Phantom Prospect

by Alex Archer

  Annja stood on deck paralyzed. She didn’t say anything. And she didn’t move. After five more minutes rolled by, she heard movement behind her and knew it would be Hunter coming back from the engine room.

  “Where’s Cole?” he said. But then he saw the mangled cage floating half in and half out of the water. “Jesus,” he shouted. “What happened?”

  Annja shook her head. “When the power went out, we couldn’t see anything. Jax went back to the wheelhouse and Cole, well, he was waiting for you to get the power on so I could winch him out. And then…” Her voice trailed off as she struggled to describe the explosion of motion that had suddenly occurred and taken Cole.

  Hunter stayed quiet for a moment. “I don’t think there’s anything you could have done, Annja.”

  “I should have persuaded him not to go out there.”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to talk him out of it. I know my brother. And believe it or not, I think he’d tell you that he’s happier going this way than if he hadn’t been doing what he loved.”

  Annja shook her head. “Doesn’t make this any easier to take. He was a good friend.”

  “He was my brother,” Hunter said. He shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Annja watched the water sway back and forth against the cage. Then she walked over to the winch. “No sense keeping the cage out there.”

  Hunter nodded. “Let me help you.”

  Annja fired up the winch and watched as it took in the slack and then started to ease the cage out of the surf. As it did, both she and Hunter could see the full effect of the incredible ramming attack that had shredded the wire bars like they’d been made out of straw.

  Hunter gasped. “I’ve never heard of anything that could cause that kind of destruction.”

  “Me, either,” Annja said. “And yet here we have the proof right in front of us that something can do just that.”

  The winch slowly brought the cage back over the side and Hunter eased it into position on the deck. As the cage came to rest, Annja moved around it, examining it. The bars had simply given way under the assault. But otherwise, there was nothing to suggest that Cole had even been there. “The ocean must have washed the blood away.”

  Hunter cleared his throat. “Or he might just have been swallowed whole. Given the shark’s size, it’s entirely possible.”

  Annja shuddered. “It’s too horrible to even think about.” She couldn’t imagine what that would be like—to be swallowed completely and then crushed under the jaws while those serrated teeth ripped through wet suit and then flesh and bone.

  “My God,” she said quietly.

  “We need to destroy this fish,” Hunter said. “I don’t even care about the treasure sitting beneath us. I just want this thing dead and gone. If for no other reason than pure and unadulterated vengeance.”

  Annja looked at him. “At least you’re honest about it.”

  Hunter shook his head. “I wouldn’t even try to conceal the fact that I want this thing dead worse than anything I’ve ever felt before in my life.”

  “But how?” Annja leaned against the back railing. “How are we supposed to kill it when we can’t even get out there?”

  “I don’t know,” Hunter said. “But we’ve got to do something. It’s better than just sitting here and doing nothing. And we owe it to three memories to try, anyway.”

  “Maybe we should call in the Navy or something.”

  Hunter smirked. “What, and ask to borrow a few torpedoes or depth charges to blow the thing up? As if they’d even bother with us. No, we’re on our own dealing with this creature. And we will definitely deal with it. Mark my words.”

  Annja watched him walk past the cage and lay a hand on it for the briefest of moments before climbing the steps toward the wheelhouse. She turned back to the ocean.

  Her heart ached. I knew this would happen, she thought. Why did Cole have to go out there and risk his life trying to prove something?

  And what had he been about to say? The shark is…what?

  It didn’t make any sense to her. And then she heard the splash. She turned abruptly toward the sound on her left side.

  Was someone out there?

  “Cole?”

  Her voice trailed off, drowned out by the strong breeze that had kicked up. And then she saw the triangular dorsal fin just within the range of the deck lights. The fin cut its way through the waves.

  Damn you, Annja thought. You took one of my friends.

  The fin swerved away from the boat and then cut a course a few degrees off the starboard side. To Annja’s eyes it looked as if it was zigzagging back and forth.

  Is it going to attack the boat? If it did, it could do a lot of damage. And that would mean a really big problem for the crew. If any of them went into the water, the shark would devour them.

  Was that its goal? Did it want the boat so badly damaged that everyone would have to abandon ship and go into the water? She looked at the waves lapping against the side of the boat and wondered how cold it was. Would death come from the hypothermia or from the shark? Which would get to them first?

  The shark is…

  Annja pondered Cole’s words. Is what? Big? That was obvious. Along with being dangerous and deadly and to be avoided and pretty much everything else Annja could think of.

  What had Cole been about to say before the shark had attacked him?

  Maybe he’d been trying to tell her something critical that he thought she needed to know in case he was attacked. But what? Had Cole been able to see the shark on a collision course with him? Was he trying to save Annja from it?

  It was possible, she supposed, but it didn’t make any sense. Cole had seemed utterly relaxed as he bobbed atop that cage. She frowned. Anyone else would have been terrified.

  But not Cole.

