by Hunter Shea
She kept her camera trained on the runaway nightmare.
“It’s . . . it’s some kind of shark. I think. But it’s way too big.”
The dorsal fin was nothing compared to the wide open maw that burst from the depths, swallowing two of the dolphins. Its massive teeth chomped down, obliterating the majestic creatures to ribbons of pink and gray flesh.
The rest of the dolphins changed direction, heading east now, away from the beach.
The shark—because that’s what it had to be—slipped back under the water. Within seconds, it was over, the water returning to normal as if nothing had happened. There wasn’t even blood visible to mark the spot where the dolphins had been mercilessly consumed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Marco touched the bandage on his leg and hissed as a tiny electric shock went straight to his balls. He wanted to see what was going on under there, but Tara threatened him with violence if he so much as touched the bandage before she came over to check it later today.
Part of her was the same girl he remembered from college, but something about her had changed. He couldn’t put his finger on it.
He didn’t have time to contemplate the new Tara. Being in the lab yesterday had set his nerves on edge, and it had nothing to do with what happened by the tank. Marco was sure he had held his breath from the moment they opened the unlocked door until they ran from the damn building.
His stomach cramped from the ulcer he was sure had settled in for the duration.
Take your mind off it, he thought.
Looking at his email inbox, he felt a burning need for a drink.
He limped to his liquor cabinet and plucked a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, filling a glass with ice. The clear liquid burned. It was exactly what he needed.
Looking out his bay window, he saw Titus Lomon, the foreman for the small crew working on the rec center’s interior, walk by carrying cans of paint. Marco waved. Titus, always grim faced but genial enough to talk to, gave a head nod.
He never realized how big this undertaking was going to be. It would only have been worse if they were doing it in the states, dealing with multiple contractors because everyone was a goddamn specialist, unions, local city laws, ordinances, the usual graft and on and on.
So yes, it was simpler here in Grand Isla Tiburon, but it was still a freaking headache and a half. He couldn’t wait until everything was done. He planned to spend one year shadow boxing his liver and staring into space and see where things went from there.
Tired.
The past five years had worn him down to the nub. Ollie’s windfall and unbelievable offer was the only thing that kept him from gobbling a mouthful of pills. His call had come the morning Marco had planned to score some Vicodin from the punk teenager that lived in his rundown complex. Marco was going to get thirty pills, take a couple that night to see how they worked—if at all—and if they weren’t cheap knock-offs or aspirin, he would down the rest the following day. It would be the fourth anniversary of his girlfriend Mazie’s death. A car had sideswiped her on the Jersey Turnpike Exit 11 off-ramp. Her Prius flipped over the guardrail, landing on its hood.
The medical examiner said she’d died instantly from a series of mortal wounds, including the severing of her spinal cord and the crushing of her skull into mere pieces.
Everyone had been devastated. Mazie was fresh out of college, her first job landing her on Wall Street where she was an up-and-coming stockbroker. A red-haired beauty who could have easily made a living off her looks, Mazie was one of those rare people who had everything they needed to take life by the balls but was still humble and self-deprecating.
And she was so smart. Believe it or not, that was what attracted her to Marco most. He’d already gone on the hot bimbo tour. That grew tired fast. No, Mazie was different from any woman he’d ever met. His parents and friends constantly urged him to put a ring on it before he lost the greatest thing that would ever happen to him.
When Mazie died, his whole world shattered. His grief nearly broke him.
Because it was laden with a guilt so crushing, he hadn’t dared speak of it to anyone.
Only Ariana, Mazie’s best friend, knew where he was when he got the call.
In Ariana’s bed.
Marco filled the glass with more vodka, willing the memory to cower back in the dark corner of his mind.
Ariana slit her wrists in her parents’ bathtub a week after Mazie’s funeral, so at least he didn’t have to worry about their awful secret coming out.
