“Good, I’ll pay you after the job is done. The good news is that the Navy doesn’t suspect a thing, so the creature should not be guarded. The hard part should just be sneaking in and out. Oh, and I’ll pay for the boat.”
“What boat?” the man in the middle asks.
“Didn’t I tell you? The creature that you’re stealing is a sea monster.”
…
Five hours later, Shawn is on the boat with the three men. Since it was so dark in the bar, Shawn never realized what the men looked like. But with all of the lights on the boat, Shawn can now see their facial features. The man who was in the middle is very muscular and has long, light brown hair. The man on the right has thinning black hair. He doesn’t just have tattoos on his arm, but on every square inch of his body besides his face. Finally, the man on the left has dyed his hair green.
Since Shawn remembered many details about the base, two of the gang members were able to sneak into the virtually unprotected base and seize the Liopleurodon, while the third disabled the security cameras, all under Shawn’s instruction. The gang was able to lower the frozen monster from the winch, and put it on a large rolling platform. Luckily, since the Navy did not think that anything valuable was in the base, few guards were on duty. If the men did encounter guards, they have fake ID cards, to show that they are retired Naval officers. The men rolled the platform carrying it out with no problems. When the gang arrived at the docks, Shawn had a seventy-foot-long boat waiting. Massive chains were attached to the frozen Liopleurodon, allowing the ship to pull the reptile behind it.
While the green haired man steers the boat and the muscular man prepares to release the chains, the tattooed man converses with Shawn. He asks, “So we’re just going to release the chains, and let the thing go?”
“That’s the plan,” Shawn replies.
“Why do you care about freeing this thing so much?”
Shawn thinks before saying, “The fact that this animal has been preserved for so long is a sign from God. He wants his creation to be freed.”
“If you say so,” the tattooed man says. “How long has it been frozen like this for?”
Shawn quietly whispers, “Too long.”
Suddenly, the boat stops, and the green-haired man shouts, “We’re at the location!”
The tattooed man asks Shawn, “Do you want to do the honors?”
“Yes, I would,” Shawn says as he takes a moment to smile at the Liopleurodon. Finally, nature’s deadliest creation returns! He grabs a pair of sharp pliers and cuts the chains, “Now my pet… be free!”
The chains are sliced. The frozen monster falls away from the ship. The warm water will cause the ice to melt away within hours. Then… Liopleurodon will return as the king of the carnivores.
Chapter 8
Whale Shark
It has been half an hour since the Liopleurodon was released and she is still resting on the surface. The ice has melted. Being coldblooded, the Liopleurodon is still trying to adjust her body temperature. It has been extremely low for the past 155 million years, and if it were not for her ability to go into suspended animation, she would not have survived. Finally, her body temperature has returned to normal, and with one great breath of air, she dives deep into the ocean.
Despite her enormous size, the Liopleurodon barely makes a ripple in the water as she moves quickly through the ocean. Her reinforced ribcage, which not only allows her to swim faster but protects most of her major organs, has an extra plate, allowing it greater protection than most animals have. Almost immediately, however, she notices that the sea feels different since the Jurassic. The water is much colder, and the oxygen levels have decreased greatly.
Since the Liopleurodon failed to kill the Ophthalmosaurus, she is still hungry. She can smell something nearby, a whole colony of animals. The Liopleurodon begins to close the gap between itself and the family of creatures. Sensing her presence, the animals begin to flee, heading to a nearby island. The adults may be able to out swim the Liopleurodon, but the juveniles cannot. The Liopleurodon gets ever closer to young animals, when she takes her pick.
The baby continues to swim from the Liopleurodon, kicking as hard as he can with his paddle like feet. But there is no hope for the baby, and there are no adults around to help him. The Liopleurodon opens her jaws wide, and prepares to swallow the baby whole… but pulls back at the last moment! The baby crawls onto the island’s shore as the Liopleurodon begins to swim out to sea. While the baby is reunited with its parents, barks of sea lions fill the night sky.