  Was he simply courageous beyond any shadow of doubt? Or did he know something?

  Annja thought back to the first time when she had seen the shark. The head had lifted out of the water, that immense enormous maw filled with those serrated teeth.

  And yet…

  Jax came down the steps behind her. “Hunter just told me.”

  Annja shook her head. “It happened way too fast for me to do anything.”

  Jax shrugged. “What were you supposed to do? Dive in and fend it off with the sword? How well would that have worked?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “Exactly,” Jax said. “That’s the thing. You always have to remember to look out for numero uno. That’s you. If you couldn’t help without risking your own life, then it’s not worth it.”

  “He was my friend. I owed him more than I tried.”

  “You didn’t owe him crap,” Jax said. “You know how many people I’ve had tell me that I owed them something? Tons. I don’t owe anyone anything. Where I’m at in my life is where I got myself.”

  Annja looked at her. “Yeah, but doesn’t that seem a little selfish to you? Not exactly compassionate of your fellow human beings.”

  “What—it’s selfish to look after yourself?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Jax pointed at the ocean. “Look, Annja, I don’t know what sort of thing you and Cole had going on, if anything, but the fact of the matter is, he’s gone. There’s nothing you could have done to protect him even with that gift you have.”

  “Doesn’t feel like a gift right now.”

  Jax nodded. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, not exactly in your context, of course. I think there’s only one sword and you’ve got it. But I can grasp the idea that something that’s supposed to make you better, able to do more, suddenly feeling as though it’s the worst thing to have to bear.”

  Annja nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  “I’m making some coffee. With a bit of whiskey in it. You want a cup?”

  Annja pointed at the ocean. “There’s nothing
left of him. No trace of his body anywhere.”

  Jax nodded. “Well, yeah. That’s good, though, right?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Well, it’s just that you don’t want to have body parts floating on the waves. You’d have to collect it all and try to get it back ashore for the funeral. In a way, it’s almost better this way.”

  Annja stared at her. “Go make that coffee.”

  “Just saying,” Jax said. But she turned and walked away. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

  Annja watched her go and then turned toward the ocean. She heard another splash and then saw the huge dorsal fin cutting back and forth in front of her. She frowned and wanted to scream at it.

  She felt as if it was taunting her. Swimming out there like that, it looked as though it would stay just at the edge of the lights, so she couldn’t get a precise fix on its location.

  Why was it coming back again?

  Did it want more? Could it see her from where it swam? Did it feel the fury she felt at losing Cole to it?

  The fin drifted away and then came zipping right back toward the boat. Twice more it did this and, each time, Annja wondered if she would need to brace for the impact of its body slamming into the hull of the boat.

  But just as she thought it was going to impact, it would veer away and travel off on another tack.

  Annja’s heart hammered in her chest. She wanted to kill that beast, the monster that had brought so much death in the short time she’d been on board the Seeker.

  “Come a little closer,” Annja said quietly. “And I’ll happily cut you to ribbons with my sword.”

  But the fin only drifted away from her and continued on its never-ending zigzag.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Annja willed the sword to manifest itself. Immediately, it was in her two hands, its shimmering blade casting off a pale luminescence in the ship’s light.

  Annja felt strength flow into her limbs and she took a few practice swings with the sword, feeling the surge of energy in her system from holding it.

  The fin cut by close again. Annja took a halfhearted swipe at it and then she laughed abruptly. “You’re damned lucky you’re out there and not on dry land. Otherwise, we’d be having a different conversation.”

  She looked at the length of the blade in her hands and swung it overhead.

  She felt the power of the sword as it sang through the air, cutting at wisps of nothing in the night sky. Annja spun the blade around and flipped it over. Somehow, she felt utterly indestructible.

  The shark fin again came close to the ship and then veered away.

  Annja watched it.

  “Damn thing,” she said.

  She wanted vengeance as badly as Hunter did. Annja saw the fin turn to head straight back at the ship.

  Power flowed through every cell of her body. She felt electric.

  Annja gripped the sword in both her hands, squeezing the hilt until she felt there was nothing that could wrest the blade from her grasp.

  She leaped into the air, clearing the railing and the dive platform. She looked down and saw, for the first time, the entire length and girth of the massive shark.

  And then she was plunging down faster and faster, through the air, directly at the back of the mighty beast.

  She readied herself to drive the sword straight into its black heart.

  25

  At the last second, the shark veered, almost as if it could sense the attack coming at it from above. Annja tried to redirect herself but splashed down a second later. The abrupt shock of the cold water almost made her convulsively suck in water. But she surfaced and sputtered.

  Annja bobbed in the waves, spinning around and searching for her target. She still held the sword in front of her, but she was immediately aware of how utterly exposed she was. Whenever she’d fought before, she’d only had to worry about people in front of her, behind her or to her sides.

  Now she had to worry about being attacked from below.

  And she could barely see anything in the darkness. The moon and the ship’s lights gave limited visibility.

  Where was the shark?

