Leviathan

by Jared Sandman

  “Let’s do this,” Wright said.

  “I’ll be right here if you have any questions.”

  The billionaire got comfortable in the chair and stared through the telescopic lens to target one particular porpoise. His finger rested on the trigger . . . waiting . . . waiting for the right shot. So long as the animal made no jerky movements, he would be —

  NOW.

  Wright squeezed hard and fired the harpoon. The discharged spear pierced the dolphin a second later. The creature made a pained series of chirps, which slowed in both intensity and tone as the billionaire reeled in the animal.

  “Not bad for your first time,” Thorpe said. “Caught it a bit below the heart though.” He helped the old man pull the heavy quarry on deck with a series of pulleys. It was eight feet long, weighed around nine hundred pounds. They wrestled it aboard as the dolphin continued mewling, its blowhole opening and closing in sync with its gasping mouth. While it wasn’t dead yet, it was well on its way. “See how you punctured it farther down the thorax? All you did was collapse one of the lungs. It’s drowning.”

  “But it’s out of the water.”

  “Fluid’s building in the pleural cavities.”

  “Is it in pain?” the old man asked.

  “Not for long,” Thorpe said. He yanked out the spear and impaled it higher into the creature’s flank, like a conquistador planting his nation’s flag on a newly discovered continent.

  The porpoise let out a final wounded squeal, its tail thrashing in a convulsive fit. Then it fell silent and still. “There,” the hunter said. Death was his trade, and Ian Thorpe was an expert tradesman.

  Wright stared at the animal’s lifeless glass eyes. “What now?”

  “It has to be gutted.”

  The hunter went inside and came back a few minutes later with a machete from the galley. He thrust the blade into the dolphin’s underside, split it open with a sawing motion. The internal organs slid across deck and pooled in a scarlet puddle. The meat was so fresh it emitted no odor. “I brought a limited amount of chum for the trip,” Thorpe said. “It’ll draw any predators in the area to the surface. To catch our dragon, we need something better.” He handed the knife to Wright. “It’s your job to chop it into offal.”

  “Offal?”

  “Hunks of flesh for bait. We won’t use any stuff ‘til we spot the Leviathan. Cut it into ten-pound cubes. It’ll be easier to work your way from the tail section. And only do half the carcass. We’ll save the rest for when we need it. I’ll grab the chum and be right back.”

  The billionaire took the large blade and hacked at the mammal’s corpse. “Isn’t this what I paid you for?” he grumbled.

  Thorpe soon returned with two five-gallon buckets. “This is everything, so use it sparingly.” He set down the containers, pried open the lids with a buck-knife. “Watch the smell,” he warned.

  The foul stench hit Wright like a punch, the rancid aroma of death. It had an odd hint of sweetness that stuck in his nostrils, made him gag. “That’s disgusting,” he said.

  “It’s a slurry of pulverized fish.” Thorpe produced a plastic scoop, dug into the bucket and tossed some over the bulwark. “This leaves a trail in our wake that will attract nearby animals and funnel them toward us. Eventually we’ll need to cut the engines, but not quite yet.” Thorpe threw out another batch and continued until the first container was empty. When the hunter was done, he took over Wright’s job disassembling the porpoise.

  Wright watched the ensuing commotion over the rail. It was obvious the chum was tempting, because within minutes the first fish — blenny and snapper mostly, as well as cardinalfish and a few grouper — surfaced to nibble at the bloody bits. After a short time larger predators such as barracudas and lemon sharks followed. The aggressive carnivores feasted on both the chum and the smaller fish.

  “This nasty goop must be delicious,” the old man commented.

  “It’s like a magnet.”

  “Especially for the sharks, it seems.”

  Thorpe sliced another piece from the carcass. “Sharks have dots on their snouts called ampullae of Lorenzini that sense extremely fine electrical impulses from prey. It’s one reason they’re such excellent hunters.”

