by Rick Chesler
“Get out of the water now! Shark is coming!”
They made for a clumsy pair of swimmers, dogpaddling their way toward the beach, but at least they were making progress. The megalodon was too, though, and it was ridiculously fast. Coco watched as the gargantuan animal passed beneath her, the sheer girth of its body halfway to the surface. It was angling up now, homing in on the splashy swimmers who still had a good ways to go to reach the beach.
“Swim faster! Keep going!” Coco spurred them on one last time before she vented the air from her scuba vest, and sank below the surface. She knew she stood a far better chance against the finned marauder on scuba at the bottom than did the pair of swimmers up top. By the looks of it, the megalodon could simply swallow both of them whole.
Coco banged on her tank with her dive knife, and again the giant shark changed direction. She had bought them a little time. She kept banging on the tank while she swam to the bottom. When she reached it, she spotted a good-sized outcropping of hard coral, and wedged herself into it, hoping against hope that it was enough.
Chapter 15
The megalodon seemed to fly over Coco’s stony sanctuary, gliding past the coral formation with a dip of its left pectoral fin. Its snout was far too big to penetrate deep enough to get at Coco. Yet, as she consulted her pressure gauge, she knew that she didn’t have much air remaining, and so wouldn’t be able to hunker down here for long.
She had two choices: reach the beach, or swim back into the hotel’s airlock. She wasn’t going to lie to herself. Dry land sounded great right about now. She could scuba toward the beach along the bottom rather than on the surface as the couple had been forced to do, and once the water grew shallow enough—perhaps ten feet—the dino-shark would be too big to go any further; so she didn’t really even have to make it all the way to the beach to be safe. Still, it was the farther of the two options. The hotel was a short underwater swim away, with some cover provided by the coral formations in which she could hide.
She made up her mind to go for the hotel. She looked out at the airlock from inside the maze of corals, a couple of parrotfish darting about her, also seeking sanctuary. When she saw the oversized shark start into a wide turn to its right, some distance from the hotel, Coco made her move. She pushed out of the coral, and shot toward the underwater building.
Almost as soon as she was free of her cover, the wary predator accelerated its turn, whipping its massive body around in a surprising show of agility. So much for an easy dash to safety, she thought, eyeing the next clump of corals up ahead that might offer shelter from the beast.
She shot across the reef, just high enough to avoid the main bottom structure. She kicked and used her arms, feeling the drag of the scuba tank on her back as she sought every iota of speed from her muscles. Out of her peripheral vision she saw something roughly the size of an eighteen-wheeler barreling towards her. She reached the next large clump of corals, and nestled amongst them. This one was not as substantial as the last, and she felt terribly exposed, her entire scuba tank sticking up into the water. Again, a population of fish displaced by her body flitted about, also seeking refuge.
This time the megalodon took a low-speed but more direct approach, ramming its snout into the base of the coral formation in which Coco hid. Like a slow motion train wreck, Coco watched clouds of silt and debris flake up into the water with the shark’s impact. She heard a crunching sound as its body impacted with the reef, and lowered her head until her mask touched the coral and she was eye to eye with a small decorator shrimp twiddling its antennae.
Then the big shark backed up and shook its monolithic head like a dog getting out of a pool, showering bits of reef debris in every direction. What happened next chilled Coco beyond words. Her next breath from the regulator was hard to pull. She knew from experience that this meant she was only a few breaths from a completely empty tank. She glanced at her pressure gauge and saw it redlined on zero. The mad dash across the reef evading the monster had taken its toll on her air consumption, the heavy exertion depleting what remained in her tank after the rescue breathing. She drew her dive knife, aware of what a pathetic weapon it was against so gigantic a foe.
She was in the process of debating the lesser of two evils—make a mad dash for the airlock, and hope the megalodon didn’t pluck her off in the process, or sticking around here in the corals just long enough to stab it (hopefully in the eye) which might discourage it enough to leave. Because no animal, no matter how large or ferocious, liked to be stabbed in the eye.
