Megalodon: Apex Predator

by S. J. Larsson

  Once there, Don Mack had the wheel, and their father’s eyes were oddly steady and hard. Will realized his dad was in a zone, operating on instinct and awareness. He knew then that his dad had been in a situation like this before at some point in his life, and he wanted to know about it. But now wasn’t the time.

  Their father touched both their shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” he said, looking at each of them directly in the eyes, conveying deepest regrets. “I never should have brought you on this expedition. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was that…it was that…” He lost his words but continued to stare hard at them. “We’ll get through this.”

  “It’s almost night, Dad,” Ellen said. “We won’t be able to see them coming if they do.”

  All he said was, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  “Captain, get back here!” Don Mack screamed, breaking the moment. “I can’t navigate this alone. Come on! You kids, get back!”

  Their father got back to steering, and still, the radio sizzled static like the world was gone, and the people on their little ship in the Antarctic sea were the only humans left on the planet. It was as though they’d gone back in time, back to the age of dinosaurs and apex predators more deadly than any that came after them. They were stuck, people were dead, and soon, they all might be, too.

  Night was coming, and fast.

  Chapter 14

  The darkness the blizzard had enveloped the ship in had already blackened the sky, so when night came, it was as though sunlight had never been. They’d skipped a day.

  Will stayed on deck watching the crew, the three remaining green-suited men, and who was left of Mallory’s team hold the ship with massive firepower ready to go.

  Tension was as thick as the storm. Will felt afraid. He always was vulnerable at sea, but now, fear settled his stomach, oddly enough. Either that, or he had finally gotten his sea legs right when he needed them most. He doubted that was the case.

  It was pure, ice-cold fear that the gigantic sharks were coming, coming after them this night, waiting until they slipped, weren’t looking. Then they would all come with their serrated teeth ready to shred and devour more human flesh. His family’s flesh…his own.

  He had the hood of his parka tight over his head to block the icy wind and sleet, but he didn’t feel as cold as he should, and his heart pounded relentlessly in anticipation of what was to come that night.

  Will felt as though he had some understanding of the Megalodons that the others didn’t have. He couldn’t explain it, but maybe it was from spending so much time in the enclosure. Or maybe it went back to the time in Nancy’s tent when he watched the first babe swimming behind the ship so many eons ago. He knew, just knew, they’d come, and soon.

  He was right.

  In the blackness of the blizzard-filled night on the roughest seas Will had known, he watched over the railing with his sister at his side, and for once, his arm was around her as she shivered and shook from the freezing cold. Darkness looked back, but then, in the light of the ship’s portholes and deck lamps, he saw them: three slender, white fins, one towering over the other two, simply seeming to hover in space in the distance of nothingness itself. He knew nobody had seen them yet but him, and he wanted to call out to warn everyone, but when he did, his voice froze.

  They weren’t circling. They waited, assessing their attack. Was this ship something dangerous to them? Were these tasty, fleshy things going to hurt them some more? Oh no, they weren’t, not if the sharks had anything to say about it.

  Then, Ellen saw them, too, and she let out a shriek.

  Instantly, the ship exploded into action as the fins drew closer. Will first heard machine gun fire, and then as the ship bobbed on the rough water, the fins appeared, disappeared, and then reappeared. He couldn’t see if the now three machine guns were doing any damage to the Megalodons, but he knew he had to get Ellen to the other side of the ship before any or all of them made a slamming rush at the boat.

  He grabbed her hand and tugged. She was stuck to her spot, frozen by cold and fear. “Come on, Ellen, we have to get to the other side of the ship. Come on!” He pulled harder.

  She broke out of her trance, yanked her hand out of his, and covered her ears with her hands. Of course, she couldn’t have heard him over the gunshots, but she had to know what he meant. She closed her eyes tightly and started to hunch over in a ball.

  “No!” Will yelled, and pulled her up by the armpits. He dragged her across the deck in a sliding, wet rush through the sleeting storm. The gunfire continued, and he glanced back midway to the other side of the boat in time to see one of the smaller fins have a bullet rip through the tip. Black blood in the night squirted out, and the fin instantly submerged.

