Big Ass Shark

by Briar Lee Mitchell

  “What did I say that was so funny?” Barry asked, wincing as he brought the phone back to his ear.

  “My dear boy. If this shark did attack someone, there wouldn’t be a survivor left to make such a report, now would there?”

  Barry recalled the video of Misty’s they had seen last night then agreed with McGill. Something that large wouldn’t take a little nip then be on its way. If it did go after someone in the water, there probably wouldn’t be anything left.

  He had all of the fixings for the coffee on the counter and watched the brew start, willing it to drip faster. Something told him he was going to need to be wide awake before he headed out to meet McGill on the boat a little later. Wherever Misty was, he hoped she was having a better day.

  Chapter 18

  The day was gorgeous. Brilliant sunlight rippled across the small waves in the harbor and enhanced the brightly-colored buildings surrounding the marina at Catalina Island. A group of ten novice divers sat side by side on a boat that rocked gently on the water, still tied up to the dock. Most were from the Midwest and had learned to dive at their local YMCA. One couple was from France and had a bit of experience in open water. The divers were essentially tourists visiting Catalina for the first time, and had been anxious to go out on a shark feeding excursion.

  They were all ready to go, attired in wetsuits and holding their masks and fins in their laps. Racks holding enough air tanks for all of them were bolted into the center of the deck.

  Two men jumped into the boat and one reached across to the dock to untie them from their mooring. The other man went to the wheelhouse and fired up the engine, and as soon as he got a thumbs up from the man who had untied them, he motored the boat away from the marina.

  As Catalina grew smaller in the distance, Adam Ryan, in full black and yellow diving gear, came up the steps from the small cabin below and swaggered towards the novice divers. His suit was new and, much to his dismay, squeaked badly as he walked.

  “Okay, people,” Ryan bellowed at them, “listen up here. I’m Dive Master Ryan. I’ll be going down with you this morning. You’re going to see dozens of species of fish, crabs, and of course, sharks. Ricardo here is going to hand feed the critters, right in front of you.”

  Ricardo, the one who had untied them from the dock, was wearing a well-worn but functional black wetsuit. He nodded politely but quietly to their guests.

  “Now, while he is doing that,” Ryan went on, “I’ll be attracting the sharks. Oh yes, that is my job, just like this.”

  Ryan demonstrated this by striking the open palm of his right hand on the tightly closed fist of his left hand, making a smacking sound. He smiled broadly at them, truly getting off on the stares of admiration and video cameras capturing his swagger and performance.

  “Now, I don’t want any of you doing this! Is that understood? Dangerous. Okay?”

  All ten of the novices nodded their heads in unison. Ryan reached out and chucked a cute young woman under the chin, making her giggle when he made eye contact with her.

  “Alright, Ricardo. Let’s move on out. This group looks ready!” he snapped. The driver of the boat powered up the engine, and with practiced ease moved them out into the channel heading towards the open sea.

  The boat had come about five miles south of Catalina. They were far enough away that they were unlikely to encounter other dive boats or fishermen. The island was just a dot on the horizon.

  The water was a bit deeper here, about forty feet near a six hundred foot drop-off. They planned the dives so that sunlight would be able to light up the area, and they regularly visited this spot. The coral was healthy enough that they would be able to have some fish to feed that would live there. The amount of coral, though, was sparse enough to allow for better visibility to keep an eye on the sharks that routinely showed up for these feedings. The sharks would come up from the deeper water as soon as they started feeding and attracting them with sound and scent from the bait box.

  The penetrating light and sparseness of coral was also ideal for the photos his tourists liked to take.

  Ricardo jumped in first and swam down quickly, away from the other divers, as he towed a large bait box with him, filled with pieces of fish. The inhabitants of the area, some eels, along with a few large Garibaldi and yellowtail fish clustered around him, waiting for their handouts.

