Claws

by Russell James

“The two of you handled yourselves well. I want you to work for me, keeping the nation safe from the dangers these parks were founded to contain.”

  “We would work here in Washington?” Nathan said.

  “No, your involvement with me will be completely off-the-books. I’ll get you normal assignments within parks that appear to have a problem. I’ll notify you when something seems to be going sideways. But there will be no official involvement, no footprints that lead back to Park Service headquarters. If the truth of the park system got out, the first reaction would be overreaction, overwhelming military force that would destroy the parks, along with the threats within.”

  “And since we’re clueless on which parks harbor the dangers,” Nathan said, “the government would obliterate them all.”

  “The public would demand it,” Leister said. “Communication with me and support on any mission will be limited. Your priority will be keeping this all a secret, protecting human life, and protecting the parks, and pretty much in that order. You’ll never know exactly what you’ll be up against, and if you do it right, no one will ever know anything you’ve done. Are you up for the challenge?”

  Nathan and Kathy looked at each other. Nathan tried and failed to suppress a grin. “Uncovering unknown history about the parks? Being a secret agent in a campaign hat? I’m totally up for it if you are.”

  Kathy paused. “I joined the Park Service to keep all these places safe for future generations, the way other rangers have done before me. It sounds like these creatures could be the greatest threat the parks have ever seen. I’m in.”

  Leister smiled. “That’s what I was counting on. This is the last time we will ever meet. Any communications you get from me in the future will under the name of Vincent Moreno.”

  “We’ll return to Fort Jefferson and await further instruction,” Kathy said.

  “There’s a lot of strange going on out there. I’m afraid you won’t have to wait long.”

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of Lords Of The Deep

  Afterword

  I once read that an author is permitted one suspension of disbelief per story, one bizarre lie he can ask the reader to swallow whole. Then the rest of it has to make sense.

  In this story, I played the disbelief card as giant crabs. The rest is pretty accurate.

  And even the crabs are just scaled-up versions of ones you see scampering along the beach at low tide. They can live out of water for as long as their gills stay wet. They can survive the loss of a limb. Amp up their shells by a factor of thirty, and they might be bulletproof. One difference from real life is that they hunt by smell, not by sound like sharks and some other sea predators. But having Larsson deploy a series of stinky lures to get crabs to the mainland was too comical to be terrifying.

  Coconut crabs are a scary precedent. The crabs can grow up to over three feet wide and weigh as much as nine pounds. The force in their claws is the equivalent of a crushing six tons and they can live up to sixty years. Biologist Charles Darwin reported their claws cracking coconuts. Humans need tools to crack walnuts.

  Now on to what’s real in the story.

  Fort Jefferson is a real place in Dry Tortugas National Park. You can take a ferry from Key West to visit for the day. The general descriptions of the fort and Garden Key are accurate. This book was my excuse to visit there to make sure. Rangers do live there full-time, but it takes more than two to keep the place in the fantastic shape it is in.

  Almost all the stories of the fort that Nathan relays are true. The description of the fort’s founding and history through the 19th century are correct. The first doctor was Joseph Basset Holder, a scientist more than doctor, who stayed on through the Civil War at this post and ended up working at the American Museum of Natural History. However, while Dr. Samuel Mudd really was an inmate there, he never mentioned giant crabs to anyone.

  After the Civil War, frequent hurricanes and yellow fever epidemics convinced the War Department to remove the garrison, leaving a small caretaker force for the armaments and ammunition in 1874. In 1889, the Army turned the fort over to the Marine Hospital Service to be operated as a quarantine station. The U.S. Navy used Garden Key as a coaling station. During World War I, the lighthouse there was decommissioned, but a wireless station and naval seaplane facility was operational.

  On January 4, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the area as Fort Jefferson National Monument. On October 26, 1992, Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas were established as a National Park.

  The battleship USS Maine did stop there before sailing to its doom in Havana Harbor. There were a series of inquests around the explosion that sank her there. None bring up the theory of a stowaway giant crab. See how a credible conspiracy can be spun on the backbone of actual facts? Now let’s talk about a second gunman in Dealey Plaza.

