Ocean Grave

by Matt Serafini

  Carly lifted the submachine gun, but held off until they were closer. Until her aim was sure.

  The creatures crossed from jungle grass onto beach sand and now Sara heard eager growls in their throats. She also heard a motorized whirring at her back, but didn’t dare take her eyes off the creatures, whose gaits were wholly confident now, stalking forward with weapons raised.

  The helicopter swept in off the ocean and hovered directly over their heads. It startled the hunters into panicked retreat, but it was too late for them.

  Gunfire erupted, and their skull faces exploded into hunks of jelly-red bone. All the bodies torn to pieces with exaggerated savagery. The helicopter floated inland as the hunters turned tail and retreated for the trees, the gunner reducing every last one of them to raw meat before laying off the trigger.

  The chopper landed on the beach and armed men stormed out, clearing the area before the Baroness appeared. She stepped down and hurried away from the rushing blades.

  “You two look much worse for the wear,” the Baroness said. She smiled genuine. Given the bloodbath they’d just witnessed, her gesture was surreal and inappropriate.

  “Tell you all about it,” Sara said.

  The British woman studied the beach. She looked at the pirate’s body and nodded slowly as she processed the action. Her brown eyes settled on the Star Time’s wreckage and then she looked at Carly with the same devilish grin. “I’m a big fan, you know.”

  “Jesus, who isn’t?” Sara said, relief sinking in.

  The Baroness held on Sara with amazement. “So you’re my new hire?”

  “I... uh, maybe?”

  “Seems it was a good investment.”

  “I hope so,” Sara sighed.

  “Where is Roche’s manor?” the Baroness asked.

  Sara pointed to the mountains in the distance. “About that,” she said. And then came clean.

  The Baroness did not seem to care. “If this Vernier really did loot the island, we have ways of tracing his fortune.” She ordered her men to fan out and search for any more creatures.

  The Baroness gave the women an appreciative smile. “How about this?” She touched Sara’s forearm. “Come back to London with me for a full debrief?”

  “How about somewhere more neutral?” Sara asked. “And we bring my friend here.”

  “Oh sweetheart,” the Baroness laughed. “You really must trust me. Do you think this is the first time one of my expeditions has ended in failure? That is the more common result in this business.”

  “Right,” Sara said. “I thought it was pleasure for you.”

  “It can be both,” the Baroness told her. She took a few steps toward the helicopter and glanced back. Threw two wiggling fingers at the women. “Of course you can bring Ms. Grayson, though I am sad she doesn’t seem to recall meeting me.” Another smile, this one aimed at Carly.

  “Aspen?”

  The Baroness pointed like, there it is.

  “What about the ship’s captain?” Sara asked. “If you follow the river you’ll find—”

  “I will arrange everything,” the Baroness said. “Some of my men are staying behind to verify. Their work is just beginning.”

  “Can’t you bring us to Los Angeles?” Sara asked. “Carly needs to get back to her daughter.”

  “Yes, of course,” the Baroness agreed. “That is where we will go. But...”

  “But?”

  The Baroness helped Sara to board the helicopter. Then she pulled Carly in. “I am interested in offering you a job, Sara. I meant what I said to you.”

  Sara shook her head.

  The Baroness raised her hands. “It’s on the up and up, darling. I promise.”

  “What job?”

  “Good help is hard to find,” she said. “You’re good help.”

  “I met your guys,” Sara said. “I’m nothing like them.”

  “I do not want them,” the Baroness said. “I want you. I’m sorry... I don’t think you ever actually told me your full name, Just Sara.”

  Sara had to think on that—a surprisingly difficult question to answer. She was Sara Mosby by birth. Upon returning from her honeymoon, she was going to begin the process of legally changing her name to Sara Jovish.

  But that wasn’t a surname she wished to carry any more. She loved Blake. The man he’d been. She wondered if one day she could learn to forgive him.

  She also did not feel like Sara Mosby anymore. Her brother had cornered the market on that name and she would always be in his shadow.

  “It’s Sara,” she said. “Sara Holloway.” Nothing wrong with adopting a professional name.