  “That’s amazing,” Wright said. He gazed at the spectacle: a writhing mass of fins and tails that stirred the sea into pink foam. “Do you think one of my harpoons could kill a shark?”

  “Depends on the proximity. If you got close enough, I suppose.” Thorpe brought down the machete several times to sever the dolphin’s spinal cord. “A shark’s skin is unique because it’s covered in denticles. It’s like natural chainmail that makes the flesh damn near impossible to pierce.”

  The hunter began skewering pieces of meat onto one of the harpoons, as if it were an oversized shish kebab. “If the Leviathan goes for this bait, it’ll wind up stabbed in the mouth. No matter how protected or armored outside, every animal has vulnerable insides. Puncture the mouth or eyes and you’ll be able to slow it down enough to capture.”

  The billionaire turned to the ocean, surprised to find the sea had calmed to normal. All the fish were gone.

  The pager on Wright’s belt went off. He’d instructed Captain Jenkins to contact him if the sonar equipment detected anything out of the ordinary.

  “We’re being summoned,” he told Thorpe.

  They headed to the bridge to meet with Jenkins. “What is it?” Wright asked the captain.

  “You mentioned there’d be an influx of objects in the area because you’re feeding them. However, I noticed this.” The captain gestured to the sonar console. Several dots appeared on the green viewfinder, at least a dozen.

  On the next loop there were fewer than ten, and the one after that discerned half a dozen.

  “Everything’s leaving the area,” Thorpe said.

  “Is that a good sign?” the captain asked. The hunter ordered him to cut the engines.

  Wright became excited. “This is it, isn’t it?”

  Thorpe wasn’t as willing to believe. “All the others have been chased off, even the sharks.”

  Another glance at the sonar showed nothing in the immediate vicinity.

  “I thought you were deep-sea fishing,” the captain said. “Is there something I don’t know about?” The old man didn’t answer him. “Because I refuse to take part in anything illegal or unethical. I saw what you did to that poor dolphin. If you’re hunting whales or something — ”

  “That’s none of your concern,” the billionaire said.

  The captain glared hard at Wright. The tone in his voice was steadfast. “What are you hunting?” he asked again.

  The old man’s anger burst like a flooded dam. “You work for me, you nosy sonofabitch. I sign your paychecks so you’ll do as I say, goddammit.”

  BEEP.

  The equipment alerted them again. A single, massive object entered the sonar field.

  Thorpe said, “That has to be at least twenty feet long.”

  “Make sure the spear gun’s ready,” Wright told him, his spat with the captain already forgotten.

  BEEP. Another signal.

  BEEP. Followed by another.

  BEEP. Followed by three more.

  For a full minute the men watched as sonar picked up several immense forms headed directly toward the Naglfar.

  “How many are there?” the captain asked.

  The old man counted and said, “Thirteen. Get ready ‘cause they’ll be here any moment.”

  * * * * *

  Rafe and Evan returned to the weather deck with the robotic “rover”, a Remote-Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research. It was a small camera, slightly larger than a beachball, complete with a self-sustaining battery pack and propulsion system. From the research vessel, Kelly could control the robot’s movements by a complex joystick.

  It reminded Evan of the R/C car he received for his tenth birthday. The rover worked by the same principles, except it cost thirty thousand dollars. Included w
ith the 360-degree camera were a pressure gauge, thermometer, and an instrument to judge the speed of ambient water currents.

  “Aren’t you worried about destroying this too?” Evan asked the marine biologist as they set it on the aft deck.

  Kelly said, “I’m already in hot shit with the Trustees. If they wanna fire me over this, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “I also grabbed this,” Rafe said and produced a mannequin head. “Please?”

  “Make sure it’s tied on tight,” she said.

  Rather than succumb to boredom on the high seas, the researchers often devised ways to pass the time. One of the favorites included a foam dummy head, the type used by hairdressers to practice styling techniques.

