Megalodon In Paradise

by Hunter Shea

  “What are you planning to do with that, Mr. Seal Team Six?” Lenny asked.

  Snarling, Marco said, “I’m not just gonna sit here and watch a fucking fish pluck us off. I’ll find a way to lure it closer and shoot the goddamn thing between the eyes.”

  “Do you know how crazy that sounds?” Lenny said. And how the heck did Marco plan to lure the massive shark?

  “Crazy is cowering inside here.”

  Ollie went to touch Marco’s shoulder but he shrugged it off. “That rifle is a pea shooter next to that thing out there,” he said.

  “You guys might want to take a look at this,” Lenny said, showing them the image of the Megalodon.

  “That’s it!” Ollie said. “That’s exactly what we saw.”

  Marco’s lips pulled back in a tight, grim line.

  “There’s only one problem,” Lenny said. “The Megalodon shark disappeared off the face of the earth millions of years ago.”

  “It looks like the shark census missed one,” Marco growled.

  “So if that thing isn’t a Megalodon, what the hell is it?” Ollie said.

  “I don’t have a clue,” Lenny said. “But I do find it awfully coincidental that it shows up right after we had that mishap in the lab. If we can find out what the hell the military was doing out here, we might have a better understanding of what we’re dealing with.”

  Marco huffed. “The military hit the bricks over sixty years ago.”

  “Megalodons supposedly all died a lot longer than that,” Lenny countered. “I’m not saying there’s a definite correlation, but it is a possibility.”

  “You guys can have fun talking about possibilities. I’m going to do something about it.”

  He stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

  “I’ve never seen him like that,” Lenny said.

  “He was pretty close to Titus,” Ollie said, standing by the window, watching Marco head toward the beach. “We should probably follow him and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “We will, once Tara and Lae get here. Until then, maybe we should look at some of the other stuff I crammed into my pack.”

  Ollie followed him out the back door to get his backpack. The western exposure gave them a full view of the oncoming storm.

  Lenny said, “Where the heck did that come from?”

  Ollie kicked a seashell. “Are you kidding me? It was supposed to miss us entirely. When I first heard about it, I watched The Perfect Storm just to freak myself out, I guess. It felt safer knowing it wasn’t going to happen here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If that’s the storm I think it is, it’s real bad news. We’re talking hurricane winds, torrential rain and massive flooding. Last I saw, it was supposed to carry on south of us and die somewhere in the middle of the ocean. This island normally doesn’t get drizzle, much less a super soaker like this.”

  Lenny’s mouth went dry. “How much soaking are they talking about?”

  Ollie stared up at the black and gray storm clouds. “No clue. I just hope it’s not more than the island can handle.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  As luck would have it—not that there was much going around at the moment—Lae was tidying things up in Tara’s house. Trying to keep as much of a poker face as possible, she said Ollie and Marco wanted to talk to her back at Marco’s house.

  The older islander saw right through her. “Something terrible has happened.”

  Tara’s instinct was to lie and tell her no, everything was fine.

  Then she thought about all those dark days at the vet’s office when she had to tell pet owners that their beloved dog or cat was gone, or that there was no saving them and it was time to put them to sleep. It was the worst part of the job. The first few times she had to deliver bad news, she cried, having to be consoled by the grieving pet owner in one case.

  Through it all, she did learn one thing.

  You can’t sugarcoat death.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Lae remained calm, apologized for not finishing making her bed, and said she would be back.

  Tara was pretty sure no one would be worrying about making beds today.

  Lae lit a fresh cigarette, took a hit and stubbed it out. It was funny, Tara smoked when she was relaxed. For some reason, if she was amped, smoking only made things worse.

  That’s one tough lady, Tara thought.

  Life in the Marshall Islands, Grand Isla Tiburon excepted, wasn’t easy. People like Lae had to develop thick skins and strong constitutions. It made what Ollie was doing out here all the more important, if only to give them an opportunity they normally wouldn’t have had. The money was being put to good use.

  She found the old ledger, emptied her beach bag and carefully placed it inside, worried it would fall apart. After everything that had happened, she hadn’t even thought to leaf through it.

  Stepping outside, she pulled up short when a cool breeze whispered past her. She shivered. It was downright cold, almost like walking past an air conditioner. The past few days were marked by varying degrees of heat and humidity, her skin constantly dotted with sweat.

  She waited, hoping to catch another breeze.

  “Weird.”

  Before going to Marco’s house, she was compelled to return to the beach. She couldn’t explain why. Morbid curiosity, maybe. If there was a chance that Titus or his men had evaded the shark’s ire, they could be out there right now, treading water and praying for help.

  Of course, if they were out there paddling away, odds are the shark would find them before she could ever get to them.

  And how are you supposed to rescue them?

  It’s not like she knew how to operate a boat. She didn’t even have the key to start it.

  Rounding her house, she saw what had caused that cooling wind.

  Off in the not too far distance was a whale of a storm. The dark clouds churned like smoke trapped in a bottle.

  “Jesus.”

  She didn’t know squat about trade winds and ocean currents, but she hoped to hell that somehow it all pushed away from the island. It looked nasty, bordering on sinister.

