Get going! Catch the next wave! Sometimes when he got up on his board, the trepidation faded and he could keep surfing. Other times, the uneasiness became near panic and he had to get out. What will it be?
Footy squinted against the light, trying to see the Yank on the enormous waves.
Johnny let a swell break over him and the jitters got worse. Ok, he told himself. Take the next train in and get out.
He was staring out to sea, and Footy was too far away. Neither saw the silver ball come gleaming from the sea. It was solid and it parted the water. It came shedding drops like gems to reveal a collar on a silver shaft that rose steadily against the blue. A trick of the light made the water’s surface opaque as mercury, reflecting and distorting the rising band.
The bright thing began to move. It sliced across the deep at the floating man. Still Johnny faced away and did not see it.
Ten yards from him, it went down like a periscope. Now it was merely a silver ball that rolled across the surface, then a bright spot underwater, trailing bubbles.
Over his shoulder, Johnny saw the monster he’d been waiting for.
CHAPTER 15
Johnny held his board ready while the breaker rushed up, shedding foam. He gauged the distance and tensed to rise.
He was looking into the aquamarine light within, when it was eclipsed by darkness. Something black moved into the wave and sucked out the light. Then the roller was looming over Johnny in the trough.
The ocean threw him up like a cork. He got on his feet, looked up and was stabbed by fear. The top of the wave was a waterfall, and rising out of it was the samurai sword. It was steady in the liquid chaos and Johnny was transfixed, but his board was moving and he must look to it.
He carved the concave wall. The instant he could, he glanced back and saw the sword come slicing down after him. He got a thrill of horror when he saw the immense darkness that loomed behind it.
Johnny had to look forward again, and the next time he chanced a look back, it was to see the gleaming, gargantuan head of the Father surging through the froth. Cat’s sword stood in the empty eye socket, and the one good eye stared at him, enraged.
Johnny worked his feet to fishtail away, but the crocodile moved above him on the wave, water splashing through its scutes.
The Father unsealed its nostrils, sniffed and it knew him. This was the one-prey, the only thing it still wanted. It lunged at the man and its teeth crashed together as the creature dodged away. The reptile surged across the surface, its mammoth body sweeping in arcs.
The crocodile was more at home in the ocean than the man would ever be, and it was faster and immeasurably stronger. The row of teeth slid up beside the surfboard.
Footy sat grinning on shore as he watched the magnificent wave rush at his mate. He knew from its size that this was the one the Yank would choose. Sure enough, the tiny surfer stood and began to cut it up.
“Good on ya!” Footy shouted. He lost sight of Johnny behind other waves and there the Yank came again, going like a kangaroo at full hop. But in an instant, all the joy drained out of Footy when he saw the great black thing on his tail.
In horror, he recognized the Father. Footy’s stomach went into freefall. He leapt to his feet, forgot there was only one of them, and fell hard across a log. Agony shot through him, but he ignored it, rolled on his side and strained to see. There was Johnny, being chased by the brute. Footy grabbed his crutch and beat on the log.
“Come on, mate!” he shouted, “Faster! Much faster!”
He saw Johnny fight desperately to stay in front of it, like a fly trying to outrun a charging bull. Again and again the surfer scooted his board away, but the Father was not to be shaken.
“Come on Johnny,” Footy fretted, “come on!” He struggled up on his crutch and there was Johnny, a nose ahead of the predator. Footy had watched the Yank through scores of runs, but never anything like this. Johnny made the most incredible turns, using the entire face of the wave.
Johnny saw the crocodile just behind and he aimed straight down and dropped. Almost in the trough, he rocketed away, but the croc was right there. Suddenly Johnny turned up, crouched, and shot in front of its snout. His wake washed over the crocodile’s head and it instinctively closed its underwater eyelids. In the ruined eye, the membrane sliced on the sword. The burn fired into the predator’s brain and it lost sight of the prey.
Johnny zoomed to the top of the breaker, ducked into the curl and disappeared. The Father missed the move. It raised its head and quested from side to side.