The Liopleurodon spared the baby sea lion because, as she got closer to the island, she realized that their scent was one that she has never smelled before: the scent of a mammal. During the time of the dinosaurs, mammals were only rat-like creatures that lived on land, never journeying into the ocean. So the Liopleurodon became scared when she smelled the new type of animal. Over the next several minutes, the Liopleurodon picks up the scent of over a dozen species of mammal in the area. Not knowing what they are or what they taste like, the Liopleurodon avoids them.
Instead, she tries one of her favorite hunting tactics: taking a deep breath of air and then going to the bottom of the seabed to wait. Within forty-five minutes, a black-tip shark swims above her. The Liopleurodon launches her attack! At a very fast speed, she attempts to bite the shark’s tail, but the shark’s ampullae of Lorenzini detects the large attacker and narrowly dodges its enormous jaws. Having never faced an attacker this large before, the shark panics.
The shark takes the Liopleurodon by surprise when it makes a bold right turn, and the Liopleurodon has a hard time catching up. Realizing that the Liopleurodon is not as agile, the shark continues to turn rapidly. But the shark has made a critical error, it has spent too much time turning and hasn’t been lengthening the gap between it and the Liopleurodon. With one great burst of speed, the Liopleurodon launches itself forward and drives its tusk-like teeth into the shark’s tail. When it begins to thrash its neck, part of the shark’s caudal fin is torn from its body!
The shark tries to swim away again, but the loss of part of its tail has decreased its speed tremendously, and the Liopleurodon is able to catch up. The Liopleurodon’s jaws begin to surround the shark’s body when they snap shut with seventy thousand pounds of force. The shark is impaled on the Liopleurodon’s foot-long teeth. The shark dies instantly, killed by the greatest weapon that nature has ever created. The Liopleurodon swallows its kill, realizing that it is wasting too much energy chasing after such small animals. She begins to swim deeper out to sea.
…
After several hours, the Liopleurodon is in much deeper waters, the kind that it is used to. These waters are where larger sea creatures live. Almost immediately the Liopleurodon picks up the scent of a large creature. The Liopleurodon recognizes another shark, but this one is nearly half of her length. The Liopleurodon follows the scent, and within a few minutes, finds its victim: a whale shark.
The whale shark’s white spots that are running down its back are new to the Liopleurodon, for it has never seen one before. The Liopleurodon has never seen a shark this large before, and begins to think that this creature is a Leedsichthys. There is only one way for the Liopleurodon to find out what the animal is: taste it.
Attacking again from below, the Liopleurodon doesn’t think that the whale shark will realize what’s happening until it is too late. But the whale shark’s ampullae of Lorenzini alerts it to the attacker. It tries to turn out of the way, but the Liopleurodon’s reinforced ribcage allows it to be faster and more agile than the whale shark.
The Liopleurodon bites down on the whale shark’s left pectoral fin. The enormous fish struggles to get its fin out of the killer reptile’s jaws, but the teeth only go in deeper. The Liopleurodon begins to thrash her neck, which allows her to tear the fin loose. Weakened but not mortally injured, the whale shark attempts to escape, but is having a difficult time steering with the loss of one of its rudders.
The eno
rmous pliosaur swallows the fin whole, and begins to chase after her victim once again. This time the Liopleurodon bites down on the whale shark’s tail. The whale shark begins to thrash its head upward in spasms as the Liopleurodon sinks its teeth into the shark’s tail. The Liopleurodon begins to thrash its neck again, this time tearing the entire tail loose. With the entire lower half of its body gone, the whale shark’s life begins to slip away… and it dies. The Liopleurodon devours the whale shark’s bloody remains.
The greatest predator of all time has killed its first two victims in the modern world… and it’s just getting started.
Chapter 9
The First Victim
The ocean is calm, the waves small, but still forces Tom Coles to push harder as he rows further out to sea. Tom is in his mid-forties, but the stress lines on his face and thinning-brown hair give him the appearance that he is over fifty. He recently went through a vicious divorce from his wife, Martha. When Tom admitted he was an alcoholic, Martha didn’t try to help him, she left.