  Annja spun around in the water and kept checking herself. So far, the shark hadn’t attacked.

  There was something different about this creature and Annja was determined to find out what it was. Right after she killed it.

  She heard a splash to her right and she turned again, searching the darkness for the source of the noise.

  She held the sword aloft and scanned the surface of the water. Annja saw the triangular dorsal cutting back and forth in the waves a hundred yards or so away from her.

  She bobbed in the swells and considered her options. She could wait for the shark to notice her, if it hadn’t already.

  Or she could attack it.

  Annja paused for a moment, wondering how she had ended up in such an incredible situation. But the hell with it. This shark had already taken the lives of three people. And Annja was determined that no one else would die in its jaws.

  She returned the sword to the otherwhere and swam through the waves toward the shark. Her strokes were broad and powerful and Annja cut her way through the current, almost oblivious to its pull on her.

  Her legs fluttered like a motor and Annja gained on the slow-moving shark.

  But then the dorsal fin turned.

  The shark headed straight toward her.

  Annja stopped and treaded water. “Yeah, that’s right. Come and get me, you bastard.”

  Annja summoned the sword and held it up in front of her, its point up, the blade between her body and the approaching shark.

  Her heart hammered in her chest, but she felt no fear. Not this time. She was done being scared. And she would see this creature dead by her hand.

  The fin bore down on her. Annja had estimated the distance from the dorsal to the shark’s mouth at about fifteen feet. She knew she had about three seconds to ready herself.

  The head reared up out of the surf, the massive gaping maw widening and showing the serrated teeth that had shredded three other humans.

  Annja gripped the sword as the blackness of the maw seemed to suck all the light out of the surrounding area.

  It’s even bigger than I thought, Annja realized. In an instant, the mouth swept over her, blocking the night sky. Annja almost closed her eyes but then forced herself to dive forward and down the gullet of the fish before the teeth could start to shred her.

  She had no idea what was happening. She’d expected it to stink of rotting flesh. But it didn’t.

  She realized she could see some sort of light somewhere ahead of her. How was that possible?

  Then she heard a sound. Like a motor.

  Behind her, she felt the mouth close and the outside world vanished. Annja was inside the shark.

  But this was no shark.

  Ahead of her, Annja could see very little, but a dim red bulb gave off light. She could breathe. Oxygen was being pumped into the area. She could almost sit up, but stayed on her stomach, aware that there was a small amount of water on the floor of the belly of the shark. Not that she cared. She’d already been soaked when she jumped into the ocean.

  She almost laughed. So this was what Cole was trying to tell her.

  “The shark is fake.”

  Or something like that. It didn’t really matter at this point. Annja knew that she had nothing to fear from this machine. She even twisted around and felt her way back toward the opening of the mouth and ran her finger over one of the teeth. They were made of heavy-duty rubber.

  But what was the point of this thing? Who would go through the incredibly complex and expensive process of building this machine? And why would they resort to using it?

  Annja leaned back in the holding compartment and listened as the engine sounds changed. They were revving up and she felt the shark start to turn and then descend, vanishing from close to the surface.

  We’re going deep, she t
hought.

  Wherever this led, Annja wanted to be ready for anything, so she kept the sword with her. There wasn’t much sense in going into the unknown unarmed. She’d already had enough surprises thrown at her.

  “At least I’m not dead,” she said quietly to herself. Considering it all, she was amazed at what had come over her. What made her think she could jump overboard and take on a forty-foot shark that had supposedly killed three people?

  Insanity.

  But she decided it was simply a matter of being tired of the stalemate that existed. Coupled with the sudden violent loss of Cole, it had just been too much for her to put up with.

  Drastic times call for drastic measures, she thought. She glanced around. Although this thing might be the most drastic of all.

  Her ears started to pop from the increasing pressure. Annja swallowed reflexively and the pressure dissipated momentarily. She felt the shark level out and the engines seemed to kick up another notch. Wherever they were headed, they were going fast.

  Was this what happened to Cole earlier? If so, then surely he had to be alive. She hoped that was the case. It would be tragic if she let herself get excited only to be let down again.

  And what about Sheila? What had happened with her? Had she been swallowed up whole by this machine, as well, and carted off somewhere? That meant there would be at least one person at the other end of this trip who would not be friendly toward Annja.

  And if she still had the gun in her possession that meant Annja might have to be ready for an immediate fight.

  She patted the sword, relieved that it went anywhere with her. She certainly couldn’t use it now, it was too tight a space in the shark’s hold. But whenever she reached her destination, she had to assume there’d be more space.

  She looked around, marveling at the airtight structure of the machine. A steady volume of oxygen filtered in from two holes on either side of her, cooling and providing her with air to breathe. Meanwhile, all of the gaps had been sealed to be watertight, save for whatever happened inside when the shark’s mouth opened.

  Clearly, the machine was not designed to kill anyone, but rather to carry them away to some unspecified location.

  But where?