by Alan Spencer
Everybody went wild.
What came next gave them nothing to celebrate.
Five sharks the size of The Statue of Liberty flanked The Annihilator. The sharks spun in a formation, causing the submarine to lose its bearing and flip. The enormous squid charging in added to the frenzy. Every one of its tentacle bashed the outside of The Annihilator. Each strike was a jolting punch that nearly sent everybody out of his or her seat. Anchor could only imagine what the poor cadets below the bridge were suffering.
"Fire what you got!" Anchor commanded. "Get these things off our ass!"
Olsen unleashed a wave of strobe flash missiles. The squid gave a roar that sounded like metal bending to incredible weight. The sharks crisscrossed paths, escaping the intense blinking light. One shark was swimming headfirst towards their sub.
"Double shields," Anchor shouted, thinking fast, "maximum speed! Ramming time!"
The Annihilator slammed right into the shark's face. The vessel's impact caused the shark's head to go up into highflying mist.
"Whoooa-yeaaaaah!" Anchor shouted. "Take that, fish bait. Hook 'em and cook 'em! I'm fucking hungry! Reel 'em in!"
"Olsen, fire out some more of those strobe flashes," Anchor ordered. "Maintain position. The flashes will buy us a few moments to recover our bearings."
Olsen released more strobe flashes.
When the flashes cleared, their situation wasn't any better.
It became astronomically worse.
Anchor could only take in the information on the screen image by image. The mega Beluga whale dominated the scene. The bulk was half-white skin and half bone with demon red eyes. Its teeth were the size of skyscrapers. Those teeth skewered the attack subs in its path and chewed them into pieces. Those pieces were swallowed in the deep gulf of a throat and spewed out the long row of blowholes at hundreds of miles an hour. Another whale, this one a mega Killer Whale, head butted subs and swatted its tail to explode the vessels. Two more manta rays, dozens of giant sharks, and a fleet of squid followed up the new line of sea creatures.
How many enemies had Gargantuan produced, Anchor wondered. Where had the other enemies come from moments ago?
Anchor knew the answer to that. He didn't need to be a marine biologist or of a scientific mind to know. This was an ambush. These monsters were waiting in the deeper depths to come together and take them out. These monsters were smart, as they were cunning and deadly. The Annihilator was in as much danger as before. The entire world could be crushed by this team of deep sea titans.
"That whale is playing baseball with our subs," Anchor growled. "There's gotta be another course of attack."
"There is, Anchor."
Dr. Singer had a 9mm trained to his head. The scientist had back up. Crew from below had firearms aimed at each of the crewmembers.
"This is my sub," Dr. Singer said, "and my orders are going to be carried out. Change of plans everybody. We're turning The Annihilator around and heading straight for Gargantuan. I'm afraid I must insist."
Enter Gargantuan
"Talk, I put a bullet through your head, Anchor. With the nozzle pressed up against the side of your head, you know I won't miss."
Anchor refused to be silent. Send a slug through his head. He didn't give a good Goddamn. This scientist could go shove a beaker up his ass, Anchor thought. This wasn't the proper way to carry out the mission.
"Where did they find you, man? You're not like any scientist I've heard of. You say you can steer The Annihilator. You snap a man's neck without batting an eye. Who are you really?"
"A scientist working on behalf of the United States of America. Now do as I say, or you each die. Do you want to save lives, or not?"
Anchor knew how to handle this before anything else needed to be said. He didn't want any guns being fired in the submarine. A bullet could damage equipment, and damaged equipment meant going up against the enemy carrying a gun without bullets. Crazy men with power, like Mendel and Singer, couldn't be taken on by normal terms. Man vs. man didn't apply here. Singer was psychotically determined to get his wish. When the time was right, Anchor knew when to turn the tables on the sucker.
"Okay," Anchor said, "we're changing course. Everybody, engage every weapon you got. We're entering Gargantuan. Do as he says. Resisting could cause more problems than helping. We tried doing the right thing. Now we have to do it their way. I don't like it. You don't like it. Fuck it."