Johnny’s view was reduced to a greenish cone with a bright oval ahead. He caught his breath, but when he looked down, fright blasted through him. An enormous shadow was rising below.
Johnny fired out into sunlight as the Father’s head came up behind him, jaws gaping. It bit and the teeth struck the back of the board. Johnny’s arms swung wildly as he fought for balance. He turned hard just as the crocodile snapped again. It missed, but the sword almost gashed Johnny’s leg.
Footy watched the jaws open as high as Johnny. At the last instant, the surfer seemed to jump out of the Father’s mouth and the jaws slammed empty.
“Great hairy bollocks!” Footy screamed as an intervening wave cut off his view of the chase.
Johnny had played every trick he knew, and it was not enough. A flick of his eyes showed fifty yards to the beach. Too far! The sword swept up beside him in the boulder of the Father’s head. The single eye glared and the croc swung its snout, banging the surfboard again. Johnny teetered, stood on one leg, almost lost his balance, and barely managed to recover. If I fall, it’s all over but the chewing.
But the truth was, the crocodile was too great a foe. Johnny could not outrun it. Again, it jostled the surfboard and he had to drop to his knees and hang on. That slowed him, and the crocodile came up behind and went under. Through the water, Johnny watched the giant head ripple below. The sword scraped against the edge of the board. Then the Father began to rise and Johnny made a last-ditch move.
He stood, stepped hard on the back of the board, and spun a hundred and eighty degrees. He was so close to the blade, it carved off a shaving. Then Johnny was flying the other way, toward the tail, surfing the crocodile’s blind side.
The Father came up through the surface expecting to lift the prey, but it was gone. Again, the reptile raised its half-blind head and swung it in exaggerated motions as it tried to find the man.
The wave came closer to the beach and Footy saw predator and prey get bigger. He watched the crocodile rush Johnny and the Yank get on his knees. For a minute, it looked like Johnny was riding the great head. But then he spun around and went skimming down the flank.
“Yes!” Footy shouted.
Johnny’s legs were trembling. This was the most challenging run he’d ever made, and it wasn’t over. He had to cut hard to get away from the croc’s tail as it swung his way. After that, the wave was all chaotic falling water that would knock him down, and he was forced to turn again. He found himself going the same direction as the croc once more, above it.
The reptile had not yet seen him. Johnny reached the massive shoulders and any second he’d be spotted. Again he turned up, shot to the wave’s crest and cut into the decaying curl. It was smaller now, less defined, and he had to crouch. He guessed he had only a minute until the breaker crashed onto the beach and spilled him out—right with the Father.
The land would be no respite. The crocodile was as at home there as he was. Johnny furiously searched for a plan. What he came up with was simple, and started with one word. Run!
Footy watched the breaker carry the Father to shore. Johnny was nowhere in sight. The wave leading the big one smashed onto the beach.
“Where the hell are you mate?” Footy fumed. The roller was ten yards out and falling apart. The top became a ribbon of spume as it rushed the shallows.
Then, at the last possible instant, Johnny shot out of the mist. Footy’s anxiety crested as the Father surfed up behind him.
Johnny spun the board for the beach.
“Go!” Footy screamed, “don’t look back!”
Johnny heard him. The ocean spat him out and his board ground on the sand. He leapt off just as the Father got there, jaws parting. Johnny kicked the board and it flew between the teeth. The Father felt something enter its mouth and bit hard. It tasted wood and splinters, not the warm flesh it expected, and it grunted and gave chase.
Johnny knew Footy was helpless at camp and he raced in the opposite direction along the beach. The Father stood up and ran after him at full gallop. Its clubfoot was clumsy, but the reptile was frenzied.
For short distances the crocodile could outrun any man. Johnny felt its breath on his legs, and like the pass receiver he’d been, he dodged to the side. The croc turned that way and its four thousand pounds of inertia forced it along. Johnny deked back the other way and gained a second. The jungle loomed and he poured it on.