  Ryan stayed with the novices, checking their gear near the surface, and then slowly started the descent with them. He motioned them towards an open area to stand with him on the sand. Ryan looked over and saw that Ricardo was in place and already getting swarmed by the local denizens. This was going to be a good dive. He could just feel it in his bones.

  He motioned for the novices to stay where they were and noticed happily how many of them were readying their cameras. This evening there would be another flurry of posts on Facebook—all free advertising for he and Ricardo. Business would be booming.

  He swam about twenty feet away from them, getting a bit closer to the drop-off, and motioned to Ricardo that he was about to begin. Ricardo gave him a thumbs up sign and got ready to open the holes in the bait box.

  With a great flourish of his arms, he started to smack his hands together, a signal for the sharks in the area to come get some tasty brunch. Ryan studied the novice divers before him and noted with relish all of them had cameras at the ready. A few had already turned on their video captures. This was going to be an awesome experience for them; one they would share all over the internet.

  As soon as Ryan began his grandiose movements, Ricardo slid the inner lining of the large box aside which allowed the blood and oil building up inside, from the fish heads and guts, to seep out into the water. They both knew that the wretched stench and taste in the water was what drew the sharks, however it wasn’t nearly as interesting or photo-worthy as Ryan doing his voodoo dance. He and Ryan had been thrilled when they found this area to host the shark feeding events. The deeper water of the drop-off guaranteed they would be able to draw in some of the bigger sharks.

  Ricardo dove with a long, aluminum shaft called a prod that he would use to push the sharks away if they started getting too close to him. When he and his partner had first started encountering some of the bigger sharks in this area—especially some of the bull sharks—he was a bit concerned, but had quickly found that they weren’t interested in eating the tourists; they were just looking for a free meal like most of the denizens of the deep.

  The cloud of slick, the mixture of blood, guts and oil, wafted out around Ricardo, pulled ever so slightly forward as the heavier, colder water from the drop-off pushed forward and gained a small amount of speed in the shallower area. Fish arrived first, by the hundreds, spinning around and around Ricardo like a fin-filled tornado. Their brilliant colors combined with the light catching their scales just right, every so often, made them look like a spectacular, flashing disco ball.

  Ryan continued his mock signaling.

  Skates and rays drifted in next, and then the huge tornado of fish split apart and the frightened animals streamed towards the shelter of the nearby coral and grasses.

  In minutes, hammerheads and blues arrived and swarmed around Ricardo, who passed fish heads out to them. The novices clustered together, fascinated yet frightened, by the spectacle. The show was off to a good start.

  Ryan continued to make his noise and was annoyed when a large shadow appeared over him. He and Ricardo defended their feeding area with a passion, and he didn’t want other boats and divers in the area to steal their thunder by bringing other tourists around. He started to look up at the boat he was sure was above them, and was startled when he caught sight of the novices. They were frozen in place. Normally, a steady curtain of bubbles should be rising from all of them as they used their regulators, but there was nothing. They were all holding their breath.

  Not good.

  It was not unusual for one or two of them to freak out when the sharks started to arrive on the scene, but this was the first time
he had seen all ten turn to neurotic, frozen, terrified statues. They weren’t breathing, and even worse, their cameras hung uselessly at their sides.

  One woman, with a full face mask that amplified her heavy makeup, really caught his attention. Her mouth hung open and her regulator was hanging uselessly in front of her as she stared past him. A few tiny air bubbles clung to her nostrils.

  Before Ryan could turn to see what she was staring at, Ghostie rose up from the drop-off and swallowed him whole. He lost one flipper in the process, which swirled to the sandy bottom where it drove itself, toes-first, into the golden floor. Ghostie continued forward, pushing through the novices like a gigantic bowling ball going through duck pins.

  Frozen stiff out of sheer terror, they simply tumbled out of the way as the ghostlike behemoth glided on through.

  Ricardo dropped the filled bait box and kicked backwards. He looked at the prod in his hand, then tossed it quickly away and pitched himself into the drop-off.