"The guns stay trained on you and your crew," Singer said. "I'm taking no chances. Now, when you cross the energy field, if this sub touches one of those moving currents, we're cooked. The only way is to fire every missile we've got at the field and open up a temporary hole. Removing the missiles will also reduce our weight. We can drive faster."
"When a hole opens up," Anchor asked, "how long will it stay open?"
"It's difficult to say. Our field studies say seconds."
"Seconds?" Anchor sighed. "That leaves no room for error."
"This whole mission leaves no room for error," Singer yelled. "Now fire everything you got at her, NOW!"
Fragment torpedoes shredded through an eel the size of a subway car. Through its middle, human bodies trapped in clear eggs were crying out in horror as they were torn to pieces. Anchor swore that he saw for a split second, an old cadet buddy by the name of Mike Johnson, head fly by the sub's camera.
"Blast everything!" Anchor cried out. Seeing his old friend sent a thrill of rage up his spine and into his brain stem. "No more talk. Only killing!"
Anchor sent a zip line of torpedoes at the Beluga whale. His aim was the best in his class. He made a direct hit at its head. Both its tiny black beady eyes popped like splattered tomatoes. Bright followed up with a missile that when it met its target, the missile turned them into acid. The Beluga's face melted like wax. Down tipped the dangerous marine berg.
"Quit shooting them!" Dr. Singer said, striking Anchor across the back of the head. "Aim your missiles at the energy fields. Forget it. I can't control you, Anchor. You just do whatever the fuck you want whenever you want. We still need you, but not in that pilot seat. I'm taking over."
Anchor was hit hard enough over the head, he ended up sprawled out on the ground. He was paralyzed by pain. His vision was double. Dr. Singer was in the pilot's seat now. He was barking orders to fire at the energy fields flowing around Gargantuan. The electricity fields turned the missiles into large plumes of fizzy bubbles. When blue electricity met orange fire, everything turned a strange red. Through the red color, a small hole in the energy field formed.
Dr. Singer shouted, "Thrusts at maximum speed! Set your courses dead ahead!"
The Annihilator jerked forward at amazing speeds. Dodging flying, broken pieces of other submarines, and other sea beasts on the attack, they surged through the electricity field. Before Anchor could blink the line of blood out of his eyes, they were on the other side of the energy field.
The body of Gargantuan was even more hideous and disgusting up close. The insides of every fish, shark, and aquatic dweller compromised the sea meatball. Bones and tracks of articulations and vascular tissue pumped and throbbed with vigor.
Long, green, ropey threads that resembled plankton reached out to knock The Annihilator off course. At the end of those threads were hideous gnashing barracuda-like teeth.
Dr. Singer froze up. "Oh God no! We're out of ammunition. This can't be happening."
"Quit tying your dick into a noose to hang yourself with, you idiot," Anchor growled, getting up from the floor with raging pain coursing through his head. "You got us into this mess. I'll get you out of it. Olsen, use the strobes. Blind them!"
Olsen obeyed the commands. "Strobes fired!"
The plankton shoots vanished under the bright glowing flashes of red, white, and blue. When those colors were used, it meant the stock was empty.
They were in close enough proximity that they didn't need any more ammunition or strobes. Before Anchor could speak the next command, several officers restrained him.
; "You did good, Anchor," Singer said. "Now let me do the rest. I know where we have to go to set those charges. We have to go in deep. The closer to the core, the better. Prepare for entry. Raise the shredders. Brace yourselves. We're going in!"
Deep Sea Penetration
The front of the bridge's screen showcased the wide array of blades jutting out from the front of the submarine. The Annihilator had become a Suisse Army Knife. Anchor imagined staring into the inside of a super wood chipper of working precision blades from hell. The ones that reached out the farthest were designed to sheer and make deep cuts. A second set of blades extracted whatever was excised, and then the final backmost blades were spinning jagged toothed saw blades that turned that carved meat into pureed matter. Among the blades were thick plastic tubes that sucked up that pureed matter and shot it from each side of The Annihilator to clear a pathway.
