by Greig Beck
Angela raised a pair of thick eyebrows. “And that’s why we like it. Breakfast?”
“Oh yes, please.” Cate sat at the wooden table, and watched as her plate was piled with fried eggs, bacon, fried tomato, and a single burnt sausage. There was also doorstop-thick farmhouse toast done just how she liked it.
“Oh no, this is wa-aaay too much.” Cate kept her eyes on the plate as a large mug of coffee came down beside the mountain of food.
She sat for a moment and inhaled, making last night’s scare on the sandspit float away. It was only when she started eating that she realized just how hungry she was. No surprise, considering that dinner at the Cellar Bar had been salted nuts, potato chips and gallons of beer.
She was also sure that the adrenaline running through her system from the dash across the submerged sandspit had burned up hundreds of calories as well. As proof, in minutes, everything was down the hatch.
For some reason, she felt guilty leaving Mrs. Mathews with all the dirty dishes, as the woman made her think of her mom. She reminded herself that she was paying for the service, so shouldn’t feel too bad, but she helped her tidy up anyway.
Back in her room, Cate prepared for her day by dressing in hiking boots, thick cotton pants and a shirt. She also took a cap. She grabbed her maps, and jogged down the steps, farewelling her new Aussie mom, and heading out to her car.
She sat for a moment and read from her notes – destination: Red Hand Cave, where the brochure told her she’d find Australian indigenous art examples of hand stencils and the marine life of the local Port Stephens area. There were a few images of faded splayed hand pictures, and the one that had caught her eye – the fish, the big one. She put the notes down and lifted her map for a moment; it was pretty straightforward, only a few miles out of town, and up into the bushland – a ten-minute drive and then a fifteen-minute hike. Just as well I loaded up on the carbs this morning, she thought.
Cate pulled out, and quickly left the beach suburb and then found herself on the wide road, by herself for the most part. There were benefits to being a tourist after the summer season had finished.
In no time she was pulling in at a crescent-shaped clearing dug out of the bush, with a signpost and arrows. She got out of the car and turned slowly. There were no other cars around, but there was little silence. The zumm of insects was a near roar, and every now and then there came the whistle-whipcrack call of some sort of bird, she guessed. Things unseen dragged themselves through the dry leaves, and she felt hundreds of tiny eyes on her as she stuffed a bottle of water in her pocket, straightened her cap and slid on some sunglasses.
Last but not least, she grabbed a Swiss army knife from her bag and checked the blade. “That’s not a knife,” she said in her best Crocodile Dundee accent, and rammed it in her other pocket.
The walk was fairly easy up into the hills, and the track well sign-posted. The zumm of insects stayed with her, and the odd spiky-looking lizard stared with beady red eyes as she passed. Above, a kookaburra laughed at her when she skidded on some loose debris, and then watched with one gimlet eye as she frightened a small skink that broke from its cover. The big bird immediately swooped – it had obviously learned that sometimes the big clumsy biped animals could scare up a bit of lunch for it.
Cate reached the caves, and descended beneath a shelf of wave-like rock. She paused.
“He-eeey.” There were no barriers and she was able to walk right up to the stencils. “Cool.”
A wooden sign proclaimed the wall art was anywhere between 20,000 and 40,000 years old – near prehistoric. It had been made at the time of the mega fauna – giant animals like the diprotodon, a hippopotamus-sized mammal; or a flat-faced kangaroo that stood seven feet tall; and even the monstrous megalania, a twenty-five foot lizard that made the komodo dragon look like a shrimp. And all of them began to vanish when people arrived.
The better predator always wins out, she knew.
Cate took some pictures of the splayed hands, all done over one another in white, red, and darker browns. They were like signatures from a primordial past. She lowered the camera, and let her eyes wander over them. Were they meant to be an “I was here” note on the rock, or did they have more significance to these spiritual people?