His initial relief made things even worse. He felt responsible for both their deaths. If he hadn’t been with Ariana, fate wouldn’t have seen the need to teach him a lesson. And if Ariana hadn’t fallen into bed with him (after four White Russians), she’d still be alive, probably pregnant and living in Manalapan with a man who worked in IT.
Everything just went to shit from there. Marco reveled in self-abuse, setting his sights on a true rock bottom—the bottom of a grave.
He fell into a new circle of friends, well, actually, scumbags of the highest order, hoping they’d do the job for him sooner rather than later.
Frantic banging at his door pulled him from his trip down bad memory lane.
He made sure to dump his vodka in the sink and hide the glass in a cabinet before opening it. He didn’t want anyone to know that hard liquor before ten in the morning was a thing for him.
Lenny stood on his doorstep panting. He looked like he’d come face to face with a serial killer.
“Marco, where is everybody?”
“Lenny, what the hell?”
He was dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday to go in the lab.
That damn lab.
“Ollie’s not here?”
“I think he’s at the beach with everyone.”
“Get them.” Lenny put his bag on the couch. “You have anything to drink?”
“Sure, there’s water and juice in the fridge.”
To his surprise, Lenny took out two bottles of Sapporo beer, ripping the top off with his bare hand. The Sapporos were not twist offs.
“Jesus, you stink,” Marco said.
Lenny didn’t even respond to the insult.
He stared at his hands and hissed, “Still burns.” Pouring nearly an entire bottle of dishwashing liquid on his hands, he rubbed them feverishly under the running water, babbling something under his breath. When he was done, he dried his hands on the curtain above the sink.
“Thought I got it all off in the ocean,” he said.
Marco was too taken aback to ask what the hell he was talking about.
Lenny collapsed next to his bag. A wet bag, Marco noticed, staining the pristine white cushion. Before he could snap at Lenny to take it off the couch, he saw the wild expression in his friend’s eyes and thought better of it.
“I . . . I just need to sit for a bit and catch my breath.”
“Bro, what happened?”
Lenny took a long drink. “I’ll tell you all when everyone’s here. Oh, and ask Tara to bring that ledger with her.”
“What ledger?”
“The one she took from the lab.”
Okay, so Lenny had been at the lab. What the hell had happened this time?
Oh God. He hoped it wasn’t . . .
“Lenny, what did you see in the lab?”
His lips were attached to the bottle. He shook his head. “I need everyone. Now, man.”
Before he left, Marco turned off his computer. His leg ached like hell as he trudged through the sand. As luck would have it, he didn’t have far to walk.
Ollie, Tara, Steven and Heidi were running toward him.
***
At some point during their sprint from the beach, Tara’s hand had slipped within Ollie’s grasp. He only realized it now because she was squeezing him so hard, his knuckles were grinding against one another.
Marco waved them over, looking relieved to see them.
“You won’t believe what we saw,” Ollie said to
him.
“Lenny’s in my house totally freaked out about something that happened in the lab.”
“In the lab?” Tara said. “We were with him.”
Marco shook his head. “He went back there this morning. He’s on my couch drilling beers. He wanted me to come get all of you to show you something.”
Tara showed him her phone. “Wait until you see what we have to show you guys.”
When she finally let go of Ollie’s hand as they stepped into Marco’s house, Ollie was overcome with an irrational wave of rejection.
Chill your hormones, dummy. There’s something bigger than your ten-year crush going on here.
When Lenny saw them, he put his empty beer down and said, “You all might want to take a seat.”
“Has this whole place gone insane?” Steven said. Heidi sat on his lap, his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him. She’d been unusually quiet since they’d decided to leave the beach and show Marco and Lenny what they’d captured on video.
Ollie was pretty sure Heidi was never going to dip her toes in the water again.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever go out there, either. That wasn’t a good thing when you lived on an island.
Massaging his brow, Lenny asked, “What the heck happened to you guys?”
