by Jake Bible
“Due south?” Espanoza asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why would it go south?” Espanoza wondered.
***
Darren felt like he was being crushed from the inside, even though the massive jaws that gripped him were obviously crushing him from the outside.
Maybe this is what a banana in its peel feels like when you step on it, Darren thought.
It was a crazy thought, but still a thought. Which meant he was alive enough to think.
Think. Think, think, think.
Darren assessed his situation.
He was clutched in the jaws of a genetically cloned, sixty foot monster shark, being dragged deeper and deeper into the Pacific by the second. And his arms were pinned to his sides by teeth the size of small dinner plates.
It was a short assessment.
His body grew colder as he felt the compression of the Shark’s jaws increase. Darren had no idea how long the wetsuit could hold off the inevitable, but he knew he couldn’t take much more. Sure, he wasn’t chomped in half, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like fucking hell.
Darren concentrated on his body, trying to figure out how long he had before he lost consciousness. Or his spleen exploded.
He realized that he still held his channel gun in his right hand. Which was inside the shark.
Darren tried to flex his hand and get his trigger finger working, but his appendage wouldn’t obey. He looked at the way he was being held in the shark’s jaws and saw his arm was wedged between two teeth. It was within the realm of possibility that he couldn’t move his fingers because circulation was no longer moving to his extremities. Or, considering the pain, he had a broken bone. Or two.
He didn’t stop trying.
Whether the ocean deep would be his resting place or not, he had zero intention of going out alone. He was gonna take a shark with him, if he could.
***
“Darren!” Kinsey shouted, aiming herself towards where she last saw the monster shark. It was quickly lost from sight as it swam at a speed she didn’t think was possible.
Kinsey tapped at her goggles and brought up infrared. Not the most useful when looking for a cold blooded creature like a shark, but very handy when looking for a warm blooded creature like the man she loved.
Ooooh, that came from nowhere.
She shoved the thought away. No time for bullshit.
No time for anything except diving faster.
Yet physics didn’t work that way. Kinsey kicked her legs, but every time she rested, she’d lose depth, her body insisting on floating back towards the surface.
“Daddy!” Kinsey screamed. “I can’t get to him! I can’t see him!”
***
“Lake!” Thorne shouted.
“I heard, I heard!” Lake replied. “He’s hit fifty meters and still going! I know you people have super suits on and shit, but he goes much deeper at that rate and he’ll blow a gasket!”
“No gasket blowing,” Ingrid interjected. “The suit will maintain his blood pressure. The suit will also adjust the compression around his body and compensate for the descent, not just the ascent.”
“Then let’s hope that thing slows down,” Lake said. “Because if it rams into the ocean floor at that speed then super suit or not, Darren is going to be pulp!”
***
Darren pushed every ounce of his will towards moving his finger. He could feel the tip along the trigger guard. All he had to do was move it a centimeter and he’d have contact. Just one centimeter.
Blood pounded in his head and he shook it out of habit, although it did nothing to stop the building pressure.
The shark responded in kind and shook its head, sending Darren thrashing back and forth.
He screamed and swallowed a half-gallon of seawater, but luckily, due to the mustache, he didn’t take any into his lungs.
The shark thrashed again and Darren felt like a rag doll in a Bull Mastiff’s mouth. He also felt the channel gun shift slightly. He had contact.
“Fuck you,” he said. Or thought he did. It was hard to tell.
Darren pulled the trigger. But nothing happened.
He thought he felt the gun kick, but couldn’t be sure. He pulled the trigger again. Still nothing.
He couldn’t believe he actually got his finger on the trigger, but the gun didn’t fucking work!
Then it hit him. The round needed distance to really pick up speed and be effective. He had no idea where the end of the barrel was lodged inside the shark. For all he knew it was completely blocked. Once more he realized he needed to be able to move, but didn’t have the capacity to accomplish that.
“Fuck!” he shouted.
***
“Where’s the second one?” Max asked, his eyes searching the water all around his Zodiac.
“Not a clue, bro,” Shane replied. “You’d think it would show its ugly mug. You know, just to compete with its brother shark.”
“I don’t think sharks are like us, dude,” Max said. “Sibling rivalry isn’t part of its makeup.”
“They are sisters,” Ballantine interrupted. “Cloned from a female.”
“Right,” Max said. “Because that’s important now, why?”
“It isn’t,” Ballantine said. “I’m just making conversation while we wait to see what Captain Chambers’s fate is.”
“Ditcher will make it,” Shane said.
“You sound confident of that,” Ballantine responded.
“I am,” Shane said. “Because if I didn’t get the chance to kill him years ago when he bailed on Kinsey, then no shark gets the fucking chance now.”
“Too true, dude,” Max said. “Too true.”
***
The water around Darren wasn’t ink black, but it was very dark. He could feel the shark slowing and then he was floating free, let go as the shark suddenly turned its attention to something else.
Darren struggled to keep his breathing steady as his body slammed into something solid. He was able to get his left hand up and switch the spectrum on the goggles to night vision and the ocean depths were illuminated in greens and blacks; a dichotomy of light and shadow.