  The Baroness nodded and the helicopter began to lift off.

  “Well, Sara Holloway,” the Baroness said. “I can make you a very rich woman. There are treasures all over this world, and I would like you to help me find them.”

  It sounded crazy. Sara measured the Baroness’ face, which was stone serious. The offer was sincere.

  “What do you say?” the Baroness asked. “Do you want to work for me?”

  Sara and Carly swapped looks. The actress nodded yes.

  Sara didn’t bother taking one last glance of the island. The chopper carted them off toward the rising sun and she basked in the warmth of the rays coming through the window. As far as she was concerned, she never wanted to see this atoll again.

  I beat you, Sara thought of Roche, realizing the exhilaration this carried. Her name would go in the history books as the person who’d finally done it. And not without help. The names of which the world would also know.

  Sara cleared her throat and eyed the Baroness, giving a confident nod.

  “I do.”

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of SHADOW OF THE ABYSS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Matt Serafini is the author of Rites of Extinction, Island Red, Under the Blade, and many more.

  He has written extensively on the subjects of film and literature for numerous websites including Dread Central and Shock Till You Drop. His nonfiction has appeared in Fangoria and HorrorHound magazines. He spends a significant portion of his free time tracking down obscure slasher films, and hopes one day to parlay that knowledge into a definitive history book on the subject.

  His novels are available in ebook and paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all other fine retailers.

  Matt lives in Massachusetts with his wife and children.

  Please visit https://mattserafini.com/ to learn more.

  Prologue

  Mid-Atlantic rift valley, October 11th, 1814

  The sloop’s bow sliced through the turbulent sea, sending spray across the surface of the blown-out Atlantic Ocean. Captain Johnston Blakeley stood on the main deck of the USS Wasp, staring at a line of dark clouds that marched across the horizon to the west. The wooden boat creaked and moaned, and canvas flapped as it drove through the waves.

  “Tighten that jib, Mr. Cercut,” Blakeley said.

  “Aye, cap’n.”

  The Wasp was fresh off its battle with the Atalanta, and the crew was tired, hungry and depressed. It had been days since they’d seen the sun, and the inky ocean and the whistling wind had become constant companions. The Wasp’s crew had spent the last two days knotting and splicing the rigging and mending the courses and topsails. The biggest project had been the removal of four thirty-two-pound round shots from the hull and repairing the holes.

  Something glinted on the ocean’s surface and Blakeley pressed his spyglass to his left eye. A large white form slipped beneath the waves. Or had he been staring at the ocean too long?

  “Cap’n, did you see that, sir?” Cercut said.

  “I saw nothing. Tend to your duties.” The sea writhed, pushing around the 117-foot, five-hundred-ton sloop like it was a toy in a bathtub. A huge wave broke across the bow, and the Wasp dipped beneath the ocean. Whitewater frothed over the gunnel, knocking over three sailors and washing them down the deck.

  Blakeley shouted, �
��Helm, ready about.” The wind howled and shifted, but he was trying to keep the Wasp moving forward. He looked through his eye scope again and saw a slick white shape rise from the sea to port. A whale? A huge shark? No, there was no dorsal fin.

  “Mr. Kric,” the captain said.

  Rory Kric, the Wasp’s second in command, stepped closer to his captain so he didn’t have to yell above the howling wind.

  “Ready for battle,” Blakeley said.

  “Sir?”

  “Do it! Now!”

  “Aye, cap’n,” Kric said. He scrambled below deck.

  The Wasp was a flush-decked, ship-rigged vessel that carried two twelve-pound long guns and twenty thirty-two-pound carronades. The crew of young Americans stood at 173, but many of them weren’t yet experienced sailors or sea fighters. The Wasp was fast, big enough to engage large war vessels, durable, and had enough storage to carry provisions for long campaigns. Its current mission was to inflict maximum damage on the British merchant marine while making it difficult for the pursuing Royal Navy to determine the Wasp’s position.

  Blakeley said, “Mr. Carr, are we on course?”

  The sailing master shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir. This wind and rough sea have moved us west.”

  “Get us back on course, Mr. Carr.”

