Megalodon In Paradise

by Hunter Shea

  Tara wanted to make her way up there and help, or at the very least see what the hell was going on.

  But Lenny needed her. She couldn’t leave him here to die alone.

  The building shook. She grabbed hold of Lenny.

  “Not this. Not now,” she moaned.

  The lab was old and had been left to rot for decades. The ocean was doing its best to knock the whole thing down.

  The thought of being in the water terrified her. She’d rather be shot than eaten alive by the shark.

  “We should move away from the edge,” Lenny said. “That’ll be the first to slide into the Pacific.” Tara put out her hand to help him up.

  “It’s probably best you don’t touch me,” he said. “I’m getting worse. The infection is everywhere now.”

  Tara didn’t protest, feeling terrible about it.

  They staggered to the middle of the roof.

  She still couldn’t see Ollie.

  “That building had to have been compromised when the tank went,” she said. “If this one is starting to go, that one can’t be far behind.”

  “Ollie!” she shouted with her hands cupped around her mouth.

  The rumbling under their feet intensified. She’d been through a minor earthquake in Japan when her father took the family to Sapporo in the nineties. He had been transferred to the Sapporo office for six months, with an allowance to bring his family for one all-expenses-paid trip. The earthquake shook the apartment they were staying in on their first night there. Even though nothing happened other than a picture falling off the wall and some plates clattering off a shelf, Tara had spent the rest of the trip asking when they would go back home.

  Even though it hadn’t been much in the way of earthquakes, it was just enough to demonstrate to her the full power and amoral wrath of nature.

  “You going to be all right to swim, Stump?” she said.

  “Looks like I’m not going to have a choice, T-Mac,” he said with a pained grin.

  Zigzagging cracks snaked across the roof.

  Expecting to fall through the roof and into the water any second, Tara was blown backwards when the central lab building exploded outward.

  Her breath whooshed from her lungs. Lightning bolts of pain shot from her tailbone down to her legs and straight to her teeth.

  Tara watched in mute horror as the behemoth shark rocketed through the disintegrating building, as straight and true as an ICBM.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But for the moment, she couldn’t even draw a breath.

  The Megalodon’s enormous mouth was open wide, devouring brick and steel, powering into the air.

  How the hell did it know Ollie and the smuggler were up there?

  As gravity dragged the massive Megalodon back into the ocean, the remains of the building splashed around it. The air was choked with turgid water and debris.

  “Oh my God, Ollie,” she gasped, her lungs burning.

  “Look!” Lenny gasped, pointing to the tumbling refuse.

  The shadow of a man tumbled toward them. His arms and legs whirled in a vain attempt to find purchase where there was none to be had.

  The building under them gave a fatal and grinding shake. Tara heard the foundation start to give way.

  Somehow, Lenny had made it to his feet, running toward the falling man with outstretched arms. How he expected to catch him with only the one hand and all the strength of a kitten was anyone’s guess.

  Tara saw a flash of the man’s face and the raw terror in his eyes.

  It wasn’t Ollie.

  “Lenny, it’s the smuggler!”

  Lenny stopped short, letting the man fall just a couple of feet in front of him. Even from a distance, Tara could hear the man’s bones snap. His body bounced not just once, but twice before settling into an unnatural heap. The man’s bloody face was turned to her. His eyes were wide open and vacant.

  Running past him, she peered over the edge of the roof.

  Tara looked into the floating field of carnage. There was no sign of Ollie. It felt as if a fist were closing over her heart. Poor Ollie. He only wanted to make people happy after being denied happiness most of his life.

  The Megalodon’s fin sliced back and forth through the water, seeming to revel in the destruction it had wrought.

  Glancing back at her, Lenny said, “Good eye. I’d hate to have sacrificed myself for that guy.”

  He collapsed onto his bad side when the building canted hard to the left. Tara clawed the rough surface of the roof to stop herself from sliding over the edge.

