by Michael Bray
“Then let’s go back, you can go off into the wastelands and live that way, just let me go back to the village first.”
“And let you live in the place I helped build? I was one of the first, I was one of the founders of that damn place!” Mannering spat. “You don’t get to tell me anything. You think I can go back there, you think I want to go and face those people and tell them their beloved Barnes is dead, that he died on my watch?”
“It was an accident, I’ll tell them what happened.”
“Oh I bet you will, right after you tell them how I cut him up and ate some of him, how I attacked you, how I chased this fish all the way out here and got us stranded. They’ll banish me, kick me out. I built that damn place.” He was screaming now, and his grip on the keys was loose.
“We can work it out, Mannering. We can figure a way to put it right.”
“Fuck you, who are you to talk to me? You turn up here then bully your way into coming out here, doing my job, the job I’m relied on to do. You’re nothing, nobody. You don’t matter.”
Mannering sneered, lowering his voice. “Want to know a secret? I know why our fish won’t leave us alone.”
Ethan was stunned, unable to respond. Mannering went on. “See, right after I knocked you out and tied you up, he came to investigate, got curious about why we were chasing him so far. He wouldn’t come close to the boat, though, we had no bait, so I had to use Barnes. There was plenty of blood, plenty of fleshy bits to tempt him in. When he got close, I got him hooked, snagged his fluke on the winch.”
Ethan glanced to the winch, noticing for the first time that the cable was in the water.
“He took a lot of line,” Mannering went on. “Dragged us for a quarter of a mile before he got tired. I tried to drag him in, I turned us around to head for home and started to pull him in, but he pulled back and nobody went anywhere. See, we have us a stalemate. We can’t pull him and he’s too tired to pull us. We’re stuck.”
Ethan stared at the water, then back at Mannering.
“So you see it makes no difference if you have the keys or not. You can’t go anywhere. That bastard is as stubborn as me, and neither of us are willing to budge.”
“Then let it loose, let it go.”
Mannering barked a shrill laugh which rolled away into the open ocean. “You think I haven’t tried that? You think I would if I could? Winch controls are broken, burned out when I was trying to drag him. Even so, the hooks are in deep, he’s really tangled. No way to free the big son of a bitch, so I decided we’d go out like men and die here on the boat with him.”
“What if we kill it somehow?”
“That won’t work,” Mannering said, shaking his head. He was afraid, and couldn’t hide it anymore. “You don’t get this, do you? Why do you think those things don’t just wash up on the shore? Why do you think we never see them floating around?”
Ethan shrugged. He didn’t know.
“I’ll tell you why. It’s because they sink. Our big fish out there has to be fifty feet, maybe more. My guess is he weighs more than a hundred tons. What do you think will happen when he eventually tires and dies?”
“He sinks,” Ethan said quietly
“He sinks,” Mannering repeated. “And when he does, his hundred-ton carcass will go straight to the bottom and drag us down with it.”
Ethan felt as if he had been punched in the gut.
“So when you ask why I’m not doing anything to stop us from dying, maybe, just maybe it’s because, for all intents and purposes, we’re already dead. We can’t go anywhere, and we can’t stay. In the old world, they would call that a conundrum. So you tell me, what do we do?”
“I…I don’t know,” Ethan said.
“Then stop acting like a dick and give me back my booze so I can at least die happy.”
“No. You don’t deserve to die happy, not after what you did to Barnes.”
He acted on instinct, reared back and threw the bottle, watching it spin end over end, spilling its contents into the ocean before the bottle landed and sunk without trace.
“You son of a bitch!” Mannering grunted as he charged across the deck, tackling Ethan to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. Ethan grunted, trying to catch his breath, the pain in his shoulder exploding through him. He saw a flash of silver, then Mannering was stabbing at him with the knife his face twisted into a grimace. Ethan reacted on instinct, grabbing Mannering’s hand, trying to deflect the frenzied attack. They were leaning on the transom, dangerously close to falling over the edge into the water. Ethan felt agonising pain in his arm as Mannering’s knife hit home, slicing open the skin of his upper arm and sending hot blood cascading into the water.
