by Russ Elliott
All the way to his own two feet.
He threw his body at the door, but slipped and fell just before reaching it. As he tried to regain his footing, he realized he was sliding. Backward. He flipped over to control the momentum, stopping finally when his shoes hit pebbled flesh.
Shaking uncontrollably, he stared at the monster’s throat. Cool water gushed beneath him. His eyes moved upward to witness the underside of its enormous jaws, the massive head writhing in all directions.
Morris threw his arms over his face and waited.
Suddenly, he felt the creature’s movement change. Morris seized the opportunity to throw himself to one side, just as the jaw slammed down. The headwaiter continued to roll until he grasped the legs of a table, and he immediately pulled himself behind it. From beneath the table, just ten feet away, he resisted the urge to vomit as he saw the enormous muscles in the creature’s throat ripple with its movement.
“Ah, hell no!” he screamed as he rolled out from beneath the table, regained his footing, and dove for an exit door. Doors still swinging, Morris stumbled through the hallway until he finally leaned against a wall, unsure of what to do next or where to go.
His white coat was covered in blood, miraculously not his own. He put his head in his shaking hands and wept.
~~~
On the second level in the main dining room, passengers in formal attire shared looks with people at other tables. There was a loud bump from below. A woman seated at the end of a table of six looked at the floor. Another bump lifted her chair from the floor. The waiter standing beside her balanced a tray with a downward glance. “Dinner is served.”
At that moment, the table of six, waiter and all, lifted and then disappeared as a gray blur tore out a section of the floor. A wall of silver balloons rose through the opening, accompanied by horrific screams from below.
People around the room frantically looked for the source of the screams while balloons collected above them in a vast skylight. Then a primal roar shook the floor as an upward blast of air scattered the balloons across the ceiling.
~~~
Frustrated, the pliosaur lifted its head with all its force, tearing through more of the floor of the second level. A shower of tables and chairs fell through the enormous opening, landing on those still struggling to exit the ballroom.
Sensing that its tight-fitted girth could move no deeper into the ship, the leviathan arced its upper body backward, crashing through what remained of the floor, rupturing the portside pontoon. The tremendous suction of his passing ejected those remaining in the ballroom from the bottom of the ship like a bursting piñata.
As the clouds of bubbles cleared beneath the ruptured hull, the uninjured swam toward the surface while unconscious bodies swirled amid tables and chairs. Hundreds of spiraling plates twinkled like fireflies as large steel appliances fell to the depths, littering the seafloor.
~~~
On the ship’s bridge, Captain Porter stared through the window overlooking the main deck. Dozens of passengers flowed from the stairwell, their orange life jackets glowing in the sun. Silver balloons soared above as seagulls circled, zipping past the windows.
The captain turned around as the first mate ran through the doorway, out of breath.
“Well? What is it? Did we ram something, hit bottom? What?”
The first mate struggled for words. “No, sir . . . more like . . . it ran into us!”
“What ran into us?” bellowed the captain.
“I didn’t see it,” the first mate gasped. “Some say it was an enormous creature . . . a reptile. Like . . . like a dinosaur!”
“Dinosaur?” The captain screwed up his face and pulled his chin in, doubtful.
The first mate nodded. “Yes sir. Whatever it was, it burst through the glass bottom dance floor.” He paused and wiped his brow. “You know, sir, last night on the radio, I heard something on the news about a huge marine reptile in the area that attacked a speedboat yesterday. They claimed the creature was over seventy feet long. But that was just a small speedboat it attacked. We’re in a cruise ship nearly four hundred feet long. I would have never dreamed of such a danger. I mean, the Navy hasn’t confirmed that the creature even existed, but still, after what’s happened . . .” He held his hand to his face, stunned.
“I heard something of that too,” added the petty officer, who’d been listening in on the conversation. “I thought it was just something dreamed up by the resort owners to drum up business, like all of that Loch Ness rubbish!”