But in the end her decision was made for her. At that moment she—and the shark—heard splashing from above. Raising her head enough to look up at the surface, she saw the unmistakable outline of a swimmer. Looking a little closer, she could see that this particular swimmer wore full clothing. It wasn’t one of the two she had just rescued, that much she could tell. For that she was grateful. Her rescue of those people could represent the last positive act of her short life, after all. The person was definitely a tunnel survivor, though, she was sure of that. Someone who had managed to somehow swim up and out of the flooded tunnel on their own, only to unknowingly swim over the largest predator ever to roam the seas.
The megalodon moved.
It whirled around, its imposing tail swishing in short, powerful strokes as it propelled itself along the reef floor until it was beneath the target of its sensory investigation.
Coco shivered despite the tropical water. The predator’s behavior telegraphed its intentions. Like most sharks, it preferred to attack its prey from below and behind, in a single, incapacitating rush that stunned the fight out of its victim while they bled to death from the first debilitating bite. As Coco’s lungs worked hard to pull the next breath—possibly the last breath—from the tank, she knew that there was nothing she could do for the swimmer. Nothing at all. Best not to let the person’s death be for nothing, and use it to make her escape.
Coco pulled out of her protective coral fortress with her arms, shooting across the reef once more, this time straight for the cylindrical tower that housed the airlock. Halfway there, she looked up, and saw the unthinkable: the megalodon lunging at the swimmer, most of its form disappearing from view as it catapulted itself into the air along with its prey—“air jaws”—before landing back with a bloody splash.
The marine biologist forced her limbs to stay in motion as she continued crossing the reef. She didn’t know what would happen next with the shark. Would it go after the two people she’d rescued if they haven’t made it to the beach yet? They should have by now, she thought, even at their slow pace.
Or would the shark single her out now that the easier prey was gone?
Just as this unpleasant thought compelled her to move even faster, she started to take a deep breath. But nothing came out of the regulator. It was like it was sealed shut. She sucked harder but still nothing was released.
She was completely out of air.
Normally an ascent from this depth, pushing off the reef to reach the surface, would be easily doable for the experienced diver. But with a megalodon lurking above? Not an option.
Coco eyed the remaining distance to the airlock door. Maybe thirty feet. She didn’t know if the shark was bearing down on her, and didn’t care. When you had to breathe you had to breathe.
Even so, Coco willed herself not to swim spastically in an attempt to gain more speed, but to keep her strokes efficient, to glide gracefully through the water. Panic was the enemy of all divers. Stay calm, she told herself. Stay calm. She mentally envisioned herself swimming with the dolphins off her home beach in Waimanalo, Hawaii, early in the morning before school, a rainbow in the sky after a light, warm rain. Before she knew it she was gliding up to the outer airlock door, not even feeling a terrible urge to breathe yet.
She knew that wouldn’t last, though, so wasted no time reaching out for the button that would open the outer door. She slapped it and waited.
Nothing happened.
A dark, dark c
hill began to entomb Coco’s very soul. As calm as she was, she would not make it to the surface, even without the megalodon. She had been telling herself all she needed to do was to reach the airlock, and everything was okay. Now what?
Finally, she heard a faint mechanical hum, and then the door raised up. She didn’t wait for it to lift all the way. Coco lowered herself to the seafloor and slid under the door into the still flooded airlock.
Shit!
She hadn’t taken into account that she’d have to close the outer door, then hit the inner door button, and wait for the chamber to drain. She didn’t know how long that was altogether—normally it didn’t seem like much—but it was a frighteningly long time from where she was sitting. She forced the panic back, and did what she knew had to be done if she wanted to live. Inside the airlock, she swam to the inner door, and hit the button on the wall there.
She heard another mechanical whir, and then the outer door started to close, lowering. It was maddening to have to simply wait while her lungs burned and glowing spots began to cloud her vision. Then, with two feet remaining before the door contacted the bottom of its frame, she saw the eye of the monster rush up to the airlock.
