“So close,” Kaahin growled.
“And we can’t even follow them. We’ll be empty before they get to where they’re going.”
“Let the fish chase them for a while.” Seeing it out there, even from the safety of land, its calm automation while dooming a dozen men to death, had chilled him like nothing else. Kaahin carried many superstitions, but there was nothing worse than that fish’s destructive indifference.
The Malagasy believed their ancestors transformed into protective spirits once they passed, forces of guiding light. But that belief went the other way, too. Malevolent men could go to their graves and transform into something else. Become vengeance personified. That’s what scared him.
This fish was more than a fish. It had to be.
Kaahin caught his reflection in the side window and was too disgusted to keep looking. The monster there glared back. He saw a lifetime career of misdeeds that had aided in the creation of that demon.
“What is it?” the American said.
Kaahin took a deep breath as his body trembled. The truth was, he was beginning to feel grateful for the American’s presence. The last thing he wanted was to face that demon alone.
“Come on,” the American said. “Level with me. What is that fish?”
“Angatra,” Kaahin said.
“Never heard of it.”
“You can live somewhere all your life without ever belonging.”
“Story of my life.”
“In Malagasy culture, the angatra are the fallen ones. It is said they are forever on the prowl against those who have offended them.”
“That’s why you’re so shook,” the American said. “You think it’s all about you.”
“I have much to atone for. I can only believe my ancestors have decided to punish me.”
“You think your grandfather was a fish? C’mon, pal.”
“That response could not be more American.”
“Damn straight.”
“What does it matter to you?” Kaahin said. “It is something uncommon. How many times have you seen a fish like that?”
“Don’t watch the Discovery Channel, so I don’t know.”
“There is karma in your culture, yes?” Kaahin said.
“Of course.”
“Close enough, then.”
“That thing’s killing us ‘cause we deserve it? Nature is indifferent, pal. Doesn’t care whether we go to church on Sundays or screw our step moms.”
This was not nature, though Kaahin dropped it. “Once we reach the treasure island,” he said, “it will be a race. And people will die.”
“Appreciate your confidence, but a lot of things need to go right before we get there.”
“I do not intend to fail.”
“Let’s say we find it. What happens next? They’ve got a boat. And equipment from the looks of things.”
“That is my boat,” said Kaahin. “I took it once. I will take it again.”
“I’m not going to hurt the girl.”
Kaahin nearly laughed at the misguided chivalry. “I would not have you do that,” Kaahin said, thinking, because I will kill the western girl myself. He said, “I believe it is the men we must remove.”
“More for us, right?” The American threw a side-eye. It might’ve been threatening if Kaahin hadn’t watched the angatra devour several men today.
“They need us,” Kaahin said. “But they will be suspicious.” It felt like a month had passed since throwing the women overboard.
“I think I got a way around that,” the American said.
Forty
Carly and Sara retreated back to Carly’s bunk.
The decision was made to head east of Agaléga, because the ocean was a lot smaller if you sailed west. All shipping lanes and tourists venturing far, but not too far, away from Madagascar. Roche wouldn’t have hidden that close to anything.
Agaléga was the gateway to a deep blue nothing, and Isabella’s island must’ve been beyond it.
Carly threw her arms around Sara once they reached the room.
“I told you, Carly, it’s fine.”
“It’s not,” the actress said. “I was three seconds away from making a fatal mistake.”
They sat on the end of the bed facing each other. Carly’s eyes were glassy, little tear streaks beginning to fall. It was the face of someone who hadn’t really believed in her own mortality before now. She’d been traumatized out here, by disappearing boyfriends, attacking pirates, and of course that awful monster, but today was the first time her instinct might’ve brought death.
That had to shake you.
“I was so stupid,” she said.
“You weren’t,” Sara assured her. “Civilization was dangling in front of you like a Christmas ornament. Of course you were thinking about it.”
“I can never thank you enough.”
Sara‘s motivations were worse, keeping Carly around for her own self-centered needs. “We get out of this and you might have to sign an autograph for my brother,” she said.
“We get out of this, I’ll suck your brother’s dick.”
“Jesus, Carly,” Sara laughed. “Don’t you dare think about wrecking his shit. He’s married with three kids.” Despite her mother’s insistence that James be the sole heir to the Mosby name, Sara was happy for her brother and his political aspirations. But the reality was that she’d been looking forward to becoming Sara Jovish. All anyone thought about when they heard the name Mosby was James, the good-looking future politician whose star burned bright. Every time Sara introduced herself the first question was, “oh are you related to James? I’m going to vote for him. I think he might be president someday.”
It was frightening how quickly your identity could be snuffed out.
“I’m joking,” Carly said. She lay back on the bed and stretched. Her bones cracked softly and the relief she sighed was a sound Sara had never before heard. A hand reached for Sara’s shirt, took a fistful of fabric, and tugged her down beside her.
There was calm in each other’s eyes. Steady acceptance. Mutual strength. It didn’t matter who’d been motivated by what, they knew, only that they were still alive.
And together.