Looking down at the main deck as more people swarmed from the stairwell, the captain said, “Well, we should be okay. Even if the dance floor is completely missing, we shouldn’t be in any danger of sinking with the sealed chambers in the pontoon hull.”
The first mate shook his head wildly. “No, sir. The hull is completely missing from the dance floor to the galley. There’s nothing there but water now!”
Still looking below at the passengers, the captain stroked his chin. “Hm. Well, we’re less than six miles from land. Certainly the ship will stay afloat until we reach port.”
The first mate looked down, his tone somber. “Sir . . . the second and third chambers in the portside pontoon were ruptured . . . well, the ship . . . sir, she’ll never see land again,” he stammered.
“Captain! Take a look at this!” Another crewmember on the bridge was pointing down through the portside window.
The captain strode over to look past the portside rail. One by one, bodies began to appear from beneath the surface. Some swam for the ship, frantically screaming, while others floated face down. Life preservers soared through the air as passengers along the rail tried to help those in the water.
“Well, all right, drop the lifeboats then. We have to abandon ship! We have no choice!” said the captain, his heart heavy with the news. The first mate looked down from the opposite side of the bridge. His eyes grew wide. “Captain, I think you’d better take a look at this . . . I’m not so sure about the lifeboats.”
Kate closed the door to her airport office while John eagerly headed toward the helicopter. Just as she put the key into the lock, a call came over the office radio. She cracked the door to listen.
“Mayday! Mayday! This is Captain Porter from the Indian Princess. We’re a cruise ship about six miles off Betty’s Bay. We’ve been rammed by . . . something enormous! The hull has been severely damaged . . .”
Kate waved John back to the office. “Hey, we’ve got a distress call. Sounds like the pliosaur’s attacked a cruise ship off Betty’s Bay!”
John ran back to the doorway to listen, but the channel had turned to static.
“Where? Where’s Betty’s Bay?” John asked, following Kate to the radio on a counter in the kitchenette.
“It’s not that far from here. We can be there in less than twenty minutes.”
“I’ll call the admiral from the chopper, and get them on the move too.” Just as they stepped outside the office and started to close the door, another call came over the radio. Quickly, they ran back into the office to listen.
“Mayday! Mayday! We’re a fishing boat twenty miles off Hout Bay. We’ve just been hit by an enormous reptile twice the size of our boat. We’re taking on water.”
After the distress call terminated, Kate gasped, “What’s the deal? The creature can’t be in two places.”
“Where’s Hout Bay? Show me on a map.”
Kate wrestled a map down on the counter next to the radio. “It’s west of the last attack site off Hermanus. Wayyy west!” Kate’s finger stopped on an area of water west of Cape Town.
“No way.” John looked closer at the map. “That’s past Cape Point, more than a hundred miles through Atlantic waters. The admiral said the creature wouldn’t go that far in the cooler water. Nathan confirmed it too; in fact, he was adamant about it. That call can’t be right. The creature’s at the cruise ship. I know it.”
“But that fisherman said Hout Bay! You heard him too.”
John s
hook his head, adamant. “Something’s not right about that call then. Look at the distance the pliosaur would have had to cover since last night. That has to be at least two hundred miles from Hermanus where the creature attacked the naval divers. Nathan said there is no way the pliosaur would go that far into the Atlantic, not with such a rich supply of whales and other feeding opportunities in the Cape area. Something definitely does not sound right.”
“Then what?” Kate asked.
“Maybe in all the panic the fisherman got his quadrants mixed up. All we can do is try to contact him and confirm his location, or wait for another call.”
Kate looked at her watch. “Well, we can try to reach him on the radio in the chopper. We’ve got to get moving. Remember what Tom told you, the authorities could be here any minute!”
Kate picked up her bag, and they headed for the door. The second she turned the doorknob, another call came over the radio. John ran back to the radio and listened. “This is the Indian Princess. The distress call we just sent out was a mistake. It seems someone here was trying to play a prank about that enormous sea monster we’ve all heard about. We will handle the prankster. Please ignore any further distress calls from this ship in this regard. We’re in no need of assistance. I repeat: we’re in no need of assistance. Out.”