  “Aye, sir, should—”

  The Wasp shuddered as if it had run aground. Blakeley gripped a handrail, but several crew members, including Sail Master Carr, slid across the deck and nearly tumbled into the sea.

  “Helm, come about!” Blakeley yelled.

  The helmsman barked orders and the crew scrambled. The rudder arced as the ship’s thick boom swung across the deck. The mainsail flapped and cracked, then caught air and the vessel surged to port.

  “Trim the topsail, Mr. Cercut,” Blakeley said. Sailing Master Carr was back at the captain’s side. “What have we hit, Mr. Carr? Find out if the lookout has spotted any—”

  The Wasp was struck again and this time the sound of breaking wood and screaming sailors rose above the roar of the wind. With her canvas wings unfurled in the thick northwest breeze, the Wasp stood out toward the darkening west with nothing before it.

  “Captain!” yelled a lookout from above.

  “Aye,” Blakeley said.

  “To stern, sir. To stern!”

  Through the fog and haze a leviathan rose from the depths, its caudal fin snaking through the rough sea toward the stern of the Wasp.

  “Dear god,” Blakeley said.

  The thirty-foot creature sported a crocodilian jaw, stacked with ten-inch knife-sharp teeth. The beast’s flat head made up a third of its length, and it sat atop a short neck at the end of an elongated torso, which tapered back to a thick tail with a caudal fin at its tip. It snaked through the water propelled by two flipper-legs.

  “Ready rear long gun,” Blakeley said. Whatever this thing was, he’d send it to the bottom like every opponent he’d ever faced. “Fire when ready, gunner.”

  A few tense moments passed as the giant sea creature knifed through the ocean, a mound of water surging before it.

  The long gun boomed, and the shriek of the cannonball ended with a splash.

  “We missed it, sir,” said Mr. Carr.

  “Again,” Blakeley said, but it was too late. The beast had disappeared below the sea.

  The Wasp’s main bell chimed twice. Night was coming on.

  “Helm, hard alee,” Blakeley yelled.

  The maneuver went awry, and the ship bucked as the creature breached on the Wasp’s port side. Carronades erupted and poured shot into the beast at point-blank range. The creature wailed, swam around the Wasp’s stern and commenced an attack on the starboard broadside.

  Great jaws snapped and grabbed at the vessel as it was tossed on the roiling sea. Men screamed and fled, and Blakeley watched in horror as his officers tried to gain control of the crew and keep them on post.

  The Wasp unleashed a round of shots, but the creature had submerged. A sucking sound rose above the gale, and to Blakeley it sounded as though the beast was screaming.

  The ship lurched and rose from the ocean, the deck tilting at a thirty-degree angle. Men slipped into the sea as the Wasp plunged back into the ocean with a crash. Water surged over the gunnels as Blakeley fell, his spyglass falling from his hand and breaking on the deck. In the chaos he watched his father’s gift roll down the deck and bounce off a coil of rope into the sea.

  The creature missiled from the ocean, jaws open, glassy gray eyes rolling, flippers driving its weight. Jaws clamped on the starboard gunnel, tearing a chunk off the side of the boat. Seawater poured through the rent and the ship listed. The mainmast crashed over the side as it snapped, and the ship’s hold filled with rising water.

  The captain couldn’t bring himself to abandon ship. They were victorious. They’d vanquished their enemies. Why had God sent this titan to destroy them? Blakeley got to his feet, searching for the creature as it came about and prepared for another attack run.

  Seeing the beast’s open jaws coming at them snapped Blakeley from his paralysis. “Abandon ship! Get those lifeboats in the water. Mr. Carr, bring us—”

  The beast rammed the Wasp, its jaws taking another bite of the sloop. Wood cracked and splintered, and the creature’s massive torso pushed over the sinking Wasp and disappeared into the sea on the opposite side, leaving the boat in two pieces.

  Nails popped as the foremast came down and the carnage on the forward deck was obscured in dirty white sails. Panicked sailors jumped into the sea, lifeboats forgotten. How that it should end this way, Blakeley thought.

