by Hunter Shea
There was a lot of bamboo and teak, with mosquito netting over the canopy beds.
The last thing he wanted to do was flaunt his wealth in the faces of the Marshallese who would work on the island. It would become their island in time. No need to set a ridiculous standard they’d struggle to maintain.
All of the homes were was a single-level raised structures because of the propensity for flooding, not just during the rainy season, but when any kind of storm swelled the surrounding Pacific. Global warming wasn’t just a term used out here to push a political agenda or get people to be more PC. No, to the Marshallese, it was a frightening fact that forced them to adjust not just their way of life, but outlook for the future. They didn’t care whether the changing weather patterns were manmade or just a cyclical function of the planet. All that mattered was that it was real and called for some adaptations to better deal with it. Homes on other islands were wiped out with soul-deadening consistency, and there were only so many times people with little means could rebuild.
Which is why so many Marshallese had simply picked up stakes and moved to America. The US’s open door policy was too enticing to resist. Ollie was shocked to learn that there were huge populations of Marshallese in Arkansas of all places! He could think of a thousand other places where rather he’d settle down.
Then again, a lot of the Marshallese he’d been in daily contact with thought he was equally insane for coming down here. The grass was always greener . . .
The five houses were arranged in a ring in the center of the island. Their placement was designed to mirror the natural ring of an atoll, the ovular coral reefs that enclosed lagoons and were in abundance in Micronesia. There was enough distance between each to provide privacy while still being close enough to wave to one another from their front doorsteps. All had two bedrooms with dining rooms that opened up to teak wood decks overlooking the ocean, since the ocean was just about everywhere you looked. Ollie envisioned countless dinner parties as they hopped from house to house, enjoying each other’s company over bottles of wine, the moon shimmering on the darkening water.
“The boat should be here in an hour,” Marco said, startling Ollie.
“Thanks for the heart attack.”
“Anytime.”
Ollie said, “I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“I sweat right through my sheets. That ceiling fan only seemed to make it worse. I had to take a couple of shots of whiskey to sleep so I wouldn’t be dragging ass today.”
“The air conditioners arrive next week. We’ll be sleeping like old cats once we get them in.”
“You mean babies,” Marco said, drinking from a freshly cracked coconut. A handful of workers were putting the finishing touches on the exterior of Lenny’s bungalow.
“Babies sleep like shit.” Ollie laughed. “I had a cat, Drusilla, who would sleep through an earthquake. That’s the kind of sleep I want.”
“I’ll just be happy to stem the tide of diaper rash this place has given me.” He motioned for Ollie to follow him to his house. “Come on and help me carry the cooler and stuff down to the dock.”
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun seemed especially bright. Ollie wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. “I’m putting on my suit. I’m staying in the water until the last possible second.”
“Hey, good idea. Can we technically call ourselves beach bums?”
“Why the hell not? Who’s around to tell us otherwise?”
They changed and each carried a handle on the cooler filled with champagne and flutes. The ice shifted loudly. Ollie worried that the glasses would break, but they made it to the dock in one piece. As soon as he closed the cooler lid, he jumped into the crystal blue water. Opening his eyes, it seemed like he could see forever. Marco splashed next to him, diving under the dock to collect shell fragments.
At best, Ollie was a middling dog paddler. But he could hold his breath a bit and float under the water without panicking.
Visibility under the pristine water was clear as glass. A tightly packed school of fish, a riot of flashing golds and indigo, darted in perfect fluidity in the distance. Ollie kept meaning to study up on the various sea life that would be his neighbors, but getting everything ready was so time consuming. There would be time. Plenty of time.
A large shadow trailed the wake of the departing school. He couldn’t make out what it was.
He did know there were a lot of big ass tuna out here. Commercial fishing rights for tuna were one of the mainstays of the Marshall Island economy. Some of them grew to be quite massive. The only tuna he wanted to get up close to came in a can and was best served with mayo, onions and celery.
Of course, it could also be a shark. To say they were in abundance out here was an understatement. In fact, the entire area had been declared a shark sanctuary decades ago. He’d been reassured that they weren’t of the man eating Jaws variety . . . for the most part. He and Marco had spent many a dusk sitting on the beach with cold beers, watching dozens of triangular shark fins swimming back and forth in the distance.
Ollie spotted the hull of the boat as it cleaved its way toward the island. He popped up and saw Marco climbing up the ladder on the side of the dock.
“Here they come,” Marco said, toweling himself off. Ollie could make out the faint outline of Marco’s defined abs.
He felt his own flat stomach, having shed the extra pounds of flab that had accumulated during his twenties. Being out here working in the sun, eating better, had chiseled the both of them down to their high school bodies. Marco saw another benefit to their newfound physical fitness—guilt-free drinking. Even hangovers could be easily burned off.
Marco and Ollie helped tie the boat to the dock, exchanging pleasantries with the captain, Joel Elcar. The man had the deepest tan Ollie had ever seen. He assumed it went right down to the man’s marrow. When he smiled, his teeth glinted like stars.
