by Russ Elliott
“But what about the Madaki brothers?” asked the pilot. “Did you reach Johan?”
The admiral nodded. He turned around and faced the pilot with the glassy eyes of a zombie. “We made contact. All I heard was screaming . . . he was screaming.”
~~~
Thabo stared at the colossal head glowing in his dive light. A stream of blood seeped out from between the interlocked, spiked teeth. A belch of bubbles rose from one of the nostrils, but the creature remained perfectly still.
Thabo did not move. Maybe it’s like in the movies––if I don’t move it can’t see me.
The jaws swept open. The light illuminated a huge serpentine tongue writhing in a swath of blood. His brother’s blood.
A gurgling roar sprayed bloody bubbles around Thabo as he spun, tossing the light. Pumping his fins, he lunged forward, his screams echoing in his regulator. Another stroke, but he only felt the forked tongue slither beneath his left leg. The blackness of the open mouth surrounded him. Thabo swam madly below a row of spiked teeth, his arms reaching for the outside ocean. His hands groped the seafloor, clawing and pulling him through the silt. He crawled and crawled until a searing pain sank into his lower back–then his abdomen. A crushing snap made his neck go limp as his dive mask kissed the sand. He rose violently from the seafloor, and the last thing he saw were the bubbles exploding from his own mouth.
~~~
Tom desperately swam for the surface. Trailing five yards behind him, Andre kept pace with camera in hand. After failing to contact Johan over his headset, Tom made an attempt to warn the brothers in person. But when he peered over a rock formation and saw the shadowy head thrashing beside the abandoned dive light, he realized their fate. In that instant, Tom tossed his dive light so he could swim at full speed. Now only one thought crossed his mind: did it see him?
In spite of Tom’s fear, he couldn’t help looking back down. Seventy feet below, he saw glimpses of the gray skin still reflecting in the light. Tom turned his attention to the approaching surface. He could see the chopper’s glaring light above the rotor wash.
He glanced down again. He saw three flashes—the camera? Is he insane–snapping shots of the pliosaur? Andre pointed at the camera, then at Tom. He shook his head frantically, trying to indicate that he hit the button by accident.
Turning his attention above him again, Tom swam madly for the chopper’s rotor wash. He spotted the end of the nylon ladder dangling beneath the choppy water. Bursting through the surface, he felt the pounding wind from the rotors. He climbed up the ladder without looking back. The admiral was leaning from the cargo bay with his hand extended. Latching onto it, Tom rolled into the doorway and pulled the regulator from his mouth, gasping. “Don’t take her up. Andre’s still down there!”
They both looked back at the water and saw Andre rising beneath the rotor wash. He now swam with both hands free, the camera apparently dropped—and soon they understood why. A horrible blackness appeared beneath Andre. Illuminated in the chopper’s light, the jaws stretched wider, Andre silhouetted in the pitch. The giant teeth defiantly slammed shut at the surface, spraying the chopper with whitewater. Blinded by the splash, Tom and the admiral were forced to look away until the colossal head rolled back into the sea.
After the shock waves settled, there was nothing but rotor wash and a red haze glowing in the chopper’s light. Not far off, they saw the giant head rise beneath the fog. Tom ripped off his dive mask and turned to the admiral. “Where are the depth charges?” he demanded. “We can still stop it!”
The admiral turned away and headed silently to the cockpit.
Tom frantically looked around the cargo bay. There was nothing but diving gear, video cameras, fluorescent balloons, lights, and other types of markers. He grabbed the back of the pilot’s seat.
“There aren’t any,” said the pilot flatly. “This was only supposed to be a recovery mission.”
Tom looked at the admiral who refused to face him. Releasing the pilot’s seat, Tom fell back, disheartened, heartbroken for his fellow divers, for what this all meant. He looked down through the doorway, watching silently as the chopper kept pace with the pliosaur until finally it disappeared completely, leaving behind only the mist-covered sea.
