“Dad, what was that?”
He stared at the far wall. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t like it. Are there more caves? Is there one behind that wall?”
“I don’t know, but this is an island, and islands are, by their nature of formation, full of caves. Come, son, let’s get out of here and tell the techies. They must be able to figure out something with all the gadgets they have.”
Will felt uneasy, a deep, sinking feeling in his gut as though something unknown and very bad was about to happen. “Okay, Dad. Let’s go.” Truth was, even though he could stay with the Megalodons forever, that odd scraping sound on the other side of the enclosure wall spooked him.
They left walking side-by-side, and quickly.
Chapter 11
None of the tech heads had any clue what Will and his father heard, and James suggested it could have been wildlife living in the caves of the island responding to the Megalodons’ banging on the walls. Will didn’t feel satisfied with that answer.
He wasn’t tired after sleeping so long, so he ate two ham sandwiches in the kitchen. The tuxedoed servers were off-duty and asleep, most likely. The sandwiches, where they had been scrumptious when Will had them the first day they arrived, were tasteless and mainly just sustenance.
When finished eating and dishes cleaned up, Will went into the main hall to see if anybody else was awake. Only Sir Mallory was there, sitting in the same chair his wife had been glued to most of the time. He was administering a shot into his bare hip, and glanced up at Will as he pulled the needle out. “See?” he said. “Insulin shot. Not nearly as bad as it looks. To do, I mean, especially after doing so all my life.” He wrapped the needle up in paper towels, carried it over to a waste bin, and chucked it. “Sit with an old man, Will. I can’t sleep, and it looks like you can’t, either. Visit the food storage, did you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good eats?”
“Yeah, all the food here is great,” Will said, even though he hadn’t enjoyed his sandwiches.
“Come,” Sir Mallory said. “Let’s sit by the fire.”
Will joined him on the black marble fireplace as he lit a cigar, blowing out slowly. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, gesturing to the cigar.
“No. Dad smokes cigarettes sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s something. Cigarettes, well, most people can’t have them only sometimes. They fiend for them until they break the cycle. Your father has willpower. Maybe that’s why he named you Will.” He smiled.
Will smiled back at him, not explaining that his mother had named him William after her father, who had died when she was a teen. “Dad’s pretty much his own man.”
“That he is, that he is. A cigar, on the other hand, is a treat. Something one puffs on after a long day or at a tedious dinner party to get a break from the socialites.”
“What is it right now?”
Sir Mallory paused, thinking. “I’ll be honest with you, Will. In this case, it’s to soothe the nerves. Much like a cigarette might.” He puffed, paused, and then continued. “I worry that this storm will never clear, that we’ll never get satellite signal out, and that the Megalodons’ existence will never be known.”
Will thought that was so very honest, and felt honored that the Englishman talked to him yet again like an equal, like an adult. “I don’t think that will happen,” he reassured Sir Mallory instinctively, but in his gut, he remembered those odd sounds at the back of the cave wall earlier. He didn’t bring that up.
“Thank you.” He smiled. “Nerves, like I say. And nerves, Will, are simply insecurities that your plans won’t work out, that your dreams won’t come true…without knowing either way. Isn’t that the devil?”
“I guess so. For me, the devil is not being able to sail without feeling like puking the whole time. I hate it.”
“Why is that? Is it because you have to do it so much, or because you think you look weak to your father?” Sir Mallory watched him carefully.
Will blushed at the man’s insightfulness. His true weakness, which only Ellen knew, had been observed.
“You don’t have to answer. I see what it is. Having your father’s approval is, perhaps, a boy’s most desperate desire. However, you don’t see what I see. Do you want to know what I see?”
Will looked at the black marble floor, thinking, and then slowly nodded. “Sure.” Sir Mallory was wise, and Will sincerely wanted to know what he thought. He had a way of putting things into perspective with words that were positive and insightful. Things Will couldn’t see until pointed out to him that way. Just then, he wished his father talked to him like Sir Mallory did.
“I see your father as a gentle, loving father who doesn’t know how to express his love for his children in a way that they know it. And he does. He adores you and your sister. He agreed to this adventure simply because of something you said to him, and I imagine all you expressed to him was a strong desire to do this. Am I right?” he asked.
“Yeah. I guess so. I was angry, though. I wasn’t nice about it.”
Sir Mallory puffed and leaned closer to him. “Why not nice?”
Will shrugged. “I’m always nice to Dad. I don’t ever want to upset him, but that night, I was mad. I wanted to catch a Megalodon, or at least try. I figured the only way I could get him to change his mind was to blow up at him. I got myself worked up and then did it.”
“How did he react?”
Will bit his lip, and then replied, “He seemed almost excited.”
“What do you think he was excited about?”
“That I wanted to do something at sea. Something he would do without Ellen or me onboard.”
“Hmm,” Sir Mallory said. Puff. “Maybe he liked seeing your spirit. Maybe he wanted to please you. You see, Will, a father doesn’t know how to talk to his son when he has passed childhood and has become more adult. Especially a single father without a woman’s advice and insight. And your father, bless him, doesn’t seem to know how to show his true feelings. He’s a hard man to get to know, and like most sailors, has a gruff outward persona. That’s why they crave the sea. The open waters, the calm, being away from everyone. The freedom, the very air of the sea clears the mind.”
