Megatooth: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Viktor Zarkov

  “Zoe,” she whispered. “You have to stay quiet. Maybe it’ll leave. But if you scream right now, it’s going to hear it and it’s going to come back.”

  Zoe nodded and started biting at her lip, as if to keep the scream locked inside. Emily assumed that Steve likely wouldn’t be able to put this together for himself, so she looked back in his direction. He remained cowering in the bobbing section of the boat that held the engine. His eyes were locked on her when she gave him the shhh gesture of a single finger to her lips. He nodded, his eyes like those of a scared animal hiding in a burrow. She again saw something fragile in his stare and she was confused to find that she wanted him to be by her side.

  Feeling Zoe’s tremors pass through her arm, Emily looked back around at the waters. She dreaded the idea of seeing that monstrous dorsal fin break the surface of the water. Her heart quaked every time she saw a piece of debris from the boat that her mind instantly thought was a fin.

  There was an eerie silence to the sea. Emily could picture the remains of The Gull sinking to the bottom where it would lay for an extended amount of time before it was later discovered as nothing more than a sad setting to a story of death that no one would ever fully know.

  “Emily?” Zoe whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” The girl was still shuddering with shock and the physical effort of keeping her grief in. Emily gave the girl a cursory examination and could see no visible injuries. They at least had that going for them.

  “I don’t know,” Emily said.

  That was an understatement. She had only a rough idea of where they were located so she didn’t know how close the nearest possibility of help might be. More than that, she was not the best swimmer. She looked to the sky and saw that it was getting dark. Nightfall was still a few hours off, but the gathering storm clouds in the north made the idea of being out here in the dark a bit more ominous.

  She then looked out to the sea, her heart sagging. In her twenty-three years of life, she had never quite decided if she believed in God or not. Still, she found herself hoping as she floated on that plank—hoping that there was a God and that He was still in the business of handing out miracles.

  8

  About forty minutes passed before any of them dared to say anything. Emily had spent those forty minutes with the certainty that the shark was somewhere directly beneath them—that it would surface at any moment and swallow them whole, just as it had done with Cliff. She had busied herself with trying to get a gauge on their situation, right down to the most minute of details.

  For instance, to her left, floating a bit behind the hull that Steve still hid in, she had spotted one of the built-in benches from the front of the ship. She recalled watching Cliff dig through one of them, checking for supplies before they’d pulled away from the coast.

  About half of the bench was sticking out of the water, the lower part submerged. As they floated in the water, the bench was closing in on them very slowly. It inched its way towards Steve, like it was sneaking up on him. Emily wondered what might be inside of it. Really, there was nothing much that could help them in this situation. Even if there was an inflatable life raft in there, it would mean nothing if the shark came back. The same was true of water or food. All that would accomplish was giving them full stomachs when they were eaten.

  “Emily?”

  Zoe’s voice from beside her made her jump. She sounded like a frightened ten-year-old girl, hoping that anyone might be able to provide some comfort.

  “What?”

  “That shark,” she said. “It was just too big. Sharks don’t get that big.”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. “I’ve read stories about some massive great whites.”

  “Not that massive,” Zoe said. “The size of that thing…”

  She trailed off for a moment and Emily watched as something dawned in her eyes. She had made a connection of some sort and it had terrified her.

  “What is it?” Emily asked.

  “You’ve heard of the megalodon, right?”

  Emily wanted to roll her eyes and dismiss the idea. Yes, she had heard of megalodons. They were sharks that were believed to have thrived in prehistoric times, during the Cenozoic Era. They were thought to have once been a ferocious predator with no equal. But evidence suggested that they had died out shortly after dinosaurs went instinct. The megalodon had been a massive shark, a beast that seemed tailor made for hunting. The most unbelievable aspect of the creature was that it was believed to have grown to lengths as long as sixty feet.

  And while Emily firmly stood in the camp that doubted the megalodon had survived whatever cataclysmic event had wiped out its prehistoric brethren, the last hour of her life had her switching camps. Still, it was hard to fathom that a legendary megalodon had torn their boat to shreds.

  The size did match up, though. And there was no mistaking it—they had been attacked by a shark. Emily had seen its face and torso quite clearly as it had breached that first time.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to derail her train of thought from where it was unmistakably heading. “But I think that’s a long shot.”

  “Do you really?” Zoe asked, clearly picking up on the hesitation in her voice.

  “I don’t know,” Emily admitted. While the idea itself seemed sort of preposterous, it was also the only thing that made any real sense. She also knew that she wanted Zoe to shut the hell up before her whispers became a normal voice. As far as Emily was concerned, even whispering was too loud.

  She looked back out to Steve again and saw that he had managed to stretch out a bit more. She wondered if he might be smarter than she thought. He had positioned himself inside the hull so that he was not only free from most of the restrictions that the engine took up, but the chunk of boat also seemed to be tottering a little more evenly in the water.