  The big fin, however, would not stand for this. It kept coming, faster now, and a spread of firepower crossed the middle of it. The white fin was spotted black now, but on it came, even faster. Nothing could stop this beast.

  Will got Ellen to the other side of the ship just as the mother of the Megalodons rammed the ship. Both he and Ellen fell on their sides, and rolled into the railing posts as the ship bowed to the side, but his father knew what he was doing; the ship straightened up as much as it could in the storm almost as quickly as it had rocked to the side from the enormous fish’s slam. More gunfire, and then as the ship was as steady as could be hoped for, the third Megalodon made a charge and banged against the side.

  Will and Ellen were still down, and again the boat tilted to the side, but not all the way over like with the big one. Still, Ellen rolled out of Will’s grasp and over the edge of the ship, her fingertips showing at the rim of the deck’s floor.

  Will grasped for her hands, thinking of Caleb as he heard grenades going off behind him. The ship rolled up, and Will pulled his screaming sister up and back onto the deck. Her hood had fallen back, and her short, brown hair was wet, stuck all over her face and head. Her wide eyes held a panic prisoner, but as she caught her breath and realized she hadn’t gone overboard, she grabbed Will in a hug. He felt her screaming something, but he couldn’t make out what it was as another grenade went off behind him.

  The scent hit.

  One of the three, or maybe all of them, had a mouth open. That meant there was a vulnerable target and the monster knew it, and planned fully to exploit it right away. Will whipped his head around in time to see a green-suited man and two crewmen firing machine guns at an enormous, gaping, sharp-toothed mouth heading right for one of Nancy’s girls at the front of the ship. She was one of the grenade-tossing people, and one of the few who hadn’t been tossed clear across the ship, and she held a grenade out as the mouth of the smallest Megalodon came rushing at her. The boat tilted in the shark’s favor for a nice snack.

  She hurled the grenade, but it was too late, and her panicked aim too far off. As the grenade exploded underwater, the Megalodon’s teeth popped out toward the poor girl, and even as the machine guns took chunks out of the huge shark’s cheek, its eyes rolled back, showing white. It bit down on the top half of her body and slipped back into the sea with her, leaving a huge splash of blood and seawater in her place, along with that horrid scent Will knew was decomposing body parts in its belly.

  Now she was becoming one of those bodies, and the gunfire stopped momentarily as the shooters were stunned by what they had seen and what they now heard of her screams of pain and terror.

  Will couldn’t see her, but after Lady Katherine, he didn’t think he could see much worse. Another victim claimed, and just then, the big Megalodon rammed the ship again. Will fell back onto Ellen, and they both slid into a rail post as the ship rocked to the side and skipped over the icy sea. Ellen grabbed Will around his neck in a panic, but the rail post kept them steady—or maybe it was because Will had them both wrapped in a death-grip around it as the ship cruised harshly across the violent ocean.

  Don Mack’s voice carried with command over them all as the gunshots stopped from the big shark’s stunning hit. She’d attac
ked with even more force this time. Will couldn’t make out what the first mate wanted them to know.

  Why weren’t she and the other, bigger baby Megalodon trying to eat people like the brave, smallest yet giant shark? Will figured they must be put off by the firepower.

  The boat straightened, and Will and Ellen jumped to their feet. Guns went off again, and Will grabbed Ellen by her shoulders, screaming into her ear to be heard. “Go to the bridge. Go!”

  “No!” she yelled back. “We stick together. You’re not leaving my side! Come with me.”

  “Go!” he hollered, shoving her in the direction of the stairwell.

  She glared at him, and grabbed his upper arms in both her hands. “No! Come with me!”

  “I’m getting a gun.”

  “No.”

  He pulled her hand and dragged her as she wailed protests. The sea heaved them up and down, and as they got closer to the bridge’s stairwell, Will saw the fins again. The damaged fin, which belonged to the bigger of the two baby Megalodons, was ripped to shreds by the gunfire, and all three fins now circled madly at the port side just beyond reach of their hungry mouths’ aching grips. They’d gotten smart about staying in one place; they’d figured out the guns didn’t hit them as much or often if they were on the move.