  It was no use. The damage was done. The building was breaking up fast, tilting into the ocean like a wounded ship.

  Slipping across the slick roof, she managed to grab hold of an outer pocket on Lenny’s shorts. At least they would go down together.

  Tara couldn’t help the hot tears from burning her eyes. She didn’t want to die. Especially not like this. She knew the second they hit the water, the shark would smell them. They were both cut up pretty bad, and Lenny was a blackening mass of whatever vileness that fed the beast. Would it tear her in half like it had done to Lae, or would the end come quickly? Just thinking about those massive teeth carving through her, being digested in the belly of the prehistoric creature made her wish her heart would just give out and spare her one more second of panic.

  With one last heave, the building foundered. Tara and Lenny sprawled into the ocean. She landed on her belly, the impact punching the held breath from her lungs. She considered just sucking in as much seawater as she could and ending it right there, but her innate survival instincts had her struggling for the surface.

  She broke through, fighting for a merciful breath.

  “Over here,” she heard Lenny cry.

  He’d found a buoyant slab of driftwood and draped his good arm over it. She knifed through the water to latch onto it.

  They floated right into a lone ray of sun. It was a meager spotlight on the stage of their undoing. Floating across from an illuminated Lenny, Tara saw how gray his skin had become, with lines of black blossoming on his jawline. He couldn’t have much more to go.

  Worse still for her, he was a living dinner bell for the shark. She could push away now and get as far from him as she could, forced to watch him get eaten before she met the same fate, or she could stay by him and not die alone.

  The sound of a motor broke her from mulling over a winless choice.

  She looked around for the source. The rough water had them bobbing so much, it was almost impossible to see anything for more than a fleeting moment.

  Lenny rested his head on the driftwood. His eyes were closed.

  Whatever was making the noise was coming closer because she could feel the rumbling in her chest.

  Riding the crest of a whitecap, she spotted a boat.

  A boat!

  “Lenny, wake up.”

  Lenny’s eyelids fluttered but he remained unconscious.

  “Stump, I need you to wake up!”

  At hearing his old nickname, he finally came out of it. “Please, just let me sleep, T-Mac.”

  “You can sleep all you want later, buddy. Right now, we need to hitch a ride.”

  ***

  When Steven steered Ollie’s boat, the Sarah Kay, to where the lab once stood, his heart and stomach sank into his shoes. Everything was gone. The shattered remains of the lab littered the surface of the interloping ocean.

  And somewhere within the mess was his wife.

  He couldn’t see her anywhere.

  But he did spy Tara and a strange man clinging onto a long slab of wood.

  Far from a boating expert, he eased back on the Sarah Kay’s throttle and steered next to them. He didn’t want to get too close because he was worried he’d ride right over them or get them caught in the motor’s propeller. He was no sailor, having driven a speedboat once when he was seventeen at camp. That brief foray hardly qualified him to pilot anything more complex than a canoe.

  He pulle
d a life preserver from the hook and tossed it over to Tara. She looked completely wiped out. He wrapped the end of the rope several times around his wrist.

  “Take Lenny first,” Tara said, trying to loop the circular tube over the gray man’s upper body.

  That’s Lenny? Steven bit back his repulsion. He looked a lot like Heidi had before he’d left to find a way out of the lab and off this cursed island. He didn’t know he’d end up getting swept into the sea, fighting to stay afloat. The current ripped him farther and farther from the lab. The circling fins of smaller sharks turned in his direction. He decided being eaten piece by piece by a gang of small sharks was far more terrifying than a single, swift chomp by the Megalodon. Paddling and kicking like a man possessed, he found himself deposited to where the dock and beach had once been.

  The dock was gone, but Ollie’s boat was still there, listing to the right and taking on water because it was still tethered to the submerged dock.

  The smaller sharks were getting closer.

  Steven dove under several times, having to undo the tether by feel in the dark, murky water. Just when he thought his lungs couldn’t take any more, his arms weakening to the point of shaking uncontrollably, the rope pulled up and over the post.

