by Hunter Shea
“This kind of heat and humidity is not fit for human consumption.” Rosario pulled her shirt away from her chest, which then caught the eye of the man in charge of getting rides for the waiting passengers. They had a car waiting for them in record time.
“Nice work,” Chet said, loading their bags in the trunk.
“What?” Rosario said as she slipped in the car.
“Huh? Nothing.”
She was sexy without even being aware of it. Score another in the win column. Chet worried that their relationship would be intrinsically tied in with the string of calamities they had gone through. Once everything went back to normal, would it be the same? Would she move on to greener, saner pastures?
Sitting in the back seat, he rubbed his face and willed his budding relationship paranoia to go away. He had far bigger things to worry about.
The park was closed by the time they pulled up to the gate. Chet told the attendant they were there to see Ann-Marie Smalls. After a quick call, they were allowed inside. Chet paid the driver and gathered their bags.
Ann-Marie met them at the entrance to the dolphin exhibit. She looked utterly worn out. Her last name was Smalls and she lived up to it. The cherry-blonde woman barely hit five feet.
“Naala is sedated,” she said after he introduced her to Rosario. “Robert made it here a couple of hours after I spoke to you. We’ve had police and news crews here all day. In fact, you just missed them. I know the reporters will be back in time for the ten o’clock news.”
“We’ve had our share of them lately,” Chet said.
“Not to mention orca attacks,” Rosario said.
Ann-Marie motioned for them to follow her. “I’ll take you to Naala.”
The orca slowly swam around the tank, coming up for air in steady intervals. She was calm but not under, which was a good thing. Keeping a safe distance, Chet’s heart broke.
“They want us to put her down for good,” Ann-Marie said.
Whenever there was an orca attack, a sector of the public called for it to be euthanized. Animal rights activists would shout them down, railing against a system that allowed such wonderful and wild creatures to have been captured in the first place.
In the past, orcas that had turned on their handlers were either put into a kind of solitary confinement, which to Chet was worse than death, or shipped off to another marine park to be someone else’s problem. Neither solution was acceptable as far as he was concerned.
“Poor girl,” Rosario said.
Naala’s dorsal fin was bent over, a common trait of captive orcas. In the wild, dorsal fins were always tall and straight, some reaching over one meter high. If they did have a collapsed dorsal fin, it was a sign they were sick or injured.
Everyone who worked with orcas knew that man had yet to devise the perfect living environment for them. The fin was an outward sign of their abnormal inner health, discontent and in many cases, depression.
“Who was the handler?” Chet asked.
Fresh tears brimmed in Ann-Marie’s eyes. “Matthew.”
Chet clutched the rail in front of him. He knew Matthew well. He was a great guy, just under thirty with a wife and twin baby girls. Matthew and Naala were inseparable.
Now, they couldn’t be further from one another.
“How did his family take it?”
“As good as can be expected. Surprisingly, they don’t want any harm to come to Naala.”
Chet nodded. “I’m sure through Matthew, they understood the kind of work we do. To the public, it looks fun and sometimes magical. But it’s delicate and dangerous, usually more so for the orcas than the people, but…but…”
He lost his train of thought, eyes locked on a slumbering Naala.
“How do you think she’ll be when she wakes up?” Rosario said.
“I don’t know, but I want to make sure we’re here when that happens. We didn’t get that chance at Marine Paradise. Maybe it’ll be like the pods in Portugal and she’ll just carry on as if nothing happened.”
Sighing, Rosario said, “That’s almost worse. You’d like to see some consistent change in behavior so we can get a handle on this.”
“Are you going to Ocean World?” Ann-Marie asked.
“Tomorrow,” Chet replied. “I’m sure Robert has things under control there. I want to be here for Naala now.”
It would be another thirty minutes until the sun would set. The humidity had dropped just enough to take the edge off the stifling heat. Pretty soon, the lights would be turned on so they could keep an eye on Naala.
“I’ll get us some coffee,” Ann-Marie said.
Jamel had called in sick to work and was existing on Red Bulls and licorice. Ever since the madness at the oil rig, he’d devoted all his time to searching for other anomalous incidents involving sea mammals.
He didn’t have long to wait. Two Florida parks had seen their killer whales go berserk as well. Luckily, this time there was only one fatality, though one was still too much.
He tried getting in touch with Sam, but she wasn’t around.
That guy, Chet Clarke, hadn’t returned any of his calls.
Probably because he thinks you’re a nut, Jamel thought. I shouldn’t have left so many messages. But at least I didn’t spill all the beans. No one could handle that, especially over voicemail.
Sitting in his command center, he stared at his cell phone, contemplating whether he should call the marine biologist again. Was he in Florida now? Or could he still be at that oil rig in Portugal? If he was in Europe, there was a chance he hadn’t heard about the killer whale incidents in Florida.
If Jamel kept calling, a total stranger from the wilds of Alaska, would the man just block his number? God knows Jamel would if the roles were reversed.
If and when he did get through to Chet, would he just hang up the moment Jamel explained why he thought the killer whales were going crazy?