John and Kate stared at the radio in confusion. “Wait a minute,” John said slowly. He leaned back against the table, arms crossed, thoughtful. “The first call was from the ship’s captain, the second caller didn’t even identify himself—”
Before John could finish his sentence, another call came through in a panicked voice. “Mayday! Mayday! Please . . . anyone out there! We’re on a thirty-two-foot fishing boat off Hout Bay. We’ve been hit by an enormous reptile. It’s still after us—”
Again the channel turned to static. “What’s going on here?” Kate said, frowning at the radio. “He clearly said his boat was off Hout Bay. That’s at least two hundred miles from the cruise ship and in the opposite direction. Maybe the first call from the cruise ship really was a mistake?”
“No way. That creature wouldn’t go into the Atlantic,” John said, stepping toward the door. “Besides, there’s something about that voice from the fishing boat—sounded very similar to the person who made the second call from the cruise ship, talking about a prankster.”
He turned and beckoned Kate to follow. “I know that voice. It’s Kota,” he said matter-of-factly.
“The tribesman from the island who killed the guard?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it. The calls from the fishing boat are a decoy. He’s trying to throw off what’s left of the naval squadron and send them in the opposite direction. That cruise ship is in trouble, and we’ve gotta go help ’em out, Kate. The admiral’s probably already fallen for the “fake” Mayday call and is heading for Hout Bay. By the time he and his demolition team get this all straightened out, it’ll be too late. The cruise ship is probably taking on water, and if the pliosaur is still in the area . . .” Closing the office door, they walked quickly toward the gray, vintage military helicopter. Neither noticed the three-foot section of fence missing from behind the garbage cans. They picked up the pace and started to jog toward the landing pad.
~~~
Through the Sky Hawk’s windshield, Kota saw John and Kate running toward the landing pad. He dropped the radio headset with a menacing smile. “That should confuse them well enough.” Even if John didn’t fall for his decoy call, he knew the Navy would. Slithering back between the seats in the cockpit, he stepped past the barrels of chum and joined Kolegwa behind a small divider wall that separated the rear section of the cargo area. As Kota sat down, Kolegwa began to wake up, half nauseated from spending the night with the foul stench from the chum barrels. Kota quieted him with a finger to the lips.
Just as the cockpit doors opened, Kota unsheathed his machete.
~~~
The first mate had left the bridge and now scoured the water from the portside rail of the Indian Princess, searching for the enormous shadow. Frantic passengers scurried around him, screaming and pointing at the slightest trace of whitewater. Someone pulled his arm from the rail. He turned to see two young black boys, one heavyset and the other skinny, both frantically pleading, faces wet with tears.
One cried, “We’re sorry! We’re sorry! We didn’t know, mister.” His friend nodded fervently in agreement.
“Know what?” asked the first mate, pulling his arm back.
The heavyset boy grabbed the first mate’s coat. “For real, mister. We . . . we just wanted to see some sharks. We didn’t want to see . . . th-that!” The first mate picked up two life jackets from the deck and handed them to the boys. “Put these on, and go find your parents. Now go . . . and stay away from the rail!”
Sending the boys on their way, the first mate returned his attention to the water. He watched passengers swimming frantically toward the ship, the seagulls swirling overhead, the lifeboats splashing down. Debris and dead bodies clipped the survivors as they paddled toward the lifeboats and life preservers, which were then hoisted back up to the ship like manual elevators.
The sheer panic is almost hypnotic, thought the first mate, and he shook his head to focus on what he might do to help.
Immediately his gaze returned to the water when he heard heightened intensity of the screams around him.
The crest of the dragon-like back swept out from behind the ship’s bow.
There you are. The first mate gripped the rail tightly, his knuckles whitening, his mind reeling. Passengers at mid-deck pulled the lines faster to lift the overloaded lifeboats higher from the surface. A woman dangling from a life preserver, which was being hoisted up the side of the ship screamed. The enormous shadow glided toward her. The creature rose to the surface, brushing against debris with the side of its nose, clearing its path, while giant red eyes focused on the side rail. The creature’s striped back passed directly below the dangling lifeboats. Then, with a slash of frothy water, it disappeared.