Turning his head to the right, Darren’s eyes went wide as he realized he was flat against the hull of one of the whale subs. And the monster shark next to him had its nose buried in the cargo hold.
“You have to be kidding me,” he said. “Kinsey? Lake? Thorne? Can anyone hear me?”
There was no response, not even static. His com was dead in the water.
The sub shook beneath his back as the shark wedged its way deeper and deeper into the cargo hold. Darren saw that he was missing his channel gun and figured it must still be inside the shark, swallowed whole, just like he had almost been.
White clouds escaped from around the shark as it shook harder and harder. Then it was free and whipped itself around, rocketing back towards the surface.
Darren wanted desperately to follow, but he knew he was messed up and didn’t have the strength to swim a few feet let alone a couple hundred meters. The white clouds drifted closer, caught on the current, and Darren found himself engulfed. He couldn’t smell it because of the rebreather that only circulated his own air supply, but as he laid there, his mouth slightly open, he could taste it.
Cocaine.
Darren hadn’t ever gone full junkie like Kinsey, but he had traveled. He knew what cocaine tasted like. He also knew that it could be absorbed through contact with skin, especially the gums. He opened wide and took in as much water as he could, not just in his mouth, but also his stomach. His body rebelled and he vomited the seawater back out, watching the viscous bile float along away from him. Darren didn’t dare stop, he needed the boost if he was going to get his ass out of the hell he was in.
He swallowed more. Puked more. Swallowed. Puked.
His body started to tingle and his vision brightened. His nerve endings were alive with feeling; granted that feeling was very close to excruciating pa
in, but it was feeling. Then the numbness took hold and Darren felt as if he was just a passenger in his own body, not actually a part of the flesh and blood itself.
He shoved off from the sub and reached out with his hands. Darren kicked his legs then looked down and saw he was missing a flipper. That must have joined the channel gun in the shark’s guts. He didn’t really give a shit at that moment.
One flipper on, and a belly full of cocaine laced seawater, Darren swam back towards the light.
***
“Coming back!” Lake said. “Fast!”
“Does it still have Darren?” Kinsey asked as she fought against the ocean to dive deeper.
“I have no way of knowing that,” Lake said.
“What’s the shark’s depth?” Ingrid asked.
“One hundred meters and closing,” Lake said.
“Darren isn’t with it,” Ingrid replied. “He’s a couple hundred meters below it.”
“You can tell that? How?” Kinsey asked, her eyes hunting for the oncoming shark.
“Oh, uh, depth gauge in the suits also?” Ingrid replied. “Sorry.”
“Next time, less bear trap demonstrations and more actual practical operations demonstrations,” Thorne snarled.
“Yes, Commander,” Ingrid apologized.
Kinsey kept swimming, her channel gun strapped to her back as she used both hands to try to get down to where the ocean held Darren. Then her goggles beeped and the image of the giant shark popped up in her left lens.
“Oh, shit,” she gasped. “It’s coming right for me.”
She slowed herself, reached back, and grabbed her channel gun. She whipped it about and pressed it to her shoulder then sighted down the barrel at the massive mouth that opened below her.
Kinsey fired one, two, three times. She watched as the rounds sped away from the barrel, gaining momentum as they went deeper towards the shark. The creature’s mouth opened wider and Kinsey screamed as it came up at her. She didn’t have time to get out of its way and wrapped her arms across her face as the shark started to swallow her hole.
Then the world became nothing but white light and noise. Even muffled by the water around her, she could hear the intensity of the explosions. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven; she lost count. The blasts just kept coming and Kinsey was thrown to and fro from the concussions.
When the explosions stopped, and she was able to tell upside down from right side up, Kinsey reached for the surface and swam. Darren was still below, but there was a pain in her side that told her she needed help. And fast.
Just before her head broke the surface of the water, she looked down and saw a massive shark tooth protruding from her right side, jammed between her ribs. The suit saved her from the concussive force of the blast, but it couldn’t stop a projectile, not one as sharp and pointed as an eight inch shark tooth.
She hit the surface and immediately floated onto her back.
“Hey,” she croaked. “I could use some help here.”
“Coming, Sis!” Shane yelled as he started up his motor and pointed the Zodiac at his cousin. “Hang on!”
She gave a weak thumbs up.
***
The sounds of the explosions, and the sudden smell of blood, both shark and human, finally tore the massive shark away from its drug binge. It reversed out of the cargo hold and whipped itself around, its nose hunting for the direction of fresh blood. Once it had locked on to the scent, the shark took off with all of its strength and speed.
***
“Holy shit!” Lake laughed. “You took that thing out, Kinsey! Way to go!”
“Thanks,” Kinsey whispered. “But Darren is still down there.”
“He’s alive,” Ingrid said. “Just hang onto that.”
“I will,” Kinsey said as Shane motored the Zodiac over to her.
“Shit,” Lake swore. “The second one has decided to show up. It’s on its way.”
“Where?” Max asked.
“I see it!” Lucy cried. “Max! It’s coming at you! I can see the shadow!”
