by Michael Cole
Nelson scrambled to his feet and snatched the shotgun from the deck. He leaned against the port, looking into the face of the enormous, demonic head that nearly took up the entire deck. He shouldered the firearm and aimed right between the eyes. He felt the kick of each discharge. Buckshot splattered against the creature’s head. With his ears ringing, he looked in utter shock. Other than a few minor scratches on the top of its head, the firearm inflicted no damage. The boat leaned further, causing him to lean back to maintain his balance. He fired off another round, right at the creature’s snout. The fragments bounced off and scattered in random directions; one of which entered Nelson’s left shoulder.
The fragment cut deep, causing Nelson to yell out. Beck, still on the deck, tried scooting away. With the boat sloping to starboard, gravity started pulling him ever closer to the huge snapping jaws. He turned to his stomach and clawed against the deck. He felt the bottom of his feet press against the solid nose. Then there was the sensation of flesh being ripped apart, as teeth punctured his left leg on both sides. One tooth ripped through the calf muscle, while a tooth on the lower jaw broke through the tibia. Beck yelled out in the worst pain he had ever felt. Seeing the officer about to be pulled over the edge, Nelson grabbed Beck’s outstretched hand.
Forster watched in horror as the bloodshed unfolded in front of her. The boat was on the verge of capsizing. She pulled herself to the helm, intending to try and throttle away, but she quickly realized she couldn’t do that without losing Beck. The situation seemed hopeless. Then she saw the pole with tranquilizer inside the vial. Her brain barely processed the new idea that transpired. There was no time.
She threw herself down to the deck and grabbed the pole. After pulling herself to her feet, she jumped toward the monster. Like a Spartan with a lance, she rammed the rod between the jaws, plunging it into the soft gums. The shark opened its jaws in a brisk motion, releasing Beck and going after her. Its snout struck Forster in the chest, throwing her to her back before the jaws could snatch her.
Immediately, the hybrid felt a sensation it hadn’t experienced prior. It felt slow, and its vision suddenly seemed shadowy. With a wiggle of its body, it slipped back down into the water, confused in its drowsy state.
The boat leveled out, and Nelson quickly rushed to Beck’s side. Blood gushed from his nearly severed leg. The flesh was ravaged, and he could even see the splintered white of the bone through the blood and meat. Nelson tore off his police shirt and wrapped it tightly against the wound. He looked to Forster.
“GUN IT!” he said. She put the boat on full throttle and pointed the bow toward land. Nelson tightened the shirt around Beck’s leg. “You’ll be alright, kid!”
“The guys at the bar are never gonna believe this!” Beck said in a pained voice.
At least he’s got a sense of humor about it.
The hybrid felt the distortion from the propellers. The target was moving away at great speed. Despite the bizarre disorientation it was experiencing, its aggressive tendencies took over once again. It could not allow the prey to escape. It moved after it, slashing its tail against the water. It required much effort, but the hybrid pushed on.
Nelson saw the fin behind them, “Holy shit! He’s not giving up!” Forster glanced behind them, seeing the fin for herself. She could tell it was slowing due to the tranquilizer, but it must not have had a large enough dose. Another idea formed in her mind. She knew exactly how to subdue it for good. She dug her phone from her pocket and made a call. She drove the boat with the phone lifted to her ear. Each ring seemed to take forever.
“Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!”
********
Felt sat in his office, eyeballing a bottle of whiskey after going over bills and ticket sales. He reached for the whiskey, needing something to sooth his nerves. Then, he noticed his phone buzzing on the desk, and Forster’s name on the screen. He suddenly grew excited. He snatched it up.
“Hey!” he said in a delighted voice. “Tell me the good news!”
“Will! Open the pen doors right now!” Her voice was loud and intense, which he mistook for excitement.
“Oh my god!” he said. “You mean, you really caught the--”
“Jesus Christ, Felt!” Now there was no mistaking the tone. “Do it now! Open the damn gate! Now!”