Tom used to enjoy going fishing with his five year old son, Timmy, but ever since Martha won child custody, Tom has been forced to fish alone. Tom used to have a motor boat to go fishing, but Martha took every penny he had, so Tom was forced to sell the boat and by a cheap row boat.
Tom smiles as he takes a sip from his beer can and throws his fishing line out to sea. After about half an hour, Tom finally gets a bite. The line begins to unravel as the tuna tries to escape with its bait. Tom pulls back with his pole, and the hook goes through the fish’s lip. Struggling to escape, the fish thrashes its head from side to side as its back arcs in spasm.
Tom pulls back on his pole so hard that he loses his grip and knocks over his beer. “Damn,” Tom says as beer pours all over his feet. For a brief moment, the fish gives up, and Tom brings it closer. I must be tiring it out. Time to reel it in! Tom begins to reel the fish in, but it fights again, and with one powerful thrash of its neck, takes part of the line with it as it escapes.
Tom curses under his breath when he realizes what happened. Tom reels in what’s left of the line. “Aw shoot, he broke it. It took the hook and everything.”
Tom takes out the old line and places on a new hook. On the new hook, he puts on bait that smells like fish. “I bet I’ll catch the next one,” Tom says as he throws the line into the water.
…
The Liopleurodon swims slowly through the ocean. It has been killing prey with minimal success. Her super sensitive nostrils pick up a small fish moving toward it. It is the tuna, the hook still caught in its mouth. Swimming below the Liopleurodon, the tuna doesn’t notice the predator because its white stomach blends with the morning sun. The tuna swims right into the Liopleurodon’s jaws, and dies instantly under seventy thousand pounds of force.
The small fish doesn’t satisfy the Liopleurodon at all, as it is barely a light snack to her. Suddenly, the Liopleurodon picks up another scent, this one of another fish nearby. The Liopleurodon begins to swim in the direction of its next meal. Finally, after a few minutes, the Liopleurodon finds what she is looking for.
Above her is Tom’s boat. The scent comes from the bait on Tom’s new line. Resting on the bottom, the Liopleurodon waits patiently to attack. Seeing the small, oval figure with the two oars sticking out appears like an animal with flippers. The Liopleurodon believes the small boat is an Ophthalmosaurus. The Liopleurodon can barely remember what Ophthalmosaurus tastes like, but she remembers what they look like. Still, she waits in ambush.
Suddenly, the oars begin to move, causing the Liopleurodon to think that the boat is in distress. But the Liopleurodon isn’t the only one who thinks that the boat will be an easy meal. An oceanic white tip shark has picked up the sound of the splashing oars as well, and he waits about one hundred yards from the Liopleurodon, not noticing the larger predator as it plans its own attack. Despite not being very fast or powerful, the oceanic white tip is known to be a deadly species of shark, like the great white, tiger, or bull. Because oceanic white tips have an incredibly powerful sense of smell, they are usually the first sharks to arrive on the scene during crashes. In fact, almost all of the sharks to attack the passengers of the USS Indianapolis were oceanic white tips.
Once it realizes that the boat has no idea of its presence, the shark begins to swim closer. Suddenly, something that is coming out of the gloom causes the shark to retreat. The Liopleurodon has begun its attack and launches herself towards the boat. The boat is smaller than the Liopleurodon’s ten foot long jaws. She bites down on the boat.
“What the heck is going on?” Tom shouts as the Liopleurodon lifts the boat clear out of the water. For a moment, time freezes for Tom. Then, the Liopleurodon thrusts its head downward towards the water. Tom screams as he is thrown from the boat, and he hits the surface. Tom sees the boat break in half from the Liopleurodon’s sheer force. What the heck is that thing? Must be some kind of sea monster! I’ve got to get out of here!
Tom paddles as hard as he can in an attempt to escape the Liopleurodon, which is still attacking the boat. The Liopleurodon finally realizes that the boat is not an Ophthalmosaurus. She releases her pulverized victim and dives deep, trying to smell different prey. She can already tell that the shark is long gone, but there is another scent in the water… Tom’s scent! Although she does not like the smell of a mammal, the Liopleurodon’s massive size forces her to eat one-fiftieth of its own weight every day…which is a colossal three tons of food!