Sara thought of Blake and, oh God, it felt like he’d been gone for years. The wedding. Nervous vows. Dancing in the open-air like shooting stars. A best man speech about unwritten futures. All of it less than one week ago.
It’s true that Carly’s presence comforted her. But to think about Blake made her tremble. Sara’s body was suddenly hot, and once the tears came, she was happy to let them fall.
Carly reached out and touched Sara’s cheek. Just the soft press of fingertips. It was enough.
They stayed like that, eye-to-eye, until the day was gone and the ocean shined beneath bone white moon glow.
“Air’s a little stale,” Carly said at last. “Take a walk?”
They did. Seeing the ocean was enough to drum up panic. Carly gave Sara the last prescription pill in her bottle and promised it would take the edge off. It didn’t, or maybe it did, and Sara was beginning to panic about so much that it just wasn’t any help.
They found Jean-Philippe on the stern, admiring the vastness around them. He smiled when he saw Carly standing there. “I am truly thankful that you were not on those boats,” he said.
Carly gave him a gentle nudge. “How are you doing?”
“Trying my best to forget about Daan,” he said. “Focus on the rest of the job.”
“Without you we might not be anywhere near completing the rest of this job,” Sara said.
Jean-Philippe flashed a polite smile. “Almost wish I’d said nothing.”
“Really? You don’t want to be the one who—”
“Baroness will be the one,” he said. “If history remembers us at all, it’ll be as her foot soldiers. On to the next job, and so on until we end up like Daan.”
“You don’t have to keep going,” Carly said. “You can quit.”
“
I can,” Jean-Philippe said.
“Any more sightings of that fish?” Sara asked.
Jean-Philippe shook his head.
“How does it keep showing up wherever we go?” Carly asked.
“I would just like to know what it is,” Jean-Philippe said.
“I might know,” Sara told them.
The mercenary’s face tightened. “Please,” he said. “I am interested in your professional opinion.”
“It’s going to sound crazy,” Sara said.
“Let us judge.”
“Come on, Sara,” Carly said. “It’s a long way to the island.”
“Yeah,” Sara agreed. “Okay. First time I saw it, I was too terrified to think straight. You see something that unnatural up close and your brain rejects the sight. You gotta reboot, but can only do that once you’ve got some distance. Weirdest feeling ever.”
“It is always that way when you see something out of the ordinary,” Jean-Philippe said.
“I wouldn’t know, thankfully.”
“You will be old pros by the time this is over,” he said. “Both of you.”
“Maybe I’ll change careers,” Sara said. “Take your gig once you quit.” She winked and was reminded of the holster strapped to her shorts, of the weapon stuffed inside it.
Jean-Philippe laughed. “Last time we excavated on Madagascar, we set sail for one of the uncharted islands on the western side. Hired help swore that a demon lived there. They refused to row with us to the beach. Guillaume was able to buy some of their loyalty. We disembarked on rowboats, five men came with us. None returned.”
“So it always goes well for you guys?” Carly said.
Jean-Philippe didn’t think that was funny. His face was suddenly sunken. “The job is the job. We were there looking for the remains of an Arab trader buried with his fortune. Madagascar was a serious trading post back then, you had the whole world in those ports, so there was good reason to believe his treasure was substantial. We rowed ashore and found we were not alone...”
“Your demon?” Sara said.
“Something hunted us,” Jean-Philippe said. “Demon to some, certainly. A feral man, snarling, growling, completely crazed. His eyes were red, like somebody had poured vials of blood into them. His fingernails were sharper than knives. Tore the throats right out of our men.”
“Shit,” Carly said.
“I believed the superstition at first.” Jean-Philippe looked ashamed to admit it. “We are programmed to believe the unexplainable. It is hardcoded into us because it is in our nature.”
“But sometimes a fish is just a fish, right?” Sara said.
“Correct,” he said. “The men swore this vengeful spirit was resurrected to prevent anyone from disturbing his grave. In reality, he was a poor leper who left his family behind in order to die in isolation. I shot him through the eye and put him out of his misery. For a while, though, I really thought—”
“Well, the thing that’s after us is most definitely a fish,” Sara said. “I’m drawing on some pretty old college lectures at this point, but I’m also pretty damn sure.”
“I want that university expertise,” Jean-Philippe said.
“No such thing,” Sara told him. “Everything I learned came after I walked.”
“You learned this.”
“Yeah, by accident. Which is the only way you learn shit inside those walls. Anyway, it’s a fish from... well, a long time ago.”
Jean-Philippe’s poker face was not field-tested like Guillaume’s. He couldn’t suppress the grin creeping north from the corners of his mouth.
“You already know that,” Sara tsked her tongue.
“I know that whatever hunts us is something the world has not seen for a long time. If ever.”
“You’d be right,” Sara said.
“If you’re right.”
“Yeah, okay, if I’m right. But I’m telling you... my gut’s talkin’ loud. I took a course on prehistoric fish. A stupid elective to satisfy my major. And if I’m remembering correctly, this fish is a straight up descendant from the Devonian Period.”
Carly and Jean-Philippe didn’t seem to know what to make of that information.