The reaction was immediate, the wake came, rolling slowly towards them as the weakened beast beneath the waves honed in on the potential food source. Ethan squirmed underneath Mannering, who was watching the creature come closer, his face twisted into a grin.
“She’s coming for you, boy. She’s coming to take you.”
“Please let me up,” Ethan said, staring at the water.
The creature breached, cascading icy water into the air. It rolled to them on the surface, unseen appendages propelling it through the water.
“When it takes you, I’m going to see it, I’m going to see it up close. Look, he’s watching you.”
The creature had breached, its massive eye staring at them both as they struggled on the rear of the boat. Fresh cuts and scars criss-crossed its body where Mannering had attached it during the chase.
“When you see Barnes, tell him it wasn’t personal,” Mannering grunted, the booze on his rancid breath making Ethan feel nauseous.
The creature accelerated, speeding towards the boat. Ethan braced himself, wondering how it would feel, wondering how much awareness he would have as those immense, serrated teeth pulverised him into nothing. He closed his eyes, waiting for the pain to come.
Instead, he was thrown across the deck, slamming into the doorframe leading to the interior. The creature had struck the rear quarter of the boat, splintering the old wood with ease and rupturing the barely seaworthy steel hull, the boat split in two, each section drifting apart. Mannering was in the rear section by the winch, screaming as he gripped on to the winch cable, the broken end section already filling with water on its way to sinking Ethan was in the main bulk of the vessel, but even that was beyond saving. The entire rear section was missing, and water was thundering in by the gallon. Ethan stared, still on the ground, watching the separated transom make a slow rotation as it sank beneath the waves. Mannering jumped into the ocean and started to swim, head down, legs kicking as he headed towards Ethan. All around him, the boat was starting to creak as it lost its battle to stay afloat.
“Help me,” Mannering screamed as he covered the short distance to Mannering. “Help me up, damn you,”
Ethan watched as Mannering grabbed at the splintered wood, fighting against the pull of the water as it rushed into the empty spaces below the water level.
“Pull me up, the water is too strong.”
Ethan was barely listening. Behind Mannering, the creature had surfaced again, its scale impossible to comprehend, the power it possessed beyond question. It was watching them. Mannering was screaming now and losing his battle to avoid being sucked under into the exposed innards of the vessel by the force of the water.
He reached down and grabbed Mannering’s arm and pulled him out of the water, his feet scrambling for purchase on the shattered deck.
“Thank you, thank you, I knew you were a good kid, I just knew it,” Mannering said. Ethan grabbed him by the shoulders, locking eyes with Mannering.
“You deserve this,” he whispered, then shoved with everything he had, sending Mannering back into the water. Mannering’s screams were cut off as his head went beneath the waves.
Behind him, the creature moved, a single flick of its massive fluke closing the distance. Mannering resurfaced, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then w
as gone in an explosion of blood and bone as the creature took him. As it dived beneath the water, Ethan saw the winch cable wrapped around its fluke, the barbs digging in deep.
Silence.
The rear section of the boat had already disappeared beneath the waves and was now being dragged around unseen by the mammoth creature.
The remaining section of the boat on which Ethan stood was starting to dip towards the water as its insides filled with ocean. Water was already up to his ankles. He clambered up onto the roof of the wheelhouse, fighting against the gradient as the boat lost its battle to stay afloat. His hope that the creature would leave him alone now that it had Mannering were destroyed when he saw the wake come again, rolling against the natural ebb of the tide as it came to investigate. Ethan surveyed the debris field from the boat, which was now bobbing across the surface of the ocean. He saw blood, and for a moment, he was sure it was what was left of Mannering, before realising it was Barnes he was looking at. The tub which had contained him gone, his separate limbs bobbing along in the ocean, and in turn compelling the creature to investigate. It approached the carcass, breaching the water and skimming across the front edge of the vessel with its massive mouth agape, bloody chunks of Mannering still clinging to its massive teeth. It took Barnes’ torso in one, crushing it with ease and swallowing it down.
