Claws

by Russell James

  CLAWS

  Russell James

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Russell James

  For Christy,

  Who survived the tiny crabs during our Fort Jefferson adventure.

  Chapter 1

  Gianna Madera knew she’d never get out of this alive.

  The cramped aft compartment of the ship stank of ancient sweat and stale seawater. If she hadn’t disabled the enormous diesel engine beside her, the noise and heat would have degraded the atmosphere from miserable to unlivable. She knelt and clamped a small silver tube to one of the trawler’s propeller shafts. A green light at one end of the sonic charge glowed.

  Someone pulled at the bulkhead door from the other side. The rope she’d tied around the handle stretched tight, but held.

  “She’s in here!” a woman shouted.

  Footsteps pounded against the deck. Whispers conspired in the passageway.

  “Gianna!” the captain called. “It’s a little late in the game to cause all this trouble. The work is done.”

  “But I can make sure it never gets ashore,” Gianna said.

  “No you can’t. Listen.”

  She did. Rotor blades whined from somewhere above the upper deck.

  “That’s a helicopter I radioed to come pick up the emitters. They’re already gone, off to do good work.”

  “I doubt that. If they were going to do good work, you wouldn’t have kidnapped me and forced me to make them.”

  “That was about expediency,” the captain said. “Sometimes timelines get compressed, and we have to cut corners. But as I’ve always said, you’ll be well compensated. Since we’re finished, we’ll forget about this little incident, and you’re free to go home on this chopper if you want. And we’ve explained your absence to your employer. You’ll have no problems.”

  Gianna worked in a black ops section of Silenius Imports. The people on this boat had the combination of magnificent minds and missing morals that made them prime candidates to have connections there. But if this crew had legitimate government sponsorship, they wouldn’t have had to resort to kidnapping, and would have been forthcoming about the ultimate plan for the sonic emitters she’d been forced to perfect.

  Everything the captain spouted had to be a pack of lies.

  “Forget it!” Giana shouted.

  “Then you’ll never get off this boat alive.”

  “Neither will any of you,” she said to herself. “And neither will the emitters.”

  With a small screwdriver, she flipped a microswitch on the sonic charge attached to the propeller shaft. A green light turned red. The cylinder began to hum. Gianna scrambled to the other side of the big engine and ducked.

  The charge spooled up and emitted an escalating, high-pitched scream. The driveshaft began to flex back and forth, as if the steel had turned to rubber. It clanged against the mounts at either end. The people in the passageway shouted in confusion.

  The charge frequency peaked at a painful shriek. Giana covered her ears, but the noise seemed to penetrate straight through her skull.

  The mounts sheared. The driveshaft ripped clear of the hull and tore a gaping hole in the transom. Water rushed in and swept the sonic charge into the sea before it could do more damage. The stern angled down. On the other side of the door, the passageway filled with the sounds of people scrambling away for the upper decks.

  Gianna splashed through the rising water to the bulkhead door. She tried to untie the rope, but the others yanking at the door had cinched the knot tight. Water pooled around her calves. Her wet fingers slipped against the hard, nylon line.

  “Damn it.” She gave the rope a frustrated pull. The nobility of sacrificing herself to stop this unknown evil suddenly did not outweigh self-preservation.

  A brainstorm struck. She pulled the tiny screwdriver from her pocket and wedged the tip into the heart of the knot. She wiggled and wiggled until the knot began to work free. Cold sea water lapped at her knees and her pulse throbbed so hard it made her hands shake. The boat angled further down.

  The knot broke loose. She whipped the rope free of the door and tried to push the door open. With the boat angled back, the door seemed to weigh a ton. Her feet slipped on the submerged steel deck.

  She took a deep breath, dug in, and heaved. The door slowly rose, then past the halfway point, then slammed down on the other side as gravity started to work for instead of against her. Water surged out of the engine room and into the empty corridor.

  From the deck overhead came the splash of a launching lifeboat and the shouts of the panicked crew.

