Claws

by Russell James

  Suddenly, the heel of her boot punched through the weakened steel. She wedged it in and thrust her body forward. Her hips squeezed so tight she thought she’d pop, and then they slipped past the corner.

  Kathy half-stood in the vertical shaft, her height finally working to her advantage after nearly trapping her. She wrapped her hands around a set of corroded iron bars that forbid her from the sun and open space above. She flexed her knees and pushed.

  The grating popped free. She tossed it aside and pulled herself out of the shaft. She gulped the blessed fresh air.

  Kathy stood on the concrete slab from the old north coaling station, surrounded by piles of old barrels and the remains of earlier naval stations. What she’d assumed was a random refuse pile she could now see was carefully arranged to conceal this secret room’s air vent. She imagined CIA operatives laying everything just-so, the final touches to their new, secret base.

  Her problem of escape solved, the next challenge arose. What to do next? Nathan was still in the fort, she hoped, but she didn’t trust Larsson as far as she could throw him. Nathan was probably thinking the worst had happened to her after she hadn’t returned.

  She ducked down behind the barrels, but still had a good view of the east beach. She could not believe what she saw. The big CH-47 helicopter from the day before lay on its side, half-submerged in the shallows. The CIA basement had been soundproof enough that she hadn’t heard a helicopter crash? What else had she missed?

  She moaned as she imagined the mess the wreck had to have made of the east beach area. Coral habitat and sea life crushed. Then God-knows-what fluids were leaking into the pristine waters. She was ready to wring Larsson’s pudgy neck for bringing this disaster to her park.

  Larsson appeared on the beach. He waded out to the wreck with an automatic rifle slung across his back. Another man passed him, carrying salvaged cargo back up to the beach. Amidst innocuous crates and boxes lay a pile of odd red and white canisters. Valadez, also toting a rifle, sorted through the items on the beach, selected some, and headed back to the fort with them.

  She finally got a better look at the man carrying the crates from the crashed helicopter to the beach. Nathan. And the pained, wary look on his face said his labor was far from voluntary.

  Kathy was tired, hungry, and pissed off. She couldn’t get back to the fort without being seen. She sure as hell wasn’t going back down the shaft. And in an hour or so, the tropical sun would be high enough that she’d be dealing with the full ravages of dehydration.

  She leaned against an empty barrel and took in a deep breath of the sea air. The worst part was that the rest of the world didn’t know anything was going wrong at Fort Jefferson.

  Chapter 23

  Two charred corpses stared out from the downed helicopter’s three-windowed cockpit.

  Their eyes seemed to follow Nathan with each trip he took. The chopper lay on its side in several feet of water. In the left window, one pilot’s head was just above the surface and bobbed in the waves as if nodding, saying, “Sure, come on in, but I’m proof of what happens out here.” The center window was just a web of glazed cracks. In the third window on the right, the other pilot hung from the shoulder strap seatbelts, lips curled back in a creepy rictus, hands still gripping the top of the windscreen, as if at any moment it was about to climb out laughing.

  The slingload cargo had hit the water to the aircraft’s left. Crates and containers had obliterated chunks of coral reef and Nathan cringed at the ecological damage done to the park. The rainbow-hued sheen of jet fuel in the water alone was poisoning who knows how many species as he waded through it. The cleanup would take forever.

  That’s if there was anyone around to do a cleanup. If giant crabs overran the key, he could see the country just abandoning it, or worse, nuking it to keep the species from ever making Florida. A mainland invasion would be a nightmare.

  He sloshed back to where the cargo lay strewn on the seafloor. The closer crates had already been recovered. He took a deep breath and went underwater.

  The crystal clear water made finding the crates easy. Some remained in the shallows, but a bunch of them had tumbled down into the old coaling station channel, too deep to free swim down to. The tail of the helicopter hung a few feet out over the abyss. He swam to an ammunition crate and swept away a few curious shrimp. He grabbed the rope handles, planted his feet, and pulled it up. He surfaced in the water neck-high, and it was an effort to walk the crate and himself back toward shore. When the water lowered to waist-deep, Larsson stopped him and took the crate. He had an M-4 slung across his shoulder upside down, and he dragged the end of a rope through the water.