The boat was now sinking rapidly, its battle to stay afloat lost. Ethan was now treading water. He couldn’t swim and was sure he was about to drown. He clung to a floating section of wood from somewhere within the wreckage, grimacing as the icy water bit into his body. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, then gasped and kicked his legs, struggling to stay afloat. He watched as the boat disappeared beneath the waves, leaving only debris and its one sole survivor behind. Once again, there was silence. Ethan had never known such cold, he was already going numb, and even breathing was hard. His injured arm and shoulder spilled hot blood into the water, which in turn brought the huge predator in the water to investigate.
From so low in the water, the wake looked like a mountain of water racing towards him. Never had he known such fear, such absolute all-consuming fear as in that exact moment. He could see it, its massive frame visible as it came to take the food the ocean had offered. Ethan bore it no grudge. It was a creature of instinct, honed to feed and survive on whatever it could. He could only imagine how frustrated it had become as it had been chained to the boat by Mannering, unable to hunt, swim or feed. Ethan knew he was dead anyway; he would either drown or die of the cold if the creature didn’t take him first, and at least that way would be quick. He braced for it, clinging on to the floating wreckage with fingertips that were rapidly growing numb. He had never known such fear. The water exploded in front of him. Sweeping away the flimsy wreckage that had been keeping him afloat. He was underwater, tumbling in the currents, wondering what had happened and why he wasn’t dead. He opened his eyes, desperately kicking and thrashing for the surface which seemed so far away.
The creature that had been coming for him was there, or more accurately, half of it was. It had been completely severed in the middle, bitten in two by the other creature, which had slammed into its side. Even at fifty feet, the creature Mannering had been chasing was positively tiny compared to the beast Ethan could now see. It was at least three hundred feet in length, its body a twisted mass of flesh. Bone grew on the outside of the skin, and its side was lined with deformed flipper-like appendages. Milky eyes were scattered about its head and side, and its huge gaping mouth was filled with razor-sharp teeth, each as tall as he was. The creature turned, and in a single bite, engulfed the front half of the creature that just seconds ago was about to kill Ethan, taking the whole forward section is one bite, shaking its massive head as it chewed, and in turn, sending Ethan tumbling backwards. Something snagged him, a piece of wreckage from the boat. It pierced his stomach, sending a fresh torrent of blood into the ocean. The new giant of the ocean honed in on it instantly, moving towards Ethan. He had never seen anything so big, so impossibly huge. The diary Mannering had given him sprang to mind, the one about a similarly doomed fishing trip like this one that had ended in death. They were right, the ocean was no place for man, not anymore. It had become a hellish place filled with vile wonders beyond comprehension. All Ethan did know was that he didn’t want to die on its terms; he would do it his own way. He would do it the same way as in the diary he had read. He opened his mouth and started to swallow the irradiated, foul water, coughing and choking and praying for death before the creature took him. As the world faded to darkness, Ethan was vaguely aware of a change in temperature as the giant beast slammed down its jaws on him. There was no pain, only silence and at least peace.
For Ethan, the nightmare was over.
Read on for a free sample of Sawfish
1
Virginia Key, Florida
“Feeding time!”
Dr. Mason Rayman found it not the least bit unusual he was talking to himself. Well, not to himself, exactly, but to some animals, a group of fish. Very large fish, but fish nonetheless. He felt like he knew them, after all, what with the months of tender love and care he’d given them.