Footy watched Johnny dash into the trees, the crocodile right behind. Now what mate? Slap the tree and tell it you won?
Johnny found he was sprinting by Cat’s grave and, on impulse, he snatched his helmet off the cross. He crammed it on and kept running. Now the Father not only smelled the smooth-headed man, it saw him, and its desire to kill crested.
Johnny burst onto the riverbank and skidded into the turn. The Father piled after him and almost fell in the water it its attempt to change direction. Its huge weight caused the bank to collapse, and Johnny gained another few seconds as it floundered. But now there was nowhere to go but straight ahead, and the reptile caught up with him.
The Father swung its head into the man’s side and bowled him over. Johnny shouted in alarm, and Footy heard that. The pilot guessed the worst had come, and called down damnation on the croc.
Johnny, scraped all over, bleeding from his cuts, turned to confront his attacker.
Since its foot had been blown off, the crocodile had been in constant pain. But the stab through its head amounted to screaming torture. When the sword put its eye out, the agony was so intense, the reptile barely killed its attacker before it passed out. It had been sucked out on the waves. Eventually, it came to and tried to swim, but the effort caused such piercing anguish, it went unconscious again.
It came to in anguish, stranded on a coral head, and lay near death for days. Little by little, it regained a portion of its senses. In its distress, it wanted the refuge of its river, and it pushed into the waves.
And then as the crocodile approached the estuary, it encountered the very creature that was its suffering. It tasted the man’s body musk in the water, knew who he was, and its wrath overwhelmed its wretchedness.
Now, at long last, the smooth-headed man stood before it at bay. The crocodile opened its jaws for the kill.
But then the prey moved.
It pulled off his head and struck the Father with it, and thunder and lightning clanged all through its brain.
CHAPTER 16
Johnny pulled off his helmet and slammed it down on the sword in the Father’s eye socket. The blow made the reptile’s mono-vision jitter. It blinked rapidly and blood welled in the cave.
The crocodile hissed and came at Johnny. He showed it his helmet, then lobbed it one way, while he went the other.
The Father turned for the smooth head and caught it in its teeth. It put all its pent up fury into that bite.
The M1 helmet was solid steel that could deflect a bullet. But the enormous jaws of the saltwater crocodile possessed more crushing power than that terror of the ancient world, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its muscles clenched, exerting an incredible six thousand pounds per square inch of irresistible force. The steel helmet did bend, but the reptile shattered a tooth on it. The shredded nerve stabbed directly into its already overwrought brain. The Father’s mouth jerked open and the thing spilled out.
Johnny got two steps before the croc came after him. It gained rapidly, and there was nowhere left to go.
Johnny started to count. One, two, three! He leapt up, arms flailing. The Father lunged to seize him in the air. Johnny kicked forward, going for maximum reach. The crocodile was five times as long as the man, and it rose on its muscled tail.
Then man and beast were falling. Johnny’s toes stretched an extra inch and gripped earth. He hit and tumbled forward, sprawling full length. He was facedown in the dirt, unable to move.
Four thousands pounds of furious predator came down on his heels. Johnny glanced over his shoulder. He saw the Father’s forelegs wheeling, one a blunt club, the other with claws extended. Then the massive head slammed just behind him—and kept going.
Forest floor sprang away like gossamer. A phalanx of spears was revealed and the crocodile slammed onto them with all its weight.
Johnny had just managed to clear the pit of death under the camouflage net, but the reptile had not. It landed with such force, Johnny heard the hide pop as the spears burst in. Air whooshed from the crocodile, as close to a groan as it could make.
It felt to the Father as if it had fallen into the jaws of an even greater predator. The cruel teeth bit all through its long head, into its neck, and its chest that contained its heart and lungs.
The Father was impaled.
Johnny crawled on his knees to the edge of the pit and saw the beast stuck fast. He stared in awe at the huge head, so close. In turn, it stared with its one eye at the man, unable to look away.
Johnny brushed himself off. He was badly banged up, but that was forgotten as he gazed at the nightmare that had tracked him all the way down the Raub River.