  “I got this one. We need the Zodiac. It’s still inside the bird. The rear cargo door is open. Swim over, tie this rope to the bow, and push it out.”

  “You know there are crabs out there?”

  “You know we have guns over here? Get going.”

  Nathan took the end of the rope. He waded out halfway around the helicopter, then the water became too deep. It was over fifty feet to the end of the aircraft. Covering that would create a lot of crab-attracting splashing. But Larsson had probably killed Kathy, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill him as well. And if he died, there would be no one to keep Gianna hidden.

  He pushed off of the coral and began a quiet sidestroke to the rear of the helicopter. He didn’t look down, didn’t want to see whatever might be going on there. Instead, he focused on the Phillips screw heads along the helicopter’s underside, following the rows, little X by little X, until the aircraft ended. He pulled himself around the cargo door and swam inside, the rope trailing behind him.

  The Zodiac floated in the canted cargo hold. This was a larger model than the other one, with a set of controls in the center and a windscreen. One drooping section had been deflated, but he assumed the crew on the shore had the expertise to repair the puncture. An outboard motor and gas can lie on the metal floor within.

  He swam inside and climbed out of the water along the ribbing inside the cargo area. He worked his way forward. An unknown viscous fluid dripped from the ceiling. The sickly sweet smell of the burned pilots made his stomach roil. He got to the bow of the boat and tied off the rope. With a nudge, he angled the Zodiac toward the opening, and then gave it a shove. The boat floated out the rear of the helicopter. The rope at the bow snapped up and out of the water. From the other side, Larsson pulled the boat out of view.

  Nathan climbed back to the tail of the helicopter. He paused at the end and stared down through the jet fuel sheen to the sea floor. Tempting whatever lay in wait down there was not high on his list of things to do. But it was still higher than spending more time in a derelict helicopter with two reeking corpses. He lowered himself into the water.

  Underneath him, something moved.

  He looked down, but the rainbow haze from the jet fuel obscured his view. No question he’d felt something big move through the water. The current from its wake had pulled at his legs. He ducked his head under and opened his eyes.

  The twin black eyes of a giant crab stared back at him from feet away.

  Nathan screamed out a thundercloud of bubbles. He broke through the surface and scrambled backward into the helicopter. He grabbed a rib of the cargo area and pulled himself out of the water.

  Two enormous claws erupted from the water on either side of the fuselage. The claws snapped together like a pair of vise grips. The tips pierced the helicopter’s sides and punched a foot into the cargo area on either side of Nathan. He splashed forward toward the cockpit.

  The crab pulled and the chopper slid backward toward the deeper channel. Aluminum groaned as the nose angled up. The aircraft slid down into the water.

  Nathan clawed his way higher into the submerging helicopter. He advanced but the aircraft retreated faster. Water rose past Nathan’s thighs to his waist. His head banged against one of the aluminum ribs. The chopper’s skin grated along the edge of the coral reef and a shrill shriek echoed in the
interior, as if the airship wailed a dying cry.

  Nathan grabbed the top of one pilot’s seat. The charred corpse fell back and its head slammed down on Nathan’s hand. It felt like over-grilled chicken skin.

  The helicopter sank faster. A combination of rising water and the sinking chopper pushed Nathan up between the pilots’ seats and over the console. He slammed into the cracked middle windshield. Sunlight, oxygen, and life beckoned from the other side. Then the sea washed it away as the crab dragged the helicopter under.

  Nathan sucked in a last deep breath from the dwindling air pocket against the window. He pounded his hands against the glass. Nothing. He looked around in panic for any kind of a tool.

  A .38 revolver hung in the pilot’s shoulder holster.

  Nathan pulled the gun free and slammed it against the window. Once. Twice. All that earned were muted thuds. His lungs screamed to exhale, his heart pounded in overdrive. Outside, the surface world retreated to a dimming blur.