Yep, odds are he would.
Life wasn’t easy when you were one of the few people who knew what the hell was really going on and the powers that be had brainwashed the entire world to laugh at anyone who caught even a whiff of the truth.
He checked a satellite map, zeroing in on Kalach, a remote town in the Urals of Russia. A former logging town, Kalach was reported to be just a handful of hearty residents away from being a ghost town. Several articles with pictures of snow swept landscapes and weathered people could easily be found on the Web. Kalach was almost a forgotten footnote in history. Until that time, it was an interesting slice of life piece for news outlets when they needed filler.
LOYAL TO THE END. WEATHERED PEOPLE OF KALACH REFUSE TO LEAVE THEIR BELOVED HOMES.
Jamel knew better.
Those people in the photos weren’t real.
Well, they were real people, but they didn’t live in Kalach.
Yes, the town had been abandoned, but something else had been quietly installed ten years ago. Kalach was far from prying eyes, a perfect place for this little slice of Russian experimentation. The articles on the death of Kalach were designed to keep people away.
What better place to hide something than in plain sight?
He’d tacked up a picture he had of the antenna array on his wall. It had been captured by a passing satellite and quickly taken down. Not quick enough for Jamel to have saved the file, making several copies.
To the uninitiated, the squared-off clearing in the woods of Kalach, crammed with tall metal works, looked very much like a power station.
Oh, there was power there, but it wasn’t in place to charge the few remaining light bulbs in the dying town.
Those steel towers were, collectively, some of the most powerful weapons in the world.
Their use had been steadily increasing over the years, altering the world in small ways here and there.
It looked like the Russians were building up to something bigger and badder.
Knowledge was power…until you came across something like this. Even if Jamel could convince Che
t what was behind the orca attacks, would it make a lick of difference?
He popped another Red Bull open, dipping a red licorice stick in it and chewing on the end.
This might be for nothing, but he damn sure wasn’t going to just sit around.
Jamel picked up his cell phone and hit redial.
Chet wasn’t sure whether he should feel grateful or disappointed that Naala seemed just like her old self in the morning. He, Rosario and Ann-Marie had taken turns napping in the uncomfortable hardback seats of the arena through the night.
Rosario nudged Ann-Marie awake.
“She seems perfectly fine, but I don’t know her like you do.”
Ann-Marie rubbed her knuckles into her eyes. Her phone had gone off constantly ever since they got there. Around midnight, she’d finally set it to mute. She looked at Naala doing laps in the pool, then her phone, which made her eyes go wide.
“It looks like half the country tried to reach me,” she said, whistling a stream of aggravation through her teeth. Tucking the phone into her back pocket, she stood up to get a better look at Naala. “She’s definitely calmer than she was yesterday morning. The moment Matthew came in to check on her, she was agitated.”
Moving closer, Chet looked for any telltale signs that all was not right with the orca. As she passed by, she caught his eye and he would swear on a tower of Bibles that she not only recognized him, but smiled. His gaze moved past her to the blood stain that had been missed in the corner of the deck.
What did that smile mean?
Was it a knowing look, one that dared him to assume that all was well?
Or was it just amiable Naala, happy to see him?
“She’s got to be starving by now,” he said. It was just past seven in the morning and already his clothes were sticking to him. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on an empty seat.
“Chet, what do you think you’re doing?” Rosario said, rising from her seat.
He looked back at her and saw the worry lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes. She knew exactly what he had in mind. “I’m going to feed her. We can’t just let her starve.”
“I understand that, but we’re going to have to find a safe way to do that first.”
He took a deep breath, the humid air coating his lungs with moisture that made him cough. “I’ll be careful.”
Rosario shook her head violently. “You can’t go in there and be careful enough.”
“The other attacks went south in a hurry because people were taken by surprise. I need to see how she really is now and I can’t do that by throwing fish at her from fifty feet away.”
She angled past Ann-Marie. “Then I’m coming with…”
He held up a hand. “No, you’re not. Not this time. I need you nearby just in case…I just need you safe.”
They stared at one another, Chet trying to look as resolute as he possibly could, despite having some extreme misgivings about his plan. Rosario was on the verge of telling him to shove his macho act up his ass, he just knew it, at least until Ann-Marie touched her hand.
“We’ll come get you the second anything happens,” Ann-Marie said.
A silent conversation passed between Rosario and Ann-Marie, two women who hardly knew each other. Chet had no idea what was going on telepathically between them, but he was grateful when Rosario exhaled and closed her eyes.
“You have the keys?” he asked Ann-Marie. She flipped a key ring down to him.
“It’s the one with the green plastic ring around it.”
Eyeing Naala as he walked past the tank at a good distance, he opened up the supply room lined with freezers and refrigerators filled with fish. He grabbed a clean silver bucket and filled it with frozen herring. Normally, the trainers came in early and prepped the copious amounts of freshly delivered fish to be fed to the orcas throughout the day. The delivery most likely wasn’t making it today. The Dolphin Experience, just like Marine Paradise and Ocean World, wasn’t going to be admitting anyone anytime soon.