  PT boats were a real thing, an inexpensive, expedient way to get torpedoes on target in World War II. President, then Lieutenant, John F. Kennedy commanded PT 109 in the Pacific, where it was run down by a Japanese warship, and he rescued many of his crew. During Navy downsizing after the war, most PT boats were unceremoniously stripped of useful bits, hauled up on beaches, and burned. In a coincidence, after the war ended, PT-796 was used in the Key West/Miami area for experimental purposes. (Crab patrol perhaps?) One of the few remaining PT boats, it is today located at the Battleship Cove Naval Museum in Fall River, Massachusetts. Loads of original PT boat manuals and diagrams are online to get your geek on.

  The Mark 45 torpedo onboard PT 904 was a real thing, a wire-guided, nuclear-tipped anti-submarine torpedo. The design was completed in 1960 and 600 were made between 1963 and 1976. Of course, not counting the fictional ones I had the manufacturer make for the CIA just a little ahead of schedule. Before Navy vets start writing me, to work on the internals, you had to break the thing apart, so there really wasn’t an access port to get to the wiring. But disassembly would have been impossible aboard the Solitude, so, shortcut. The descriptions of how it works are all accurate and if you don’t believe me, the original Navy training films on the torpedo are on YouTube.

  The Bay of Pigs invasion was a true event. In retrospect, the idea of having an army of emigres reinvade their homeland with obsolete equipment and “secret” U.S. military support seems like the CIA trying for its own version of suspension of disbelief. That fiasco isn’t brought up much in the U.S., perhaps because it tarnishes JFK’s halo, or maybe because the subsequent well-handled Cuban Missile Crisis was a better, bigger Cuba story. No PT boats were involved in the operation.

  Special thanks go out to Beta Readers Extraordinaire Donna Fitzpatrick, Deborah deAlteriis, Janet Guy, Paul Siluch, Teresa Robeson, and Belinda Whitney for making Version 2.0 so much better than Version 1.0.

  Go visit your national parks. These jewels inspire wonder at every turn. I promise there are no giant crabs.

  -Russell James

  January, 2018

  CHAPTER ONE

  Donny Jordan spun around, rotating toward the Conquest Boston Whaler, and watched as the expensive boat shook atop a series of gentle waves. None of the other nearby yachts in Wilson Rhode's Marina bounced quite as much as The Kerplunk, which inspired paranoid thoughts in Donny's edgy, drug-addled mind. Moonlight glimmered on the oily-black surface of the cove. The eerie silence, coupled with the dead of night, furthered his dread.

  It was a wave, right?

  Of course it was. What else could it have been? A small hand of water patting the boat on the back, an innocent gesture from Mother Nature.

  Donny turned and peered down the wharf, scoping out other boats, trying to decide which one to burglarize. Which one looked the most expensive and potentially had the most valuables inside? It was too hard to tell from their exteriors, so he had chosen to break into them all, or as many as he could until he got what he'd come for—enough pricey junk to pawn and secure his next fix. The cost of heroin had increased and Donny wasn't happy about it. Inflation ha
d made the time between using longer, harder. His legs had been tingling all night and now his fingers were trembling too, no signs of either symptom letting up.

  Nab as much as you can, Donny told himself, and get the hell out. You only need enough to get through the end of the week. Payday.

  The big payday.

  Wilson Rhodes, the proprietor of the Captain's Cove Marina, was on vacation somewhere in the Carolinas and wasn't expected back until next week. He was too cheap to hire overnight security, not even the occasional drive-by to make sure the boats were good and protected, to ensure there was no one like Donny Jordan sneaking about the shadows, breaking into his clients' treasured possessions. Rhodes was cheap, all right. Donny knew this because he'd worked under the stingy bastard for the last decade.