  The Sarah Kay immediately righted itself and Steven struggled to climb aboard. He flipped the bird defiantly at the disappointed sharks.

  Ollie had left the key in the ignition. It was the only thing he could thank Ollie for. Exhausted, the scar on his head throbbing, he was tempted to let the darkness overtake him.

  He fought it, knowing he had to get back to Heidi. If he could somehow get her to a medical facility on a nearby island, they might be able to save her.

  Thankfully, the tempest had finally passed. It took some trial and error to get control of the boat.

  He thought he’d be returning a hero.

  He was wrong.

  “Where’s Heidi?”

  “Get Lenny on board,” Tara said, avoiding his gaze.

  Steven had a hard time drawing his next breath, much less pulling Lenny’s dead weight. Lenny looked like a diseased avocado. The last thing he wanted to do was come in contact with his infected skin.

  “Come on, take him!” Tara shouted, looking over her shoulder repeatedly.

  He leaned over the boat, hesitating. Lenny’s eyes rolled into his head, revealing eyes that no longer looked human. How did eyes get that color?

  “Steven!” Tara snapped.

  “Let me help you,” he said, reaching out to her.

  “Lenny first,” she insisted. “And hurry, goddammit!”

  “But . . . he’s infected. Is he even alive?”

  “If you’re worried about catching it, do I need to remind you that you were holding Heidi the entire time she was sick? Just grab him by his shirt and pants if you can.”

  Hearing Heidi’s name made him forget his worries about the poison running through Lenny. Using both hands, he hauled Lenny aboard. His old friend’s skin and muscles felt like porridge. He thought he felt bones snap under his grip.

  Lenny moaned, flopping onto the deck. Thick, black fluid leaked from the corner of his mouth.

  Tara managed to get herself onboard.

  “Where’s Heidi?” he asked again.

  She shook her head. “She didn’t make it. I’m so sorry, Steven. But she went out trying to save us.”

  It felt as if the world had been yanked out from under him.

  She’d died trying to save them.

  He wasn’t sure what that entailed. He was sure he was in no state to comprehend whatever Tara would tell him.

  Oh God, Heidi. You can’t leave me.

  He didn’t realize Tara had grabbed his arms and was shaking him, shouting into his face.

  “What?”

  “We have to get the fuck out of here.”

  “I need to find Heidi. Where’s her body?”

  “I don’t know. She was in the lab when it . . . when it blew up.”

  “Blew up? How did it blow up?”

  A cold wind blew the wet strands of her hair from Tara’s pale face. “It was the water . . . and the shark. Look, you have to get us as far away from here as you can, right now.”

  “Not without Heidi. I can’t leave her out here.”

  Tara stormed past him and went to the pilot’s seat. “Just tell me what the hell I need to do.”

  Steven couldn’t feel his legs. He stared into the distance, images of Heidi playing out on the gray horizon as if it were a drive-in movie screen.

  “Steven!”

  “Need to take Heidi home,” he mumbled.

  A sudden sting in his cheek shook him from his fugue. When he didn’t react, Tara slapped him again.

  “Drive . . . the fucking . . . boat,” she ordered. Her lips were curled into a snarl. The look on her face would have scared him any other time.

  She roughly grabbed his face and twisted his head.

  “See that? If you don’t haul ass, it’s going to find us.”

  He watched the impossibly large dorsal fin patrol the water. It was a hundred or so yards away now, but it had turned in their direction. The sight of the shark brought him crashing back to reality.

  Tara was right. They had to get out of there, fast.

  His cowardice, his inability to let the inevitable happen and be with Heidi once again, sickened him. He opened up the throttle and turned the wheel. Tara knelt by Lenny, propping his head up under the life preserver.

  He fought against the ocean, trying to get the Sarah Kay going in the right direction, which was any direction opposite that shark. The back of the boat slid sideways as if it were a car on thin ice. He didn’t know if he was supposed to steer into the curve or not.