The blades were raking, slicing, digging, spitting, and sucking out hundreds of pounds of meat every few seconds. The submarine was slowed down to minimum speed. Minutes into breaking into the walls of Gargantuan's exterior, the way was growing dark. Whatever light came from the hole that had entered, they were so deep that sliver of light could no longer be seen.
How deep would they shred before reaching their final destination? Anchor was getting antsy. He had his arms behind his back and two guns trained on him. These officers looked like they could shit their pants, or already had, and couldn't mask the humiliation they felt. It would be nothing to break free from their hold, clobber the group, and stomp Dr. Singer into the ground. That would be pointless now, unfortunately. They had to reach a stopping point before any retaliation, Anchor decided. For now, he had to wait.
"Projection Lights," Dr. Singer commanded. The scientist was tapping on the main pilot's console. "Calculating our depth as we speak. Hold tight and let the shredders do their job."
Once the two dome lights came on, Anchor and the rest of the crew were given a colorful view of chopped up sea debris. Tiny anemones, plated bodies, squid flesh, tentacles, nodules, mysterious guts that looked like pink, red, and purple seaweed, was butchered and liquefied. Anchor tried to wrap his eye around the strange details. Everything changed in a blink when they were suddenly in a dark tunnel. All around that tunnel were familiar things, though the recognition wasn't anything welcome.
A junkyard of broken cars, buildings, houses, and streets were stuck to the walls of the tunnel, among crushed bodies of partially devoured and mutilated human beings. The way the victims jutted up from the sides of the tunnel and swayed in the water, Anchor swore the dead were alive and reaching out for help.
The sub shook with the vibrations of a strange deep growl. The pilots struggled to keep The Annihilator on course as everything kept shifting due to the jarring emanations.
Anchor had to ask Singer, "Wait, what's that noise about? Where are we?"
Dr. Singer didn't waste a second to peer up away from the console's screen. He was too busy making calculations and figuring things out. He was annoyed to break his concentration. "We're in Gargantuan's lower bowels."
"What? We're driving up this creature's asshole? No wonder she's pissed!"
"We are right where we need to be," Dr. Singer said. "If we're going to set those charges, we have to be right in the middle of Gargantuan. If we're going to take her down, it starts with destroying the nucleus. Once she can't think or produce protein, everything else will collapse."
"You make it sound so easy," Anchor said, "but in order to set those charges, we have to park this thing and take it on foot. How is that going to work? Have we done all of this work just to fuck ourselves in our own ass?"
"No, most certainly not! We've planned this mission out meticulously."
"Why do I keep feeling out of the loop?"
"Because that's the way it has to be, Anchor. You've made it hard enough on us already. We have to keep you in line somehow, and that's the only way."
"So what if we can step out of this thing safely? Do you know what could be inside of Gargantuan?"
Dr. Singer took a moment to compose himself. "Once we find our position, I have no idea what we're going to be up against. That's why we brought you and your team here. We'll go in and set the charges throughout her core, then run back into the sub. You were the best man for the job, Anchor. You have to do what you do best, whether you're fully prepared or not."
"And what is it that I do best?"
"Killing the enemy."
Touching Down
The crew waited in anticipation for the next orders. Anchor could only feel his anger rise watching the masses of corpses lodged in the digestive cavity of the beast. So many had died. The pressure to succeed was on Anchor's shoulder. He refused to buckle to the weight, no matter what the cost.
Dr. Singer changed course. The blades chopped through a school bus and cut through the colon cavity itself. The walls changed to a brighter pink color. Fatty flesh and pustules were crammed together, bunched up tight. The shredders did their job, pulping what was in their way and spitting out the mess behind them.
Everybody gasped, seeing thousands of strange clear gel eggs scattered throughout the walls. The eggs were enormous. Anchor imagined them to be the size of a tank. Within the jelly oblong circles, were wretched black creatures that had no definition. Curled up fetuses that would become unstoppable killing machines.
"We're getting closer," Dr. Singer said eagerly. "This is her belly. Gargantuan can store these eggs for up to a hundred years before hatching them. She decides which ones are born, which ones hibernate, and which ones are aborted."
