Oh well. It was too late for that now.
A crashing wave nearly tipped the life raft over. Chet’s ass left the bench for a terrifying moment, his short life flashing before his eyes, lungs stinging from the salty spray. He landed back inside the raft with a heavy thud, his teeth clacking so hard, he felt one or more of his molars pop like light bulbs. Daggers of pain speared his face from his jaw to the top of his skull. He winced, tears fleeing from the corners of his eyes.
There was no time to wallow in misery. The next wave came barreling toward him. He screamed, his voice drowned by the fury of the ocean.
This time, he missed the brunt of the wave, but there was another hot on its heels. He had to get the motor going and push past it or he was going to drown.
“Come on, come on!”
Yanking on the pull chain with the little strength he had left, Chet alternated between cursing and begging for mercy from a god he hadn’t prayed to since grade school. Blood poured from his mouth, the taste of old pennies cutting through the brine.
Bracing for another impact, a shard of tooth stabbed into his newly exposed gum. For a moment, his world went black. He didn’t even feel the wave as it tossed the boat into the air.
Somehow, both he and the boat landed in one sodden piece.
Angry fingers of lightning danced on the horizon, as if searching for him, drawing closer … closer.
If there was thunder, he couldn’t hear it over the angry belching of the ocean. His ribcage rattled deep enough to upset the rhythm of his heart.
Chet went back to coaxing the outboard motor to life. But no matter how hard he pulled, it stayed silent and dead.
Just like everyone else.
A wave splashed down ten feet behind him, pushing the boat toward what remained of the destroyed shore. He kicked the engine, flopping onto his back, staring up at the black and gray swirling clouds.
Even if you get this bitch running, then what? he said to himself. If the storm doesn’t kill you, that, that thing will. How many people get to choose the way they die?
More tears came.
He should have demanded they listen to him. And if they hadn’t, he should have kept insisting until they chalked him off as mentally incompetent and shipped him off this damn hellhole. He wouldn’t be the first guy to lose his shit and get sent packing.
Now he was the last man standing, or floating, and there was no hope of getting back home to Portland, Maine.
A powerful gust of wind slammed the boat, skittering it over the churning water, flying against the current.
Jesus H. Christ! That had to be almost eighty miles an hour. It air dried his face and threatened to flay the flesh from his skull.
Now he was further from the demolished beach, back to the drop point for those man-killer waves.
He wasn’t even sure how he ended up in the life raft. He remembered watching everything unravel—the warning klaxons, people running to man their positions, the shouting followed by screaming, the roar of gunfire, the cracking of the ship’s hull, more screaming, water gurgling as it consumed the ship, people begging for help, others wailing in their death throes, someone barking orders that no one could understand, and worst of all, the sickening crunch of bones as they were masticated to powder.
Something had exploded behind him and there was fire. The orange glow gave light to the horror around him.
It charged and retreated, taking bloody souvenirs each time. Chet had a bead on it once, but his hands shook so much, he dropped his gun in the water. Not that it would have made a difference. Shooting the abomination was like taking a pellet gun to the side of the Empire State Building.
Chet Hardy looked back and his heart froze.
The onrushing wave dwarfed all of the ones previous. This motherfucker could wipe out a baseball stadium as easily as a gorilla could swat a fly on its back.
He was good and fucked.
But at least he would die quickly. He wouldn’t have to suffer through the agonizing, terrifying process of drowning. No, this sledgehammer was going to break him in half the moment it touched him. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t feel a thing.
If life were fair, he’d have a cigarette handy. Even traitors were allowed one last puff before getting put down by the firing squad. His hand patted the pocket by his chest where he kept his Zippo lighter. It was still there. His mother had given it to him as a going away present four years ago.
Little did either of them know how far he’d be going.
“I can’t come back from this one, Ma,” he said, his eyes widening as the wave reared up, cresting higher and higher.
He didn’t have a girl back home to mourn him, but he worried about his mother. They’d lost his brother at the battle in Clervaux and it had nearly killed her in the process. How much could a mother take?
He pictured her sitting in their living room, he and his brother on either side of her, laughing about the time Randall put on that magic show in the yard, charging people a penny for admission, every trick going wrong. Randall plowed right on, undaunted by his mounting failures. Chet, his assistant, broke down and cried after getting water poured in his pants when the funnel trick failed.
The roar of the wave was deep enough to dislocate his bones, snapping Chet from his reverie.
Please, oh please, don’t let it hurt.
A continuous barrage of lightning strikes illuminated the dark wall of water.
Chet looked into the eyes of his death and shit himself.
The wave wasn’t alone.
It was swimming within the deadly tide, mouth wide open, headed straight for him.
Chet feebly raised his arms, as if they had the power to stop the cold certainty of his demise.
“No, dear God, no!”
Like old Jonah, Chet and the life raft were swallowed whole, descending into the blackest, foulest chasm this side of Hell.
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Terror Krakens Page 10