  “Sir! Sir, let’s go!” A sailor Blakeley didn’t know stood beside him, yelling, but the captain didn’t respond. He was in a fog. “Sir!” The man grabbed him by the shoulders. Then the deck split, and the sailor fell away into the sea.

  There would be no abandoning the Wasp for Blakeley. He was captain, and that meant he would go down with his ship. He thought of his wife, his children, and for the briefest instant, sorrow washed through him. He prayed, then stopped, asking himself again why God had treated him so. Was he not a good servant? Had he not done all his Lord commanded?

  The wind gusted, then calmed, and for a heartbeat the sea fell flat. A ray of sunlight peeked through the clouds.

  The creature breached, landing atop Blakeley and driving what was left of the Wasp beneath the waves. He yelled, “From the rocks and sands and enemy’s hands, God save the Wasp!”

  Blakeley slipped beneath the deep and dark blue ocean, lost at sea without a grave, unheralded, unconffin’d, and unknown.

  1

  Sailfish Haven, east coast of Florida, present day

  Splinter sat with his back to a palm tree, gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean. The tide was going out, and the white froth of the retreating sea crept further from him with each set of waves. Clouds of surfers sat in the consistent breaks like algae blooms, swaying and undulating with the roll of the ocean. Seagulls screeched, and the scent of rotten fish and bad eggs baking in the sun hung in the air like smoke. Thin cirrus clouds fleeted across a clear blue sky, the white streaks left behind by planes creating a lopsided checkerboard.

  Sailfish Haven public beach was crowded for a Tuesday, and the concrete walkway that ran along the sand had steady foot traffic, the palm trees along its edge providing the only shade. Teenagers yelled and wailed as they played volleyball, children laughed, and waves pounded the shore.

  A woman wearing a long turquoise sundress and a blue sunhat the size of a sombrero fumbled with her phone as she tugged at her son’s hand. The boy was no more than two, his blonde hair matted to his head with sweat, lollypop residue around the edges of his mouth. The boy and his mom walked on the beach, and she tapped at her phone, dropped it in her purse, and jerked the boy to a stop as she fished the phone out and resumed pecking at it.

  The child stared at Splinter as he walked by, and Splinter crossed his eyes. The child giggled, watching him, and tripped, the kid�
�s face headed for rocks and sand.

  Splinter’s hand shot out, grabbing the boy and stopping his fall. The boy’s mother jerked her head downward, radar engaging, but Splinter’s hand was already back on his knee and he stared up into the woman’s wide blue eyes with the innocence of a newborn puppy.

  The child smiled at Splinter, and he winked. The mother gave Splinter a withering look and dragged the child away.

  Splinter watched the lady stop up the beach and catch the attention of a police officer. She pointed his way. He couldn’t really blame the woman. He looked like a bum. Greasy hair pulled back in a ponytail, unruly beard, and the red line of his scar, which ran up the right side of his face and around his eye like a hook. The scar was sunburned more than the rest of his face and looked fresh. And he probably smelled.

  The cop’s head turned. Splinter reached for his backpack, but decided to stay. He’d earned that right at least. The right to sit on a public beach in his own country.

  The cop inched his way down the walkway, and Splinter waved. The officer sauntered up, hand on sidearm, eyes on everything but Splinter’s face. The cop’s life was so much easier if he didn’t have to see Splinter as a person. “That lady said you looked at her funny,” the officer said.

  Splinter said nothing.

  “What’s your name?” the officer asked.

  A large set of waves rolled in, crashing like thunder.

  The cop said, “I asked you a question.”

  Again Splinter didn’t respond. Years of experience had taught him silence was golden. Even a benign or innocent response could be unclear, misinterpreted or misheard. Best to say nothing.

  The cop took a deep breath and looked to the sky, hoping God or Buddha or something would provide him patience. The officer sighed. Splinter said nothing. Hot currents of air baked off the concrete walkway, and the cop finished his visual search.

  “Mind if I look through your backpack? If there’s no drugs in there, you’ll have my thanks and money for a cup of joe. Deal?” the officer said. He didn’t meet Splinter’s eye.