  Inside Ghostie’s mouth, Ryan struggled to swim forward—which was useless—as the stream of water entering her mouth pushed him back down her gullet. Frantically, bordering on shock, he tried to swim out of her mouth and was struggling to figure out a way to escape, but he saw a door of teeth closing in front of him. In the dwindling light, as her jaws closed, he saw an expensive, waterproof CD player wedged in between her back rows of teeth.

  It would be the last thing he ever saw.

  Her mouth closed shut, and his terrified screams filled the black void as she started to swallow. It would take a week or more for Ryan to be digested. His brand new neoprene suit . . . perhaps a bit longer.

  The internet lit up like a Christmas tree that night. The movies uploaded were peppered with strange, poorly shot images and video showing something big moving through the water and what looked like an eye maybe, and possibly a tooth or row of teeth. It was very hard to tell what was happening from the badly-shot pictures, however, the screams recorded underwater told the story much more effectively than the images.

  Chapter 19

  The interior of the KQRX newsroom was a sea of controlled chaos. Copywriters were busy preparing stories for the next newscast, interns raced around toting coffee, and news directors worked on multiple computer monitors, outlining what would be the lead stories.

  On one wall, an enormous digital clock ticked the time away, a constant reminder of the daily deadlines these people worked towards twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  In one corner, Peter worked with a video editor and an artist on an animation of the Megalodon. The graphic showed a behemoth shark swimming through water that was crowded with terrified people. The size of the shark dwarfed them so much that they seemed like annoying gnats swimming around the massive fish. Peter was trying to decide if the effect of the enormous shark dwarfing the people was terrifying or ludicrous.

  Misty peered through the doorway holding her cooler and Peter’s card. An intern rushing by stopped to help her, and after peeking at the card, pointed Peter out to her. Misty waded through the chaotic room to stand behind Peter.

  She stood quietly, observing what they were doing, but did not announce her presence. Misty was fascinated, watching the animation of Ghostie coming to life.

  “Can you make it move a bit faster?” Peter asked.

  “Yeah, just give me a sec,” the artist said.

  “This is amazing stuff,” commented the video editor.

  “Oh yeah, can’t you just smell the Pulitzer,” Peter said, halfway serious.

  The artist and editor exchanged a “he’s full of crap look” then went back to work. Everyone in the newsroom had heard about this supposed giant shark, but no one was really taking it seriously yet.

  “How did you know?” Misty asked.

  The three men turn around to see Misty standing there, grasping her little cooler to her chest.

  “How did we know what?” Peter asked her.

  Misty pointed to the graphic of the shark, “How big it is.”

  “What’s it to you?” Peter asked, somewhat annoyed at being interrupted.

  “You’ve got the wrong color, though.”

  Peter saw his business card tucked in her fingers. His eyes popped open and he could feel adrenaline shooting into his veins.

  “Are you Misty?” Peter asked, working hard at keeping too much excitement from creeping into his voice.

  She handed him the card.

  “Yes. I am. I got your note. The receptionist told me I could find you back here . . . ”

  Peter jumped up and offered his chair to her, then pulled another one over for himself. He sat down next to her and pointed at the graphic of the shark they had been working on.

  “Did you see this thing?” he asked. “I mean, of course you saw it. You’re the one who got those poor people out of the water at Merrill Point.”

  Misty was too fascinated with the graphic of the shark she was looking at to have picked up Peter’s facetious comment about saving lives at the beach. She simply nodded her head yes to his query and continued to stare at the graphic. The artist, seeing how intrigued she was, ran the animation again for her.

  “You saw it, then. So, what color is it?” Peter asked.

  The graphic artist looked at Misty, her fingers hovering about the keyboard to her computer.

  “White. It was pretty much all white, like ivory.”

  The artist adjusted the color and then looked back at Misty. Peter watched the transformation of the graphic, thrilled with the new information.

  “More, um, like the keys of a piano.”