When Dr. Singer mentioned abortion, a row of eggs dissolved for no reason, fizzling down to greenish black tobacco spit puddles.
"I guess those eggs didn't make the cut," Anchor said. "Probably something that can't kick our ass, like giant sea monkeys."
Nobody enjoyed his joke.
Dr. Singer was steering them through the pink sack of eggs to the other side. A wall of stringy green flagellum brushed up against the submarine. Anchor envisioned a car wash.
That car wash turned against them.
The flagellum wrapped around the submarine. The shredder's blades were bent back until most of them were completely broken off the submarine. The sub was then thrown across the way. Anchor, along with everybody else, was launched from their position. Bright hit her head on the ground and blacked out. Olsen had slammed headfirst into the console across from him. Blood was streaming down his head. Topper and Wolfe were forced across the bridge. Anchor couldn't see where they ended up. Dr. Singer had taken a hard fall. The scientist clutched his ribs. A grimace of pain soured his face. The other officers were scattered on the floor, injured or shaken up.
Anchor grabbed the pilot's wheel. The flagellum was squeezing the submarine. The sound of whining and bending metal grated on his nerves. Any second, the pressure could cause the whole sub to break open.
Anchor couldn't power the steering wheel. The vessel was trapped. There was only one other option. He searched the system for anymore leftover weapons and prayed for anything to use against this stringy beast.
One acid missile remained.
Anchor delivered the pain.
The missile didn't go far before hitting a bone wall and erupting into a wall of flesh-eating mist. The flagellum was turned into smoking strings until they completely dissolved.
The submarine was released.
"What have you done?" Dr. Singer said from on his knees. The man was clutching his ribs. "Jesus, you're going to tear her wide open."
"That's the point, egghead!"
"We're going to go off course. Damn it, Anchor, use your head."
"I was saving our asses. You want this sub to be crushed? That was about to fucking happen. You wanna be toothpaste squeezed out of the tube? I sure don't."
"Brace yourselves, everybody!" Dr. Singer cried out. "Try to control the sub, Anchor."
Anchor gripped the steering wheel. The wheel was stuck.
"It's not working. We've lost control of the sub."
"Then we're as good as dead," Dr. Singer cried. "It's all over. I'll never get my samples."
"You'll never get what?"
The acid missile had eaten through the bone wall. Showers of neon green fluid sprayed from the ceiling out of oily orifices resembling showerheads. Pounded by the wave of green sludge, The Annihilator was coated in the mess. Green covered the screen at the head of the bridge. The submarine was dunked, battered around, spun out, and forced through the ever-widening hole in the bone wall.
Everybody did their best to brace themselves. Officers were thrown up to the ceiling and came back down broken-necked, skull shattered, or dead. Upside down, right side up, The Annihilator was punched by ever-increasing blasts of green fluids.
Anchor could see the screen on the bridge change. The green was leveling out. The Annihilator was being pushed forward by bulging purple tissue on the walls at increasing speeds. They were dropped from on high. Anchor couldn't see what was on the screen anymore. The camera had been shattered.
He braced himself to crash and burn.
They were all going to die.
PART THREE: DIPLOMACY
News Flash
Channel Eight News Rogue Report
Kristie Gaines Reporting from Behind the Lines of the California Disaster Zone
"This is Kristie Gaines reporting from Monterey Bay. I am here illegally. I have no affiliation with Channel Eight News anymore. I am reporting for the people. The Central Coast, along with the rest of the California Coastal line, has been evacuated. Behind me lays the ruined remains of cities and residential areas destroyed by the strange creatures reported to have come from the sea. As you can see, not everybody is gone. Looters are breaking into businesses and homes. The police are nowhere to be seen. Emergency forces are absent as well. The only crews around are the ones wearing Hazmat suits. These mysterious crews are collecting bodies and piling them into wheelbarrows. Is this disease control or a cover up? What we have is a failure of the government to protect their own people. Our coast and citizens remain unprotected. What does our military plan to do to stop this from happening again? Are we really safe from both the monsters and each other? We'll know in the days to come."