She took some more shots and then walked along the rock wave until the lip curled all the way over to form a large cave. She drew her flashlight, flicked it on and entered. She didn’t need to duck down as it opened to a huge and dry vault-like room.
She stood at its center, enjoying the coolness after the heat outside. Then she saw it – the fish – the huge animal with spread lateral fins, a massive dorsal fin and scythe-like tail. There were figures with spears standing on what she assumed were rocks, which gave it scale.
Cate drew in a breath and let it out slowly as she felt a shudder run through her. The images were similar to the ones she had seen in the Alaskan caves – the lair of the beast. These primitive people had known of the great creature that haunted their waters. Perhaps they’d even tied to hunt it. She stared, falling into the drawing, her mind rerunning frightening daydreams.
She had set out to prove that the monstrous creature they had found was not just an aberration. But perhaps, in the depths of her subconscious, what she had really sought, and hoped for, was proof that the Megalodons were long gone. Maybe just to make her feel safe; that the ocean she so dearly loved didn’t hide horrible secrets down in its sunless depths.
Cate took a few more pictures and then tucked the camera back in her bag. She stood at the cave entrance and sighed. In the sunlight everything bad was washed away.
Visiting Port Stephens had left her feeling that there had been something here; something that might even still be here. But for now, the ghosts refused to materialize for her.
There was nothing more she could do here. Besides, home called.
CHAPTER 6
Edge of the Middle America Trench, 220 feet down
In his ear, Scott Markesan could hear Mitch shouting but his brain had short-circuited to the point where words were meaningless.
He had found the end of the cable, but there was no probe, instead, the cable stretched toward a monstrous dark creature that filled his vision. A huge maw, triangular teeth bigger than his hand, red-rimmed gill slits and a whale-sized body that emanated raw power.
He saw the probe was wedged in some of the side teeth, stuck, as the thing turned toward him. Scott automatically raised his wrist light and angled the beam toward a black eye the size of a dinner plate.
It was like the thing had received an electric shock – the beast swung away, tugging hard on the cable, which separated in an instant with the sound of a base guitar being strummed. The cable went slack and the creature vanished into the gloom of the deep.
Scott couldn’t even remember when he started swimming, but he was doing it hard and fast, too fast, and straight up to the surface. His panicked brain screamed to “slow down”, but his primitive fight or flight mechanism had taken control of his body – survival superseded logic.
He vaguely heard Mitch again in his ear, but all he needed was to be back up in that safe blue halo of light.
Scott burst from the surface like a torpedo and swum hard to the dinghy some hundred feet away. He wouldn’t look down, and barely felt the warm urine he had shot into his suit from fear. His testicles had shriveled as he swum, and in his chest it felt like a racehorse was galloping to the finish line. Over it all, he felt every joint in his body begin to scream.
Slow down, you idiot! But there was no way his body was going to obey. Scott knew that coming up so fast would mean the gases, like nitrogen, would come out of the dissolved state in his cells and form bubbles in the blood and tissue. They tended to congregate in the joints, hence the name, “the bends”. If it were a bad case and left untreated, he could suffer a heart attack, brain damage, or just drop dead.
By the time the dinghy had pulled alongside and the crewmembers had hauled him in, his bo
dy felt like it had just gone under a bus.
He grabbed the nearest man’s arm with hands like painful, hooked claws, and stared up into the man’s face, his eyes near bursting from his skull.
“Get – to – the ship,” he hissed through gritted teeth. It was the only thing that mattered.
CHAPTER 7
Nick’s Cove, Marin County, California, two months later
Cate had her feet up, shoes off, and sipped ice tea on the deck of Jack Monroe’s boat, the Heceta, listening to Jack rattling pans below deck.
The boat was Jack’s pride and joy, as well as his home. A 62-foot motor yacht, it was designed and built in 1938 by the great pair of Alden and Jacob, and then further enhanced by Jack. She had to admit, it was a beautiful mix of original teak planking over a white oak frame, and with enough modern equipment and power in its engine room to fight the most ferocious swells. It was old world charm combined with new world tech. Cate loved it.