  Nathan shoved the pistol’s barrel against the glass and pulled the trigger. A flash of powder and a muffled thump. The window shattered.

  Nathan pulled himself through the window frame. Broken glass raked his sides. He kicked and windmilled his way to daylight.

  Like a breaching whale, he broke the surface and sucked in a great, deep breath of the sweet ocean air. He splashed forward a few more feet until he was over shallow coral again. His feet touched the reef. Nathan fought the water as he pumped his exhausted legs to the shore. At the water’s edge, he collapsed on the sand.

  From behind him came a powerful splash. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the crab surface as it climbed up from the shallows. A new wave of panic spiked his adrenaline and he scrambled up the beach.

  To his right, the Zodiac sat beached and loaded with a pyramid of red and white emitters. Larsson popped up from behind the pile with his rifle and opened fire on the crab.

  Valadez and Wilson rolled out on either side of the stack of crates a few yards away. They opened fire. Automatic weapons barked and flames spit in the crab’s direction. Rounds hit its shell and ricocheted off with no effect. The crab hissed and crawled forward.

  Nathan sprang to his feet and ran for the stockpile of crates. Valadez and Wilson fired past him. Bullets whizzed by his head like furious hornets. He dove over the crates for the perceived safety of the other side. He landed face first in the hot sand.

  Rifles fired all around him. He looked back to see three streams of bullets converge on the front of the crab’s shell. The crab shuddered but did not stop. A cloud of spent gunpowder swept over Nathan and stung his eyes.

  “Pull back!” Larsson cried.

  He ran for the crates. Then the three began a fighting retreat to the fort, firing, then reloading and firing again. Nathan saw he was about to be left behind, jumped up, and sprinted between them for the fort’s main gate.

  The crab kept coming.

  Valadez pulled a round grenade from a cargo pocket. He pulled the pin and pitched it at the crab. It struck the crab square between the eyestalks and bounced back. It hit the sand and exploded. The concussion rocked the crab up on its rear legs. The front claws waved in the air.

  Then the crab dropped back down on all eights. It hissed and resumed its charge for the four men.

  Nathan made it to the gate and looked back. Larsson and Valadez were close behind. But Wilson had fallen. He lay on the ground, with the crab bearing down on him fast.

  Wilson rolled on his back. Feet away from him, the crab reared up. With one hand, Wilson aimed his rifle and emptied a magazine of rounds into the crab’s underbelly.

  They did nothing.

  The crab cocked back one great claw and jabbed. The claw hit Wilson in the chest and drove straight through into the ground. A cloud of sand and blood burst into the air, and then Wilson lay still. The claw slurped as the crab pulled it free.

  Valadez screamed an obscenity and hurled another grenade. It landed under the crab and exploded. The impact made the creature shudder. It steadied itself, then continued toward the fort.

  Larsson dropped to a knee and aimed. “Concentrate fire on the right claw!”

  He and Valadez laid twin streams of rounds at the joint in the crab’s right claw. An awful cracking sound split the air, then the smaller, lower half of the claw swung down at an unnatural angle. The crab stopped and emitted a furious hiss. It tucked the claw closer to its body and backed away. The claw’s lower half left a trail as it dragged through the sand. The crab backed down the beach, into the water, and submerged.

  Larsson turned to Valadez. “Got to get the ammo into the fort.”

  They both ran forward, straight past Wilson’s severed corpse without a second glance. Each grabbed an ammunition crate and ran back for the fort.

  Nathan ducked inside the gate. As soon as the two men entered, he closed the two oak doors and dropped the cross member across them to secure the entrance.

  For the first time, the fort engineer’s design was about to be put to the test.

  Chapter 24

  Kathy looked across the key from her hiding place. She gripped the edge of the old metal drum so hard her fingers tingled.

  She had first watched in anger as Larsson forced Nathan to pull supplies out of the downed helicopter. Then in horror and disbelief as a giant crab attacked the wreckage and pulled it under with Nathan inside. Then in relief when Nathan surfaced and crawled ashore. Until Nathan had disappeared safe behind the fort’s oak doors, she’d scarcely taken a breath.