  Tara walked as far as the ebbing and flowing water line, afraid to immerse herself further than the tops of her feet. It was a clear shot of sunny skies and sparkling blue water, the storm brewing off to her left.

  The seemingly endless view made her realize why people once thought the earth was flat and one could sail right off the edge. When a place like this was your sole viewpoint, that’s exactly what it looked like.

  When the massive dorsal fin appeared several hundred yards away, the gray triangle cleaving the water like the periscope of a submarine, she darted out of the water. The shark could never swim in shallow water, but its awesome yet alien presence chilled her to the bone. It was like being terrified of her grandmother’s dark, musty basement all over again.

  Except in this case, the monster was real.

  The fin dipped below the water, popping up a hundred yards away in such a brief flash of time, it defied logic.

  How fast can it swim?

  Its tail fin must be enormous to propel that much weight through the water.

  Tara went numb, watching the creature surface and submerge over and over again in a widening circle. It was as if it were searching for something.

  “Or spinning a web.”

  Now why had she said that?

  Because next to that thing, they were powerless houseflies, trapped in the center of the web, Grand Isla Tiburon, the big bad spider in no rush, knowing there was plenty of time. They would be there when its hunger was too great to ignore.

  ***

  Marco hoped Ollie wouldn’t follow him. The guy was in love with Tara. Not that he’d told him in so many words, but you had to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see it.

  No, Ollie would wait for Tara to return. This was Ollie’s chance to shine. To be her protector.

  He just hoped
he hadn’t overplayed his hand and looked so distraught that his friend would feel he had to come out and talk him off the ledge.

  Watching Titus go down like that had shaken him to his core. Titus was a good man, a little rough around the edges, but honest. And a damn good worker.

  Marco had brought him some cold beers one night after an exceptionally productive day when the sun was doing its best to fry them like ants. He and Titus sat in a pair of lounge chairs on the beach, watching the sun go pink, the horizon purpling. This was back when Titus and his team stayed on the island—in Lenny’s bungalow—so they could get an early start and late finish.

  Tight-lipped Titus had loosened up after a few beers, talking about his wife who had passed five years earlier, his regret at never having kids. His wife was afraid their child would have some of the maladies that were being passed down the generations since the atomic bomb tests. Her family had been close to the Bikini Atoll during those dark years. Her mother died young of cancer, and she herself had never been the picture of health. She was terrified of passing down that horrible legacy.

  “I kept telling her our child would be half of me,” Titus said, staring far away into the distant past. “I’m strong. My half would have healed hers. But she said no one was stronger than the poison they spread. It was Biblical to her, the sins of the father being carried upon generation after generation of sons.”

  Marco had a vague recollection of the passage. The Bible wasn’t his bag. Even as a kid, he’d cut Wednesday afternoon Bible school as often as he could. He did like that Thomas guy, the one who doubted Jesus’s resurrection.

  That was a guy he could have a beer with.

  Faith was for suckers.

  Show me, motherfucker.

  He spotted the lab, and the oncoming storm, and checked his watch.

  They could be there now, for all he knew. It was early, but it’s not like these scumbags adhered to a timetable. He’d spotted them once in the pale light of day, scurrying into the lab, lugging a dozen or so boxes. He assumed the pickup happened at night.

  Creeping up to the side of the lab, he set the AR-15 against the outer wall. The last thing he wanted to do was spook them if they were here and get caught in a shootout. Marco wasn’t Gary Cooper. If he was going to shoot them, it was going to be when they least expected it and didn’t see it coming.

  He felt no shame for thinking that way.

  Marco may have been a fuckup, Mazie’s death just exacerbating his natural penchant for fuckupery, but he wasn’t an idiot.

  Peeking inside the lab, he thought that might be up for debate.

  The lab was empty, but the stench that Lenny had dragged into his house was especially strong out here.

  Maybe, just maybe, they’d been swallowed up by the storm. He’d followed the NOAA storm reports closely, only unclenching his ass cheeks when he heard the storm had veered to the south, away from Grand Isla Tiburon.

  With everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, he hadn’t had time or the frame of mind to check again.

  Lightning flashed in the upper reaches of the oily clouds.

  This could be a good thing. It might work to his advantage.

  If he could keep them from coming ashore, they would be doomed to heading back out to sea. Let Mother Nature do the rest. Or better yet, that freaking monster shark.

  Once the storm passed, he’d have to get out to New Jersey fast, set things right. The storm wouldn’t take care of everything for him, but it could buy him time.

  Marco’s stomach clenched. Acid gurgled in the back of his throat.

  He should have taken his parents with him. But they were so set in their ways.

  Dammit, you should have forced them!

  Right, that would have worked. He could have just trussed them up like Hannibal Lecter and wheeled them onto the plane.

  Yeah. That would have worked.

  Rifle in hand, he positioned himself on the ocean side of the old lab, finding a corner where he couldn’t easily be seen, either by the smugglers or his friends.

  Smugglers.

  As Ollie would say, holy crapping Christ.