  The scientists sank the head to such depths that it was crushed to a fraction of its regular size. The deeper it went, the greater the pressure it was subjected to and the more compact it became. The end result appeared like a shrunken tribal skull, usually bestowed to a greenhorn on his or her first voyage. Kelly still kept the mannequin she’d been given as an intern.

  Rafe took a black marker and wrote EDGAR on the foam base before drawing glasses around the eyes and adding a pair of buckteeth. He admired his work and said, “A spitting image.”

  “An uncanny resemblance,” Evan agreed.

  “All right,” Kelly said, “let’s get this camera in the water. I want to see what’s down there before it swims off.”

  With a length of nylon rope, they attached the foam head to the rover and shifted the camera on the lowest edge of the ship before letting it drop a few feet into the ocean. The Aurora’s stern had a hydraulic platform that could be raised and lowered into the water. It acted as a stabilizer for the vessel and allowed easy access to the waterline for scuba divers and heavy machinery.

  Convinced the robot was in working condition, Kelly took Evan and Rafe to the photo lab to watch the live video feed on a television monitor. “How does this work?” Evan asked. “I’ve never used a rover before.”

  “It’s magic,” Rafe said.

  “The images are relayed back through an overhead satellite.” Kelly held up the joystick. “And I can steer it anywhere with this.”

  Using the remote control, she kept the camera descending at one hundred feet per minute. Within five minutes the robot reached the continental shelf. “Check the sonar,” she told Evan. “How far out am I?”

  “About fifty meters, give or take. Keep going north.”

  The screen was mostly black. White flakes drifted by the camera in slow motion, sea snow consisting of fine silt particulates and necrotic animal bits. At a depth of one hundred meters most sunlight was filtered out, dispersed by the water. By three hundred meters, so little light penetrated that photosynthesis ceased to occur.

  Evan pointed and said, “Wait, is that something? Go to the right a little.” Kelly guided the camera with her joystick. “There. What’s that?”

  “Sonar says we’re almost on top of it,” Rafe added.

  Kelly maneuvered the rover closer. “That has to be what we’re looking for,” she said.

  From the darkness a form took shape, surrounded by a flurry of lesser creatures.

  “Turn on the lights. I want a good look,” Evan said.

  Kelly activated the halogen bulbs on either side of the camera. The sudden brightness scared off the other fish within seconds. Soon all that remained was the enormous beast itself.

  “Have any idea what that is?” Rafe asked.

  Both researchers squinted at the screen to analyze the creature’s anatomy. “Whatever it is, the thing sure as hell ain’t alive,” Kelly said.

  Evan concurred. “It’s a cetacean, I reckon, very possibly a sperm whale or even a wayward right whale. I can’t tell from this distance.”

  “You’re probably right,” Kelly said.

  Rafe asked, “How long has it been down there?”

  “Not more than a couple days.”

  “I would’ve guessed at least a month,” the Jamaican said.

  “People don’t realize that decomposition is a quick process,” Kelly said. “It starts with large predators ripping off chunks of flesh: sharks, barracuda and the like. Then the smaller fish come to feast, often times becoming the main course for something bigger. Finally when there’s little more than gristle left, the sea urchins and parasites pick the bones ‘til only the skeleton remains. A whale this size can be stripped clean within six to eight weeks.”

  “Sometimes their skeletons get mistaken for shipwrecks,” Evan added. “To sonar equipment the bones read like the hull of a vessel. Only after excavators send down a probe, do they find out they’ve been misled.”

  “What is this here?” Kelly asked. She pointed to a black mass that obscured a third of the whale’s body. “Is that an overhang?”

  “I think it is.”

  “You think maybe the current brought it to rest here?” She consulted the computer data. “The rover records no perceivable current at this depth.”

  Evan said, “Look at the bite marks. That diameter’s about four feet wide. It’s hard to tell since other fish have marred the body with their own teeth. That first attack is clearly what killed this whale.”

  “And the edges are dull.”

  “Meaning?” Rafe asked.