“Did they behave themselves?” Ollie asked.
Joel barked a short, hearty laugh, his perpetual grin widening. “They have many questions. Lucky for them, I have many answers.”
Elcar’s mate, a teen that looked at lot like the sun-kissed captain, set the small gangplank down.
Ollie spotted his friends walking from the stern, glasses filled with what looked like mimosas in their hands. Heidi wore a straw hat with a brim so large, a gust of wind would have carried her off like the Flying Nun. Steven, draped in a hideous Hawaiian shirt, had an arm curled around her waist. Lenny wore long cargo shorts and a black New York Mets jersey. He caught Ollie’s eye and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Are you kidding me? This is like something out of a movie.”
“Welcome to Fantasy Island!” Ollie said with outstretched arms.
“You’re a little tall for Tattoo,” Steven said, pointing at Marco.
“All the better to spot de plane,” Marco replied, lending a hand to Heidi. She wore absurdly high heels, her ankle almost snapping when a lazy wave made the boat bob up, the gangplank shifting.
“You should probably ditch the shoes,” Steven said to her.
“Fashion advice from a Hawaii Five-O extra. Nice,” she replied with a smile that didn’t quite make it all the way to her eyes.
Lenny leapt from the side of the boat onto the dock and hugged Ollie. His jersey was soaked with sweat. “I still can’t believe this is real,” he said close to Ollie’s ear.
“I see you’ve dressed the part of the islander,” Marco said.
“Hey, you should never forget where you came from. Queens and the Mets are part of my DNA.”
“You already have drinks, but I think we have something just a little bit better to start things off right,” Marco said, opening the cooler. Inside were three bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Brut. Ollie was no champagne enthusiast, but Marco had assured him the two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle bubbly was miles better than the more popular Dom Perignon.
“Oh, sweet,” Lenny said, accepting a glass of the fizzing win
e.
Ollie took their mimosas and handed them to the mate where he disappeared into the cabin.
Marco handed him a glass and he almost dropped it.
Why are you so nervous?
He felt as if he were going to rocket right out of his skin. After almost a year of planning, it was finally happening.
“Starting without me?”
Tara emerged from the cabin wearing a white crochet dress that flowed down to her ankles. A side slit revealed a wonderfully tanned and toned leg. She’d grown her hair out since the night in the club and dyed it red, the scarlet ends splayed against the top of her exposed chest.
Ollie had to remind himself to breathe.
“Nope,” Marco said. “Just getting our priorities straight.”
With a slight shudder, Ollie broke from his paralysis and helped her down the gangplank. He was glad he’d just been swimming. The ocean water masked the sweat that broke out on his palms.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind and caught the next plane back to the states,” he said.
“And miss all this?” She gladly accepted the glass of champagne. “Not on your life, Raging Bull.”
They all looked to Ollie, their host and benefactor.
Benefactor.
He wondered if he’d ever get used to this new life he’d stumbled into.
A cool breeze came off the ocean. The sun, blue sky and clear water were a backdrop no Hollywood CGI could top.
“Thank you all for coming. You have no idea how much this means to me. There were times I didn’t think we’d get our shit together, but luckily, I’ve had Marco keeping the course. Here’s to the rest of our lives and the incredible adventures to come.”
They clinked glasses and sipped the wonderful champagne.
Tara leaned into him. He felt an electric jolt shoot up that side of his body.
Steven downed his glass. “God bless us, everyone. N-now, hit me with some more of that hooch.”
***
Deep within the stygian blackness of its long slumber, the beast sensed changes in its cold, still world. Vibrations and a flood of new, exotic scents sank below the waves.
The small, active part of its brain registered the sudden deviation from the typical calm that enshrouded it like a frigid, dead womb.
The incessant flood of sensory input awakened something inside it.
Hunger.
But it could not detect what it truly craved.
For the moment, it could only sit and wait.
INTERLUDE, 1950
For Dr. Laughton, it was like working in a damn coffin. On most days, the air conditioning had a hard time keeping the heat at bay, so the coffin was more like an oven.
I’ll bet that brings back some memories for that psychotic Dr. Mueller, he thought. Although this time, he’s on the other end.
He’d been having a difficult time adjusting to this new paradigm of international cooperation in the name of science. He and the other American scientists had not been told the backgrounds of the men imported from Germany and other hiding spots around the world so they would not be biased or prejudicial in their dealings with them.
That only made things worse. As far as Laughton and his contemporaries were concerned, these foreign scientists were all guilty of one atrocity or another.
There was no sense fighting it. It was happening all over the globe. He even heard they were going to set up a lab near his hometown in Long Island, New York with one of these castaways.
To the victors go the spoils, no matter how strange and dangerous they may be.
Though, truth be told, they wouldn’t have been able to make such progress without them. These imported minds had been given free rein to delve into the wildest theories and postulates, and with that unfettered permission had come some remarkable results.
Results that they were now working together to refine . . . and control.