  Another grenade went off in the water amidst the sharks’ mad circling, lighting up the water for a moment as Will shoved Ellen roughly up the stairs. She started to turn on him and fight, but then the smell that lingered refreshed anew. A mouth had opened, and Ellen saw it. She froze in place on the stairs, mouth gaping as she stared at the green-suited man.

  Will looked behind them, prepared for the worst. He was not disappointed.

  The bigger Megalodon baby, whose now-deformed dorsal fin Will had just taken note of, had decided to take on the guns, unafraid—or simply it had been chosen to test for weakness. Maybe because it was already so damaged.

  Its teeth gleamed in the ship’s lights, and Will could make out those sharp spikes on its gigantic teeth as they popped out at the green-suited man. He unloaded his machine gun into its mouth as it snapped him in half, blood from both the green suit man and the shark’s gullet gushing out as the mouth clamped closed. The Megalodon opened its mouth again to chew as it sunk into the water, and some of its teeth were missing. The green-suited man was still alive in there, but bent in half at the waist. Will saw him, and for the first time, he seemed like something more than a green-suited man. He was a human whose body was being crushed and ripped apart by giant, prehistoric shark teeth in rolling, bloody, stinking bites. He had a family, maybe. Kids. A wife.

  He kept firing, but Will could tell it wasn’t out of bravery or fight. His face was white and blank with pain and horror, and his aim was sporadic. Bullets flew back at the ship, and one took out a crewman shooting a gun nearby. Bullet went right through his skull, spraying brain matter out the back and across the deck.

  The smaller Megalodon snapped his fallen body up by the feet like a snake striking a pet store mouse, snagging the man’s body into the frigid, swirling sea.

  God, the smell. Will felt bile rise up in his throat for the first time since his fear hit him, but it wasn’t seasickness. It was that awful stench. Rotting flesh, once only fish and seal bodies, but now, humans disintegrated in their stomachs, too.

  “Ellen, go!” Will yelled, even though no guns fired at the moment. Most of the people who’d been fighting on that side of the ship had been thrown to the other side, or overboard, when they’d been rammed by the Megalodons. The remaining had been eaten, except for a crewman and one green-suited man. They seemed too stunned to fire, and the crewman vomited all over the front of his parka. The puke froze instantly.

  Ellen looked at him desperately, and then said, “You be careful, and you don’t die or Dad will kill me.” She kissed his cheek and dashed up the stairs, running through the bridge door and slamming it.

  Will was alone with the two men, who had gotten their acts together and were launching grenades into the water. A third guy, one of the techies Will had seen in the monitor room, came up next to them with a missile launcher, but he couldn’t manage it by himself on the rough seas while handling the nerves of trying to fight three giant sharks from before time began.

  That’s where Will would start.

  He ran to the man’s aid, sliding on his knees for the last few steps as the ship churned, and grabbed the base of the weapon.

  The man yelled back to him, “Thanks, mate!” and aimed the huge gun at all three of the circling fins. Grenades went off around the sharks, and they lit up the giant fish figures in bloody silhouette. One hit the smallest Megalodon in its tail, blowing it off. Pieces of bloody shark tail flew through the air as the techie, being a smart guy, aimed at the now-disabled and floundering Megalodon, and launched a missile right at its side as it struggled to swim straight without a tail fin.

  The missile landed square, exploding sound hitting Will’s ears as shark blood and flesh landed on his bare face, freezing there. Before he closed his eyes in reflex, he saw a huge hole in the Megalodon, which was now floating on one side, unmoving.

  Will heard Sir Mallory for the first time. He hadn’t seen the man since it all started. He couldn’t make out what Sir Mallory screamed, but he seemed to be cheering. Will looked behind him and saw Sir Mallory running to his side of the deck. Blood oozed from the shoulder of his parka. He must’ve been hit by a bullet in the fray.

