by Alten-Steve
"The next shot will be at your stomach, so I suggest you jump now."
Mac moved to the rail, climbing over. "You're nuts, pal." Mac jumped in.
Bud watched him swim away from the Magnate. "See you in hell."
* * * * *
The female's stomach was on fire, sending spasmodic muscular contractions along her belly and pectoral fins. She needed to feed, needed to quench the flames that burned within. The vibrations from the Magnate became a homing beacon, the blood from Mac's wound intoxicating. Accelerating within the thermocline, the female approached the hull of the Magnate and rammed it, opening a massive fourteen-foot gash along the stern. Within seconds the yacht began spinning slowly, preparing its descent into the deep waters of the sanctuary.
Bud lay back in his lounge chair facing the bow, the bottle of Jack Daniel's now empty. His head ached, and now the world began spinning around him. "Must be the booze," he rationalized, laying his head back again. The second bump snapped him to attention.
"Ohhh shit." He grabbed the magnum, staggering to sit up.
The stern was flooding quickly, the Magnate was turning faster now. Bud fell against the rail, spotting the dorsal fin. He fired, missing by a good ten feet.
"Fuck you, fish. You're not gettin me. No way."
* * * * *
Through Dupont's glasses, Leon Barre saw the dorsal fin surface next to the crippled yacht. "I think we should go now, Captain."
The trawler's twin engines growled to life. Coughing blue smoke, the boat raced to shore. A half mile away, the female whipped her head around, her instincts gone mad. She accelerated in pursuit.
* * * * *
Bud closed his eyes, his world spinning too fast to see. He felt the forward deck rising. Feeling nauseous, he fell to his knees, struggled in his drunken state to take one last look. The boat rotated around him, accelerating into the vortex of the whirlpool. Through intoxicated eyes he could just make out the figure of the monster, its towering white triangular head rising above him. The mouth seemed to be opening, searching for food.
He looked up. "I'm coming, Maggie," he slurred, then searched for the monster. "Fuck you... bitch!" Bud put the magnum in his mouth and squeezed the trigger, blowing his brains out the back of his skull.
The triangular white bow of the Magnate continued rising as the stern rolled beneath the sea.
The Megalodon was long gone.
* * * * *
Jonas was exhausted. Whale blubber and other debris were compressing in the stomach, pushing hard against his back. He refused to look, afraid to see what, or who, it might be.
The tooth finally sliced through the six-inch lining, and Jonas pushed his head and arms through the slit. Having exited the stomach, he found himself in a totally different environment.
The cardiac chamber was very tight, a fleshy crawl space no more than a foot high. Jonas squeezed his body prone into the space, wedging his back against a layer of striated muscle. It gave. He crawled forward, one hand holding the flashlight, the other gripping the tooth, heading in the direction of the bass drum that pounded louder in his brain.
The chamber began widening, the heartbeat getting stronger, vibrating the fleshy walls around Jonas. And then he saw it in the beam of light, a throbbing five-foot rounded mass of muscle, suspended by thick cords of blood vessels.
* * * * *
The fishing trawler closed to within one hundred yards of the beach as the Megalodon surfaced a mere twenty feet behind. The passengers held on, unable to muster the mental fortitude to survive yet another attack.
With a sickening burst of speed, the female rammed the source of the vibrations, crushing the shafts of the twin engines. The propellers stopped churning and the crippled trawler drifted powerless only fifty yards from shore.
"Son of a bitch!" the captain screamed. "This is your fault, Frenchy. You're gonna pay for this!"
The Meg surfaced, circling twenty feet away. She closed, approaching the port side of the trawler and pushing her snout against the hull.
The ship rose out of the water at a thirty-degree angle. DeMarco, Terry, and four crewmen slid along the deck. They had nothing to grab hold of but each other. The Meg continued raising the left side of the ship higher and higher, pushing the vessel back out to sea. Two of the crewmen managed to find purchase on the boat's tuna net, but Terry, Adashek, and the four other crewmen tumbled overboard.