  For the first time since she’d entered the engine room with the sonic charge, Gianna dared to think she might not die today.

  She shouldered the red bag that contained her tools and sprinted up the corridor.

  Chapter 2

  “Jared, you baby. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Tiffany tugged at Jared’s arm. In the moonlight, her long blonde hair seemed to shimmer, and the playful smile he’d fallen in love with practically glowed. In a bikini top and denim shorts, she was more irresistible than ever.

  “I’m not afraid,” Jared said. “Just exhausted.”

  He had every right to be. The two of them had been dropped off by a friend’s ski boat at Fort Jefferson National Park, a pre-Civil War fortress on an isolated island key in the Dry Tortugas. The fort took up most of the key, leaving a beach and a campground outside the walls. They’d spent the day snorkeling and sunbathing. With midnight approaching, Jared’s personal battery was about depleted. He didn’t want to run it down to zero before he and Tiffany crashed in their tent. He’d spent the day eyeing Tiffany’s bikini body, and he didn’t want to fall asleep and let that go to waste.

  “Ugh, seriously,” Tiffany said. “Since graduation you’ve lost your spirit of adventure. Senior summer, baby. Maximize it. Let’s go out to the point and watch the moon over the water.”

  The entire key was little more than a glorified sandbar. The eastern point was as far away as they could get from the campground without swimming.

  “But I’m so beat,” Jared said.

  “Now you can stay here with the Shannons…” Tiffany pointed at the enormous tent the family of five had erected at the other end of the campground. “…or you could join your girlfriend for some fun.”

  She slipped a baggie of joints out of her pocket, pinched the sealed end between her fingers, and waved it before Jared. She laughed, and then took off running toward the point.

  “Damn.” A hot, stoned girl on a secluded beach in the dark wasn’t anything he was going to pass up. He took off after her.

  It took about two minutes to run out of island. Tiffany skidded to a stop in the sugary sand at the water’s edge. The moon lit the beach and wave tips in a soft glow. Jared caught up, wrapped his arms around her waist, and reached into her pocket for the weed. She slapped his hand.

  “No head start.” She looked out to sea. “Look, is that a manatee?”

  Offshore, something barely broke the surface and then submerged.

  Jared squinted at the water. “Looks more like a log, maybe.”

  Something splashed in the water, closer, just a dozen yards out.

  “It is. It’s a manatee!”

  Jared couldn’t see much in the gloom. “Tiff, it could be anything. Even a shark.”

  “No way. A shark would have a big fin. It’s a manatee, out by itself in the dark. It’s probably scared, maybe trapped in fishing line or something.”

  Tiffany waded into the water. Thoughts of sea urchins, jellyfish and a dozen other painful animals came immediately to Jared’s mind.

  “Tiff, get out of there. It’s dangerous.”

  “You’re going to let a helpless animal suffer? You h
ave really gone lame.”

  Any hope of beach tent sex began to evaporate. He couldn’t very well stay back now that Tiffany had plunged forward. He followed her in.

  “Here, little boy,” Tiffany called out to sea.

  She waded in waist-deep, and then swam out a few yards. Jared stopped as water rose to his chest and sent a shiver up his spine.

  A giant claw burst out of the water beside Tiffany. It had to be six feet long and nearly as wide. In the moonlight, it seemed almost transparent.

  Tiffany screamed.

  The claw snapped open and lunged. It clamped around her waist and jerked her under the water. The sea swallowed her bubbling cry for help, and then she went silent.

  Terror ripped through Jared like a bolt of lightning. He panicked, turned, and ran. Or tried to. In the deeper water, every step felt like wading through molasses. His feet sank into the sand. He struggled to go faster but it felt as if the entire ocean wanted to hold him back, to make him a meal for whatever giant crustacean had just taken his girlfriend.

  A thunderous splash sounded behind him. His foot crashed against coral and ripped the skin from his toes. He stumbled and went underwater.