“You first,” Ollie said. Waves of funk were coming off Lenny, reminding Ollie of the gunk that had spilled out of that chute. “You didn’t go back up that tank, did you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you out of your mind? You could have gotten killed,” Tara said.
“But I didn’t,” Lenny countered. “I know, it was stupid, but I had to see for myself what was in that tank.”
Steven piped up, “I can tell you without having looked inside. Water. And lots of it.”
Ollie noted the look of absolute confusion on Marco’s face. Everyone but him had a hell of a start to the day. He sat on the arm of his couch, eyes roving across their faces, trying to take it all in.
“You’re right about that,” Lenny said. “I dropped a flare down there and looked around. But what I found wasn’t in the tank.”
He plucked his pack from the floor and unzipped it. The full force of the foul odor that clung to Lenny burst from the bag. Everyone pinched their noses, waving at the air.
“What the fuck, Lenny?” Marco said, rising to his feet.
“You got a towel I can use?” Lenny said. “Preferably one you won’t miss.”
Marco stormed into the bathroom, muttering. “Could have done this at your house, you know.”
“This place needs air,” Tara said, opening every window she could find.
Marco handed a bath towel to Lenny who draped it over his glass coffee table.
“I found out what was in that chute,” Lenny said.
“We already know,” Heidi said. “Something gross and rotten.”
Lenny held up his index finger. “True. But we didn’t know what had rotted in there.”
He reached into the bag. They heard a squish as his fingers probed the contents. “This is what was in there.”
The skull thunked on the table, viscera sliding off it onto the towel. With it fully out in the open, the stench was enough to make their stomachs hitch.
Steven leapt from his chair, holding onto Heidi like she was a football. “Whoa! Are you kidding me?”
Tara’s body went rigid next to Ollie.
Ollie’s vision wavered. Between the excitement from earlier, the horrid smell, and the grisly skull, he worried he would pass out.
We couldn’t even have paradise for a week, he thought, cursing God for always finding a way to give him the short end of the stick.
“Is it, um, you know . . .” Marco said.
“Human?” Lenny said. “I think so. If it’s a monkey, it’s an awfully big one.”
Holding her hand over her nose and mouth, Tara leaned closer to the dripping skull. It had been stained the color of dried blood, black goo clinging to it, leaking from the empty eye sockets like tears of sludge.
“It’s definitely not simian,” she said. “That’s a person. Or was a person.”
“Are you crazy touching that thing with your bare hands, bro?” Marco said.
Lenny shrugged. “When I saw it, I just grabbed it without thinking. After that, well, the horse was already out of the barn.”
Ollie didn’t dare get too close. “Maybe someone was messing around in there and got stuck.”
“That’s what I thought, too, since the lab door wasn’t locked,” Lenny said. He thrust his hand back in the bag and came up with another skull, this one slightly smaller but equally horrific.
Ollie had to step away. “Holy crapping Christ. Exactly how many skulls did you find?”
“Just these two. And a bunch of other bones, some big, some small. The rest was dumped into the ocean.”
Marco wrapped the towel around the skulls. “Please put them away and get them outside. I’ll have to burn this place down to get the smell out.”
Lenny did as he was told, carefully placing the bundle of skulls in the sand beyond the back patio.
“What do we do n-now? Call the police?” Steven said.
“For something that happened decades ago?” Marco said, pacing. “I don’t think they’ll give two shits.”
“Maybe call an archaeologist,” Lenny said. “The lab is over fifty years old. I’m sure they would be interested in it.”
Ollie thought what they saw in the water was going to be the biggest, craziest thing that ever happened on the island. How could he be proven wrong in just minutes? He said, “You don’t think the US military was dumping bodies, do you?”
All eyes were on him, the silence in the room overwhelming.
It was Tara who finally said, “Why would they do that? Look, our military isn’t made up of saints, but human sacrifice isn’t on their agenda.”