The sun was going down and the bay was like blue glass. The yellow rays warmed her cheeks and the soles of her feet, and on days like this nothing felt like it could ever go wrong. She finished her iced tea, and lifted the computer tablet on her lap to read a few more news pages, swiping them away, just browsing as her mind comfortably idled.
She paused on an article, anything to do with the sea always drew her eyes like a magnet. This time it wasn’t just a single story, but many – dolphin pod strandings, whale migration patterns altered, and flocks of sea birds following something out off the continental shelf edge. There was even the carcass of an orca whale washed up on a Mexican beach, or rather half a carcass.
Cate narrowed her eyes as she enlarged the picture of the killer whale. The remains hadn’t been in the water long as the meat still had some color. The wound was so clean it looked like it had been in a guillotine. Plus, there was no sign of the shredding that took place from a feeding frenzy of sharks.
She knew that orcas were way too big and smart to get sucked into a ship’s propeller. And, in those waters, a floating whale carcass should have attracted an alpha predator like a great white, or at least a dozen hammerheads; they should have made short work of a few thousand pounds of floating meat like that.
But strangely, the carcass had floated and then washed up, untouched after it had been torn in half. Cate sucked the corner of her lip into her mouth. Sometimes floating meat can be left untouched by smaller predators – she bit at her lip as her mind worked – but only when there was a large alpha predator in the area.
She felt a tiny knot wind tighter in her stomach.
Cate saved the stories and swiped to the next. She sat forward as she read the headline: “Sea monster attacks ship”.
What the fu …? Her mouth went dry.
According to an unnamed source, a maintenance diver aboard a Nexxon-owned oil exploration vessel was placed into emergency medical decompression treatment. The diver, Mr. Scott Markesan, with eight years experience in maintenance diving at depths, had come up too quickly. Markesan claimed he rushed up because he saw something at 220 feet below the surface that had snagged a piece of their equipment – something he said was a sea monster. She stopped reading.
Scott Markesan – she opened another tab and did a search on the name and profession. Immediately a list of articles, interviews, papers on diving and social media accounts were returned to her. She selected one, and saw a thirty-something man with short sandy hair, clear and intelligent eyes – not some wild-looking fantasist.
“Sea monster, huh?” She quickly glanced at the article again, skimming until she found the location: about 120 miles off the coast of Puerto Escondido in Mexico. She knew the area; it was right over, or just on the edge, of the Middle America Trench – some of the deepest water in the world.
She saved that story as well, and then put her tablet down. Cate stared out over the water. The sun was very low in the sky now and a highway of shimmering light was thrown down on its surface. She inhaled, drawing in the warm sea air.
It had taken her a long time to be able to approach the ocean again following her expedition to the buried Alaskan lake. There, she had followed in her grandfather’s footsteps, tracking the clues to a place the local Indigenous called “Bad Water”. It turned out to be an underwater sea, and there she and her crew had found that sea monsters were real, and they were more deadly than anything in the surface oceans. When a single female Carcharodon Megalodon had broken free, it had proved to be a nightmare of death and destruction, killing dozens, before it was finally slain, or so they hoped.
Cate continued to stare out over the water, but her mind was turned inwards. Jack had watched the shark, mortally wounded; drop down into the depths of the abyss. But no one had actually seen it dead. No one saw its carcass. She sighed, shaking her head slightly to force the bad memory away.
“Yo!” Jack came up from below deck with two beers, the condensation already running down their sides – perfect. She smiled and held out her hand.
“Thank you, waiter.”
He grinned. “You can tip me later.”
He took a long sip, and then looked at a large diving watch on his wrist. “I’m going to take a run into the village to grab us some supplies for dinner; any requests?” He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
Cate looked back out at the water. It was beautifully warm and calm, and dinner on deck was something they both loved. But she screwed up her nose.
