by Michael Bray
It was cautious, and kept its distance from the cage, waiting for the creatures within it to die. Greg had seen similar behaviour in sharks, and knew that attack was imminent. In that instant, he forgot all about gambling debts and the suspected affair his fiancé may or may not be having - all that mattered was survival. He turned towards Paul, who was still clinging to the bars and staring at the circling beast. He then turned his attention to the hatch, which was pinned closed by the dead great shark. He saw a flicker of movement and glanced at Paul who was backing himself against the cage, his eyes wide as they peered through his mask. Greg whipped his head around in time to see the creature accelerating towards them. He knew they wouldn’t survive, there was no way they could. He bit hard on his regulator and hoped it would be quick, and that he wouldn’t feel the agonising pain as his flesh was punctured by the beast’s jaws. Greg closed his eyes, waiting for the black warmth of the bite, which would signal the end of his life.
The creature opened its mouth to bite down on the cage when it registered the signal coming from behind. Enraged that another animal was challenging its dominance, the creature abandoned its meal, and turned to face its attacker head on. The snub-nosed T7500 missile sped through the water, guided from the surface towards its target by Russo, who could see everything unfolding from the nose mounted camera
He could see the creature on screen as it closed in, opening its mouth to bite down on the missile a split second before the proximity sensor triggered the detonation.
Greg had managed to force enough of the hatch open against the dead weight of the shark’s corpse when the concussion wave hit. The shockwave rocked the cage violently, snapping his hand – which was trapped between cage and hatch- like kindling. With no protection from the blast, Paul was slammed against inner wall of the cage, his head smashing against the bars as he was flung like a ragdoll. With his mangled hand trapped in the hatch and the full weight of the shark’s body pinning it down, Greg hung helplessly, trying to shake away the ringing in his ears as he peered through his cracked facemask. Something caught his eye. He looked around as multiple species of dead fish began to float to the surface. All sizes, all varieties. He saw a dolphin, floating vertically past the cage rotating in a graceful arc as it climbed. The ocean had gone from battleground to a macabre showcase of the dead, as species after species floated to the surface.
He had heard about this before. Some people used to fish this way back before it was made illegal. Blast fishing where dynamite would be tossed into the water would cause the stunned fish’s swim bladders to rupture, resulting in a horrible, painful death. Although he could see a huge number of animals floating to the surface, he knew it could have been worse, as many of the larger species of fish had already fled away from the carnage that had taken place. He shifted position where he hung by his arm, biting down hard on his regulator as pain jolted from his wrist. It was then that he saw the creature. It too was motionless and gently floating belly up towards the surface, its tentacles splayed out and drifting in the current. Again, he was mesmerised by the sheer scale of the animal. It was completely unlike anything else he had ever seen before, and fear aside, he appreciated its majesty.
***
On the surface, there was initially no indication of the huge undersea explosion. The Victorious bobbed gently on the shimmering ocean, Russo staring at the waves as Mito prepared the barbed harpoon tracker. A few smaller fish appeared on the surface, then the dolphin, which had pirouetted past the cage. Russo smiled as memories of the pond full of frogs came back to him. He could see the colour of the water grow from dark to light, and knew their target was about to surface. The water parted, and so large was the animal that it at first appeared as if a new island was growing out of the ocean. Even Russo, who knew what to expect, drew breath as the giant breached a hundred and fifty feet ahead of the boat, floating half on its side, its tentacles limply bobbing with the tide.
“Mito, call the wheelhouse, tell them to get broadside. I don’t want to miss this shot.”
