by JE Gurley
“Is there another plane?” the irate man asked. “I have to be in New York in two days.”
“No more planes, no more boats,” the pilot replied, his attention focused on the burning plane.
“You mean I’m stuck here?”
“We’re all stuck here,” the pilot replied.
“Well, I never ….”
The pilot ignored the irate passenger and walked out the door toward his destroyed airplane. His cap blew off and it went scuttling across the field. He stood outside in the blowing rain, his hands on his hips, staring at the wreckage. The lucky fuel attendant came to stand beside him. Neither of them attempted to extinguish the flames. The irate man turned to Josh, his mouth still open from his last unfinished tirade. Josh shrugged, picked up his suitcase, and left, leaving the man, his wife, and the fourth passenger, an islander on his way to Grand Cayman, behind.
The resort car that had delivered them to the airport had already left. Josh staggered with his head bowed into the wind as he struggled his way back to the resort on foot. Palm fronds, plastic bags, and blown sand pelted him in the face. Only his muscular legs kept him upright. A smaller man or woman would have gone pin wheeling in the wind. Heavy waves crashed onto the beach and surged across the road. His shoes and feet quickly became soaked. As if to further enhance his personal discomfort, the rain began as a solid sheet of water that raced down the road toward him. He had nowhere to run, so he kept plodding forward.
He was soaked by the time he walked in the door of the resort. Hawthorne, the manager, stared at Josh for a few seconds, as he dripped a steady stream of water onto the wooden floor; then rushed over to take his bag.
“What happened?” His gaze took in Josh’s soaked shirt and pants. He also cast a quick glance at his wet floor.
“The plane’s wrecked. No one’s leaving.”
A brief smiled flashed on Hawthorne’s face at the prospect of getting at least another night’s income from his guests, but then disappeared with the realization that he would also be responsible for his stranded guests’ safety during the hurricane.
“Was anyone hurt?”
Josh shook his head. “No.”
“You will be safe here,” he assured Josh with a big smile.
The windows rattled, as a strong gust shook the building. Josh tossed Hawthorne a contemptuous look. “You haven’t been outside lately.”
“We have our own generator. If the power goes out, all I need do is go switch it on.”
“Yeah, well they don’t work so well underwater.” He decided to quit giving the manager a hard time. It wasn’t his fault the plane was wrecked. “You’d better send the car back for the others. I don’t think they’ll enjoy walking.” He took his bag back from Hawthorne. “I think I’ll change into something dry, if I have any dry clothes left.”
As Josh trudged up the stairs to his room, water squishing out of his shoes with every step, Hawthorne rushed to the closet for a mop to clean up the mess Josh had left. Once inside his room, Josh dropped his bag on the floor, stripped naked, and tossed his wet clothes in the sink. He dried off with a towel and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that he pulled from his bag, thankful for the dry clothing. The French doors to the veranda were swinging wildly in the wind, banging against the wall. He stared into the darkness for a moment before shutting them. When lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating every cloud, every tree, and the raging surf, reminding him of the storm on its way, he closed the drapes as well. He plopped down in a wingback chair, propped his feet on the rattan ottoman, and cursed his luck.
“Damn. I should have left yesterday with the others.”
He had thought one more day on the island would help alleviate the bad luck of choosing the worst possible time of the year for his vacation. Now, he was stuck on Little Cayman with no way off. For good or bad, the resort was home for the duration. He took out his cell phone and pulled up the photos of the Ogrefish. Once again, he was struck by the savagery in the creature’s eyes, but he decided that he was perhaps anthropomorphizing its normal countenance. The Ogrefish was neither evil nor good. It simply ate smaller creatures to survive, as nature dictated. A large jaw and sharp teeth best suited its chosen prey. Its demonic features were by design, not choice. His frustration annoyed him. He had made one of the greatest discoveries in marine biology in years, and he couldn’t even share it with others. He couldn’t contact his professor or even phone his parents to let them know that he was okay.
He tossed his phone onto the bed just as a large clap of thunder rattled the windows and shook the building.