  Don't want to give me a raise? Donny put his foot on the bow railing and jumped down onto the small deck. He made his way over to the cabin and found the entrance locked. Fine. Don't. I'm going to get what I'm worth one way or the other. It took three attempts to break the sliding barrier free from its track, obliterating the metal slide lock that had been good enough to deter your average looter but not Donny.

  Once inside, he rummaged around the cabin. Stacks of nudie magazines and a wastebasket full of spent tissues, a few newspaper clippings, results of local fishing tournaments, and a couple of goofy gag gifts intended for outdoorsy folks. A plastic, singing animatronic bass, the kind that wears itself thin after a few turns, stared with mute eyes. Disappointed, Donny backed out of the cabin.

  One Whaler down, thirty to go.

  The world shifted beneath him, more aggressively than The Kerplunk had less than five minutes ago. The sudden jerk forced Donny across the deck, and he desperately grabbed for the railing.

  But the movement didn't feel like an ordinary wave. It felt like...

  ...something...

  ...underneath me...

  Donny's brain projected the most ludicrous ideas, everything from giant three-headed sharks to tentacled sea beasts. It was the withdrawals fucking with him, he rationalized with the smarter half of his brain, the part of him that was still him. Still Donny. Not the drug-addicted scumbag he'd become.

  The desperate need for arm candy stirred his paranoia. He pushed the images away, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

  Then he stood frozen, listening to the soft sounds of the cove. The lapping waves. Crickets chirping in the sand grass. The thought-numbing white noise ducking behind it all.

  Nothing.

  No monsters.

  As he stepped for the bow, toward the dock, something crashed into the boat, throwing Donny off his feet. He fell sideways and cracked his head on the railing. The impact stole more light from his vision, and for a brief second he thought he'd been taken underneath the surface, dragged into the depths of the cove. He continued to lie on the deck when the black fireworks faded from his sight. Thick wetness covered the right half of his face. He was scared to put his hand there, feel what he knew was there. He went through with it anyway. Not knowing wouldn't change matters. Sure enough, he came away with a palm full of blood, dark as motor oil in the absence of sufficient light. He gently patted around the side of his face, trying to trace the wound, trying to figure out the damage, estimating how many stitches this little misstep would cost him. He pegged the gash at about three inches, a sizable wound. But it wasn't the length that frightened him—the width and depth of the opening had caused his heart to beat irregularly. Split wide and furrowed deep. If he didn't get himself to a hospital soon, Donny Jordan might find himself slipping into a state of unconsciousness. The loss of blood might not kill him, but he didn't want to pass out here, on a customer's deck, only to be discovered the following morning a few feet from where he had kicked in the cabin door.

  Donny rose to his feet feeling almost weightless, woozy, his vision beginning to blur near the edges.

  He needed to scram.

  Fuck the stashes, I'll get my fix money somewhere else.

  There were some Section Eight housing apartments down the road from his current living situation (clusterfuck it was) and they were broken into at least once a week. Better yet, no one seemed to care about those places getting knocked over. He might not find a fortune in them, but it didn't matter. He only needed until the end of the week.

  Payday, the phantom voice of his buddy, Rick, spoke in his ear. Next week, we sell off the goods to our contact, and we're fucking golden, boys. We'll ride off into the sunset like the Magnificent Seven or some shit.

  Donny hadn't had the stones to tell him that not every protagonist survived that movie, that not every cowboy rode off into the sunset. Instead he had kept quiet, told his co-conspirator that he'd lie low until the deal went through, and not step foot outside his daily routines. Bring zero attention to himself. Rick had slapped him on the back, told him, “Good boy,” and they had gone their separate ways with the plan to meet up next week after the goods were traded for cash.

  The goods.

  Whatever that meant.

  It wasn't drugs, Donny was certain. It wasn't jewelry. It was something else. Something locked inside an old wooden chest. Something that made Donny uneasy whenever he'd been near it. Something...

  ...Evil?

  The notion was absurd but Donny's mind often took him to dark places. Too many movies, too many nights drowned in alcohol, too many days spent shooting his arms up with smack.