In the cage, Greg struggled to free himself. His ears were still ringing from the explosion, and salt water dripped into his eyes from the hairline crack in his facemask, but he was otherwise in reasonable shape. He stopped flailing and checked the gauge on his trapped right hand, confirming his fears. The small wristwatch like device told him the air tank on his back was running dangerously close to empty. He estimated he had less than fifteen minutes of air left before he would drown. The thought of death renewed his energy, he redoubled his efforts, alternating between trying to yank his arm free, and getting enough advantage to displace the shark corpse, neither of which seemed to be doing anything but sending explosive jolts of paint through his broken wrist. He began to suck air greedily from the regulator, knowing every breath was precious, but still unable to help himself. On the floor of the cage, Paul didn’t stir, and had slumped to the side, a steady cloud of blood mushrooming from the wound in the back of his head. Faced with the fact he was never going to be able to move the dead shark that was pinning the lid of the cage closed, Greg knew he would have to make a drastic choice. The floor of the cage was also hinged in case of emergency, and he knew it was his one and only way out. First, he had to free himself. He looked at his mangled hand, and realised what he needed to do.
How much do you want to live?
He asked himself as he twisted and tugged at his arm.
How far will you go to survive?
It was then that absolute clarity came to him and he stopped struggling. It was extreme, and he knew he would have to do it quickly before his air supply ran out. Despite the urgency, there were a lot of questions he didn’t have the answer to.
Could he go through with it?
Could he withstand the pain, and if he did, could he get to a doctor in time?
What if he passed out halfway through?
Answers or no answers, it didn’t matter. There was no other choice. Taking a deep breath of precious air, he unsheathed the hunting knife from his diving belt, the blade warping the light as he held it to his face. It was a good knife. Sharp too. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt, maybe if enough numbness had set in…
No.
Enough delays. He had a job to do, and every second was precious.
Pleasedonthurtpleasedonthurtpleasedonthurt
He repeated it over and over in his head, praying he would have the strength to do what needed to be done. As he began to hack through the soft flesh of his wrist, prying bone away from bone, shearing tendon and flesh, brilliant, white hot agony surged through his body, and he bit on the regulator hard enough to fracture two teeth. As he carved away at his wrist through a cloud of blood, tears streaming down his face and mingling with the salt water that had already penetrated the mask, another question came to him.
What happens if the creature wakes up?
Back on the surface, the Victorious was now alongside the creature, which was bobbing on the surface a hundred yards from the boat. Russo readied the harpoon.
“Mito, are we ready to fire?”
“Yes sir.”
Russo lifted the weapon into position, nestling it on his shoulder in the same way a rocket launcher might be aimed. He peered through the sights, bringing the mottled grey flesh of the creature into focus and positioned his finger over the trigger. To ensure maximum chance of the dart staying attached to the creature, Russo wanted to tag it somewhere between the eye and the first giant dorsal fin. Further down the body would risk the device being detached by a wayward swipe of the tentacle or encounter with another creature. Despite the sheer scale of the animal, his target area was relatively small. He took a deep breath and prepared to fire. Before he could launch the harpoon, a streak of colour flashed across his field of vision. He blinked and lowered the weapon in time to see the Lisa Marie, which had pulled broadside with the Victorious and blocked Russo’s shot. On deck, Rainwater, Bo, Mackay, and Morrison stood facing Russo.
“Move, get out of the way!” R
usso yelled, the veins in his neck bulging.
“I don’t think so,” Rainwater called back. “There are people in the water. It’s too dangerous.”
“You’re obstructing a government official in his line of duty to-”
“Save the bullshit, pal,” Mackay yelled. “We ain’t moving till we get those people out of the water.”
Rainwater found it hard to suppress his smile at how flustered Russo had become.
“If you don’t move I have the authority to-”
“What are you gonna do? Have me discharged again?” Mackay interjected, spitting on deck as he glared at Russo.
“I know you!” Russo said, staring at Mackay.
“Yeah, I punched you in the mouth a few years back, remember?”
“Don’t you realise you’re interfering with government business? This could be seen as terrorism!”
Rainwater laughed, unable to help himself for the sheer absurdity of Russo’s statement.
“You’re the son of the fisherman aren’t you? The one this thing killed.”