~~~
At three twenty a.m., the airport office was silent as John sat on the couch studying the television news. Kate was sprawled out beside him, asleep. On the screen, an anchorwoman was reporting in front of the ravaged pier. “. . . according to our sources, the creature responsible is somehow linked to a mysterious expedition funded by a Port Elizabeth college professor.”
A voice whispered from the shadows of the office. “I see you’re about to make headlines again.”
Startled, John turned, staring into every dark corner of the office. The voice laughed, then said in a Spanish accent, “I know you remember me, amigo. We’ve been together for a long, long time.” A young Mexican man stepped out of the shadows. He was in his early thirties, decked out in black leather motorcycle attire, a battered helmet tucked under one arm. A long tear in the left thigh of his leathers was slick with blood. Beneath his sunglasses, his face was milky white like a corpse—and with good reason. It was Carlos Rodriguez, the man John had run off the road in college.
“Si, we’ve been together for a long time.” Carlos nodded at John. “It’s been so lonely here, but now I’ve come to say gracias for my new compadres.” Carlos stepped forward with his left arm around a young boy. “I’d like to introduce my new amigo, Andric Wells.” The boy’s hair and clothes were soaking wet. His eyes were glassy, and his skin so pale it glowed. John recognized him as the young boy that had drowned in the net of the Montanza. Then one by one, five more faces materialized in the darkness—the fishermen who also met their fates at the fishing festival.
Two more men appeared beside Carlos. “Then, of course, you’ve already met these compadres, Drew and Al.” Dripping with bloody seawater, both of the old anglers stared at John, their sightless eyes glowing in the night. Carlos waved graciously, and another man appeared. His face was obscured. “And now we have a late arrival, Louis Jones, the husband of the woman you rescued at the pier.” Carlos grinned. “Too bad you didn’t get there sooner, hey, amigo?”
John found himself standing in the middle of a cool, dark abyss. The floor was wet. He could hear the seawater dripping from the victims who now surrounded him. Slowly, the bloody water and tangled seaweed beneath his feet rushed upward and curled around his boots. Like a cold hand, he could feel the icy darkness rising inside him.
“Oh, there’s more!” Carlos bellowed like a game show host. “Let’s not forget the lovely Aaaaaamy Lawrence, our newest arrival!” He winked. “She’s a real looker, John!” The young blonde appeared before him, and John could see that her once-piercing blue eyes now held no terror, no hope, nothing. Her torn left breast hung hideously beside her exposed ribs. Yet she still reached out, as if longing for him to pull her from the sea.
Carlos put a cold arm around John’s shoulder. “Still, I need one more favor, amigo.” The circle of victims opened, allowing Carlos to walk John back to the couch. “There’s someone else I would like to join our little fiesta . . . I’ve had my eye on her for a long while.” He stopped, looking down where Kate was asleep on the couch. “I want you to bring her to me, John, like all of the others.” He slapped John on the back, and his hideous laugh echoed throughout the room. “I know you won’t let me down!”
Then laughter gave way to a ringing.
John woke up screaming, “KATE, NOOO!”
Rising from the couch in a panic, he inadvertently knocked Kate onto the floor. He looked around, groping in the night for her.
Kate rose from the floor, squinting in the dark. “Hey, I’m here, right beside you . . . or at least, I was.” She saw John still flailing in the darkness. She whispered, “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just my cell phone.” Answering it, she turned on the light next to the couch and responded to th
e caller, “Sure, he’s right here.”
Still shaking off the nightmare, John looked up groggily as Kate brought him the phone. “Is it the admiral?”
“No, I think it’s the mate from the Sharks Board.”
John could hear the sound of a helicopter in the background. It muffled the familiar voice.
“John, this is Tom from the Sharks Board. After all the press the pliosaur was getting, the admiral decided to take a dive team out and locate the carcass tonight.”
John stood up and pushed his hands through his hair as Tom continued. “Apparently you were right. It looks like they used six depth charges to blow up a harmless plankton feeder—a humpback whale. I mean, it was a big one, and its back was extremely knotted for a humpback . . .” John was pacing, letting the words sink in. Tom continued to offer excuses; he grew defensive, “And the way it was covered by the fog . . . you have to remember none of us had ever seen the creature before tonight—”
John interrupted, “But once you found the carcass, realized your mistake, you . . . the dive team came straight back up. Right?” There was a long pause on the other end. “Out of the four-man dive team, I was the only one that made it back.”