  A rock-hard claw clamped across his back and chest. He screamed and sucked in sea water. The claw wrenched him up and into the air. He coughed and shook the water from his eyes.

  He hung face to face with a giant crab. It reeked like a rancid fish. Black eyes on short stalks stared into his. Its mandibles opened to expose a dark, hungry mouth.

  The crab swallowed Jared whole.

  Chapter 3

  It was only ten in the morning on Garden Key and the place had been hot as an oven for over an hour. Fort Jefferson’s eastern face was already warm to the touch.

  Park Service Ranger Kathy West adjusted her campaign hat around her short brown ponytail, put on her sunglasses, and stepped out from the shade of the fort’s main gate. It felt like she’d stepped into a solar flare. The island had scant natural shade, and with the reflected light off the sand and the sea coming in from all sides, it was easy to empathize with a piece of seared fish.

  She looked over at the key’s sole dock. The ferry from Key West would arrive soon. To the passengers, during the approach the fort would appear to rise directly from the water, three massive stories of deep red brick that stretched out for thousands of feet on every side. The ferry would deliver tourists for the day, and extract last night’s campers with them in the afternoon. Visitors would get a tour of the fort, more time on the broiling beach than they could stand, lunch on the ferry, and a two-hour trip back home to their Key West hotels.

  Ranger Reuben Harney stepped up behind Kathy. He only came up to her shoulder, but at her height, most people did. He wore civilian clothes.

  “I feel like I’m shirking duty dressed like this,” he said.

  “According to Park Headquarters, you’re officially reassigned to Denali National Park as of today. Have a nice ferry ride. Oh, and enjoy the snow up there.”

  Reuben faked a shiver. “Yeah, that might take some getting used to. But I think the staff might take more getting used to.”

  “That park is way bigger than our little island here. You’ll finally have more than one other ranger to keep you company, and you won’t have to live in technological isolation.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant it was great working with you. I’d been trapped in administration before this assignment. You taught me a lot about living in the park, respecting the wildlife, respecting the history, and trying to pass that respect on to the visitors each day.”

  Kathy slapped him on the shoulder. “You getting all misty-eyed on me? You do that up at Denali, your eyes will freeze over.”

  Reuben looked sheepish. “Nah, just being appreciative. Things that ought to be said ought to be said.”

  “Well, you did great work here. I was happy to recommend you for the new posting. Go finish packing. You miss the ferry and you’ll be stuck here another night, and your replacement will have already arrived and moved into your apartment. I need to go give a big welcome to Nathan Quincy Toland, historian.”

  “How long has he been a ranger?”

  “I think he’s still measuring it in days.”

  “You’ll be a good one to break him in.”

  Kathy started to feel embarrassed at the praise. “Why don’t you get back to packing before I make you give the fort tour.”

  Reuben smiled. “Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.”

  Kathy headed for the dock. The daily ferry was the only way to traverse the seventy miles back to Key West. Two small dock houses and the pier serviced the ferry, and the remains of two coaling stations stood at the key’s far north and south. Bush Key stretched out to the east for a few thousand yards with Long Key pointing south at the end of it. Shifting sand had long ago joined all three into one island, ironically shaped like a skeleton key.

  Kathy thought that Fort Jefferson was a great place for Nathan to get started. No mega wildlife like Yellowstone, no huge crowds like Yosemite, no precipitous cliffs like Grand Canyon. Rangers carried a sidearm per policy, but using it hadn’t crossed Kathy’s mind since she’d arrived. This was the perfect location for her to ease Nathan into the ranger life.

  She stepped onto the dock as the ferry arrived for its five-hour stay. The ship docked, and a crew member disembarked and handed her the manifest. Twenty-one visitors and no campers. That meant one less worry that evening. She and the new ranger would have the island to themselves as long as no private boaters arrived during the day. She didn’t see Nathan’s name on the list.