“They say the N-Nazis dabbled in the occult and sacrifice,” Steven said. Ollie was beginning to think the man watched way too much television. Just because he was glued to the History Channel didn’t mean it made him any more informed. From what Ollie had seen, it was mostly bizarre fringe theories wrapped around historical events.
“It wasn’t Nazis,” Ollie said. “Besides, the Germans were never here.”
“Says you,” Steven said. “The Japanese were. They could have had some Nazis with them.”
“Yes. Says me.”
Tara snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot. Marco, Lenny, check this out. While you were in the lab, this is what we saw at the beach.”
Ollie didn’t bother standing over Tara to watch the giant shark attack the dolphins like a fat man at a casino buffet. He heard Heidi’s recorded gasp and their frenetic cries.
“That’s a shark?” Marco said.
“No. It has to be a whale. Like one of those humpbacks or blue whales.” Lenny said.
“Whales don’t have dorsal fins or teeth like that. Look, there are rows of them,” Tara said.
“It was definitely a shark,” Heidi said. She too had refused to watch it again. “Believe us.”
Marco took the phone from her and played the video back. He passed it to Lenny who swiped through the photos.
“There’s no such thing as a shark that big,” Marco said. “That makes the one in Jaws look like a goddamn goldfish.”
Ollie was overcome with a sudden burst of anger. He shouted, “Okay, then what the hell is it? We didn’t make it up. You can see it with your own eyes. If it’s not a shark, what else can it be?”
He felt Tara’s hand on his back, urging him to calm down.
How could he? He had a killer giant shark in the water and dead bodies on land. Everything was going tits up at the speed of light.
Marco looked like he was ready to tear his hair out, too. “I’m just saying. A great white on the large side is what, fifteen feet? That thing is fucking huge!”
Lenny snapped his fingers. “How about a whale shark? They ge
t really big.”
Tara looked doubtful. “Whale sharks don’t move like that and are kind of like bottom feeders. They don’t snack on dolphins.”
“How are you so sure?” Steven asked. “Didn’t you take care of cats and dogs and rabbits?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Tara said.
“What did you call me?”
Heidi placed her palms on her husband’s chest. “We all need to settle down. Freaking out won’t do us any good.”
Lenny snapped his fingers. “What about those things they found at Loch Ness? There were like dozens of them.”
Marco waved him off. “There are several problems with that. One, they’re all dead. Some psychos took an arsenal to them and wiped them the fuck out. Two, even the largest one of those Loch Ness Monsters wasn’t as big as what Tara’s talking about. And three, those things were lake monsters in a whole different part of the world. If you haven’t noticed, we’re surrounded by the ocean, not the Scottish Highlands.”
“Maybe it’s a cousin to those things,” Lenny replied sheepishly.
“There are n-no Loch Ness Monsters in the Marshall Islands. Enough already,” Steven said, slapping Lenny’s arm with the back of his hand. “You were probably right the first time. It had to be a whale shark.”
Tara strode over to Marco’s computer. “What’s your password?”
“Why do you need it?”
“To show you all what whale sharks look like.”
Marco gently nudged her aside and typed in his password, pulling up a web browser. Tara not-so-gently bumped him away with her hip and started typing. She pulled up a website that had pictures of whale sharks and a list of facts about the large, lumbering creatures.
Yes, they could reach a length of forty feet, but they were exceedingly docile. They had telltale spots, kind of like sea leopards—nothing like the gray and white monster they saw. Whale sharks were also plankton eaters, just as Tara had said.
What they saw was as much a whale shark as Steven was Brad Pitt. Sure, they were the same species, but very different animals.
She put the laptop on Steven’s lap. “Now do you believe me?”
The knock at the door startled them.
Marco answered it.
Lae said, “Titus Lomon wanted me to tell you that he and his men have to leave now for more supplies. He’s pretty mad at Nathan for forgetting something they really need for today. Poor kid looks about ready to cry.”