Felt stumbled as he jumped out of his seat. He ran through the lobby of the building to the elevator. He stepped in with a group of people, only to see several floors lit up before it would reach the 1st floor. He reached out, preventing the doors from sliding shut, and dashed from the elevator. He darted for the stairwell and descended rapidly down the steps. Out of shape, he felt himself quickly running out of breath. By the time he got to the 1st floor, he was soaked in sweat. He ran out the front doors and pushed through crowds of visitors.
“Excuse me! Pardon me!” he called out in a vain attempt to seem polite. He reached the pens and dipped behind the tents blocking the Great White Exhibit. He pulled his card and ran it through the swipe at the console. The doors beeped loudly as they began to open. He looked to the blue ocean, seeing the Fairbanks rapidly approaching in the distance.
********
“Keep pressure there,” Nelson directed Beck, before snatching up the shotgun. He stood at the transom and pointed toward the beast. He fired three more shots, before the weapon finally ran empty. He tossed it down and drew his Sig Saur from the hip, rapidly firing off .40 caliber rounds at the hybrid. He could see the individual splashes caused by each round as they zipped toward the target. It did not slow its pursuit. With one last pull of the trigger, the slide locked back. “Fuck!”
“Chief!” Forster yelled back to him. “The bait! Remove the hook from the blue shark! Then, on my signal, take the rope off it!” Nelson didn’t waste any time asking questions. He holstered the gun and grabbed the fish. He twisted the hook until he was finally able to remove it, cutting up his fingers on the denticles in the process.
“How am I taking the line off?”
“You have a knife, don’t ya?” Forster called back. Nelson dug into his pocket and grabbed a pocket blade. Forster glanced back, seeing him about to cut the rope. “Hold on! Not yet!”
“When, then?!” Nelson said. He looked to the bow, realizing they were closing in on the exhibit. “Uh, Julie…what the hell are you doing?!” She ignored him, watching her path carefully. She aimed the nose of the boat right for the open doors. Three hundred feet. Two hundred feet. One hundred feet. Fifty feet. Twenty.
She brought it to a full stop, allowing the momentum to bring the boat the rest of the way inside the pen.
“Now!” she yelled to Nelson. With a single cut of the rope, the blue shark dropped into the water below. Forster looked to the control console, seeing Felt standing there, amazed at what was happening. She glanced back to the entrance. The creature entered. For a moment, it seemed to continue coming straight at them. Then, finally it dipped for the bait. She looked to Felt while turning the boat. “Close the gate!” she yelled. Felt hit the button, and the high-pitched beeping screeched, and the yellow lights flashed again. The Fairbanks skidded off the edge of the pen as Forster manipulated a sharp turn, then gunned it for the closing entrance. She cleared the doors, and they gradually slammed home.
The hybrid shredded the dead blue shark, unwittingly injecting itself with more of the tranquilizer. After consuming the meal, it turned to continue pursuing its target, only to slam against a wall of reinforced steel. It turned and tried a different path, only to find another dead end.
Before it could analyze the situation, it suddenly felt a drop in blood pressure, followed by loss of energy. It struggled to swim, only to succumb to the added dose of tranquilizer.
Forster directed the boat to the nearby port. She grabbed her phone and quickly called the number for one of the techs. They answered.
“Get the underwater drone and the air pump, STAT!” she ordered. She looked to Nelson, intending to embrace to celebrate the miraculous task they pu
lled off. But that joy disappeared when she saw him on the radio, yelling for an ambulance. Blood had completely covered the deck. Beck rested on his back, barely conscious. She dropped the phone and went to aid Nelson, keeping pressure on the wound.
Nelson looked at her with fiery eyes. “Proud of yourself now?!” he bellowed. She didn’t answer.
Meanwhile, Felt jumped up and down at the Exhibit console with a joy that he hadn’t felt in years. A crowd began to form, equally confused by the drastic event taking place at the boat, the commotion that had just occurred in the pen, and the resort owner’s ecstatic celebration.