“Me? What the fuck did I do?” Max shouted. “What side?”
“Starboard!” Lucy directed.
Max pulled the action back on his rifle and looked over the starboard side of the Zodiac. The shark wasn’t hard to miss. It grew exponentially as it sped towards the surface. Max started firing. He watched as round after round plunged into the water, leaving a trail of white, twisting bubbles in their wake.
Then the shark hit the Zodiac and Max was sent flying into the air.
***
“Second shark has emerged, sir,” the ensign said to Espanoza. “It has taken out a Zodiac with one of the snipers.”
“Good,” Espanoza said. “But there is still one boat left.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign replied.
“I wasn’t looking for confirmation,” Espanzoa said, pointing out of the bridge. “I can see the fucking boat myself!”
He stood up from the captain’s chair.
“Tell Diego to launch,” Espanoza said. “I’m tired of waiting. The Americans will be fish food soon, anyway.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign said and relayed the information.
Again, Espanoza’s eye was drawn to the circling Wyrm II.
He sighed heavily then left the bridge, grabbed onto the ladder by the hatch, and pulled himself up to the small observation deck above.
“Shoot it out of the air,” Espanoza said to one of the men standing by the railing.
“Excuse me, sir?” the man asked. “Did you say to fire on the helicopter?”
“I did.”
The man looked at Espanoza then over at the helicopter.
“Is that an American government helicopter?” the man asked.
“No, it’s a private vehicle,” Espanoza replied. “Does it matter?”
“No, sir,” the man said as he put the rifle to his shoulder and sighted on the helicopter’s top rotor. “I just like to know how to classify my kills.”
Espanoza smiled. “Good man.”
***
Warning lights flashed and bells and alarms rang out in the cockpit as the Wyrm II took a sudden lurch to the side and started to spin out of control.
“What’s happening?” Lucy cried. “Ballantine! What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know!” Ballantine yelled back.
“I thought you said you knew how to fly this thing!” Lucy shouted.
“I do!” Ballantine replied as he fought the stick for control. “It just went wild! It’s like the rotor has been damaged or…”
He trailed off and looked over at Espanoza’s ship.
“That asshole,” Ballantine said. Then he saw the half dozen Zodiacs filled with armed men that sped from the ship towards the B3. “Motherfucker.”
Ballantine used all of his skills to keep control of the helo, but the thing didn’t want to obey. The best he could do was aim it in the direction he wanted to go.
He just prayed he could land it without killing himself and Lucy.
***
“What the fuck is he doing?” Lake muttered as he watched the smoking helo come at the Beowulf III fast.
Too fast. And obviously not in Ballantine’s control. The helo spun about in two circles then crashed hard on one of the helipads. Flaming fuel exploded everywhere.
“Fuck!” Lake shouted as he slammed his hand down on the emergency warning system.
An ear splitting claxon filled the deck and an electronic voice began to warn the entire ship, deck to deck, of “Fire! Fire! All crew to stations! Fire!”
Then Lake saw the Zodiacs that were coming for the Beowulf III.
“Son of a bitch,” Lake said and overrode the electronic voice as he put a PA handset to his mouth. “Fuck the fire, people! We’re being boarded!”
He tossed the handset aside and grabbed the Desert Eagle and started to leave the bridge. Then he stopped and reached out, grabbing a fire axe off the wall.
Chapter Six: Dos
<
br /> Darren had never been so thankful to have his head above water. Until he saw what the surface held in store.
One of the Zodiacs was missing, there was smoke and flame coming from the deck of the Beowulf III, and he was floating in blood and gore. Then there were the Zodiacs that were maneuvering up against the B3’s hull. And armed men tossing up lines to board her.
“Hey!” Darren shouted as he saw Shane’s Zodiac near by.
He grabbed the tabs and yanked the rebreather from his face. He puked up more seawater and struggled to remember how to breathe normally again. Once he had a lungful of real air, he turned towards the one Zodiac he saw.
“Hey!” he yelled. “HEY! Over here! Fucking over here you ass muncher!”
“Ditcher!” Shane yelled as he turned the Zodiac towards him and raced over.
Shane was able to pull him up into the Zodiac, and Darren found himself tumbling next to Kinsey who was splayed out on the bottom of the boat.
“Welcome to the hospital ship,” Shane said. “We’re a small, regional outfit, only set up for two patients at a time.”
“What’s going on?” Darren asked. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Shane said as he gunned the motor, heading the opposite direction from the Beowulf II. He gave Darren a strange look, not liking the sound of the man’s voice.
“Where are you going?” Darren asked. “Where are you flying this fish boat?”
“Uh...to get my brother,” Shane said. “Fucking shark hit his boat.”
“The sharks are high on coke, man,” Darren said. “Kinsey was right. So right. Flying in a high kite with boats!”
“Fucking A I was,” Kinsey whispered as she reached out and grabbed Darren’s hand. “Ow.” She took a breath and looked at Darren. “Did you just scream about a boat kite?”
“Ow is right,” Darren replied. “Ow is hurt. How are you? Hurting much too? Too? Too?”