The Meg heard the splash and felt the thrashing vibrations along her lateral line. She stopped pushing, allowing the trawler's hull to collapse back into the water. She circled, spiraling into the Monterey Bay Canyon, the icy depths allowing her to quench the burning sensation within as she prepared to attack once more.
* * * * *
Jonas held tightly to the thick cords of the Megalodon's cardiac blood vessels. He felt the hot liquid coursing through the aorta as the monstrous heart pounded against his chest, growing louder now, beating faster. Suddenly, the Megalodon dived, toppling Jonas forward.
* * * * *
Terry was too exhausted to swim. She hovered in the water, suspended above the waves by her life vest. Adashek was near, attempting to pull her toward the boat.
Circling in fifteen hundred feet of water, the female sensed her prey escaping even as the burning within became tolerable. The Megalodon streaked to the surface, her never-ending hunger compelling her to attack. She opened her jaws to the cold seawater, closing to within a thousand feet of her prey.
Adashek tugged at Terry, drawing her close to the boat. Dupont tossed a ring buoy as the other two men climbed back on board.
Six hundred feet.
Jonas hacked at the aorta, meeting little resistance. Warm blood spurted in a thousand directions, coating the flashlight and his mask. The three-foot-wide chamber went dark and Jonas trembled involuntarily. The walls closed in once more.
Four hundred feet.
Terry and Adashek were close to the side of the trawler now, the hands of several crewmen reaching down into the water, pulling the reporter out first. Terry lifted her arm, straining to reach her rescuers, kicking as best as she could to keep from sinking.
Two hundred feet.
André Dupont looked down into the sea and saw the luminescent glow approach. "Get her out, quickly!" he yelled. Terry looked toward the abyss, saw the fluorescent figure appear against the blackness below. The Meg was rising directly beneath her! A shot of adrenaline coursed through her body, pushing her upward. She stretched her hand higher, grabbing a crewman's wrist.
One hundred feet.
The female's upper jaw, teeth, gums, and connective tissue emerged from under the snout, projecting forward and away from the skull. The eyes, blind, rolled protectively back in the creature's head. The Meg would consume its prey in one gargantuan bite.
Fifty feet.
Terry Tanaka felt her slick palm slide down the crewman's arm. Desperately, she reached up with her other hand, lost her balance, and fell back into the sea.
* * * * *
Jonas Taylor could not maintain a grip on the slippery cords. From the angle of the cardiac chamber, he realized the Meg was rising, probably to attack. He thought of Terry. Wrapping the crook of his left arm around the bundle of cords, he braced his bare feet against the soft tissues of the inner chamber walls above him and, inverted, pulled the beating muscle downward with all his might. His right hand tightened its grip on the tooth. With one powerful slash, he cut into the cords.
Twelve feet from the surface, upper jaw hideously hyperextended, the Megalodon slowed, nocturnal eyes bulging forward, all muscles frozen. The only movements came from her powerful caudal fin, which twitched involuntarily.
In total darkness, Jonas lay on his back, covered in warm blood that continued cascading down upon him in buckets. On his heaving chest, like an enormous tree trunk, lay the detached heart of the 40,000-pound Megalodon. Jonas struggled to breathe steadily into the regulator, hyperventilating from his effort. The drums had stopped, but the chamber was
engorged with blood.
Jonas wriggled out from beneath the massive organ and cast about for his flashlight. His fingers felt something hard, yes, the light. He wiped the lens but the beam was barely perceptible. On all fours, inching through a cascade of blood, he began crawling back towards the stomach.
* * * * *
Terry Tanaka had expected to die. When death did not come, she opened her eyes. The Megalodon's mouth hung open below her... descending. Blood surfaced in gouts, pooling around Terry's lower body.
"Terry, grab the rope," said DeMarco.
"Al, I'm okay. Throw me a mask, quickly."
Dupont grabbed a snorkel and mask and tossed them to her. She pulled the mask over her head, positioned the mouthpiece, and peered below. Through the scarlet-tinted brine, Terry saw a river of blood pouring out of the Megalodon's mouth as it continued to sink. The caudal fin had stopped moving.