Striding back into the warm sunlight, Rosario called out, “Do not take your eyes off her!”
“I won’t.”
He meant it.
The bucket clipped the gate as he walked onto the deck of the main tank, sounding like a dinner bell. Naala caught the sound, zooming toward him. Her bent dorsal fin plowed through the water, a heavy wave spilling over the edge and pooling around his feet.
Chet’s body went stiff as iron, the heavy bucket suddenly weightless in his hand.
Naala was coming, and he didn’t know if it was for him or the food.
Chapter Fifteen
Rosario screamed, “Get out of there!”
Ann-Marie blurted something Chet couldn’t understand.
He was rooted to the spot, waiting for Naala to come leaping out of the tank. Only now did he realize how incredibly foolish his plan had been. Naala was young and exceedingly fast. If she wanted to momentarily beach herself and grab him, she could do it before he even had time to pivot and face the exit.
Run! Don’t just stand there! Run you fucking idiot!
His body betrayed his brain’s commands.
More water was displaced from the tank. Any second now, her massive black and white body would burst over the edge of the pool, several tons of death racing at him like a missile with a grudge.
Chet couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t sure his heart was even beating. Aside from his panicked thoughts, there was a stillness in his body that scared him more than anything. It was as if he had died and his mind just hadn’t caught on.
For some odd reason, he thought about the day he’d bought his first car, a clunker from a shady car dealer who should have paid him to take it off the lot. He’d wanted to save up to buy the classic 1972 Plymouth Barracuda, but getting a job delivering pizzas meant he needed a car right away. The Nissan Sentra looked and smelled like it had been in a fire. Every part of it was in deep decay except the motor. Somehow, it had survived five months of zipping around town, the stench of burnt foam, fabric and plastic replaced with savory pizza and meatball subs.
He hadn’t lost his virginity in the Sentra, nor had there been any great memories of joy rides with his friends. Together, they fed the town. That was it.
“Naala, please,” he heard someone say, realizing it was himself.
Grim certainty turned to shock when he spied her body swimming away from him just under the water’s surface. She leaped into the air, landing on her side and diving.
It’s what Naala always did when it was time to eat. He called it her Happy Yum Yum Dance. She liked to play around and act silly at feeding time.
That instant of knowing she was not going to kill him brought him crashing back into his body. The weight of the bucket suddenly made his fingers ache and his heart seemed to pump deeper, harder, to make up for lost time. It took him a moment to catch his breath.
He dared take his eyes off Naala to glance back at Rosario and Ann-Marie. Both women had their mouths covered with their hands, the look of terror still plastered all over their faces.
Legs unsteady, he managed to shamble toward the edge of the platform.
Reaching down, his fingers wrapped around an icy cod. He held it up for Naala to see.
She responded by swimming toward him.
Chet tossed the fish into the pool. Naala leapt up and snatched it out of the air, just like a dog catching a Frisbee. She turned and headed for the other side of the tank so she could make another circuit, knowing he’d have more fish at the ready.
They kept at it until the bucket was empty. He filled another, and when that one was done, she stopped and floated by the edge, waiting for him to pat her head like he and Matthew always did.
“I’m sorry Naala, not today,” he said, feeling awful for denying her that small bit of contact and comfort.
He couldn’t chance it. Not yet.
When he was done, he was nearly knocked over from Rosario rushing into him.
She kissed hi
m long and hard. “You’re insane, you know that?” she said.
“I know. But at least Naala isn’t, at least at the moment.”
Ann-Marie looked both happy and pissed.
“That’s the last crazy ass stunt you pull,” she said, then getting on the tips of her toes to clutch his shoulders. “Naala will be fed from a safe distance from here on.”
“She’s not a betta fish,” Chet said. “She’s going to need attention and affection. You know what happens when orcas don’t get that.”
Ann-Marie sighed, exasperated. “What else can I do? She killed Matthew. I can’t have other trainers go in there with her. You know the protocol.”
He looked at Naala swimming around as if yesterday hadn’t happened. “I think our protocols suck.”
“You and me both, but for now, there’s not much else I can do. Come on, let me take you to your hotel.”
Rosario gave a short laugh. “We didn’t even have time to book one.”
“That’s all right. I’ll get you some breakfast then book you in the Hyatt. Chet, I’ll need you back this afternoon. We’ll have to run some tests on Naala.”
“Yeah.” That meant they’d have to tranquilize her once again. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
On the ride to the Waffle House, which had been Rosario’s selection since she’d heard so much about the hash browns but had never been there, Chet finally checked his phone messages.
When he got to the third voicemail from a guy named Jamel Abrams he was tempted to turn the phone off.
“I know you’ll probably delete this, but please, hear me out,” the man said as if he could read Chet’s mind. “I think I’ve pinpointed what’s making all these killer whales lash out and where it’s coming from. I can’t go into specifics over voicemail. It’s better if we talk. I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions. Luckily, I have lots of answers.”
His head resting against the passenger side window, Chet reluctantly saved the message, only to find four more similar messages from Jamel Abrams. He showed the number to Rosario.