  The artist made another adjustment.

  “Yes! You got it. Just like that.”

  The image on the monitor now looked remarkably like Ghostie. Misty opened her cooler, and removed the tooth, holding it out in the palms of her hands. Peter had been watching the monitor as well, amazed at this creepy, ghostlike creature.

  “So, what else can you tell us?” he asked, turning back towards her.

  He immediately saw the tooth in her hands.

  “Jesus God,” he whispered, absolutely transfixed by the huge tooth with its deadly serrated edge.

  The editor and artist looked down to see what Peter was reacting to and instinctively edged away from what she was holding. Misty balanced the tooth on her knees and then held up the flash drive containing the footage McGill had been able to retrieve from her camera.

  “I have this, too. I recorded it.”

  Peter greedily reached for the drive but Misty pulled it back, out of his reach.

  “And, it’s for sale.”

  “Yeah, uh-huh. We’ll have to see a sample of the merchandise first.”

  “More than the tooth?”

  “Yes, ’fraid so.”

  “Sounds okay to me. You’ll have to put this in a computer to see it.”

  “No problem. We have lots of computers here,” Peter said, as he motioned for the editor to take the drive. He reached for an in-house phone and quickly punched in a number. He needed to get Janet down here right away.

  About twenty minutes later, the artist and editor, pale and shaky, had retreated to the hallway while Peter and Janet spoke with Misty inside an editing suite. Jethro and Hobart walked up to them and could see how shaken they were.

  “Dude, what gives? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  The editor said to him with great conviction, “I am never, ever, going in the water ever again as long as I live. Ever!”

  The artist jumped away, startled, when she saw she was leaning against a large fish tank. The small cluster of goldfish stared at her.

  Peter and Janet escorted Misty from the editing suite. Misty looked a bit downcast as she walked between them, clutching her cooler.

  “That dollar amount we discussed is being wired directly to your mother. You can check with her in about an hour. It will be there,” Janet whispered to her.

  Peter was so excited that he paced the hallway.

&nbs
p; “This is amazing. More amazing than . . . anything!” he exclaimed.

  “Could you be more lame?” Hobart asked him.

  Misty stopped and turned to Janet.

  “That’s great, I mean, I didn’t want to sell it. I was talking to this scientist who wanted it, but my mom’s alone and she’s deaf and we don’t have a lot of money.”

  “Yeah, that’s sweet,” Peter said to Misty, trying to hurry her along. “Misty, my crew is here and I want to do an interview with you.”

  He turned to Jethro and Hobart then continued. “By the water, no! On the water! Damn, we need a boat. Janet, we have to go out there and find this thing. We’ll do the interview there.”

  “Wait, what?” Misty asked, clearly confused. “What interview?”

  “We did just negotiate a great deal of money for that footage, Misty,” Janet said to her, taking on her best authoritarian tone.

  Peter scooted around behind Misty, gesturing at Janet with his hands, trying to get her to speed up.

  “Yes, I guess that is true,” Misty said apprehensively. “I don’t know about going out on the water though, or looking for the shark with you.”

  “You want a boat boss?” Jethro asked Peter.

  “We got one for you,” Hobart added.

  “What? Where?” Peter asked, looking like he might explode at any moment.

  “Your buddy Delbert,” Jethro explained. “He just called. He’s taking that big boat of theirs out to catch that shark. Belongs to that Japanese guy, ah, oh crap. What’s the name of that guy who owns the Riker Institute?”

  “Enomoto,” Janet told them. “Arata Enomoto.”

  “Right, him,” Hobart thanked her. “The Japanese guy with the big fish park over there, in, ah, Japan. Seems he sent some people over here to catch the shark and take it back to Tokyo. Wants you, well, us, to go along and tape the capture, for publicity . . . or whatever.”

  “Oh! This . . . this is the best!” Peter exclaimed, then, turned to Misty. “You just absolutely have to come with us!”