* * * * *
Jonas had relocated the stomach, but he could not find the incision he had made. Panic! He strained to see the small circle of light coming from the flashlight. He banged the base of the light against his palm, making the beam slightly stronger. The claustrophobia sent involuntary muscular tremors rippling through his exhausted body. Finally, he spotted the incision. Jonas pushed his right leg through, followed by his head, and flopped forward, disoriented. Where was the AG I?
He plunged ahead on all fours, the strong stomach acids scorching his exposed hands and feet. The flashlight was useless now. Jonas had expected to see the sub's external light. He prayed the sub had not slipped into the intestines.
The angle of the internal anatomy was too great now, the lining too slippery. Jonas lost his balance and plummeted into a mass of debris at the lower end of the stomach. His head struck something solid — the tail section of the Glider.
The submersible's nose had passed through the entrance of the intestines, but the tail section was too large to follow. Grabbing hold of the rear hatch with both hands, Jonas jerked his body backward, the vessel giving slightly. He dug his toes in, adrenal glands pumping, and flung his weight backward again. The nose of the sub miraculously slid out of the blocked intestinal opening, expulsed in part by hundreds of gallons of partially digested food, backing up through the digestive tract.
The exterior light from the AG I cast an eerie luminescent glow in the stomach, revealing the effects of the dying host. The muscular lining no longer convulsed. The undigested contents of the intestines were backing up into the stomach and seeping into a pile, actually raising the nose cone of the AG I. With all his strength, he stood up, sliding the torpedo-shaped sub sideways until it was leaning at an angle against the now-vertical lining of the stomach.
Blindly, Jonas relocated the tail section, now sinking beneath three feet of deformed, half-digested whale blubber. He dug with his arms, scooping a hole in the fat. His hands found the outer hatch and yanked it open. Squeezing through the blubber, he forced his head, then his arms, through the hatch and into the dry chamber. Finally, he managed to wriggle his entire body inside the torpedo-shaped submersible, the slick coating on his wet suit lubricating the tight fit. Jonas secured the hatch beneath his feet, then stood upright within the eight-foot-long capsule. Directing the exterior light upward, he relocated the entrance of the stomach. With one burst of fuel left, he knew the AG I had to make it into the esophagus.
Jonas heaved his body to his left, shifting the position of the submersible, lining up the nose beneath his intended target as best he could. He strapped himself into the pilot's harness, then reached toward the latch that would ignite the fuel. Turning it counterclockwise, he pulled.
What little remained of the hydrogen fuel ignited, propelling the submersible upward along the stomach lining like a rocket scaling a wall. Jonas gripped the joystick, aiming for the esophageal opening. The nose of the AG I slipped and plunged through the lubricated entrance of the stomach and into the water-filled canal that was the creature's esophagus.
WHUMMMMP! The AG I slammed to a halt. The exterior light revealed a chamber immersed in seawater and blood. The dead predator's mouth was open, the sea slowly infiltrating the Meg's lifeless body. Jonas could make out the cavernous opening of the gullet looming ahead.
The AG I could not enter the esophagus. Jonas realized the sub's wider tail-fin section must have caught fast on the upper stomach's muscular lining. Jonas panicked as he felt the submersible begin to slip back into the digestive chamber whence it had come. He pulled the fuel latch again... nothing. Jonas was out of fuel. Nothing remained to prevent the AG I from sliding back down into the stomach.
In frustration, Jonas slammed his right fist downward, hitting a metal box. The escape pod! He tore open the lid, grabbed the lever, and pulled.
The AG I shuddered from the detonation that separated the internal Lexan glass torpedo-shaped escape pod from the heavier tail section of the submersible. The clear cylinder was propelled through the flooded chamber of the esophagus, its positive buoyancy assisting it upward.
The canal widened. The exterior light attached to the base of the escape pod illuminated the internal arches of the Megalodon's gullet that supported the cavernous chamber like the walls of an underwater cathedral. The escape pod shot upward, spinning out of control in a twisting funnel of water and blood. The buoyant cylinder continued to rise, approaching the open maw of the dead Meg.
