Leviathan

by Jared Sandman

  Evan was astounded by the news, the scientist in him suddenly excited while also trying to show compassion toward Kelly. “Another SuperCroc?”

  “The thing sorta rose up beside me. At first I thought it wanted to eat me before I realized it wasn’t hungry, only curious. Then it sank below the waves and headed north.”

  “You think it’s tailing the Aurora?” Edgar asked.

  “If it’s after the Leviathan,” Kelly said. “I don’t know how it’s able to track the ship.”

  Evan said, “Their hunting senses are extraordinary. Maybe it caught the scent of the other one.”

  “If that’s true, Mistah Wright’s in a world of hurt,” Rafe said.

  Kelly was more concerned by other matters. “It’s not Wright I’m worried about.”

  * * * * *

  Back on the Aurora, Wright was worried about himself. The Leviathan was free and blocked his and Thorpe’s escape. The hunter squatted next to the old man, formulating a plan. He spied the hydraulic equipment on the ship’s stern that raised and lowered the stabilizer platform.

  The only problem was it lay behind the Leviathan.

  If they dropped that platform, the creature would likely slip into the ocean without a fight. He mentioned the idea to the billionaire.

  “Absolutely not,” Wright said.

  “It’s our only hope. If we fight this thing, we lose.”

  “It’s not your fight,” Oscar Wright said.

  “You’re right, it’s yours. But you dragged me into this, and I’m getting us out.”

  Heat lightning flashed in the clouds. Widespread, isolated thunderstorms had formed along a frontal boundary and moved toward the west.

  “The hell you are,” Wright said. “You did your job, you earned your money. Consider yourself relieved of duty.”

  “You can’t fire me. I’m your best chance of making it through the night.”

  “I’ll take over from here.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Thorpe said.

  “It doesn’t matter whether — ” The old man stopped as he realized Thorpe was staring over his shoulder. He turned to see what had captured the hunter’s attention.

  The billionaire watched the Naglfar emerge from the blackness. It sidled alongside the Aurora, scraping the hull as it collided and grinded to a stop.

  “Oops, clumsy me,” Kelly shouted from the bow. She dropped the Naglfar’s gangplank into place, bridging the vessels.

  The Leviathan hissed at the yacht. Its claws scratched deep ruts on the Aurora’s weather deck. In the water its companion returned the call.

  Careful to give the SuperCroc a wide berth, Thorpe crawled across to the portside gangway. “We’re glad to see you,” Thorpe told Kelly.

  The marine biologist stepped over to the Aurora. “We’re not on speaking terms,” she told the hunter. “What with you trying to kill me, asshole. Expect to hear from my lawyer. In fact, Edgar” — she called for the attorney, and he came forward — “please explain to this gentleman how I’ll be pressing charges for abduction and attempted murder.”

  Evan noticed the Leviathan was preoccupied by the commotion, watching from afar. The ranger saw the same strategy Thorpe envisioned. The SuperCroc’s head peered overboard, searching the sea for its mate. As the beast’s head turned, Evan rushed to the hydraulic lift. He triggered the stabilizer platform, which slowly leveled out even to the waterline.

  The resulting mechanical noise startled the creature. It twisted around and spotted Evan darting for safety. The tip of its tail flailed like a whip. Evan tucked and rolled, bruising his ribs and racing toward the gangway.

  “Everyone stay on the yacht,” Kelly called to the crew. “The captain will take you to a safe distance.”

  Wright objected to Kelly ordering around his employees. “They’re under my instructions,” he said.

  “I know you have trouble keeping your mouth shut, so practice being silent for when the police come to arrest you.”

  “Arrest me?”

  “For the death of Bartholomew Michaels.” Kelly got in the old man’s face. “You fucked with the wrong lady.”

  “What, did your boyfriend pull you from the water?” Wright turned to Evan. “You should’ve done us all a favor and left her whiny ass out there.”

  Kelly punched Oscar Wright in the face, drawing blood at once from the old man’s nose.

  “You bitch,” he said.

  “Oh, you’ll be the bitch, once you’re serving life in prison.”