The Liopleurodon turns around and sees Tom struggling to get to the surface. But the Liopleurodon is several times faster than Tom, and launches its attack from below. “No!” Tom exclaims as the Liopleurodon’s jaws surround him and he begins to be pulled into the pliosaur’s mouth. I’m sorry Timmy! Tom thinks as his head implodes under the pressure of the Liopleurodon’s bite. Tom’s corpse rolls down the Liopleurodon’s throat. The pliosaur dives beneath the surface. She has finally tasted the blood of a mammal…and she wants more. And being the mightiest predator that the Earth has ever known, no one is going to stop her from getting it.
Chapter 10
The Morning After
Luke Jones enters his house, and as soon as he closes the door, his two children, Lara and Peter, comes running towards him. “Daddy’s home!” They shout as he goes to his knees and they run into his arms.
“Hi guys, I missed you,” Luke says as he hugs his kids. Peter wiggles himself free as he runs over and grabs a picture that he drew for his dad.
“Look, Daddy, I drew this for you!” Peter exclaims as he shows Luke the picture. There are four people in the picture, all of which are drawn as big circles with smiley faces in the middle and little arms sticking out of them. “See? This is you…” Peter says as he points to largest circle, “…this is me, that’s Lara, and that’s Mommy!”
Luke smiles as he looks at his five year old son’s picture. He sees a green figure in the corner of the picture. The figure is made up of a circular body, an oval head, two stubby arms, and a tail. “Who’s that?” Luke asks.
“That’s Bob, my pet raptor!” Peter exclaims. Luke smiles as he puts his hand in his son’s soft blonde hair. Peter laughs as he gives his dad another hug.
Lara, Luke’s seven year old daughter, shouts, “Mom, Daddy’s home!”
“He is?” Kelsey asks as she enters the room, walks over to Luke, and kisses him on the cheek. “You’re home early,”
she says.
“It wasn’t a hard day, but I made a new discovery regarding the evolution of the turtle,” Luke says excitingly.
“You can tell us at dinner, I made your favorite,” Kelsey says as she turns to kids and says, “Okay kids, wash up!” Peter and Lara smile as they run into the bathroom.
Kelsey goes into the kitchen to get the burritos out of the oven. Luke inhales the scent of their spicy sauce. He smiles as he exhales. Then, suddenly, Luke begins to hear a beeping.
“Oh no…”
…
Luke groans as h
is alarm clock pulls him from his dream. Luke turns to his beeping clock to see the time: 7:00 a.m. Luke presses the button on top of the clock as he sits up in his bed. It was another dream; my life will never be that good. Luke gets up and walks over to his closet and changes out of his pajamas and into a red shirt with blue pants. As he begins to brush his teeth, Luke presses the Power button on his remote, turning on the TV. The morning news is on, with the two reporters sitting in their chairs.
There is a man on the left and a woman on the right. The man is wearing a grey suit and an orange tie, trying to not be noticed as he scratches his mustache. The woman on the right has long red hair and is wearing a mauve suit. She is just finishing a story, “… the criminals have been caught by police, and everything that was stolen from the store has been returned.”
That’s good, it’s nice to see the police were able to help them, Luke thinks as the next story begins.
The red haired woman says, “And there is some animal news this morning, but the scene is actually a little scary. We will now go to the California beach where our reporter Michelle Cries has the story. Michelle?”
The screen splits so that the red-haired woman is on the left and Michelle is on the right. Michelle is a brown-haired woman who is wearing a polo shirt and has a microphone in her hand. “Thank you, Dalia. What washed up on the beach this morning is a little frightening. I am here with Marine Biologist Josh Repicus, who is going to explain to us what has happened.”
The camera zooms out away from Michelle, bringing Josh into the frame as well. Josh has thinning-brown hair and says, “If you could just follow me over here, I’ll show you what has happened.” The camera follows Michelle and Josh to a dead Orca that is lying on the beach.
Luke sees that the Orca has a huge bite mark on its side. The bite appears to be enormous, and must be well over seven feet long. What could have done that?
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