Chapter 16
As Coco watched the megalodon wedge the tip of its snout beneath the outer airlock door, preventing it from closing, she realized with an odd sense of detachment that she no longer felt the irrepressible urge to breathe. She also knew that was a perilous situation to be in.
Coco was intimately familiar with the dangers of shallow water blackout. Her first love, her high school sweetheart from Hawaii, had drowned while freediving to spear fish off Oahu. He and his friends had practiced an aggressive form of snorkeling known as “freediving,” where they would hyperventilate—take multiple deep breaths in rapid succession before holding the final one—to saturate their lungs with oxygen in order to stay down longer on a single breath. The problem with doing this too many times in a row is that it overrides the body’s natural alarm system—the urge to breathe—and one can simply black out without warning.
Coco’s cells had now been without oxygen for so long that her body could no longer give her a warning. It had already done that, and she had still done nothing about it as far as her lungs were concerned. The next step was to pass out. And that would spell death for the marine biologist, shark, or no shark.
Deciding to make the utmost use of whatever seconds she had remaining, Coco drew her dive knife, and swam to the megalodon. Crouching low, she thrust the blade to the hilt in the megalodon’s nose. The animal withdrew immediately in a flurry of head-shaking, taking the knife, still embedded in its snout, with it.
The door dropped the rest of the way shut, and Coco kicked off of it, pushing herself back over to the inner door. She waited. She heard the mechanical sucking noise as the water was vacuumed from the space. She looked up toward the ceiling while she waited for the water level to drop. C’mon, C’mon, C’mon...
After what seemed an eternity, but in reality was only a few seconds, Coco saw the ceiling of the airlock vanish from view as the water level dropped. She swam up to greet the layer of air that materialized as the water level lowered. She raised her upturned face, and greedily gulped air, air that was sweeter than any she had ever breathed in her life. She tore off her mask, and stood there taking rushed breaths as the water dropped to her shoulders, her waist, her knees...When her feet were dry, she heard a humming noise as the inner airlock door slid upward.
A smile formed on her lips as she looked into the hotel’s dive locker. She had made it. Coco took off her fins, and walked into hotel. She then closed the inner airlock door behind her. Walking into the dive shop, she found it totally empty. She had thought maybe the systems guys would have sent someone to greet her when they noticed the airlock activation, but no.
Good to know I’m on my own, she thought, walking through the shop out into the hotel’s thoroughfare area, a large hallway that led to several different areas. She knew White would disapprove of her walking around the hotel dripping wet in only a one-piece swimsuit, but she didn’t care for his rules right about now. With the train tunnel destroyed, the airlock was now the only way to get in or out of the hotel. Here inside, they were cut off from land. It was not a comforting thought. People were dead, he needed to know, and she needed to know what he was doing about it.
She walked toward the train control room, the last place she had seen her boss. Amazingly, she passed a couple of guests who appeared oblivious to anything that was going on, standing there holding hands and gazing out across the reef in wonder. They smiled pleasantly at Coco as she walked by. She returned the smile, but said nothing.
The door to the control room was closed. Coco pushed on the lever handle to open it, but found it to be locked. She heard footsteps from within, and then White’s voice: “Who is it?”
“Coco!”
She heard the latch click open from the inside, and then the door swung open. James White peered past Coco to the common area outside, checking for people. When he saw that she was alone, he turned around and walked back to the control console where Kamal was still seated, but now focused on Coco rather than the controls.
“Close the door behind you, please,” White told Coco. She did so, then turned to look at the two men. They appeared shaken, White’s face ghostly pale, and even Kalik’s drained of most of its color.
“What happened?” White implored her.
