Megalodon In Paradise

by Hunter Shea

  “After that, I have a call with the contractor around two.”

  “I guess you don’t need me to take notes anymore,” Tara said.

  “No, but I want you there. One of the houses they’re building is yours. I know he loves to hear your two cents.”

  “Har-dee-har-har.”

  She munched on her toast.

  Once they made it back stateside, Ollie had gotten right to work looking for someplace for him and Tara to live. They couldn’t stay in this hotel forever. Well, they could. He had more than enough money left. But they needed to have their own place.

  Tara’s would be right next to his, in a wooded area in Colorado.

  Staying in the hotel had actually been part of the healing process, both physically and mentally. Tara’s night terrors had decreased, but at least Ollie was always nearby to comfort her when they hit. But the time would come when they needed to move on.

  They had a hell of a fish story to tell, but they’d been sworn to secrecy by the US military. Ollie got the feeling that if word ever got out what happened on the island, he and Tara would disappear. It would have been the stuff of legend, his killing the Megalodon with nothing but a shard of wood.

  After Lucky had rescued them, a Navy frigate had come to the island. Ollie and Tara had become reluctant sensations, the nearby islands abuzz over the lone survivors of the storm. Ollie and Tara had been smart not to tell Lucky or anyone else about the shark or the smugglers.

  Poor Lucky had been devastated. Ollie promised to make sure that he and his entire family would be taken care of, but it couldn’t replace lovely Lae.

  He and Tara had been called to a debriefing with an admiral. The man’s presence was enough to convey the importance of what had gone down. He never outright claimed proprietorship over the Megalodon, but he didn’t have to. Ollie and Tara were interviewed—or grilled was more like it—for five days. Every scrap of information was extracted from them. When he told the admiral that he had slayed the beast, the stern man flashed a hint of a smile, as if to say, Sure, son, you go on believing that.

  Ollie had the feeling that the drug lord, Donovan Bailey, was going to be paid a visit. Even though he hadn’t been witness to what happened, the Navy wasn’t going to take any chances. If they dumped him in the ocean, it would be one good thing to come out of this.

  For now, Ollie and Tara were safe. They would remain so as long as they never spoke a word of what had happened to them. The threats they had received in that regard weren’t the least bit veiled or vague.

  His dreams of he and Tara falling in love after surviving their ordeal had to be . . . readjusted after she confessed to him that she had come out as a lesbian the year after they’d graduated college.

  “I have guys like Lenny and Steven to thank for helping me come to my senses,” she joked at the time, the mention of their names bringing tears to both their eyes.

  So they might never become lovers, but they would always be the best of friends. And Ollie was okay with that.

  He picked up a knife and fork for the first time in months and got to work on his eggs and sausage.

  Simple pleasures.

  Just keep it simple.

  ***

  Admiral Keyes stationed himself on the bridge, scanning the horizon with binoculars.

  “Looks like there’s nothing left.”

  “The storm did a damn good job leveling the island,” Captain Campisi replied.

  “No matter. It’s what’s below that matters most.”

  Operation Revive was going to be a massive undertaking. Submarines had located the asset. The admiral wanted to be on hand to make sure the transport to the new underwater facility went off without a hitch. A lot of money had been spent to get it right this time. Billions of black budget funds went into making sure the Megalodon was secure.

  The power of the creature was undeniable. If it could do to the Russian and Chinese fleets what it had done to the Maximus, the United States would control the water, and the world.

  They just needed to fine-tune the beast. How that was to be done, the admiral would leave to the scientists. Plans were already underway for making a second Megalodon, and a third and so on until they had an asset in every major body of water.

  There might come a day when ships like the one he was on were obsolete.

  Robots on land, drones in the air, and fucking sharks in the water, he mused.

  The world was on the brink of wholesale change. He knew he wouldn’t be alive to see it all come to fruition. And in a way, he was glad of that. What would be his place in such a world?

  Captain Campisi consulted his tablet and leaned into the admiral.

  “We just got word that the civilians who survived the island massacre have moved out of the hotel.”

  “We’ll have to keep our eye on them.”

  Admiral Keyes had personally interrogated Ollie Arias and Tara McShane after they’d been rescued from the island. He’d made it abundantly clear that they were to never speak of what happened. His original intention was to make them disappear. But after spending time with them and hearing what they’d been through, he’d decided to let them pick up the pieces and live their lives.

  He was sworn to protect US citizens, not kill them.

  So far, they’d kept quiet.

  He hoped it would stay that way.

  “We have the asset locked and ready to roll,” the voice said over the speaker system.

  Admiral Keyes puffed out his chest.

  “Gentlemen, proceed.”

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of The Last Colossus

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I hope you had fun with my unusual take on a Meg tale . . . or tail. This was supposed to be a neat little novella, but it took on a life of its own and blossomed into a full, insane novel. My main goal was to plop a group of old friends on an island with a dormant Megalodon lurking beneath them. I quickly realized that to fully flesh out each character, the book would need more space for them to breathe—kind of like a fine wine. Or in Lenny’s case, a domestic beer at the ballpark.

  Unlike Grand Isla Tiburon, no man—or writer—is an island.