  He’d lived through it and he still couldn’t believe he’d gotten mixed up in this shit. Maybe everything that was happening was a sign. Things were changing . . . fast. He could be the force of change on this particular front.

  If the smugglers were still coming, he wanted to be here to either send them packing or have the satisfaction of watching them go down like modern day Jonahs, only this time they wouldn’t be living inside the giant sea beast.

  Marco chuckled, his nerves jangling.

  “How’s that for Biblical?”

  A tiny smudge on the clear section of the horizon got caught in his periphery.

  Something was definitely headed their way.

  He looked for any sign of the dorsal fin, humming the theme to Jaws. He thought Ollie the movie lover would appreciate it.

  Poor fucking Ollie. Marco had let him down big time, just like he’d done to everyone else. Except this time, the stakes were huge. Too big for him.

  But not too big for that shark.

  Marco had a nose for when things were about to go sideways. It’s what made him a master of the stock market. He was the gambler with an almost preternatural edge, always knowing just when to dump a slew of stocks just before they went tits up.

  Things were coming undone on the island.

  He couldn’t trust the smugglers to just drop their drugs or money or guns or ivory, for all he knew, and run. Something was in the wind. The canary in the coalmine had died on its perch.

  If fate was on his side for once, it would send those men into the waiting maw of that shark.

  If not, he would have to force them to the dinner table.

  Because if he didn’t, that something that itched at the back of his brain told him they were going to die. Nature was nudging those dangerous men to one of two choices—suffer at the wrath of that shark from Hell, or push toward safety on the island, where the smugglers would discover they were not alone.

  You had to pay attention to the signs. Ignore them at your peril.

  Maybe he was just being paranoid, a state of mind he was well versed in during his years as an addict.

  But he didn’t think so.

  “Come on, big guy. There’s a nice meal coming your way.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “It figures the one thing I find is a folder of receipts and logs of visitors. Though there are a ton of doctors listed here. That definitely points to some secretive medical shit going on here . . . but what exactly was it?” Lenny said, exasperated.

  He and Ollie stared at the small pile of mildewed pages strewn about Marco’s kitchen table. The ink was badly smeared on most of them, but it was apparent that there was nothing to be gleaned from the trash that had been left behind.

  “Maybe we should go back to the lab and look around more,” Ollie said, hands gripping the edge of the table, hovering over it like a gargoyle. He had gone past frightened and confused and was feeling a familiar friend nudging closer and closer: anger.

  He walked around the table, counting the revolutions.

  One-two-three-four-five. Stop.

  Shit. Now he was back to counting again.

  How dare all this happen when all he wanted to do was make people happy!

  They should have had the fucking lab demolished before they ever set foot on Grand Isla Tiburon.

  Although, there had been signs.

  Grand Isla Tiburon translated to Shark Island. It made sense at the time, since it was surrounded by a shark sanctuary. How the hell was he to know it would also be home to the biggest damn shark anyone had ever seen?

  And why hadn’t anyone lived on it since the military left? Oh sure, it wasn’t toxic. It just had dead bodies crammed into metal chutes and an aquatic killer patrolling the water.

  When he’d first come up with the idea of creating a place where he and his friends
could live, he considered building a kind of compound in a state like Tennessee where the winters weren’t so brutal. He could find a lake, build some houses around it and have a hell of a time.

  No, he had to go big or go home. It was an island or nothing.

  Maybe I really am Alligator Arms—reaching for things I can’t get.

  Lenny scanned the pages, absently rubbing his hands on his shorts. “Hold the wedding. What do we have here?”

  Towards the back of the file, a folded slip of paper had been crammed between the fragile pages.

  “It’s some kind of note,” Ollie said. “Hard to read, though.”

  The ink had bled over the page. Lenny carefully lifted it to the dining room table, under the bright overhead lamp. His lips moved as he silently pored over the note.

  “It looks like it was written by Seaman Chet Hardy,” Lenny said.

  “Seaman is like a private in the Army,” Ollie told him. He caught Lenny’s eye and said, “Before you say anything stupid.”

  Lenny smirked. “Not today, Raging Bull. Anyway, from what I can read, it appears Seaman Hardy was kinda peeved.” He pointed at a blurry line of text. “It says, ‘Can’t believe we have to work with these guys. My father died killing them, yet I have to.’ I can’t read what comes after.”

  Ollie traced a finger down the page. “‘Just trying to get through this and come home. I wish I could tell you everything. Science fiction has nothing on this place.’”

  “He’s got that right,” Lenny said.

  “Does that look like the word shark?” Ollie asked.

  Lenny leaned over her shoulder. “It could be. Or it could say sharp. Or shit. We could just be seeing what we want to see. I guess Seaman Hardy was planning to send this note home but something happened before he could stick it in an envelope.”

  “And I’m sure it wasn’t something good,” Ollie added.

  “I think at this point we have to hit the lab again. If this note was written in the mid-fifties, I’ll bet the guys Chet is referring to are Germans. Nazis to be more specific. Or they could have been Japanese,” Lenny said. “Now what the hell was our military doing with them way out here? I can’t help thinking they’re directly linked to that big-ass shark.”