He was still trying to figure out how they had managed to genetically engineer the Megalodon. Laughton and his partner Lancaster poured through reams of data, some of it, he was ashamed to admit, that was above his level of understanding. In fact, if he just went by what was put down on paper, he would not believe it was possible.
But the caged beast under the lab was surefire proof that they were right.
Mad fucking geniuses. Though you’d never know it to be around them. They were as cool as igloos, this lot. Quick to smile, always calm under pressure, models of precision and invention.
That disturbed him even more.
There was a knock at his door.
“Come in.”
Dr. Brand, his white lab coat smeared with black smudges, came in looking grayer than usual. He really needed some time in the sun, along with a host of vitamin shots. This bunker of a lab was killing him.
“We got a new shipment,” Dr. Brand said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his narrow nose.
That brought a smile to Dr. Laughton’s face.
“It’s a little early,” he said.
“Colonel Pearson expedited pickup and delivery. I’ve prepped the subjects.”
“Thank you, Martin. Why don’t you go topside for a while, take a break? You look exhausted.” Not to mention filthy and smell like death itself, Dr. Laughton thought. He really had to have a sit down with Dr. Brand and convince him to let them do a full workup. He was beginning to fear the worst, especially considering what Dr. Brand did all day.
“I’m knackered. I think I’ll just lie down for a spell. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Dr. Laughton watched him go, then placed the files he’d been reading in the safe.
He didn’t want to miss feeding time.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I feel like hot garbage,” Steven mumbled into his pillow. He’d kicked the sheets off hours ago, but with the humidity, it still felt as if he had a hot, wet blanket draped over his body.
“I have the fan as high as it’ll go,” Heidi said. She stood over him in her new two-piece bathing suit. When she turned to get a bottle of water from the dresser, he noticed the rear of the suit left very little to the imagination.
It hurt to rub his eyelids. Was that sand? Had he face planted on the beach last night?
“That suit’s a little skimpy, don’t you think?”
Handing him the warm bottle, she pulled her sunglasses down so he could see her exaggerated eye roll. “As if I’d give your friends their own private show. I can only imagine what Lenny would say. I’m going out in the yard . . . by myself.”
Steven struggled to sit up in bed. His tongue tasted like he’d licked a dog’s asshole before he went to sleep . . . or passed out, depending on your point of view.
“The yard? It’s like a wide open beach.”
“You forget about the privacy fence around the cabana?”
“I forget a lot of things at the moment. What time did we crash?”
She gave him two Tylenol and fluffed his pillows. “I think it was around five. I know the sun was about to come up.”
Heidi looked as if they hadn’t drunk the island dry. They’d been married two years, together five, and he’d yet to see her with a hangover. He suspected some kind of witchery.
“What time is it n-n-now?” He closed his eyes and surrendered to the soft mound of pillows.
“Just after two. You want me to fix you something to eat before I go out?”
“Jesus, n-no.”
“You sure you don’t want a nice runny egg?”
Steven clamped a hand over his gurgling, cramping stomach. “You’re evil, you know that?”
“A girl’s gotta have her fun. Go back to sleep. You’ll be feeling better by dinner.”
“I can only hope.”
“We have many more nights like last night and we’ll be flying back to Malibu to one of those fancy rehabs.”
“Been a long time since I drank like that. I’m getting old. I feel old.”
“You’re not old. Y
ou’re just not in college anymore.”
With the pillows bunching around his head, it felt as if they had become sentient and were trying to suffocate him. “I think I’d feel less like shit if it wasn’t so damn hot.”
Heidi threw a towel, sunscreen and a James Patterson paperback in her beach bag.
She said, “What did Marco say about the air conditioners? They’re coming in next week?”
“I’ll die of heat exhaustion before then.”
Patting his bare stomach, she said, “A little sweat will do you good, help you lose a few. You see what it’s done for Marco already.”
Steven groaned. He’d seen the difference in Ollie, too. Heidi never was into short guys. He’d have to keep a close eye on Marco, though. He trusted his wife, but his past experiences with Marco and the fairer sex were less than savory. Hell, Marco had swiped Tara right out from under Lenny in their sophomore year. Not that Stump and Tara were ever destined to become something serious.
Of course, that was then and this was now. They’d all grown up.
Well, everyone but Lenny.
At least the bed was comfortable. And it was nice to have the windows open, the meager breeze tickling the sweat on his skin. Back home, he’d been paranoid about keeping windows open. Sure, they’d lived in the suburbs, but with so many people around, there was always the potential for a break in or worse. Ever since Mexico, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. Even after installing a security system around the house and making sure he had pepper spray on him at all times, he never felt completely safe.
It was why he’d jumped at the chance to come out here, despite Heidi’s protests. She knew he needed the change too, so she didn’t fight him so hard. He was tired of feeling like . . . like less of a man. Jeez, it hurt to even think it. When people saw the size of him, they all assumed he was invincible.
Those Mexican thugs had really messed his mind up good. He’d considered therapy, but then this opportunity came along. Island therapy beat sitting on a couch any day.