  He reached Will and the techie, and clapped their shoulders. Then he pulled out a huge machine gun from the back of his waistband. It had been tucked away under his coat. The man knew how to fight. He’d been rocked by the sharks’ slamming into the ship, and hit by a bullet, but still had the sense to keep his weapon safe and handy while it all happened.

  More gunfire and grenades went off, but the two remaining Megalodons had fallen back when the smallest was obliterated.

  “Fantastic…Will, you are a trooper…we have to get them all! Recharge!” Sir Mallory’s voice carried between bursts of guns and explosions.

  Sir Mallory took Will’s place, handing him the machine gun. Will lost his footing as he stood, and Sir Mallory caught him before he fell on his face.

  “Just pull the trigger,” he yelled to Will, demonstrating what to do by putting his hands around the huge gun, and then turning away.

  Of course, Will had never fired any gun—with the exception of just having been half of a two-man team to use a rocket launcher to kill a giant shark—but he’d seen the movies. There was recoil, there was aim, there was loud sound.

  Will got next to a green-suited man as another joined them, and aimed the gun out to sea. Two fins circled like angry bees around an intruder to their nest. They were barely visible in the blizzard; the lights from the ship didn’t reach as far out as they’d gone to reassess their attack.

  It didn’t take them long.

  As Sir Mallory and the crewman reloaded the missile launcher, the baby Megalodon who was left made a rush at the ship.

  Except for the last time the boat was rammed, they’d seemingly been holding back, but this time, the Megalodon came full-force, with water spraying out behind it. Will suddenly saw what his father had talked about. The shark had its nose pointed down just as it reached the side of the ship and, amidst the explosions of the fighting men, with some of its white flesh getting chunks taken out and leaving bloody trails, it hit.

  The lights of the ship flickered off and on with the impact. This time, Will flew off his feet, clinging to the machine gun, and careened backward through the air. He didn’t have time to panic or be afraid, just react on gut instinct. The sound of gunfire stopped as the others, too, had been knocked back.

  He landed against the base of the bridge, first hitting the wall, and then sliding down to sitting position with his feet straight out in front of him. The wind was knocked out of him and he gasped for a breath of freezing air. The back of his head banged against the metal, stunning his field of vision for
a moment. He felt the boat skimming on the surface of the water, that skipping stone sensation, and heard his father yelling something to Don Mack.

  Suddenly, the ship whacked into something in the water and stopped dead, flipping upright at the same time.

  Will whipped his head around and crawled out of his spot to look at what had stopped the boat.

  He saw a huge chunk of solid white in madly swirling white in the lights of the boat. They’d hit ice, and it seemed they were stranded on it.

  He worried that the boat had been compromised, that the hull might have been punctured and they’d all sink soon, but even as the thought passed, he heard his father call out over the ship’s speakers, “All safe! Ship intact, I repeat, ship intact! Continue on!”

  He saw people all around the deck getting up and gaining balance, and then running to the port side to do as Will’s father said. Fight with guns drawn.

  Sir Mallory and the crewman had lost the missile launcher in the attack, but they’d both found other guns, probably had them on them. Sir Mallory only had a handgun, but he was gathering grenades from a green suit man. Will got a hard grip on the machine gun and, swallowing his fear, got up and made a slippery, mad dash for the edge of the boat where the two remaining sharks must be planning their next moves.

  Once at the rail, Will saw that the two Megalodons had moved back again, circling fins dancing just out of reach. Guns flared, and Will wanted to join the fight. He held up the machine gun with the butt end against his shoulder like he saw others doing, put his right pointer on the trigger, aimed at the smaller of the two Megalodon fins, took a deep, cold breath, and squeezed the trigger.

  The kickback was no joke, and Will’s gunfire sprayed straight at first, but he lost control of his gun and soon, the bullets flew into the sky as he fell onto the deck, releasing the trigger just in time to not shoot any people.

  The first thought he had was to wonder if he’d landed any hits to the shark, but then someone was pulling him up from his armpits and yanking the weapon from his hands.