CHAPTER
18
With walls made of a mixture of granite and sea pebbles, the lower observation room had the smell of sea salt. A huge fiberglass model of a great white shark hung from the ceiling, while other smaller models of other species were lined along the walls. The center of the room was lined with dozens of chairs, intended for visitors to witness underwater feeding demonstrations. Orange cones and yellow caution tape were set up along the entrances to the large room, preventing any unauthorized personnel inside.
At the front of the room, Forster stared through the massive plate of glass which separated her from the pen. Inside, the creature rested motionless on the floor of the pen. It lay several yards away, its head pointed off to the side. Forster could just see its mouth well enough to see that it was open. She knelt down to operate a flat controller unit that was hooked up to a laptop. The screen showed nothing but a bright blue, with yellow streaks of light. It resembled a cloudless sky, but it was the water’s surface, with the feed coming from the underwater drone. She could see the maintenance workers lowering the pump into the water, and the camera moved swiftly as they lifted the drone to hook it up to the end of the pump. There was no audio on the monitor, so Forster had to keep in contact via radio.
“Let’s go, guys, we don’t want to lose it,” she said. As one of the men was manipulating the drone, the camera briefly panned to one of the other workers. He was clearly mocking her with a disdained look on his face while talking. “Knock off the horseplay, Harris.” Luckily for Forster, she could see the amused reactions from the other workers. Finally, the screen was directed toward the water, which overtook the image after the drone was lowered inside.
Forster carefully manipulated the drone toward the downed creature. The added weight from the pump made the controls more sensitive. If she moved it down even the slightest bit, the drone started to take a nose dive. The workers lowered it as the drone descended, helping to alleviate the weight on the mechanism. To do this, they had to lower it slowly. This created a pull on the hose which made turning the drone left or right nearly impossible.
Forster alternated looking at the screen and looking through the glass, which made it easier to gauge the distance down to the shark. It finally came into view on camera. Its nose was pointing at the drone, and after sinking a bit lower, she could see that the jaw was slack.
“Oh, thank God,” she said. This made it easier to apply the pump. With it attached to the drone, there was no other way than to simply drive it between the jaws. She watched the mouth grow larger on screen, until it ‘consumed’ the electronic image. Then there was nothing but black. Looking through the glass again, she could see the unconscious creature’s head wiggling slightly as the drone worked the pump inside. She grabbed her radio.
“Alright guys, switch the pump on. Let’s see if this works,” she said.
“You got it,” the supervisor responded. A flow of bubbles filled the screen, clouding the dark background. Looking through the glass, Forster strained to see if the airflow was moving through the gill line. The fluctuation in the water near the gills suggested that the operation was successful.
“Alright, guys, thanks for your help,” she spoke into the radio, and clipped it to her belt. She stood up and turned to walk out, only to nearly bump into Felt. “Oh, jeez!” she exclaimed.
“Sorry,” he said, returning his gaze to the creature. His demeanor was improved vastly compared to what it had been during the past several weeks. He looked like a child in a toy store while looking at the pen’s new inhabitant. “It’s so beautiful!” he said. Forster thought he sounded like a generic mad scientist.
“You wouldn’t think so if it was coming after you,” she said.
“I guess I’ll never have to find out,” Felt said, without skipping a beat. Forster wondered if Felt even noticed the damage to the Fairbanks, or even realized a police officer’s life was in jeopardy.
Since docking, she was overwhelmed by a heavy sense of shame. Her mind dwelled on the reality that if she had not gone out, the officer would not be in the emergency room. A remark from Nelson indicated that the man was recently married, which further dug in the guilt complex. She wanted to call Nelson and ask for any updates, but she doubted he had any interest in talking to her. She returned her attention to the creature, which provided the perfect distraction. The pump continued pumping oxygen into its mouth.
“I just hope we aren’t too late,” she said.
“So, you’re going to just leave the drone in its mouth?” Felt asked. Both eyebrows raised on Forster’s head.
“Um, yes,” she said. “That was the only way I was willing to get the pump down to it. No way in hell am I letting anyone down there in that tank, under any circumstances.”
“Oh, but isn’t it tranquilized?” Felt asked.