  The billionaire scoffed. “Life behind bars? For an old man like me, that’s a slap on the wrists. The remainder of my life, what is that: three months, four at most? Your hollow threats don’t intimidate me.” Wright began coughing then. The fits were getting stronger and more frequent.

  “Didn’t realize I hit you so hard,” Kelly said.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he assured her, wiping the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. It came away streaked with blood. “I have bronchogenic carcinoma.”

  “Lung cancer?” Evan said.

  “It’s terminal, too advanced for chemo or anything else. At the rate my health’s deteriorating, I wouldn’t make it to the arraignment hearing of any trial, let alone sentencing.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Eight weeks. The doctors gave me a choice: risky surgery that might kill me, or go home to die in peace. The decision was easy.”

  Kelly would’ve offered her sympathies to the old man, except she hadn’t any. He was already condemned to a death sentence, though not from man’s court of law. “You got what you deserve.”

  “Never said I didn’t.”

  “What the hell is that?” Edgar asked. A trembling finger pointed to a spot off the bow. The mercury lamps penetrated only so far from the ship; on the rim of that halo of light, Kelly saw something troubling.

  A large patch of dancing water headed toward the Aurora. Evan had seen the phenomena before, knew it to be the underwater vibrations of a bellowing crocodilian. Its roar was below the range of human hearing at times and affected the water directly above its thorax in that unique way.

  Lightning and thunder made it clear Mother Nature was not pleased.

  The patch moved swiftly, making a beeline for the research vessel. Kelly removed the gangway and separated the two boats. If both ships needed to make a hasty getaway, she didn’t want them to be connected.

  Oscar Wright was transfixed by the patch. He didn’t understand what caused it until he glimpsed the snout. “Another one?” he said. The revelation overwhelmed him. If there was a second SuperCroc, then the Leviathan wasn’t the only specimen. And if there were others, that meant the giant crocodile wasn’t the Biblical sea monster. “No, in the Book of Job there’s only one. God didn’t let both of them live.” He dropped to his knees, gazing at the animal ten yards away.

  “Everyone keep an eye on that thing. Don’t let it outta your sight,” Kelly said.

  The skies opened to unleash a torrent of rain. Lightning flashed at regular intervals, a succession of bolts that bathed the deck in an ethereal lilac glow. The thunder was earsplitting, the storm directly overhead.

  “Where did it go?” Evan asked. “I don’t see it anywhere.”

  The scientists searched the waters around the Aurora and discovered nothing. It was impossible to see in the downpour, and the force of the raindrops made the whole ocean appear to oscillate. So long as it rained, they couldn’t track the other SuperCroc’s movements.

  Kelly said, “I think it’s over there.” She motioned off starboard.

  “I can’t tell,” the ranger said.

  The Naglfar pulled away from the Aurora as the Leviathan bellowed.

  “We need to get inside,” Evan told her. The research vessel was the tallest structure around, which made it a prime lightning target. It was one reason Evan didn’t want to spend any longer in the open, especially with the Leviathan loose.

  “I have to find the other one,”
Kelly said.

  Evan took her by the arm and led her to the forecastle. “We’ve done everything we can. We placed a tracking device on the thing — it’s time to let go.”

  Both researchers fell to the deck as the Aurora tilted violently to stern. The prow rose several feet as a massive weight landed on the rear platform.

  The second SuperCroc emerged from the water and spied them. Its orotund bellow overpowered the sound of thunder. The Leviathan answered its call, two prehistoric dinosaurs communicating with each other.

  The scientists got to their feet, amazed by the specimens’ interpersonal behavior. The SuperCroc was a third larger than the first, obviously a male. Based on the Leviathan’s measurements, the new SuperCroc was at least sixty feet long.

  The old man remained on his knees either out of reverence or physical handicap. “My God.”

  Edgar Wallis rushed by the others, dashed for safety. He made it inside the forecastle and slammed the door behind him. Evan and Kelly ran to the entrance.

  “Open up. Goddammit, Edgar, open this door.” Evan pounded his fists on the metal until they were bruised. “Fucking coward,” he yelled. “I told you to stay on the yacht.”