“You know what? Perhaps tonight I’d like to eat in the restaurant.” She smiled. “We can treat ourselves, and save you cooking.”
Jack looked down the pier to the Cove Restaurant, its fairy lights just coming on. “Yeah, sure, why not?” He dropped down into the seat beside her.
“In that case, nothing to do but enjoy our entrees.” He leaned across to clink bottles with her, and lifted his newspaper; the old school type, on real paper. He squinted, holding it closer for a moment before snorting softly and turning it around for her.
“Hey, check this out.”
Cate leaned closer to examine the picture. “Cool-looking sub.” She nodded as she read the headline: “US Navy and private consortium developing first supersonic submarine”.
“Now that would be something to see.”
She began to sit back, but Jack tapped on the picture. “Sure would, but there’s something else; look.” He jiggled the page.
This time she took the paper from him, and read some of the article. “Oh, I see.” Her grin spread. “Valery Mironov?” She read on. “The Sonya by Mironov Enterprises is a prototype of an underwater vessel that could one day cut through the ocean at the speed of sound.” Her brows shot up. “Hey, if you designed and built a new type of submarine would you name it after me?”
“Of course; the Granger Danger.” He grinned and saluted her with his bottle. “So, now we know what old Russian billionaires do with their money.”
She nodded, reading some more. “What the hell is bubble technology?”
He bobbed his head from side to side. “I’ve heard of it. The concept has been around for a while, ever since the sixties, actually. The technology is based on a Soviet-designed torpedo, I think. Just about every country in the world is working on it. But making it work is obviously where the magic comes in.”
She handed him the newspaper back, and he rolled it up into a pipe.
“As every swimmer knows, cutting smoothly through water is tough due to the drag created. And for something the size of a submarine, it’s a massive problem.” He held up the rolled paper, and put his fingers inside of it. “The Russian torpedo was supposed to create a sleeve of air, a bubble, around the torpedo and, to grossly oversimplify the technology, it would then fly through that air, under the water.”
Cate winked. “Well that doesn’t sound like fake news at all.”
He grinned and put his hand on his heart. “Would I lie to you?” He held up a finger. “Don’t answer that.”
She chuckled.
“I only remember the
concept,” he continued, “because the Japanese were working on an underwater camera to try and keep up with fast-moving sea life – they could never get it to work, but it was based on a technique called supercavitation, which is the same as the bubble tech.”
“Well, if it’s real, I’d love to see it,” Cate said.
“If someone can imagine it, then someone will create it. So I think we’ll all see it one day.” Jack paused. “Imagine a trip from New York to London only taking a couple of hours, and all underwater.” He whistled softly. “We should drop in on Valery and Sonya one day, see how they’re doing.”
“Yeah.” Cate let her eyes slide back to the water. Memories flooded back, and then the familiar little knot was there again in her gut. “Maybe one day.”
“Hey.” Jack sat down and reached across to grab her knee, leaving his warm hand there. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She laid her hand over his.
“And still going to spend the weekend down at those dusty old Californian bone beds?” He tilted his chin.
She nodded. “Yep, Sharktooth Hill. There’s been a new field uncovered.”
“Really?” His smile was wide. “I’d love to see it. Thank you for the invite.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I need to spend time with my own thoughts on this one.” She reached across to grab his knee this time. “You understand?”
“Of course.” Jack sipped his beer. “What are you hoping to find?”
Cate lowered her own bottle, thinking for a moment. After a while, she shrugged. “I don’t know; evidence, non-evidence, closure.” She stared out at the water again. “Something.”
CHAPTER 8
The Pacific Ocean, eighty miles west of Bahia Tortugas, Mexico
A small table with two chairs was set up on the deck. The champagne sat in a silver ice bucket, and crackers, goose liver pate, caviar, and oysters also waited.