More stupid questions. Forster resisted the urge to tell him to stick to business and let her deal with the animal care.
“Eh, doesn’t matter,” Felt said before Forster could answer. “I just can’t wait to open this exhibit again! When will it wake up?” Forster looked at him, puzzled.
“You want to open it already?”
“Of course!” Felt said. His voice filled the room. “Julie, we have something the world has never seen before. People will go nuts over seeing this thing! I’m telling you, this place will go from zero-to-a-hundred in no time. And like I said before, you’ll get to be credited with this discovery. Scientists will be consulting you!” Somehow, hearing it this time didn’t give Forster the same glorious feeling as before. She shook her head.
“Sir, there’s no way you can open this exhibit already,” she said. Felt’s expression turned to disgust, like a five-year-old who got served broccoli for dinner.
“Why not?”
“First of all, we need to learn more about the thing,” Forster said. “We need to know more about its nutritional needs, how its metabolism works, if it’ll be in need of any particular medication.” Felt shrugged.
“I just figured it eats the same stuff any normal shark eats,” he said.
“Yeah, but it’s bigger, heavier, and has a different body structure,” Forster said. “All that can play into its metabolism, meaning we likely will have to feed it a lot more than the white. Besides…” she looked back to the shark, “it took enough tranquilizer to put down something twice its size.”
“Is that bad?”
“It’s not good,” she said. “Either we overdosed it, or it means this thing could be very difficult to contain. On that note, we don’t know how it’s gonna handle being in captivity. Either it’ll get pissed and start attacking the walls, or stressed, and when fish get overly stressed, they can die. And is that what you want; to open this exhibit, and have this thing die in front of everyone?” Felt stood quiet, which provided an answer in itself. “That’s what I thought. Probably wouldn’t be the headline you wanted.”
“I suppose not,” Felt said.
“I’d be fine with that!” a voice echoed from the entrance. Chief Nelson stepped into the room, followed by a protesting maintenance worker.
“Sir! Officer! You can’t come down here,” the worker said. Nelson ignored him and approached Felt and Forster. His shirt was wrinkled and unbuttoned. Dried blood crusted around the tear in his right shoulder where the ricochet hit him. Felt immediately groaned, looking at the ceiling for a brief
moment.
“Don’t you get sick of coming here and interrupting my business?” he said. Forster cringed at the remark, knowing Nelson’s state of mind. She stepped toward him.
“Chief, how’s he doing? Is he alright?” she asked, referencing Officer Beck. She prayed in her mind for a positive response. Out of good human nature, she wanted the young officer to pull through okay. Just as much, she was desperate to know she didn’t get someone killed by going after the creature. Nelson ignored her and went right to Felt.
“Don’t get smart with me,” he told him.
“Hey, I’m the owner of this property! You don’t get to come here and speak to me like that! In fact, you shouldn’t be here at all!” Instead of backing down, Nelson rapidly approached, standing nose to nose with Felt. It wasn’t the response he expected, especially not from an officer on duty, particularly the chief. It was almost as if he insulted somebody in a bar. A brief but tense moment passed, and Felt slowly took a step back.
“You want to talk about things one shouldn’t do?” Nelson said. “How ‘bout making this young lady go out there ALONE to catch this thing, after you were damn well sure of what it was capable of!” He pointed to the shark. Felt gulped.
“Well it was her id--…” he paused, re-thinking his retort. Forster’s jaw dropped slightly in grim astonishment, realizing Felt was about to throw her under the bus. “I…I…Well, I didn’t make her…”
“You certainly manipulated her,” Nelson said. Felt crossed his arms, in a pathetic attempt to look tough.
“Now, you can’t just come here making wild accusations!” he said. “What exactly are you here for, anyway?” Nelson looked to the shark, quickly noticing the air pump.
“You’re keeping it alive?”
“Uh, yeah,” Felt said. Duh. Nelson shook his head, which Felt interpreted as disapproval. “Let me guess; you have an issue with that.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Nelson said. “When I leave here, I’ll be contacting the Coast Guard and have them properly expose of this thing.” Felt scoffed.