  “Meaning the predator had pointed teeth for gripping and ripping, not serrated ones for cutting,” Kelly said. “Which is consistent with the tooth I found.”

  “Then whatever killed this whale is your culprit?” Rafe said.

  “Theoretically,” Evan mused. “And if the current didn’t deposit the body here — ”

  “ — then our creature did.” Kelly’s pulse quickened. “Which leads us to believe it’s intelligent.”

  Rafe asked how come.

  “Because it stores excess food,” Evan said. “It killed the whale to eat and left the corpse here to gorge on later. Very few creatures are smart enough to do that. It shows reasoning and foresight.”

  “Food is the single most essential object in any society, whether man’s civilized world or the animal kingdom. Food sustains life. Food dictates population growth and control. Food can even be used as a fundamental unit of currency. If this being stores food for future use, it’s a significant development.”

  “I don’t like the notion of a smart monster,” Rafe said.

  “That’s the wrong way to think,” Evan told the mechanic. “I wouldn’t consider it a monster at all. It’s an animal, same as any other creature you’ve come across before. Monsters don’t exist; this thing does. Dogs and cats, eagles and lobsters — everything is an animal, including Homo sapiens. People tend to overlook that. We’re also part of Mother Nature. Humans have this intrinsic need to mold other beasts in our image.”

  “Anthropomorphism,” Kelly explained.

  “I blame Disney,” Evan went on. “Their films are overrun with talking pets and woodland creatures, so now every kid expects that animals conform to human stereotypes. The truth is the other way around. We act like them. To call it a monster is a misnomer.”

  The Jamaican understood the crux of Evan’s argument. “It’s not a killing machine then.”

  Kelly said, “Precisely. There’s no such thing. If an animal kills or maims, it’s usually out of territoriality or because it feels threatened. Animals lash out only as survival instinct. Killing for the sake of bloodthirstiness is a misconception.”

  “And the best example is sharks,” Evan said.

  “There’s an average of sixteen shark attacks each year in the U.S., resulting in about ten deaths. More people are killed annually by lightning strikes. And yet hatred for sharks spans the globe, in large part because of Jaws.”

  “The fledgling dive industry took a major hit when that movie came out, because people were afraid to go in the ocean. It took decades for the business to recover. In fact the book’s author spent the rest of his life advocating for the protection of sharks. By then it was too late; the damage was
done.”

  Rafe said, “That’s a lot to glean from a dead body.”

  “Oh, it’s better than that,” Evan noted.

  “How so?”

  The three of them peered at the monitor. Several scavenger fish braved the rover’s lights and continued devouring the whale’s remains. Kelly navigated the camera for a closer inspection and said, “It means our creature is still in the area and will return to this place, probably sometime soon.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I NEED TO see them,” the old man said. He glared at the sonar in frustration. “Goddamn dots on a screen don’t help. Everyone to the deck.”

  “Yessir,” Captain Jenkins said.

  “I want you with me at all times,” Wright told Thorpe. “These things are gonna strike fast, so I need you at hand.”

  “How do you know they’re going to attack?”

  The billionaire laughed. “Because I’m about to piss them off.”

  The environment on deck was calm. The wind had strengthened and the sea grew to five-foot swells. Somewhere far from this place the sun beamed brightly and people went about their daily lives. Here it was different, muted, and the experienced hunter didn’t like how that felt.

  “Something’s wrong,” Thorpe said.

  “Whaddya mean wrong?” Wright walked to port, scanned the surroundings with a pair of binoculars.

  “This isn’t right. Hunting is about patience, about waiting for that moment of providence. It’s almost spiritual when you sync up with nature and tap into its primal energy. My gut tells me this isn’t our moment.”

  “Fuck your gut. I’m telling you it is.” Wright pointed to an object just beneath the water, approaching the Naglfar like a wave. “Look.”

  Thorpe noticed a second form and said, “There’s another one.”

  “And a third.” The old man rushed across the bow to the harpoon cannon. The hunter stopped him before the billionaire became too eager.