“That’s right,” Rainwater said, forcing himself not to break eye contact.
“And yet, you surround yourself with these… people… and protect it. I wonder if your father would be proud.”
“Don’t listen to him, lad,” Mackay interjected. “He’s trying to get inside that head o’ yours. All these government types are the same. This asshole would tell you anything.”
Russo grinned, a slab of brilliant white that seemed stretched a tad too far across his lips.
“Don’t try to push me, you know first-hand how far I will go to get what I want.”
“That sounds like a threat.” Mackay said.
“It is. Move now, or I'll be forced to take action.”
“Unless you can shoot that thing around corners, I’d say we hold all the cards.” Rainwater said.
“Not exactly,” Russo shot back, then gave another greasy smile.
A single rapport of gunfire shattered the still air. Rainwater was aware of it a split second before he felt the sticky warmth of blood and bone as it spattered all over his face. He blinked once, exhaled, blinked again. Ox staggered forward, the upper portion of his skull now missing. The engineer fell, his chest slamming into the rail of the boat, the remains of his head hanging over the edge of the water. There was absolute silence for what felt like an age, which in reality was only seconds. It was only then that Rainwater started to piece together what had happened.
Morrison’s gun was still smoking from the barrel where he had pressed it into Ox’s head a split second before he had fired.
Despite his own close call, Rainwater had never seen actual death first hand before. He saw it plenty on movies or on the news, but none of it prepared him for it happening right in front of him. He could smell the smoke and blood, he could hear the sound of Ox’s brains as they dripped into the sea. He could see the calm indifference in Morrison’s eyes as he turned the weapon on him and Mackay. Most of all, he could hear Russo. He was laughing.
“Like I have said a hundred times already, I always have a plan.” Russo let his eyes linger on Rainwater, his expression almost goading a response. All Rainwater could concentrate on was the bottomless black hole of the gun barrel which was aimed at his head. He risked a glance at Mackay, a brief flick of the eyes. It seemed the fear that surged through Rainwater had manifested itself as fury in him, and he glared at Morrison with little evidence of fear.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you for this,” he hissed, and managed a smile that was every bit as wide and sick looking as Russo’s.
Morrison didn’t seem overly concerned, instead he shrugged and trained the gun on Mackay.
“I’m sure you intend to do just that. Right now, I have to insist you move the boat forward like Mr Russo asked.”
“Mr Russo?” Mackay said, still not quite able to drop the grin. “So you are some sort of stooge? His little boat bitch is that it?”
Morrison shrugged. “Don’t be like that. This is business. I do whatever the money pays me to do. Come on, Mac, you knew I was a mercenary when you hired me. It was bad luck for you that he got to me first. Why do you think I made a point of getting in touch with you again? Who else would you have turned to for something like this?”
“Mercenary maybe. I never had you pegged as someone who would stab a friend in the back.”
“I can’t believe you’re surprised. You know what I am. What I do. Surely, you saw this coming. Now please, move the boat forward. Despite what you might think, I really don’t want to shoot you, even if it’s just for old times’ sake.”
“Aye, we have history alright. That’s why I don’t think you’ll do it. Not for money.”
Morrison snorted, shaking his head and smiling. “You always did know me too well, Mac. You were always a good judge of character.”
Still smiling, he turned the gun on Rainwater.
“Now move this fucking boat before I spray this little shit’s brains all over the deck.”
Somehow, he hadn’t passed out. Maybe it was the adrenaline or the desire to survive. Whatever the reason, Greg was still conscious. It had been close. The soft tissues weren’t too bad, but the nerves felt charged with millions of vaults of electricity, as he had sliced through them. Even so, he was still woozy. The knife grinding against bone as he separated his wrist had sounded incredibly loud in his head, and he had to count backwards from ten to keep conscious. Knife blade trembling, he cut through the last of the gristle and was at last free, sinking to the bottom of the cage and leaving a mushrooming cloud of blood behind as if he were some kind of bizarre distress flare. The relief lasted only for seconds until the pain found him, bringing his nerve endings alive with fierce agony. He clutched his bleeding stump to his chest, and sank towards Paul.