  Daring to look back, he caught the shark leaping from the ocean. Its mouth was open wide enough to swallow the Staten Island Ferry. It slammed into the water, sending a ripple of waves that nearly flipped the Sarah Kay.

  “It’s coming!” Tara screamed, a bit unnecessarily as far as Steven was concerned. Of course it was coming for them. The damn shark was like some kind of avenging demon, sent to destroy them for daring to live a life people only dreamed about.

  “I’m trying,” Steven shot back, wrestling with the wheel. At one point, it jerked so hard, it almost pulled his elbow from its socket.

  “Wait! Wait!” Tara shouted, crossing the boat to tug on his arm. The boat bobbed on the high waves. They both almost hit the deck.

  “There’s someone out there,” she said.

  “So what?” He was finally starting to make some headway. And now she wanted him to stop?

  “It might be Ollie.”

  He turned to her, unable to mask his ambivalence. “Not my problem. I’m getting us out of here.”

  With a shrug of his shoulders, he nudged Tara off him and she went sprawling, sliding next to an unconscious Lenny.

  Fuck Ollie.

  As far as he was concerned, Ollie had killed Heidi.

  He’d earned whatever he had coming to him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Captain Powell watched the monitor as the Megalodon thrashed about in the water. It definitely wasn’t going far from home. That wasn’t going to make things any easier.

  Leuis, his XO, said beside him, “How in the holy hell are we supposed to capture that thing? It’ll snap Maximus in two.”

  The Megalodon seemed bigger than he’d thought. At least it appeared bigger in motion. And it moved so damn fast. Jesus, no wonder they had tried to weaponize the thing. But how the hell did they think they could ever bend it to their will? The Megalodon was a force of nature, an extinct beast that no longer had a place in this world.

  Powell was none too pleased with the orders he’d been given.

  He wasn’t a cowboy and the Maximus wasn’t a horse. Somehow, they were supposed to get the shark’s attention and corral it into the special holding pen under the island. He couldn’t imagine a single scenario where the submarine wasn’t smashe
d to bits.

  “They said it should be weakening,” Powell said, his face glowing green from the monitors.

  “It sure as shit doesn’t look that way to me,” Leuis said, grinding his dentures. Always an intense man, he’d ground away his real teeth years ago.

  Leuis was right. The actions of the shark were downright manic. It was circling the island, or what remained of it, jumping like a dolphin and then diving deep, barreling to the surface seconds later. If Powell was a shark psychologist, he’d say the creature had completely lost its mind.

  Powell said, “The lunatics that designed it also put in a failsafe. It can’t go for long without a special chemical that’s fed to it. The lab is destroyed. Whatever remnants it had managed to get ahold of are gone. There’s no more supply. It will burn itself out. Then we go in and get it back in its cage . . . after we repair it.”

  “And what if it decides it wants to take a stroll while it’s still full of piss and vinegar?”

  Powell drew in a sharp breath. “We’re to discourage it from venturing any further from its current location.”

  “But we can’t kill it?”

  “No. If this bastard dies under our watch, we’re cooked. And I’m not just talking career-wise. The words ‘court-marshal’ were mentioned more than once.”

  Leuis punched his fist against the bulkhead. “I could strangle the moron that sold that cursed island.”

  Powell spoke softly so no one else could overhear him. “That ship has sailed. No sense bemoaning it any further. It’s our job to get it back in mothballs so someone can find a way to fix it. All without letting the administration find out. Simple.”

  Both men stared at the monitor, watching the shark circle round and round.

  “Some things can’t be fixed,” Leuis said.

  Captain Powell couldn’t agree more.

  ***

  Nacho was having a hard time staying awake. There was a constant buzzing in his head. His body was numb. Salty water burned his throat, filling his lungs.

  At least his scar had stopped itching. Or had that gone numb, too?

  His vision was blurry, but he could see that he still had a good hold on the man’s leg. This little man who had somehow bested them all.