  The passengers disembarked. Several looked a bit green from seasickness. Three had no hats. They’d regret that soon, especially the middle-aged bald man in the red Hawaiian shirt. Everyone looked like they were eager to get started. She looked for the replacement ranger, but everyone wore beach clothes. Perhaps he’d missed the ferry. That would be a bad way to start his first assignment.

  “I’m Ranger West,” she said to the crowd. “Welcome to Fort Jefferson. We’ll do a detailed tour of the fort in a bit, but I’m just covering the basics first. There’s no water on the island and no food for sale. There is no cell service and no power or landlines back to the mainland. If you have to go, there are composting toilets near the campground.”

  “Eww,” a teenage girl said.

  “Hey, you’re just here for a few hours,” Kathy said. “I live here.”

  The crowd laughed.

  “This is an unforgiving environment,” Kathy continued. “Watch the sun. You can already see it’s brutal. Stay hydrated. Above all, don’t miss the ferry for the trip back at three p.m. Because another thing we don’t have here is a hotel.”

  The group laughed again. Kathy smiled, energized by getting people interested in her park. She headed for the fort and they followed.

  “Fort Jefferson was built before the Civil War to protect trading vessels off the Florida coast on their way to New Orleans and Mobile. When steam replaced sail, it also served as a coaling station. The remnants of those stations are big open concrete pads north and south of the fort. The north pad is where we store a lot of the scrap left over from decades of Navy occupation, and it’s off limits.”

  They approached the fort. Almost two hundred years old, it still elicited hushed ‘wows’ from the visitors.

  “The fort is a pentagon, equal on all sides. We’re going to walk across a moat and through the main and only gate. The thick oak doors are reproductions, but the hardware is original.”

  She led the group into the old parade ground in the fort’s open center. A few trees dotted the grassy expanse. “You can explore any part of the fort you like. Spiral staircases lead from the first to the second tier, and up to the roof, or terreplein.”

  “Are those real cannons up there?” asked a little boy in a Donald Duck T-shirt.

  “Yes, there are ten restored Rodman cannons on the terreplein. We fire blanks from them on special occasi
ons.”

  The boy’s eyes went wide.

  “But don’t get your hopes up,” Kathy said. “Today isn’t one of those occasions.”

  The little boy drooped.

  “After checking out the fort, you’re free to wander the rest of the key. The beaches have great snorkeling. Enjoy yourselves.”

  The group shuffled off. One man remained behind, a geeky twenty-something in baggy shorts and sandals. Bushy dark hair framed sparkling brown eyes. A backpack hung from one shoulder. He approached with an open hand and a big smile.

  “Ranger West, I’m Nathan Toland.”

  Kathy shook his hand. “It’s Kathy. Welcome to Fort Jefferson. You weren’t on the manifest.”

  “Kind of threw the dude checking me in when I didn’t have a return ticket. Said his arriving and departing counts had to match. So I told him to just leave me off, and that seemed to solve his problem.”

  “It’s tough to get good help.” She looked Nathan’s tourist-style clothes up and down. “Trying to sneak in undercover?”

  “I had my uniform on at first,” he said. “Then I got spooked. I was afraid that people would start asking me about their upcoming day at the fort, and I’d seem pretty foolish not knowing any answers.”

  “Don’t you have…?” She looked out the gate and saw a huge red suitcase on the dock. “…any luggage, I was going to say.”

  “Travelling light, but I have uniforms and everything on the recommended packing list.”

  “That’s good, because as you can see, we can’t run out to Walmart if we need anything. Do you have a sidearm in that bag?”

  “No. I wasn’t slated to attend the law enforcement academy. Never been that comfortable around modern firearms. But muzzle-loading cannons? Totally up my alley.”

  “We have a few of those. You’ll be in charge of repelling pirates.” She walked him back to the ranger quarters, two apartments built beside the western wall of the fort. “So, this is your first assignment. Were you driven here by a fascination to get off the grid?”