and she didn’t have a rope anyway.
Leverage wasn’t the answer.
An idea came to her.
And she recoiled.
That was a last chance kind of thing.
She thought for a couple of minutes, trying to come up with a better idea. With any other idea.
The infant twitched. It twitched again and then didn’t stop trembling. It wasn’t the voluntary movement of a muscle.
It was in trouble.
Emily jumped into action and did her best not to think too much. She drew the kukri knife from the sheath fastened to the small of her back and knelt down beside the mother and baby. She placed a gentle hand on the mother’s belly. “I’m sorry.”
A lump formed in her throat, making it hard to swallow. She patted the white belly. “I wish there was another way.”
Not wanting to waste another second with the infant in distress, she gripped the razor sharp kukri and drove the blade through the mother’s skin.
It sank into warm blubber as blood welled out and formed a puddle in the sand.
Emily kept pushing, slicing through blubber and then muscle.
The mother squealed a long, horrifying note that the father echoed from the water.
“Come on,” Emily said as she cut deeper yet. When she’d gone as far as she dared to keep the blade from touching the baby, she grabbed the hilt with both hands and began sawing up the belly, widening the birth canal as she went.
The sharp, thick scent on her tongue made her gag, but she kept cutting. Blood spilled over her hands and arms and down her front, coating the survival suit. She was glad she’d zipped it up to her chin before starting or else her clothes would’ve gotten drenched with the sticky fluid.
She kept cutting as tears streamed down her cheeks.
The mother’s squeals broke her heart into a million pieces.
She was killing her.
Yes, the mother was going to die anyway. But cutting her open hastened that death and the guilt was tough to reason away.
Something in the tissue parted and the baby spurted out a few inches.
Emily tossed the knife away and latched onto its trembling tail. She dug her boots into the sand and leaned back as she heaved.
A slurping squish and the infant came free.
It wriggled like a dying fish on the sand.
The mother’s squeak rose to a fevered pitch and then went silent. The father in the water carried on squeaking and chirping faster than seemed possible.
“You’re not dying on me now!” Emily shouted as she grabbed the baby’s tail. She pulled and went nowhere. The baby must’ve weighed a few hundred pounds.
She jumped over to the other side and then leaned into it. With a grunt, she managed to roll it over a quarter turn. She heaved again and got a half turn.
The advancing water splashed around it as she rolled it another full turn. A few more feet and the advancing wave was deep enough to reach to her calves.
The water rolled in, lifting the baby off the sand. She heaved and pulled the baby into deeper water.
Emily splashed through the hip-high frothing surf, guiding the infant toward the deeper water and its waiting father.
It twitched from side to side, but didn’t take off. Maybe it was too weak? Maybe she was too late?
Another wave swept in, hitting it in the face. The infant whipped its tail and shot forward.
The movement threw her backward and splashing into the water. She settled into a floating sit and watched the male orca swimming circles in anticipation.
The baby made it beyond the breaking surf and the father sidled up next to it. A fin caressed and steered the infant toward the waiting pod. The two sank under the surface.
Emily watched the massive dorsal fin of the male slide down and disappear. She stood for a second, but the biting cold water didn’t make her want to linger.
As she turned, a huge splash burst through the incoming wave and the massive male exploded through. He skidded to a stop less than ten feet away.
Emily knew she should get out of the water. Get up to the beach where it was safe.
But she couldn’t move.
Her limbs were solid ice.
Her heart thumped like a fist pounding through her ribcage.
Every follicle on her scalp tingled with electric current.
The male twisted its head to the side and a huge dark eye stared at her.
It blinked, stared again, and whistled loud enough for her eardrums to hurt.
A wave rolled in and it squirmed to the side, making its way through the breaking surf. Another wave and it pulled free.
A few powerful thrusts of its tail later and it was headed out to join the pod surrounding the baby.
The pod circled round and round the baby as they moved as a group to the south. The dominant male circled around the outside of both, keeping a perimeter watch for any dangers.
Emily stumbled out of the water and up onto the beach. She glanced at the bite mark on the dead mother and a shudder ripped through her.
There was something out there. Something she didn’t want to encounter.
23
The fire crackled and spit as it burned the moisture out of the wood. The orange light reflected a few dozen feet onto the beach but didn’t penetrate more than a few feet beyond the dense tree line.
Emily held her hands as close to the flames as possible without singeing them.
With all the wood so wet, building a friction fire would’ve been next to impossible. Fortunately, the mini survival kit stowed in her suit had come up big with a magnesium fire star
ter and a few other essentials.
A bitterly cold wind whipped down the beach, causing the fire to roar and the heat to get sucked away for an instant.
Her teeth chattered as she waited for the warmth to return.
The gust died down and the heat again licked her palms.
Alone on an island.
A hike up to a nearby ridge had confirmed that.
Lost.
And hungry.
Still, it could’ve been worse. Her clothes had been freezing because water had leaked in with the survival suit partially unzipped. She’d managed to build a fire at the edge of the tree line and dried her wet clothes. Dried and smoked them, was more like it.
She smelled like a campfire to the core. Like it was a scent exuding from her pores.
She hadn’t frozen to death. That was something.
But while she’d survived impossible odds already, they didn’t look to be improving any time soon. And with the night temperature dropping fast, every moment that passed was another roll of the dice.
The temperature was dropping fast. It didn’t feel like the fire would be enough to get her through to the morning.
She turned away from the heat to review the pile of materials she’d gathered over the last couple of hours.
At least this island had plenty of trees. She’d used the kukri to chop down thick branches for poles and thinner ones for insulation. A simple lean-to with the back and sides walled off would do wonders to trap the heat of the fire and her body once she settled in for the night.
She tried to swallow but it got stuck halfway. Her throat was too dry to function. She’d have to find water in the morning or she wouldn’t make it much longer.
Yes, every moment was another roll of the dice.
And mother nature was like a Las Vegas casino because, sooner or later, the house always won.
She let the fire warm her a little longer. The cold that waited a few feet beyond its heat wasn’t anything she was rushing to get back to.
There she sat, perfectly balanced between heat and cold. The glowing orange fire casting flickering shadows on the ground.
A little closer and it would burn her.
A little further and she’d freeze to death.