  Kelly tapped him on the shoulder. “Take a look at that.”

  The Leviathan approached the SuperCroc and rubbed its bulb against the other’s face, the two of them gently massaging one another’s snout.

  “They’re courting,” Evan said in amazement.

  Wright got to his feet, shouting and cursing at the beasts. Even the crocodiles had a loving relationship, something he’d been denied long ago.

  The animals looked at him with indifferent, marble eyes. The bigger one opened its mouth to hiss, prompting another barrage of insults from the angry old man.

  Evan dragged Wright away from the creatures. The crocs grew increasingly irritated. Soon it wouldn’t be safe anywhere on deck; with the superstructure blocked off, places of refuge were limited.

  Excluding the hypobaric chamber.

  Large enough to contain the three of them, it was the only object on deck that might withstand an assault by the SuperCrocs.

  The fact it was located beyond the Leviathan and her mate proved problematic.

  Oscar Wright retrieved the blowtorch and handed it to Evan. “This worked when Thorpe used it before.” The ranger lit the acetylene torch, used it to keep the crocs at bay.

  “They don’t like fire,” Kelly said.

  The male SuperCroc swept its tail at the trio, which Evan fended off with the flame. The creature recoiled from the heat and hissed. Hot gas erupted from its mouth, igniting a seven-foot flame. The astonished onlookers swerved to avoid the inferno.

  As the Bible proclaimed, the Leviathan could breathe fire.

  The group clambered toward the chamber. Evan and Kelly entered first, but the old man didn’t follow. He ushered them inside and went to close the door behind them.

  “It’s too dangerous out there,” Kelly said. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Oscar Wright said nothing, gave her a sad glance that expressed the answer. His voice was laden with regret. “I’m really not a bad guy.” Then he sealed the hatch and left to face the SuperCrocs.

  Evan and Kelly watched the billionaire through a single viewport. “What’s going on? Why’s he still out there?” Evan asked.

  “A suicide mission,” she said. It was clear to her that had been his plan all along. The dying man never meant to make it back to shore alive.

  Wright walked to the middle of the observation deck, blowtorch in hand. The crocodiles shifted about, rocking the Aurora with their combined weight as they circled the old man. He kept them away with the flame, shouting and gesticulating at the beasts. Safe inside the chamber, neither scientist could hear the billionaire’s yelling or read his lips because his back was turned.

  The SuperCrocs ringed around Wright in a giant O, the old man in the center. His tired tirade continued as the monsters circled. Whenever one got too close, Wright touched fire to the tip of its snout. The area around the nostrils was soft, one of their few vulnerable spots.

  A ladder dropped from the heavens to the old man. Wright craned upward to see a helicopter hovering above. The rope ladder dangled a foot from him, yet he refused to take it. There would be no last-minute reprieve for Oscar Wright. He made his choice and had no misgivings about it. His fate had been sealed the day his son was born and his wife died.

  Overhead Thorpe slightly repositioned the chopper until the ladder hung near the hypobaric chamber. Kelly opened the hatch, which burst their bubble of silence and made the scene real to them: the old man’s anathemas, the thunder and lightning and pouring rain. The ranger grabbed the end of the rope, climbed halfway up before peering down to make sure Kelly was behind him. She was.

  The chopper lifted higher, rising above the monsters and the Aurora. They watched the old man repel the crocodiles. The beasts seemed no longer frightened of the flame and became braver, darting about the billionaire in a frenzy.

  If there was an afterlife, Oscar Wright hoped to rejoin his family there. That was the ultimate question to which he had devoted a large portion of his life and fortune.

  In a single moment, the Leviathan revealed the answer.

  The two SuperCrocs attacked in tandem, snapping at Wright in an onslaught of gnashing teeth. The old man was but a morsel to them, a throwaway meal of gristle and bone.

  Kelly gripped the rope tight and turned from the slaughter.

  As the Leviathan feasted, the larger SuperCroc looked up to watch the dangling researchers. The end of the rope swayed near its head. Before Thorpe piloted out of reach, the creature nipped at the rope and held it tight between locked jaws.