John sat back down on the couch. He realized he’d wakened from one nightmare into another. “Was the demolition squad with you? Did they at least drop—?”
“No,” Tom’s voice was dry. “We were in a single, unarmed chopper and were only able to maintain a visual for about a minute.” John could hear the man breathing deeply, and then he said in a more perky tone, “But don’t worry. I’ve already talked to Admiral Henderson. I thought you’d like to know the Navy will be continuing its search tomorrow morning, for a living pliosaur. So let me know if your guy gets another signal from the transmitter. Okay? John?”
John hung up slowly, not responding to Tom. He looked at Kate with a somber expression. “Guess what?”
Chapter 11
THE HUNT FROM LAND
From a balcony of the Seaside Hotel, Kota continued to stare out over the night sea. So far so good, he thought. In the last half hour he’d only seen one helicopter and heard no more explosions. I must get moving. There is much to do and little time. He turned around and looked through the sliding glass door where he found Kolegwa sitting at the foot of the bed, mesmerized by the magic of television.
As Kota entered the room, Kolegwa stood up, still in his lime green pants, and excitedly pointed to the images on the screen.
“Relax . . . I’ll explain it to you later!” Kota said, then picked up the remote and turned down the volume.
Kolegwa raised his shoulders, palms up, as if to say, “Why’d you do that?” Kota just waved him away.
Sitting on the side of the bed, Kota took John’s wallet out of his shirt pocket. Carefully, he slid each item from the wallet and spread them out on the nightstand next to the telephone.
He pulled out a tattered business card. Turning the card over, he saw the word “cell” and a telephone number written in faded red marker. He laid it on the nightstand and dialed the number. Eight rings later, the voice of an elderly woman answered, “Hello.” Kota did not respond immediately and the woman prompted, “Kate, is that you?”
“Is this Professor Atkins?”
“Yes, it is. Who . . . who’s calling me at this ungodly hour?”
“I’m trying to reach John,” replied Kota as he quickly opened the wallet to John’s driver’s license. “John Paxton.”
“No, John isn’t here. In fact, I tried to reach him several hours ago myself, but he wasn’t in.”
“Do you have a phone number or address where he’s staying?”
“Yes. I believe he’s still staying with Kate at Alexander Aviation, her Simon’s Town office. Would you like the number?”
Kota slid his fingers through the business cards on the table. “No, I have it.”
“Are you with the Navy? What did you say your name—?” Kota hung up abruptly.
He turned to Kolegwa with a wide grin. “Looks like the hunt is on!”
Kota put on his jacket and slid the business cards into his pocket. Then he leaned over and took out a wad of African rand bills from a briefcase beside the bed. Heading for the door, he muttered to Kolegwa, “I must go out. Do not leave the room until I get back.”
Kolegwa nodded without breaking his gaze from the strange vibrant images on the black box in front of him.
Kota paused at the doorway, thinking. Then he grinned mischievously. He walked back to the bed, retrieved the remote, and changed the channel from cartoons to a rerun of The Terminator.
“There . . . that’s more like it!” He laughed as he walked out the door.
~~~
Kate was pacing the airport office, hands flying in the air as she spoke, while John sat silently on the couch. “Well, at least the Navy’s back on our side. And after what just happened, you can bet Admiral Hot Head will be motivated to stop the creature. If the media gets wind that he obliterated a harmless whale, they’ll make him look like the fool he is. No doubt, tomorrow morning we’ll have all the eyes in the air and the firepower we need.”
John still didn’t say a word.