  I can’t thank my team of beta readers for tackling this beast of a manuscript and taming it. Carolyn Wolstencroft, Erin Al-Mehairi, Tim Feely and Tim Meyer are my Mount Rushmore of support. Gary and the entire team at Severed Press kick some serious ass. Thank you for allowing me the chance to spread my madness to readers all across the globe. I’m eternally in your debt.

  Deep Crab Marina and Sports Bar

  Seaside, Washington

  Cheap lamps flickered at either end of a dim drinking establishment. A few patrons slumped against the bar, all of them wearing flannels and ball caps. A lone television flickered above the far end of the bar, reflected in the array of whiskey bottles and glasses. A patron named Paul Woody looked up at the TV and grimaced.

  “You see that?” Paul asked the man sitting next to him.

  “See what?” the man next to him said.

  “Eh, another dumb shark movie,” Paul said.

  On the TV, a series of boats floated around an oil rig as divers submerged despite the danger of a freakish shark.

  “Your point?” the other man asked.

  Paul gestured lazily at the TV. “Why don’t they just steer the damn boats away from the shark?” Paul asked.

  The other man shrugged. “I suppose. The motor might have puttered out on ‘em, though.”

  “Yeah, it’s been done a million times. Motors don’t just go like that, and there are backup systems. It’s not an either-or situation,” Paul said. “Why do all these dumbasses stick around when these monster sharks are out and about? Just motor the damn boat away,” Paul said. “I don’t care if yer’ doing research, or have to fix a damn oil rig, or whatever the reason may be. Just motor away.”

  The other man laughed. “I suppose.”

  Paul gulped his shot of tequila. “I mean, problem solved, r
ight? Leave the area and you’ll never see the fucking shark again.”

  The other man nodded. “Nothin’s really keeping them there. They can just motor away.”

  “Exactly,” Paul said. “Just fucking leave, eh? I mean yeah, a giant shark would make you curious, but then you’d get the hell out of there. It just doesn’t make any sense. Something would have to keep you with the shark, almost force you to be there. The ocean is just too damn big.”

  The other man took a swig of his beer. “Well, for the first time, Paul, you make sense,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  Paul raised his hand as if he was going to backslap the other man, and laughed. Then Paul looked back up at the TV and waved his hand. “Just motor away,” he muttered. “Ain’t nothing keeping you there.”

  The First

  “Great,” the stranded fisherman said. He clung to the last evidence of his boat, a jagged piece of hull keeping him from the floor of the Pacific. Thirty-foot swells surrounded him, nuzzling him in their watery bosom. The Pacific was cold, too cold, but luckily, he had worn his emergency gear, a waterproof thermal shell similar to a snowmobile suit.

  Lightning had struck the mast of his ship The Morgan, frying the alternator and all onboard electronics. That was when the fire started, igniting the fuel tanks. He’d been sent flying into the mess of rain and swells, lucky to keep consciousness.

  Or maybe not.

  As lightning spidered the horizon, the brief light illuminated a shape in the water, one he’d definitely seen before while fishing for halibut near the Falcon Islands. The Falcons were a tiny island chain fifty miles off Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and well known for an overpopulation of sea lions and their ultimate predator, the great white shark. And wasn’t it his luck to blow up his boat in shark-infested waters.

  Great.

  Lightning dissipated in the sky.

  The shark disappeared.

  For the first time in his life, Eric Harper began to hyperventilate. He immediately performed an ab crunch, bringing his knees as close as he could to his chest. He wanted to ball up, make himself disappear, but he needed to grasp what remained of the hull, too. He shut his eyes tight as water dripped down his brow. He blew away the moisture in spastic breaths.

  “Mother,” he said weakly.

  Huh, he thought. Another first.

  When he opened his eyes and blinked away the rain, a shark fin sliced the electric water, then disappeared.

  A swell gently carried him higher, until he could see Mount Kraken rising above the Falcon Islands. For a brief moment, the mountain tip resembled a shark fin, then disappeared in the gloom.

  The swell brought him back down into the maw, and he clung to the hull piece, knees drawn up as far into his body as he could. Of course, this made him weaker, as did the storm. He had a feeling that was going to be the theme of tonight. Weak, weak, going, getting…weaker.

  Or maybe not.

  Below him, a nudge, then nothing at all.

  “Just a fish,” he thought. “A goofy halibut up at the surface.” Eric Harper looked up at the sky and laughed. “Bring it on,” he said between spits of water. “Bring it the fuck on.”

  Below him, a swell of water pushed against his legs. The jagged hull piece bobbed higher in the water along with it. Lightning divided the horizon, illuminating the water beneath him.

  He so wished it hadn’t.

  The great white surged vertically below, it’s mouth wide open, the scarred gums connected to rows and rows of prehistoric looking teeth.

  Eric let go of his pathetic life raft and reached for his ankles, pulling them tight to his ass so only his knees pointed down. But the great white was too fast and caught him right at his knees, popping them like firecrackers wrapped in paper towels.

  He screamed.

  The jaws opened wider, and Eric was sucked further into the shark’s mouth. Now only his torso and arms were clear. He pummeled its eyes with his fists, but soon gave up as his spine began to crack, forcing complete non-function of his motor skills.

  As the shark prepared to dive, a shadow loomed beneath it, a shadow that dwarfed its own. A much larger set of jaws opened, taking in the great white entirely, and Eric along with it.

  Then there was nothing but the storm.

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