“This is going to be a lot of fun,” he said in disdain.
Picking up the remote, he tried the television, but the screen showed nothing but snowy static.
“Satellite dish is probably halfway to Mexico,” he moaned and replaced the remote.
He sagged into his chair and closed his eyes, but the bright flashes of lightning penetrated his closed lids, and he couldn’t escape the strident peals of thunder. It was unlikely that another plane would come until the hurricane had passed, and no one would risk taking him to George Town by boat, even if he had the cash to bribe them. He took heart in the fact that the Caymans had survived numerous hurricanes since their discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1503. He hoped they would survive one more storm.
He tried to force thoughts of the storm from his mind with trivia he had read in brochures downstairs in the lobby. Columbus had named the islands the Tortugas for the many turtles he found there, which early sailors saw as a source of nourishment. Now, the rock iguanas and the endangered Red-footed boobies were more numerous than the turtles. A bright flash of lightning, followed by another window-rattling clap of thunder reminded him of his surroundings. The iguanas and boobies would ride out the storm safely in the mangrove forests, while he was stuck in a forty-year-old, two-story wooden building fifty feet from the beach. The entire island was less than a mile wide and ten miles long, a mere speck in the ocean. It was a sitting target.
The phone beside the bed rang. Had the long-distance lines been repaired? He lurched out of his chair and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“This is the desk, Mr. Peterman. The restaurant is closed because I thought all the guests were leaving, but I have made sandwiches, coffee, and tea for all of you. Would you like me to bring some up?”
Josh sighed. He had hoped to be dining at the Calypso Grill in George Town. That was now out of the question. “Sure. Thanks. Can you bring up some chips and a Coke? Oh, can you also bring me a bottle of rum?” He needed a drink in spite of last night’s escapades. The rum would take the edge off his fear.
“My pleasure, Mr. Peterman. I’m glad to have you back.”
Josh wasn’t as pleased at Hawthorne was, but he was stuck there, and he was hungry. The lights flickered as he hung up the phone, but quickly settled. A heavy roll of thunder jangled the telephone on the table. His curiosity drew him to the window. He pulled aside the heavy, floral brocade drapes and stared outside. An almost constant barrage of lightning flashes illuminated the beach, or what was left of it. Waves crashed against the palm trees where he had lain in a hammock that afternoon, only ten feet from the front door. Each wave devoured mouthfuls of white sand with hungry wet teeth. The sea beyond was angry, lashing out at the island with all its fury, as if trying to shove the small speck of land into depths of the Cayman Trench from which it had arisen.
He spotted movement on the beach. At first, he thought a buoy or even an old WWII mine had washed ashore. Then, several more appeared, rolling onto the beach with the waves.
“What the hell?”
As he watched, the first sphere uncoiled into a living creature resembling a giant segmented pill bug with a dozen or more legs. It quickly scurried toward the resort. Others followed it. A lump formed in Josh’s throat. He recognized the creatures as isopods, Bathynomus giganteus, ocean-bottom scavengers that often reached lengths of sixteen inches. However, these specimens were at
least five feet long. Normally confined to the depths, he wondered how such creatures could survive out of water, but they seemed to be managing well enough. Within minutes, hundreds of the giant isopods littered the beach moving inland.
He remembered one more thing about Bathynomus giganteus – they were carnivorous, meat eaters. They often devoured dead whale carcasses that fell to the bottom. Creatures this size – who knew what damage they could do.
Nigel Hawthorne had seen the creatures as well, except he was foolishly standing bareheaded outside in the rain, frantically waving a broom at them, as if they were stray dogs to shoo away. Josh threw open the door and rushed out onto the veranda.
“Get back inside,” he yelled at Hawthorne.
The manager glanced up at Josh, confusion pulling his face into a mask of confusion.
“Inside,” Josh repeated, but to no avail.