Kate glanced at a digital clock beside the couch. “Looks like we can still catch a few winks before sunrise.” She reached over to a wall switch and flipped it off. Plopping down on the couch, she snuggled up beside him. Releasing a long breath, she said, “I know how you feel . . . but see, there was a logical explanation why the pliosaur was still alive. Now we can put to rest all that tribal prophecy rubbish that’s been roaming around in that head of yours. It was a humpback whale; a case of mistaken identity. The Navy simply destroyed the wrong creature.”
“Think what you will,” John muttered, the night’s events replaying in his mind. He recalled the young blonde reaching up to the chopper—the giant jaws taking her before the full moon. He could still see the taunting look in the pliosaur’s eye as it glared up at him after taking a direct hit by a depth charge. There was no mistake. The creature he’d hit was no whale. “No way,” he whispered. “That still doesn’t explain everything.”
~~~
Light from the hallway shone through the window, bathing the small hotel room in a yellow hue. Kolegwa sat at the foot of the bed, mesmerized by his strange surroundings: torches with no flames providing light with the flip of a switch; a substance Kota had called glass which blocked the wind and rain; and a bed so soft without the use of leaves or straw. And, of course, the magical black box.
He slowly rose from the edge of the bed. Powerful quadriceps muscles strained the fabric of his outrageous, lime green pants as he cautiously approached the television. He reached out to touch the small figure inside the strange box, but his finger hit against something transparent. Again he tried to reach inside, bumping the screen with his fingertips. But the little man inside the box didn’t seem to notice. Curiously, Kolegwa ran his fingers along the sides and back of the box, squinting to find the hidden latch on the mysterious little cage.
Finding no way to free the strange little people, Kolegwa crawled back on the bed and leaned against the headboard. He spotted the remote control beside his knee and remembered how Kota pointed it at the cage. Cautiously, he picked up the remote and pressed a button, wondering if the same magic that had worked for Kota would also work for him.
The channel switched to an old Tarzan movie. Kolegwa leaned forward, watching as dozens of tribesmen poured onto the screen. They were chasing a jeep loaded with elephant tusks as it raced through the jungle. Frenzied cries echoed around the walls of the hotel room. Kolegwa leaned closer.
A man in the back of the jeep pulled out a machine gun and fired. The front rows of natives dropped lifelessly to the ground as the machine gun kicked in the man’s hand. Kolegwa’s eyes bulged. He scurried toward the edge of the bed, desperately trying to think of a way to free the natives before the white man killed them all.
He picked up the television and raised it overhea
d, the power cord and cable ripping from the wall. Off to his right, he saw the large window overlooking the outside walkway. With all his strength, he hurled the television. In an explosion of glass, the television burst through the window and crashed onto the concrete in front of a young couple on their way to an evening dip in the hotel pool.
~~~
The black Jeep Cherokee skidded to a stop in the Seaside Hotel parking lot. Stepping from the vehicle, Kota reached over the tailgate and tightened the caps of four full cans of gas. “This should be plenty,” he muttered with a wicked grin. He then walked past the pool and headed up the stairs to the second floor. As he reached the top step, he noticed the commotion in front of his room. A group of onlookers were standing around a smashed television, its pieces scattered across the hallway.
Kota groaned. I knew I shouldn’t have left him alone!
Nearing the room, he heard the pleas coming from behind the shattered window. “No! Don’t do it mate, please. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry.”
A young man ran past Kota and shouted, “I’m calling the police.” A woman standing in front of the window screamed hysterically, “There’s no time. It’ll be too late!”
Kota walked through the doorway and saw Kolegwa holding the hotel manager against the wall with his forearm. The shivering man’s feet hung eight inches above the floor. Just inside the doorway, the manager’s little dog barked frantically at Kolegwa, the cold steel of Kolegwa’s machete whirling overhead.
The blade drew back. The powerful biceps tightened as the machete whipped through the air.
Slap!
Kota’s hand caught Kolegwa’s arm. “Let him go,” Kota said firmly.
Kolegwa released the middle-aged man, and he plopped back against the wall in shock. The telltale trail of fear dampened the inside of his pant leg.
Kota motioned Kolegwa to back off, and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of bills. The mangy little dog ran to the man’s feet, frantically barking to protect its owner.