The first mate saw one of the lifeboats rise to the rail. As he raced over to help, they all started screaming down at the water. A man in the lifeboat jumped for the ship’s rail but missed, falling back into the sea. The first mate’s vision flushed gray as he witnessed impossibly massive jaws push from the water between the lifeboat and the ship’s rail, then slam shut in an explosion of planks. More bodies. More terror.
Trembling, the first mate staggered to maintain his balance, then looked over the rail. The creature had slid down the side of the ship, leaving a fifteen-foot red streak on the hull, leading to the waterline. Then it dove again with a tremendous splash which shot up the hull and washed the red streak into a diluted pink smear.
~~~
The vintage military helicopter bearing a jagged tooth grimace soared over the shoreline as John shouted into his headset. “You gotta believe me, Admiral! The second call from the cruise ship was a fake . . . not the first one. And the other calls . . . about the small fishing boat in Hout – those WERE fake! The ones from the fishing boat were just a decoy to throw everyone off track. The creature would not go that far into the cooler waters . . . you said that yourself! And look how far it would have to have traveled since the last known attack site just last night.” John’s eyes were bulged as he ranted. “The pliosaur’s at the cruise ship, Admiral!”
After a moment of listening to the admiral disregard his pleas, John shook his head in frustration. “Oh, for pity’s sake, sir. I didn’t have anything to do with the fire at the station or the dead guard.” He threw a hand in the air and made a fist of frustration. “Okay, okay. How ’bout this? Later I’ll come in and get this all sorted out. But not now. Right now, we’ve got to help the people on that cruise ship. Kate and I are heading out there now. Sir, you’ve got to turn your guys around. Those people need you.”
John held the headset close to his ear as he listened again. He sighed, then said, “I know because I recognized the voice. The caller who claimed
the cruise ship’s distress call was a prank, and the caller from the fishing boat off Hout Bay had the same voice. It was Kota, the tribesman from the island. The same guy that left my wallet by the guard’s body at the station.”
After another pause, John shook his head. “All right. But when you get to the area and can’t find the fishing boat, it’ll be because there never was one.”
He whipped off the headset. “Stubborn idiot!” he said under his breath.
Just then, a call came over the walkie-talkie beside the seat. He put the headset back on and asked the admiral to hold while he took a call from Nathan. “Yeah, Nathan, talk to me!”
“I’ve got it on the monitor. The signal came on about a minute ago, still going.”
“Is it near Betty’s Bay?”
“It sure is,” replied Nathan. “About four miles off the coast . . . how’d you know?”
“I-I’ll explain it to you later. Just call me back if the signal starts any dramatic move.” Putting down the walkie-talkie, John adjusted his headset. “Admiral, Nathan at the research ship just picked up a signal on the pliosaur, and guess what? It came from the exact same coordinates as the cruise ship’s distress call. You’ve got to turn around. The creature is definitely at the cruise ship. This can’t be a coincidence.”
John listened for a moment then cut the admiral off. “Save it, Admiral! You’ll get a chance to explain it all later . . . to the hundreds of loved ones mourning the passengers on that cruise ship.” The frequency then turned to static.
~~~
Less than ten feet from the cockpit, Kota and Kolegwa waited, hidden behind the short divider wall beside the barrels of chum. The inside wall of the helicopter vibrated against Kolegwa’s back. He sat with his knees close to his chest, careful to keep his feet out of sight. Below his hip, his machete blade glistened in the light shining through a small window behind his head.
He raised up, peeped out that window, and saw the helicopter’s shadow gliding across the blue waters far below. Having never been higher than the top of a palm tree back at the island, he found the view more than a little unsettling. He turned and leaned his head back against the vibrating wall and closed his eyes. His stomach was still queasy from the stench of chum. In his mind’s eye, he could see his wife and two little girls back on the island. He missed them horribly.