Only one thing could halt Jonas Taylor's exit from his twenty-ton prison. Looming ahead, the Megalodon's lifeless jaws still bristled with row upon row of lethal nine-inch fangs.
Jonas lay in total darkness, save for the twisting exterior light of the pod. The jaws were locked open, but not hyperextended, leaving the gates of hell at less than half their potential diameter. Jonas held tight as countless primeval teeth leapt at him.
WHACK!
Jonas grimaced as the Lexan pod wedged sideways in between the half-closed jaws. The vessel was horizontal, immobilized between the razor-sharp points of the creature's upper and lower teeth. Failing to clear the open maw, the pod and its reluctant pilot were held captive within the locked jaws of their dead host, as its 42,000-pound frame plummeted hopelessly into the abyss.
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
The lifeless form of the female Megalodon descended tail-first, her glow disappearing into the black waters of the Monterey Bay Canyon. Trapped between its jaws, the AG I's seven-foot-long escape pod remained wedged in triangular prison bars, its condemned man losing sight of the surface. Jonas glanced quickly at his depth gauge. Eleven hundred feet and sinking fast.
He had to free up the pod. Assuming a push-up situation, Jonas launched his frame upward, slamming his back against the interior of the sub. The pod shuddered against the fangs of the monster, the vessel sliding a good six inches farther out of the jaws of death. Encouraged, Jonas smashed upward again, and again, each time slipping the pod a little bit closer to freedom.
At last, with a terrible scrape of bone on bulletproof plastic, the escape pod popped free from the death grip of the Megalodon and rose like a helium balloon toward the surface.
Jonas breathed an enormous sigh of relief. The pod would rise at a rate of sixty feet per minute, allowing for proper decompression.
Then he saw the cracks begin to spread, water seeping through the damaged shell of the escape pod.
* * * * *
Mac could swim no farther. Unable to catch his breath, his legs numb, he sensed the creature circling, felt the current generated by its mass before actually spotting the three-foot triangular dorsal fin.
"Get the hell out of here, you midget," he yelled at the thirteen-foot predator. The caudal fin slashed back and forth along the surface even as the harness dropped upon Mac's head from above.
Startled, Mac looked up to see the Navy helicopter. He slipped one arm into the harness and frantically signaled the crew to pull him out of the water. The conical head of the shark rose out of the sea just as the pilot was yanked upward.
Mac looked at his res
cuers, a smile on his face, tears welling in his eyes. "Well, what do you know — the good ol' U.S. Navy. I can't believe it!" Saving my sorry ass after all these years." He shook his head. "Lord, you do have a sense of humor after all."
* * * * *
The Lexan torpedo continued rising, the integrity of the escape pod in serious jeopardy. At five hundred and thirty-eight feet, what had been a tiny crack suddenly lengthened above Jonas's head. Physically and mentally drained, he could only watch as the six-inch-long crack began circling the circumference of the cylinder.
The satanical face of the Megalodon continued sinking into the canyon below. Jonas watched as the glow diminished, then disappeared entirely into darkness. He had escaped certain death twice. But to survive this day, he needed one more miracle.
Pressure. Oxygen. Pressure and oxygen. The all-consuming mantra entered his mind. For some reason the pod was rising at too fast a pace. Within his bloodstream, Jonas knew, nitrogen bubbles were beginning to form.
Four hundred feet. The seven-foot-long Lexan tube continued to hurtle upward like a glass missile. The cracks within the plastic had branched out into several different sections. A fine spray of water soaked the interior of the pod. Jonas knew that when the crack completely encircled the escape pod, the integrity of the structure would collapse under the tremendous pressures.
CRAAAACK. Only three feet separated the ends of the fissure. Anxious, Jonas began calculating. How deep was my last dive? What was the maximum depth he could tolerate? One hundred and twenty feet? One-thirty? He checked the oxygen tank still strapped around his chest. Not good news: less than three minutes of air remained.