If Hawthorne heard Josh over the roar of the surf and howling wind, he didn’t respond. He returned his gaze to the creatures crawling toward his resort. He shoved the broom into one creature’s face. It seized the broom with its maxillipeds, a set of legs designed to draw food to its four sets of jaws. It crushed the wooden broom handle like a toothpick and discarded it. Too late, Hawthorne understood the danger he was in. He began backing toward the porch but failed to see the large stone planter behind him. He tripped over it and fell to the ground. The isopod moved more nimbly than Josh had thought it capable. It crawled over Hawthorne’s prone body and began tearing into his flesh with its jaws. A second creature joined the first, seizing one of Hawthorne’s arms and ripping it from his shoulder. Hawthorne’s agonized screams split the crash of the pounding surf and defied the howling wind to resonate throughout the resort. Josh turned away from the sickening sight, refusing to watch the creatures consume the manager’s body.
At the sound of a loud crash downstairs, he rushed back into his room, flung open the door, and stared down in horror at the scene unfolding in the lobby. A score of the creatures had smashed down the front door and entered the building, trailing puddles of water behind them. They milled about the lobby like eager Black Friday shoppers, investigating everything, overturning statues and potted plants, and smashing chairs and tables. One knocked the tray laden with sandwiches destined for the guests onto the floor and gobbled them up in two quick bites. As Josh watched the jaws opening and closing, he was struck by a sense of awe at their complexity, and with terror at their raw power. Such creatures should not exist, but there they were. The giant Ogrefish were no mere anomaly. They were a plague, a plague of deep sea creatures grown to gargantuan size, let loose upon an unsuspecting, unprepared populace.
He ducked back inside his room, snatched up his cell phone from his bed, rushed back out and snapped several photos of the creatures. The irate passenger from the terminal, Wilkins he thought was his name, stepped out of his room.
“What is all this racket?” he demanded.
Josh stared at him a moment before pointing downstairs. Wilkins’ eyes opened wide when he saw the creatures.
“They killed Hawthorne,” Josh told him.
“Killed?” Wilkins’ face contorted into a mixture of disgust and fear. “Call the police,” he yelled.
The lights went out, leaving the resort in darkness. Josh waited for the resort’s generator to kick in, but nothing happened. Then he remembered Hawthorne saying he would have to switch it on. So much for that. The clicking of the creatures’ clawed feet scurrying across the wooden floor was even more frightening in the dark. Josh was glad of the flashes of lightning. At least until they revealed Wilkins raising a vase over his head ready to fling it at one of the creatures below.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he advised Wilkins.
Wilkins stared at him contemptuously, and then threw the vase. It shattered on one of the creature’s hard, segmented carapace, but did no damage.
“Those plates are hard as steel,” Josh said. “A bullet wouldn’t penetrate.”
The isopod raised its fore body into the air and focused its attention on Wilkins. Its four antennae waved wildly as it sensed prey, and then, to Josh’s astonishment, it began nimbly climbing the stairs. Wilkins retreated to his room and slammed the door.
“The door won’t stop them,” he yelled at Wilkins, but he knew it was a useless gesture. He noticed several other creatures joining the first in its slow but steady ascent of the stairs.
“Remarkable acuity of senses and agility,” Josh remarked.
He paused a moment to observe the creature’s progress, then retreated to the dubious safety of his room. He walked onto the veranda and saw hundreds of the creatures swarming onto the beach, and imagined thousands more doing the same all along the island’s coastline. No lights were visible anywhere on the island. The storm had knocked out the island’s single main generator. In the darkness, muffled by the fury of the wind and surf, no one would hear the creatures coming until it were too late.
Trying to escape down the back stairs would be suicidal. The resort was completely surrounded. His only hope of survival lay in the creatures’ only weakness – oxygen, or the lack of it. They were sea creatures. Unable to breathe on dry land, they would live only as long as sufficient oxygen remained in their bloodstreams. Locomotion and eating would quickly consume that stored oxygen. Sea mammals, such as porpoises, dolphins, and whales, could remain underwater thirty minutes to two hours, respectively. The question was how long could a giant isopod remain out of water and survive?