  The crab had killed one of the mercenaries. The act sickened her, and while she wasn’t overwhelmed with empathy, being a man down in this situation wasn’t good. She’d seen Larsson and Valadez try and fail to keep the crab at bay with rifle fire and hand grenades. They’d only injured it. It might be back. And it might bring more.

  “Of course there are more,” the science major in her said to herself. It was a species. To survive, there had to be more. A lot more. Crabs laid thousands of eggs. She imagined a dozen of them crawling up onto the beach. Or worse, into Key West. Or still worse, into Miami.

  And there was nothing she could do. She’d never get back into the fort undetected with everyone on guard against crabs. If Larsson saw her outside the CIA room, he’d shoot her on sight, furious she’d escaped and afraid she’d be a dangerous loose end. She had no way to warn anyone on the mainland, and seventy miles to Key West was one hell of a swim. Her only option was to sit here, bake in the sun, sweat, and die. She wouldn’t even live long enough to starve to death.

  “Hey, Ranger,” someone said behind her.

  She whirled to see Marc Metcalf crouched down among the debris. He had a sheet sewn into the back of his long sleeve shirt, the ends attached at the cuffs and at the hems of his shorts. The sheet had sand glued to it, like flexible sandpaper. He wore a hat also coated with sand and speckled with seashells. Kathy gave the getup a confused look.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered, as if the men in the fort could have heard her if she hadn’t.

  “Kinda looks like I’m saving your butt. My boat’s out west. Might be a good idea if we went aboard.”

  “How?”

  Marc pointed to the water at the north end of the coaling station ruins. She didn’t see anything. Then she did. A rubber raft, painted in a mottled sea camouflage pattern of greens and blues. At a distance, it was damn near invisible. Marc’s cabin cruiser sat anchored well off-shore beyond it.

  “I paddled it ashore,” Marc said. “Two of us can get back in half the time. Gotta get cracking, while they’re still too scared to take their eyes off the beach.”

  Paddling across the Gulf of Mexico with an eccentric old man wasn’t the best option, but her choices were very limited. “Let’s go.”

  She followed Marc in a shuffling crouch, trying to remain a small target if Larsson or Valadez happened to look this way. She had a bad feeling that both men had the marksmanship to pick her off, even at this range. />
  The raft looked like another of Marc’s Navy surplus purchases. Close up, the camouflage paint appeared hand-applied. They pulled the raft out into the water and climbed in. It was a tight fit for two and the raft rode low. Warm seawater sloshed around the raft floor.

  “Don’t you worry none,” Marc said. “The raft’s like me. Old but still serviceable.” He handed Kathy a short paddle. “The tide’s with us, gotta go.”

  Kathy glanced over her shoulder. No one stood on the terreplein with a rifle trained their way. Marc had been right; everyone was focused on the beach.

  “You painted this raft yourself?” she said.

  “Specifically to match these waters. When I’m poking around near places the government don’t want poked, I don’t want the satellites picking me up.” He tapped his hat. “Same with the camouflage clothing. I can crawl across any beach I’m exploring, and I disappear to even the newest drones.”

  Kathy thought those statements would have sounded crazy-paranoid a few days ago. But one crab attack later, they just sounded wise. “Why were you on the key just now?”

  “Nothing like a big helicopter crash to arouse my interest. I watched it fly in from my boat, then it looked like something pulled it right out of the sky. I know for a fact there’s only one thing in these waters that can do that, so I had to get a closer look. I got halfway to shore and —bam, bam, bam— it sounds a scene out of The Sands of Iwo Jima. I was gonna turn it around, but I saw you hiding out and thought you might need a bit of rescuing.”

  “And you were right.”

  “Sounds like a lot of firepower on that beach for the NPS.”

  “Because it isn’t us. A guy named Larsson arrived with three others in tow claiming to be with Homeland Security, spouting some nonsense about a red tide on the way. I could tell from the start the story was crap, especially when a helicopter dropped off a ton of weaponry.”