Will listened and pondered it after Sir Mallory stopped talking. “I never thought of him like that.”
“That’s for two reasons. One, he’s your father, so of course you want approval. Second, you are not a sailor, so you don’t understand the draw of the ocean and its way of taking your memories, especially the bad ones, away.”
“Dad has some bad ones.”
“Yes,” Sir Mallory murmured. “Yes, he does.”
They sat in silence for a while, Sir Mallory enjoying his cigar, and Will thinking over the conversation. He’d always thought of his father as an unemotional man, one who lost that capacity when Will’s mother died. However, what Sir Mallory said hit home as to what might actually motivate Will’s father. He’d never thought of the sea as a place to forget, but rather a miserable place where he felt sick all the time and like a broken leg to his father. It wasn’t all about him, though, which is what Sir Mallory pointed out to him. His father, although in his late fifties, was still a human, maybe not knowing what to do all the time like Will assumed he did. Maybe he was as confused as the rest of the people in the world as to what to do and not do, and his way of dealing with that was to put forward a tough exterior, and not show weakness. Especially to his kids.
That insight alone made Will appreciate his father more. He couldn’t imagine having two teenage kids and raising them alone, not knowing what to say to them or how to make them feel secure about themselves. That didn’t go so much for Ellen. Ellen loved being at sea, and she and their father had always had a special bond Will didn’t share with his dad. The father-daughter thing. Daddy’s little girl.
Will realized Ellen made it easy on their father. She figured out his sens
itive side young and how to bring it out. She also seemed to instinctively know that their father was not all grit, but had a gentle side that Will never thought to look for. Instead, he answered his dad’s questions like he thought his father would want him to rather than saying his true feelings. He hid how bad seasickness got to him because he didn’t want to bother his dad.
He had a lot to reassess.
Sir Mallory tossed his cigar butt into the fire. “Well, my young friend, I have thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you, as always. You are one of the bright lights in this blizzard. Stay that way.” He grinned at Will. “Now, let’s try to get some sleep. We have another feeding in the morning.”
“Okay. I do have a question, though.”
His eyes widened. “Yes?”
“What’s on the other side of the door with the keypad?”
“Oh, that. It’s to the helicopter pad. I had that put in place just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Remember, I took every precaution.” He smiled.
Will followed Sir Mallory up the stairs, watched him go into one of the first bedrooms, and spent about five minutes trying to remember which room was his. Finally, he decided to go to the one he’d hid in before. He knew right where that one was.
Once under the plush covers and in a T and sweatpants, he smiled. Ellen had known with her sisterly ways that he’d come back to this room and had brought his bag of clothes and toiletries here. Surprisingly, he fell asleep within minutes. Nothing like someone doing a thoughtful and psychic act like bringing you sweatpants to ease your mind so you can sleep, he thought as he drifted off, smiling slightly, sounds from the other side of the cave wall forgotten for the time being.
In the morning, he dressed and dashed down to the main hall. He didn’t want to miss the feeding, and he was dying to see if the storm had cleared at all.
James gave him a salute, called him “young sailor Will,” and told him the storm was still just as bad, if not worse. “You’ll have to consult your dad on that one to be sure. He knows. I haven’t seen him but through the monitors. He’s in the enclosure with Sir Mallory, waiting for the sedative to wear all the way off before they feed. If you want to be there, you best hurry. Look.” He pointed at the big monitor showing the enclosure from above. Will saw the gigantic white sharks doing their tight circles on opposite sides of the water, long, slender fins rising high toward the camera, just like they had before they’d rammed the walls. Yes, they were waking up and ready to eat or do some damage.
“Thanks, James,” Will said, and ran all the way to the enclosure.
He was out of breath when he got there, but walked the last few steps and entered, hoping his father and Sir Mallory wouldn’t know how he flew to get there, not wanting to miss a thing.
They were more toward the back wall, and all four of the green-suited men stood, two on each side of where the Megalodons swam, with their dart guns at the ready. Will joined his father and Sir Mallory. “Is it time to feed them?” he asked, trying to catch his breath without their noticing.
Sir Mallory grinned. “It is! We’re herding the food through the food storage shoot as we speak.”
“You enjoy watching them feed?” his father asked, eying him carefully.
“Yeah. It’s cool.”
“Blood doesn’t bother you?” he asked.
“No. It’s nature. I don’t want it to happen to any more people, but seeing them feed is like…I dunno.”
“Like what?” his father persisted.
Will thought carefully. “I guess it’s seeing something no other person on Earth has ever seen before. Maybe.”
His father nodded and was about to respond when suddenly, the Megalodons swam to the center of the water, spun, swung their tails and sped toward the back wall, slamming into it and shaking the entire enclosure. Will didn’t lose his footing this time, even though none of them expected it, and neither did his father, Sir Mallory or the green-suited men.
“Sedate them,” Will’s father said as soon as they swam back to the center of the water, and made their fast circles there instead of at the edges of the walls.