It took the creatures only minutes to reach the second floor, and another minute to splinter Wilkins’ door. He heard shouts and loud crashing sounds. Wilkins and his wife’s screams thankfully lasted only a few seconds. Josh heard the creatures outside his door and knew it wouldn’t take them long to locate him. He quickly slipped on his wet sneakers, stuffed his cell phone in his pocket, and went onto the veranda. Even though he could easily outrun the creatures, their vast numbers and the likelihood of stumbling into them in the dark made escape impossible. With the highest point of the island nearly ten miles away, and only forty feet above high tide, his choices for refuge were few. Between him and the island’s highest elevation lay salt water ponds and marshes. If the surf continued to rise, he would be floundering in water filled with either isopods or Ogrefish, a risk he was not willing to take. He searched for an alternative.
One end of the building had a wooden trellis with a dense tangle of climbing roses running from the ground to just below the roof. With the resort soon to become an island and surrounded by deadly creatures, the roof seemed the safest spot. His biggest problem would be the hurricane-force winds. He ripped a decorative fish net from the veranda’s ceiling, threw it over his shoulder, and raced for the end of the veranda. He risked a quick peek inside Wilkins’ room and wished that he hadn’t.
The room was in shambles. Only the bloody legs of Wilkins’ wife were visible beyond the bed, but Wilkins’ partially stripped carcass lay in the middle of the room beneath a small huddle of the creatures. White bone gleamed obscenely through large open wounds above his hip and chest. One creature was gnawing on Wilkins’ head. He was dead, but his eyes were open and staring. Josh fought down a rush of nausea and continued.
The wind, the rain, and the rose thorns made climbing difficult, pricking his hands and legs as he climbed, using muscles he had long ago forgotten. He hadn’t climbed since a boy in his uncle’s apple orchard in Austin. With blood and rain-soaked hands, he pulled his way upwards toward the roof as gusts of wind threatened to pry him from the trellis. Using a gutter for a foothold, he fought the aches in his arms and legs, and scrambled onto the wooden shingle roof. He lay prostrate for a few moments to catch his breath. Then, securing one end of the net to a drainpipe downspout and the other to the chimney, he wrapped himself in the net as tightly as he could.
The wind buffeted him like a tetherball, bouncing him against the roof. The wind-driven rain made breathing difficult, but he clung to the nylon netting as if his life dep
ended on it, which it did. He could no longer see the isopods, but he could hear the damage they were doing to the resort. After a while, the noises faded. He wondered if the creatures had succumbed to the lack of oxygen, but he didn’t dare leave his perch to check. Within an hour, the waves began entering the resort. The entire building shuddered as the heavy waves crashed into it, and then shook as the massive surge of water retreated. These repeated hammer blows of water, combined with the hurricane-force winds, took a toll on the wooden structure. Railings ripped loose and sailed kite-like with the wind. Palm trees bent until they touched the ground, and then, forced beyond even their resilience, snapped in two, their crowns scuttling along the beach like massive beach umbrellas.
The weather report had listed Hurricane Clive as a Category Four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with winds reaching one-hundred-fifty miles per hour. At that speed, a loose roof shingle or a splinter from a palm tree would penetrate his flesh like a loosed arrow. Soaked and battered by the wind, Josh held on for dear life. His arms and legs deadened from the cold rain. His ears grew numb with the constant roar of the wind and the incessant crashing of thunder. When a low rumble began to impinge on his senses, he wiped the water from his eyes and gazed out to sea. A wave, marching like a white-helmeted giant, rushed toward shore at an alarming speed. The water in the bay retreated until he could have walked to nearby Owen Island. By the time the wave reached Owen Island, it towered over the tiny spit of land by twenty feet. The island disappeared beneath the wave, which grew even taller as it entered the shallower water of the bay. The ground trembled until the building danced away from its foundation. The chimney shattered, threatening to drag Josh’s net with it. Loose bricks pelted his body. The nylon net dug into his flesh until he thought he would be halved like the child facing Solomon’s dilemma. Then, with a sharp snap, the net parted from the chimney. He bounced across the roof, secured only to the drainpipe. He grabbed the gutter with both hands to avoid rolling off. Helpless, he watched the inexorable approach of the island-killer wave.