  In the cockpit Thorpe tried to steer the chopper. The aircraft wouldn’t budge, tethered to the beast. The animal shook its head, nearly knocking Kelly and Evan to the chaos below. The scientists rode out the jerking until the SuperCroc’s teeth cut through the rope and set them free.

  Evan ascended the remaining rungs, pulled himself into the cargo bay. He immediately turned to assist Kelly inside. She collapsed in his arms, buried her face in his shoulder and screamed into his shirt.

  “He didn’t need to do that,” she said. Part of her knew that was a lie. There could be no happily ever after for a man as miserable as Oscar Wright.

  “Tell me about it,” Thorpe said from the front seat. An explosion of thunder rattled the craft. “The guy owed me about sixty grand.”

  Both of them watched the dinosaurs as Thorpe made a final pass around the Aurora. Having dispensed with the old man, the SuperCrocs absconded into the blackness of the open Atlantic. The Leviathan and her mate escaped into the dark water, vanishing from view within seconds.

  Evan stroked Kelly’s drenched hair, hugged her shivering body. “Nothing left to worry about,” he promised. “It’s all over.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  AFTER THORPE DELIVERED the researchers to the yacht, he left in the helicopter. The aircraft was later found in Manhattan, parked atop the headquarters of Wright Enterprises. The pilot was gone, not a trace or clue in his wake. By the time law enforcement authorities even learned his name, Ian Thorpe was already on another continent.

  The Aurora arrived in port under the guidance of its acting captain, Rafe Maliki. The rest of the crew had returned to the research vessel, save for the body of Bartholomew Michaels. Evan and Kelly decided that justice had been served with Wright’s death; taking Bart back to shore would only invite questions. It was best to perform a burial at sea, which the sailor would’ve preferred over proper interment or cremation anyway. Send him home to the water and tell those back on land he’d been lost at sea.

  Everyone agreed it wouldn’t be wise to inform the media about what had happened to Oscar Wright, and to keep knowledge about the SuperCrocs to a minimum. It was also decided the Aurora and Naglfar shouldn’t enter the harbor simultaneously, because it might arouse suspicion. The scientists do
cked at the marina in Siesta Key while the gigayacht resumed its voyage to New York.

  Before reclaiming their ship, Kelly and Evan remained on the Naglfar for several hours. One reason was safety (they wanted to be certain the SuperCrocs wouldn’t re-emerge), and their other motive was to let Edgar Wallis stew in isolation. The attorney was left alone on the research vessel, punishment for his selfishness when the researchers were in peril. Only after they heard Edgar’s frantic pleas for help over the marine radio did they ask to be dropped off on their own ship.

  The scene on deck was gruesome. Shirt tatters and gobbets of viscera were spread in all directions. Evan did his best to buffer Kelly and the interns from the brunt of the bloodshed as he led them into the superstructure. Once everybody was safely aboard the vessel and in private quarters, Evan spent the rest of the night scrubbing the weather deck by himself.

  Relentless rain had washed away most of the blood. Using a pushbroom he amassed a pile of Wright’s remains and brushed them off the edge of the ship. The only concrete evidence that lingered of the billionaire was his right hand, which Evan had discovered flung behind the hypobaric chamber. Evan braced himself to touch it, regarded the severed limb for a moment. The bite had been clean, separating through the bone proximal to the metacarpals. On the fourth finger was the ring Wright’s wife gave him on their wedding day. Despite the intervening decades, the metal band still shined. Evan took a moment to say a quick prayer for the old man — regardless of their differences, Wright at least deserved that — then he lobbed the hand into the ocean.

  After double- and triple-checking that all proof of the billionaire had been disposed, Evan went inside to confer with Kelly about their next move. The researchers felt guilty; even though they’d done nothing wrong, they had to act in secret because no one would accept the truth of the matter. Later every crewmember was pledged to secrecy, sworn to keep confidential anything seen or heard on the expedition. Kelly would mete out any information that needed to be shared. She alone would field any and all inquiries. And there would be questions, many of them.