Sir Mallory shook his head. “We have to feed them first. They will starve.”
As he finished speaking, the Megalodons straightened up, swung their tails again, and rammed into the back of the cave, this time with more force. Will staggered and grabbed the wall behind him to keep from falling.
“Sedate them, now,” Will’s father commanded.
“The food should be ready.” He signaled to the nearest green suit man. “Open the food gate, force them through.”
Will’s father left, and Will sensed his fury at Sir Mallory not listening to him. It irritated Will. Why couldn’t his father chill out?
The giant sharks had gone back to the middle of the waters, now swimming in aggressive, frustrated circles, but suddenly stopped and sunk deep into the water with only the very tips of their dorsal fins poking out of the surface of the water.
The food must be out, Will thought, and his heartrate picked up.
He waited to see the shadows of large fish, but instead, a herd of fat snow seals swam to the surface in a frenzy, sticking close together and heading for the open sea blocked by steel bars.
The Megalodons instantly went into action.
The bigger of the two came at three of the smaller seals from the depths, snapping with teeth popping out upward at their bodies with its enormous maw, filling the enclosure with the stink of rotting death. It caught two right in its teeth, and the third was impaled by its thigh on a tooth. It squealed and red blood sprayed out over and under the water. The shark’s eyes rolled back in its head, showing white, as though the taste of flesh and blood was true ecstasy. Will kept his mouth and nose covered with his shirt, but the smell still came through. There was so much blood, and that little white seal kept screaming and screaming as the Megalodon chewed the first two to pieces, leaving the impaled one for when these two were done. Will’s stomach turned as it finished its first meal and then, eyes still white, began twisting its tongue around the third squealing snow seal, trying to get it in its mouth. Which it did. And the seal stopped its braying and instead exploded blood and flesh as the giant shark devoured it. Its eyes turned black again and it went on the hunt for more.
Meanwhile, the smaller Megalodon hunted, stalked, and then disabled about six white seals by biting them quickly at their midsections, but not hard enough to kill them. God, it was fast. Then, it fed on its prey one by one, but not before Will was subjected to wails of the dying, bleeding snow seals’ pain.
More white seals could be seen in the now-red water of the enclosure, and the sharks fed, but the water was too murky to make out the devastation. There were more of the seals’ desperate cries as the Megalodons finished them off.
Will’s hands shook. Large fish were one thing, but seals were so…well, cute. It was like seeing puppies being massacred. He was both enthralled and horrified.
“Now,” Sir Mallory said to a green-suited man, and the green suit man talked into his walkie-talkie.
The four of them shot darts into the Megalodons’ gills as they shot out of the water for the last of the seals.
The larger one fought the sedative again, and Will swore it eyed the green-suited man who had gotten it as though marking him for a painful death for doing this.
Soon, the bloody waters settled and the sharks swam, sedated again, in lazy circles in the middle of the water around each other. One lone snow seal bobbed on the surface, one that had been a victim when the dart went into the larger’s gills. It floated on its side with an enormous gash in its side, blood oozing out, from a giant, serrated tooth that hadn’t gotten to finish the job.
Sir Mallory glanced at Will. “Kill the seal,” he said. The green-suited man next to him pulled out a handgun and shot it dead in its head. It sunk below the red surface, never to be seen again.
Will and Sir Mallory were quiet for a time. “They are mon
sters,” Sir Mallory said quietly.
Will didn’t answer.
“Did you know,” he continued, “that great white sharks are supposed to be ancestors of the Megalodons?”
“No.”
“Yes, that is the theory. Of course, once we get word out about these, studies will be done to determine if that is so. Great whites are warm-blooded, as these Megalodons must be to survive in the Antarctic seas. Just look at them, Will.” His voice was full of wonder, amazement now. “They are white, to blend in with the ice of these waters, to hunt without detection. If they were any other color, they’d have never survived. They wouldn’t be able to sneak up on prey unless they blended like they do. They are too big. Prey would see them a mile away. But these? These are evolved. These are killing machines, apex predators of their time, and now perhaps our time, as well. Isn’t it amazing?”
Will nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He watched the blood washing down their white dorsal fins as they circled.
The nearby green-suited man said, “It’s not working as long. Opposite of what we thought would happen.”
Sir Mallory frowned, but said nothing.
Then Will heard it; they all did. Something on the other side of the back cave wall, scratching sounds. Almost like a chipmunk chewing through solid stone.
Sir Mallory turned to Will. “Is that the sound you and Captain Miller heard?” His voice was tight.
“Yeah.” Will’s voice didn’t sound any more relaxed than Sir Mallory’s.
The Englishman sighed and rubbed his forehead as the sound continued. “I’ll have James run sonar scans of that area. It’s nothing, I’m sure.”
Will hoped he was right, but that nagging, gnawing doubt and fear ate at his stomach.
Chapter 12
Echoes of the snow seals’ desperate death cries filled Will’s mind, confusing him. It had been the first time he’d felt squeamish when the Megalodons fed from Sir Mallory’s stock.
Megalodon: Apex Predator Page 8