Even though the thought horrified him, Greg half hoped he was dead. At least then, he could take his air tanks. However, although his breathing was shallow he was still alive. He didn’t have the strength to both lift the emergency escape hatch and keep a tight enough grip to be confident that he wouldn’t slip and lose him to the depths. Plus, there was the matter of his own air supply. As tough a decision as it was, there really was no other choice but to go to the surface alone and get some help. He turned towards the hatch handle, and froze.
Ahead of him in the murk, the creature bobbed on its back, its massive jaws partially open. As Greg looked on, its car tyre sized eye flicked open.
Rainwater knew he was about to die. He had always suspected Mackay was a little bit unhinged, but he would never have predicted the response to Morrison’s threat. Rather than do as he was asked, Mackay simply stood his ground and laughed. If it was a bluff, it was the best one Rainwater had ever seen. He only wished Morrison had been unsettled by it, but the gun never wavered, nor did his icy stare.
“Don’t test me. You know I’ll do it.”
Mackay must have seen something in Morrison’s eyes, or maybe got a sense of the danger he presented, because he shifted his weight, and all at once seemed a little less sure of himself. Rainwater was about to tell Mackay to do as Morrison said, as it wasn’t worth getting killed over, when he saw the flicker of movement on the water.
Still woozy from the explosion, the creature had come to in a rage, and attacked the closest thing to it, which happened to be the Lisa Marie. Rainwater saw it coming, and was instantly transported back in time. Instead of the sun-baked deck of the Lisa Marie, he was in the dark aboard the Red Gold, watching the wake come towards him. He blinked, and was back in the present. Neither Morrison nor Mackay had noticed it. They were still trying to stare each other down. It was Russo who broke the silence, and the three words he bellowed was enough to herald in the chaos.
“Here it comes!”
Morrison and Mackay saw the wake just a split second before the boat lurched out of the water.
CHAPTER 40
Russo was twelve years old the last time he was ever truly afraid. It was as his
mother lay dying from the cancer that had eaten her alive, and he had first realised he was soon to be an orphan. His father had walked out on them when Russo was a baby, and as he looked down on his broken mother, he had been overcome with an immensely powerful sadness.
“James,” she had whispered from her deathbed as she reached out a trembling, skeletal hand.
He had taken it, fearful her bones could snap if he held her too tightly. The room was quiet apart from the muted sobs of his sister.
“I’ll be gone soon,” she wheezed, “don’t ever let anyone tell you can’t be who you want to be. You can be whatever you want to.”
She had smiled, a flesh covered skeleton with sunken eyes. He could see the defeat in them as much as he could smell the death on her.
“I love you, always remember that.”
She looked at him, her watery eyes full of expectation.
My God, she wants a reply.
Russo couldn’t understand why it was so hard to formulate simple words. Try as he might, he couldn’t say them. Instead, he simply stared, wishing she would hurry up and die so he wouldn’t have to say those three words that were so alien to him. He had pulled his hand free of her grip and left the room, not looking back. He wasn’t there when she died, and even though he was sad, it was a distant sadness. It was then he had felt fear, simply because the sorrow was absent, leaving an empty void in its place.
It was that same fear which came over him now, as he saw the creature slam into the Lisa Marie, sending Mackay, Rainwater, and Morrison crashing to the deck. Morrison’s weapon fired as he fell, the bullet cutting the air past Russo’s ear with an audible wssssssss. Russo flinched, watching as the giant creature angled away from the boat, launching a thirty-foot wall of spray in its wake. The creature moved away from the Lisa Marie, which was already listing from the impact. The commotion brought the crew of the Victorious out on deck, each of them trying to get a glimpse of the creature. Andrews pushed through the crowd towards Russo.