“That’s old,” Sara said. “420 million years ago, to be exact. So I know how this sounds.”
“That’s an old ass fish,” Carly added.
“Most people can’t grasp how old,” Sara said. “You tell people that the Jurassic Period was 65 million years ago and their eyes glaze over. Devonian? The vases and shit you run around finding for your Baroness are from last weekend, comparatively.”
“I know the Devonian Period,” Jean-Philippe said. “When all the landmasses were one and the same. Before dinosaurs roamed the earth. An age of fish.”
“Right,” Sara said. “Pretty sure that thing’s called a dunkleosteus.” She laughed as soon as she said it. “It’s stupid, but you can thank Dunkin’ Donuts for my sterling memory. America Runs on Dunks, and that shit’s tenfold if you’re from New England. I didn’t walk into that class one single time without an iced coffee in my hand...”
“A mnemonic device,” Carly said and nudged Sara’s arm excitedly. “I use them all the time to remember lines.”
“Yeah,” Sara said. “I had that cup on my desk. Dunks. And when we got to the page about the dunkleosteus...”
“What are the chances?” Jean-Philippe said.
“So much of the ocean remains unexplored,” Sara said. “I would argue with my professors about the certainty of extinction.”
“I might agree with you, Sara. For what it’s worth.” Jean-Philippe had no intention of sharing anything further. He wished them goodnight and started back toward the helm.
Sara and Carly edged closer to the rail and watched the ocean fizz as the Star Time passed through it. Sara pictured the old fish tailing them, following the bubbly water, knowing exactly where they were.
Part of Sara couldn’t get past the idea of catching that fish. There was, of course, no way to easily do that, but hadn’t Jean-Philippe been thinking the same thing?
She smiled like the Grinch as she considered it, imagining being invited back to her alma mater to speak about it. She bit the inside of her cheek. All those times her damn professor laughed at her “naiveté.”
Watching the water, Sara realized that everything was easily explained. Whether it was crazed lepers or ancient fish, everything had a scientific explanation. That should’ve pleased her. Instead it made the world feel smaller.
“You might’ve been right, Blake.”
It was the first time she’d spoken his name aloud since his passing. She repeated it with a broken inflection. “Blake.” The horror that struck her was severe. The word no longer had any familiarity.
“What’d you say?” Carly asked.
“Just thinking aloud.”
That was enough to open the floodgates again. Sara threw her head into her hands and started to cry, mourning not only Blake, but all those who’d lost their lives along the way.
Her thoughts were a mess. Her identity, gone. She didn’t know who she was. She’d been eager to get out into the world and find herself. Sara Mosby was long gone and Sara Jovish had never really existed.
She thought about this while watching cracks of lightning shatter the horizon sky. The wind picked up quickly.
“Jesus,” Carly said. “Let’s go back down and get beneath the covers.”
“Yeah,” Sara said, once again happy that she didn’t have to spend the night alone. “Let’s go.”
The ship sailed on as the rain started to fall.
Forty-One
The American had done his part to bring them in.
He landed the plane on the makeshift airstrip tucked into the base of the Maromotokro Mountain.
The men swapped a sliver of repressed appreciation. They sat in the cockpit listening to the double engines cracking and cooling as the propellers wound down.
“How long until they come for us?” the American a
sked.
The airfield was actually the remnants of a depleted rice field that had been ruined by activists from Antananarivo. An anti-GMO lot who got their intel wrong, hiking up here to raze the earth when the target they really sought was a hundred kilometers west.
The island had slashed about twenty percent of its remaining forests over the last few years in order to maintain a competitive export economy. Residents seemed not to care, and certainly had zero political clout to stop it. They were instead too intoxicated by western promises of iPhones and streaming services.
Kaahin thought this field should be brought back to life because the people could stand to use it. But its current use made his life easier in certain situations, like hiding from the authorities.
The arrangement was simple. From the ocean, Imani was available at specific frequencies at certain times of day. A critical piece of their partnership. One word from Kaahin about a rogue airplane coming in hot from Mauritius territory and Imani put his people to work, dispersing runners who knew the language.
Legs that found the right officials. Palms were greased in order to ensure important eyes remained averted. And those who tracked errant flights were fed stories they couldn’t refute. Emergency landings from local money. Vacationing royalty that didn’t wish to pass through customs if you know what I mean...
It was a system. Imperfect but beneficial. It was enough.
The American had repositioned the plane so that they could take off again in a hurry if it became necessary.
“There is a safe house over there,” Kaahin said, getting ready to point it out when the American lifted a sawed-off shotgun from out of the space on the far side of his seat.
The barrel crashed into Kaahin’s ribs so hard it was guaranteed to bruise. “Sitting right here beside me the whole time. Believe that?”
“My friend—”
“Don’t.”
“What, then?”
“Tell me what you’re really planning, pal.”
“You do not have to do this,” Kaahin said. “As you can see, there is nobody here.”
“You keep saying that.” The American studied the surrounding tree lines like Kaahin’s men might’ve been chameleons. “They tell stories about you to this day. You’re a living legend.”
Ocean Grave Page 20