She relayed the account of events from her scuba dive, how she saw most die in the tunnel, but distracted the shark from four swimmers, and then rescued Stanley and Priscilla before being chased across the reef by the...megalodon. She now called it what she thought it was, no longer caring if White doubted her. When she was done, he ran his fingers through his hair, and stared at the ceiling for a moment before coming back with, “You knew this monster shark was out there on the edge of the reef, and you didn’t warn us about it?”
Coco’s faced turned crimson with rage. Kamal appeared uncomfortable, looking away from her. “Now listen here, Mr. White! I did tell you about what I saw in the submarine canyon. I wasn’t sure of what it was at that point, and you—“She was going to say, you dismissed it as me being hung-over, but he spoke over her.
“You weren’t sure of what it was! Well guess what, Coco—you’re the goddamn marine biologist around here! I’m paying you to be sure! Now people are dead because you weren’t sure!”
Coco’s mind seemed to be floating away from her. She could barely process what she was hearing after all she’d been through. Kamal said White’s name in a low voice, as if to suggest that he should back off, but that was the extent of his intervention. She was so flabbergasted that she still had said nothing when a voice blared from the control station radio set.
“Topside to Train Control, you copy?” White tore his angry gaze from Coco, and moved to pick up the transmitter.
“Control here, Topside, go ahead.”
“Control: our team sent two to investigate the tunnel, and neither have returned. Two men—Bobby and Taj. Any word?”
White hung his head in an uncomfortable mixture of shame and disgust. Coco was incredulous.
“You haven’t told them what happened yet?”
“You just told us what happened—we just found out!”
The look on Kamal’s face told Coco that wasn’t entirely true. She appealed to him. “Kamal, the instruments must have told you—“
“Shut up!” White bellowed. “The instruments suggested a tunnel failure, but we couldn’t say for sure it wasn’t the indicators failing. That’s why we sent you out there. Let me talk!”
He picked up the radio microphone again, and keyed it. “Topside, we sent a diver for a look at the tunnel, and she just returned. There has been a complete flooding of the tunnel. Multiple fatalities reported, your tunnel team among them.” White’s arm hung down to his side, letting the microphone dangle, as if too defeated to say more.
“Control: I heard ‘mult
iple fatalities including my tunnel team’ and ‘tunnel flooded,’ is that correct, over?”
Understandably, the topside employee wanted confirmation before spreading such horrendous news. Somehow making it seem like an irritated gesture, White raised the transmitter to his lips. “You heard it right.”
“How did the tunnel flood?”
“We’re not sure yet, but apparently some kind of impact—“
“It was a giant shark!” Coco yelled over him. “A Carcharadon megalodon! Why don’t you listen to me, Mr. White? I’m the expert, remember?”
White spoke under his breath, and off-air to Coco. “Just because you saw a shark in the area doesn’t mean that shark was responsible for collapsing the tunnel.”
Coco started to tell him how she saw the shark ram into the tunnel when the Topside operator’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“A shark flooded the tunnel?” The Topside engineer came back, voice brimming with incredulity. “Structurally impossible!”
White regained some measure of enthusiasm. “I concur with that assessment. However, Coco, here, insists that she saw a…large shark, shall we call it, in the area.”
“Not just—‘in the area,’ but in the tunnel!” Coco was going to say, but she broke off as soon as she saw White’s finger let go of the transmit button. All communication was going through him, and him alone. His face grew angry and beet red, eyes narrowing, his carotid bulging. He thrust a finger at Coco, and hissed at her.
“You listen to me: you are my employee, and you will do as I say, and right now I say do not talk to anyone but me about this incident. I sent you out there to see what happened and report back to me, not to anyone else, is that fucking clear, bitch?”
Coco’s mouth dropped open in deep disbelief. Even Kamal looked stunned. White was losing it. Whatever this enterprise represented to him, she knew that for whatever reason, its failure was not something he knew how to deal with. She’d heard the staff rumors around the beach, that he’d over-extended himself financially, that although he was a rich guy by most people’s standards, the majority of the funds to build this place had come from other people and businesses, solicited by him. Should the venture fail, he’d be deep in debt.