He breezed through the concrete-floored passageway, towing a large cooler on wheels between two rows of enormous round tanks, each about shoulder high. The tanks were not see-through, but made of an opaque blue plastic, open on the top. He was in the semi-outdoor portion of his laboratory, a space with a metal roof to protect the aquaria and their denizens from the rain and blistering South Florida sun, but with walls that were only corrugated metal, leaving open space top and bottom to let in air and light. Beyond the token walls of the marine lab lay the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay. A long highway bridge, the Rickenbacker Causeway, connected this small island once shaped by hurricanes to the urban hotbed that was Miami.
Rayman heard splashes from the tanks while he walked, his charges anticipating their coming meal. He looked over to his right and saw a slash of gray carve at the water’s surface.
“Hey there, number eight, how’s it going today?” He stopped in front of the tank and opened the cooler. He grabbed two fistfuls of bloody fish hunks and tossed them into the tank, where the splashing grew more intense.
“Glad you like it, number eight! Bon appétit.”
Rayman watched as the lab subject slashed its head back and forth in frenzied, lateral motions. The scientist chuckled to himself. “Easy boy. They’re already hacked up for you, no need to slash it up yourself!” But the fish paid him no mind. It was embedded deep in its nature, buried somewhere in the very biochemicals of its genes to slash and hack and shake its guitar-shaped body back and forth. Its behavior would never change.
A sawfish.
Closely related to sharks but actually a type of ray, their most distinctive feature was the namesake appendage that was actually an extension of the head with a number of serrated teeth on each side.
Rayman heard more splashing from the other tanks as the fish sensed the commotion and knew what was coming. He looked up, eyes scanning the tanks as he addressed his charges. He’d been working with this group of a dozen sawfish for the past two years, part of a minor government grant he’d received to study electro-receptors in fish. Although the tanks and their sawfish took up a lot of space and looked impressive to visitors, they were not the main thrust of his work.
A professional researcher, Dr. Rayman had taken on extra grants in recent years, to the point he no longer even taught classes. His largest grant was, ironically, to study the smallest animals, copepods—tiny crab-like crustaceans. In his grant proposal, he had promised he would find out how gigantism—excessive growth usually due to hormonal imbalance—works in copepods. Turn little critters into big ones—sounds like fun, right?
But as the work went on, Rayman soon found out that it was anything but. Despite many different approaches, the insect-sized creatures stubbornly refused to grow. Although the purpose of his work was to discover mechanisms of gigantism, non
e of the methods he’d tried so far worked. Not that he expected a giant to suddenly appear overnight. Any kind of growth spurt would suffice, as these were all adult specimens from their time of acquisition, and adults did not grow in appreciable amounts over short periods of time. Yet, the last he had measured, the length, width and weight of the creatures had not been significantly different from when the study had started. He glanced over at the rack of more familiar-looking rectangular fish tanks that lined one wall. Inside them, hundreds of copepods fluttered about like aquatic insects. He shook his head while looking at them.
A disconcerting thought crept over him: Could that be why the bean counters holding the purse strings have been grumbling lately? Funding was tight. He and all of his colleagues had heard it over and over in recent months. Results were key. Demonstrating what did not work was not enough. And to that end, his results had been sorely lacking. All these months later, trying different things and his copepods were still normal size. He was going to have to admit that—
Something caught his eye in the far corner, Tank #12.
A head breaking the surface of the water. A head with attached saw.
Rayman did a double-take as his brain tried valiantly to process what his eyes were showing him. No way. What is this? Then, a second later… How could I not have noticed this the second I walked in?
For there in front of him, in the last tank on the right, thrashed a sawfish so large that had he been watching a video instead of standing there in person, he’d have bet his own life that it was some kind of image trickery and not real. But because he was standing here, smack dab in the middle of his own lab, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was by far the largest sawfish he had ever laid eyes on.
He mentally estimated its length as he neared the tank, his feet slowing their pace as he approached the beast. Gotta be thirty feet long. But that was impossible. This species of sawfish, the Atlantic Smalltooth, grew to a maximum recorded length of 21 feet in the wild, with the average adult length being closer to twelve feet. But this…