  He glanced around the boat, his eyes searching the water for the source of the disturbance. Something lurked below him, gliding through the waters, waiting to make another move, wanting to dunk him in the cove's black waters. Before the unknown thing could strike again, Donny jumped off the deck and landed on the dock. Crouching down, he tried to control his breathing, which had quickly gotten away from him. His heart stammered. Lungs seized, unable to draw complete breaths. Despite feeling like his bodily components were failing him, he craved a cigarette, that rush of nicotine. He fought the urge to pull the pack from his pocket and light three sticks at once.

  Something splashed to his left.

  He snapped his head in the direction of the dull noise. Nothing moving on the surface. Below it, a different story. Donny watched the displaced water bubble and swirl as if something had dipped under just before his eyes got there.

  His knees grew weak.

  Something prowled the cove's dark waters, weaving between the bulkheads.

  Something big.

  Donny sprinted down the dock, toward Rhodes's facility. Toward safety. Away from whatever roamed the cove.

  Another splash sounded off to his right, maybe a fin knifing through the agitated surface. He didn't slow down, kept stamping his feet against the deck boards, making more than enough noise to wake nearby sleepers. He couldn't breathe but that didn't matter. Plenty of air waited for him where it was safe, away from the sea monster.

  Monster.

  Donny peered to his right. Something emerged from the water, a large arrow-shaped something with a tail that seemed to get thicker with its length. Donny's legs went numb and he almost tripped over his own feet. He didn't feel his bladder let go, soak his jeans.

  The shadowy creature kept pace with him. After five more steps, Donny lost feeling from the waist down, and fell, tumbling across the dock. He landed on his back, his vision facing the star-lined night, a million bright freckles looking down at him from the cosmos.

  A dark outline glided over him, twisting through the air, creating a maze of shadows above him. The triangle-shaped entity hovered over the wharf like a U.F.O from a faraway galaxy.

  A head, he realized—it was the thing's head. And the thick tail? It wasn't a tail at all. It was the creature's body. The head swayed in the air, moving fluently as if in rhythm to some unheard song. It hissed, not words, but a long drawn-out sound, a slashed tire and the rush of lost air.

  Before he understood what the thing was, before his brain pieced together the clues, the creature that shouldn't exist struck again.
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  Instinctively, Donny rolled over, off the deck and into the water.

  An all-encompassing cold surrounded his body, filling him. He floated in the darkness, waiting for the monster to descend upon him and swallow him whole. Eating him in one bite wouldn't have been difficult. The thing's mouth was massive, big enough to comfortably fit him inside.

  But the attack didn't happen.

  He opened his eyes. Impenetrable darkness greeted him. He kicked his legs, swung his arms. He was moving. Moving away from the dock and the lengthy creature that had been born from his darkest thoughts. Gliding through the inky, frigid void, Donny felt a warm sense of relief. The shore wasn't too far away. Soon he'd find himself near the beach. He almost felt the sand underneath his feet, his toes sinking in, the welcoming stretch of the embankment. Pushing himself, he felt the safety wash over him, supplying his soul with comfort. He was almost there.

  Almost.

  Two oblong shapes glowed in the void ahead. They hovered there, blocking his path to the shore. He propelled himself forward, kicking his arms and legs in a fury. The shapes, like pennies tilted at an odd angle, grew brighter. The closer he got, the more they shimmered. Sparkled. Called to him. He thought maybe they were floating tokens, treasures stolen from the chest currently in his best friend Rick's possession. But when he drew closer, he realized it wasn't treasure. Not pennies. Something else. A shape formed behind them.

  An arrow shape.

  A head.

  A mouth containing two long teeth and several shorter, sharper ones.

  Before Donny could think of his wife and son, the family he had ruined with endless poor decisions, the need to further his drug habit, the shape in the water darted toward him, the coil of its massive body spiraling in its wake.

  Then he knew pain.

  And perpetual darkness.

  Lords Of The Deep is available from Amazon HERE!

  You can also find more deep sea thrillers at www.severedpress.com