The Father could not move its head and torso, but the back legs churned, tearing up the road. The ridged dragon tail thudded from side to side.
Johnny sat near the transfixed head and hung his feet into the pit. The crocodile continued to jerk, trying to escape the torture, but every shake only drove it further onto the spears.
During his years in New Guinea, Johnny had seen every kind of arrow the tribal warriors made. For shooting men, they carved backswept points that once in the flesh, could not be pulled out. For birds, they employed barbs splayed like fingers to knock them out of the air.
When they hunted wild boar, they used arrowheads of sharpened bamboo. Even a well-shot pig would run, but with a tube stuck in it, the wound could not close. The boar would bleed out, and somewhere along the blood trail, the hunters would find it.
Now in the booby-trapped pit, the Father flailed on similar bamboo points, only of a much larger caliber. Johnny heard running liquid, and saw the blood gushing into the bottom of the hole.
Through its one eye, the reptile continued to gaze at the prey, while the points slowly entered the inner sanctum of its body. From time to time, a razor tip penetrated a particularly sensitive mystery, and the creature shuddered and hissed so that all the spears shook.
Some time later, the Father’s upper jaw flew open as if on a spring. Johnny peered into the gore of the mouth and saw five bamboo points coming through. At the back was the wet steel of Cat’s sword stuck through the palate.
He noticed something was happening along the Father’s neck and back. Peaks were forming. Johnny realized the skin was being pushed up by spears that raised it like tent poles.
He heard a familiar voice.
“I thought the bloody Father had croaked you, mate, but it’s the other way around!”
Johnny turned. Footy had come through the plantation, and he was flushed and sweating, leaning heavily on his crutch. Johnny gave him a nod and a tired smile.
“You’re in time for the end,” he said. “Take a seat.”
Footy limped closer and stared down on the ruin of the Father. His gaze went all the way along the broad back to the tail that still twitched and jittered on the road. The Aussie sat down by the Yank on the edge of the pit.
The bellows’ breaths grew more labored and the body convulsed, making poles crack. The Father shuddered along its length and a fresh wave of blood pumped through its nostrils and sprayed around the t
eeth.
Johnny was fascinated by the eye. It was bulging up. Suddenly it popped, and a bamboo spear poked through. The Father’s head slid down it and it gurgled out a great sigh. The tail lifted and swung a last time, uprooting a palm tree. It crashed over and coconuts spilled across the road.
Cat’s sword shivered in the dark moon scar and the body clenched hard and went still.
“Hell’s—bloody—bells!” Footy breathed. “You’ve killed the Father!”
“And this time,” Johnny said, “I believe it’s really dead.”
CHAPTER 17
A fat-bodied Empire Flying Boat soared along the New Guinea coast. The pilot manned the controls while the co-pilot handled navigation. Two crewmen sat in the lower passenger compartment and looked out through the windows. The plane had refueled in Wewak within the hour and now, flying low, it approached the delta. From a long way off, the aviators had spotted the muddy stain on the South Pacific that marked the egress of the Raub River.
The aircraft had seen action with the Royal Australian Air Force during the war. Recently, it had been returned to its owner, the Queensland and Northern Territories Aviation Service, better known as “Qantas.” With the coming of peace, the airline had been frantically busy, but at last it had responded to multiple requests for assistance by the Allied Army in New Guinea.
The crew had been given the day to get to the Raub and retrieve three survivors of something called “Operation Teeth.”
“There’s the Raub,” the co-pilot shouted. “We’re to look for the biggest branch.”
“Right,” the pilot said and banked the four-engine plane so he could see down through the side window. “That’s where the Coast Watcher said the men would be.”
“There!” the co-pilot called. A column of smoke spouted over the trees. The plane shot across the band of river and a strip of jungle, and there was the beach. A glance showed a bonfire, what appeared to be two crashed jeeps, and an S O S on the sand.
TEETH - The Epic Novel With Bite (The South Pacific Trilogy) Page 49