  He caught her looking at him and waved. She waved back, looking beyond the hull to where the fragmented bench floated. It was getting closer to him, but achingly slow. There were probably twenty feet or so between Steve and that bench. And besides, who was to say there was anything that could help them inside of it.

  She looked to the sky again, this time hoping for a random passing helicopter rather than an attentive god. But the sky was just as blank as ever. Looking there, she also thought about airplanes and how there could be hundreds of people flying overhead, unaware of the deadly situation a twenty-three-year-old grad student was in thousands of feet below them. She then thought of little plastic cups of soda and the ability to watch a movie on the back of the seat in front of you. She had no idea why, but she suddenly found that thought achingly funny.

  Is this what it feels like to go delirious?

  Maybe. But she wasn’t going to allow herself the experience.

  She then thought of her mom, whom had likely just gotten off of such a plane in San Diego. She had flown out to see her other daughter—the daughter that had landed a safe office job straight out of college where she was some sort of assistant to a finance lawyer.

  Of course, Emily had scoffed at that. Why sit in an office when you could set out and see the world? And if you could help save a species or two in the process, all the better, right?

  She again felt a panicked sort of laugh creeping up her throat. She seriously began to wonder if she was having some sort of weird panic attack out in the Pacific Ocean, at least twenty miles away from the nearest land. She looked out to the water, wondering how much time had passed. She had a watch but never wore it. It was now probably at the bottom of the ocean with the rest of the things in her bag. She glanced over to Zoe and saw that she wore a Fitbit on her left arm. The time on it read 5:48.

  That meant they’d been out here, floating around on the remains of a destroyed boat, for a little over an hour and a half.

  “Hey…”

  The voice broke her from her daze. It was Steve’s voice, whispered and sounding hopeful.

  “What?�
�� Emily said, annoyed. Did neither of these morons know what it meant to remain quiet?

  “Do you think it’s gone?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” The truth was, she thought it probably had. But even if it was a good distance away and they started yelling for help, the commotion would do nothing more than draw the damned thing back to them.

  “Well, what can we do?” he whispered. “We can’t just sit here and hope another boat comes by.”

  She shrugged, although she was thinking: That might be our only option. Still, wanting to do what she could to inject some hope into their horrifying predicament, she looked back to the bench.

  “There’s a bench floating around behind you,” she whispered. “It’s one of the benches Cliff was putting stuff in when we were loading up. It’s coming towards you, but it’s a good ways back. It will take some time, but it’ll get there.”

  “What’s in it?” Steve asked.

  “No idea,” Emily said.

  “There might be an emergency radio or something,” Zoe said from beside her. Emily was pretty sure that there had been no such a thing on The Gull and even if there was, why the hell would it be in a basic storage bench?

  “Maybe,” she said, figuring a little hope might do them all some good.

  “So we just wait, then?” Steve asked.

  “I guess so.”

  He gave her a look that indicated he wasn’t pleased with this answer, but he said nothing else. He looked out to the water beyond them, seemed to think about something, and then looked away.

  “Someone will come, right?” Zoe asked her. Sitting beside one another, she was able to barely whisper and still be heard over the lush and hypnotic noises of the ocean.

  “I’d think so,” she said. “Cliff’s friend on the radio knows he was out here. I imagine he’d try getting in touch with him again. There’s also the rental place…they’ll be looking for us to bring the boat back tomorrow night.”

  “That’s another whole day out here,” Zoe said. “Not to mention a full night.”

  “Yeah,” Emily said. “Just trying to be realistic.”

  “Well, being realistic sucks.” A tear slipped out of her eye and it nearly made Emily cry as well. The mere thought of floating around out here for another day or so was unbearable and made her feel sick.

  “It does,” Emily admitted.

  They fell into silence again. Thunder rumbled somewhere very far off and Emily looked back to the rain clouds to the north. They were darker now, making the approaching dusk seem a little more threatening than it should. The clouds were getting closer and she supposed they’d have rain to contend with soon, as if things weren’t already bad enough.

  At some point, Zoe started to cry. They were small, shuddering little gasps as she continued to try to keep the bulk of the noise in. Emily, feeling incredibly awkward, placed an arm around her shoulders. She barely knew the girl—an awkward few conversations during Zoe’s College for a Weekend excursion hardly founded a friendship—and had no opinion of her one way or the other. She was a little too driven and, Emily thought, was going to be the kind of woman that likely never married because she wouldn’t have time for the attention and needs of a husband. It was a shame, too; she was incredibly pretty.

  The sky darkened slowly and Emily was amazed to find that she had slipped into some sort of fugue state. Perhaps it was the trauma of the situation, or the movement of the waves lulling her into a form of hypnosis—whatever it was, the next time she looked to Zoe’s Fitbit, it was 7:06.

  She looked over to Steve and saw that he was looking up into the darkened hull, observing the slight concave space over his head. She looked to the right of the hull and saw that the bench was now remarkably close to the hull. It wasn’t yet within an arm’s reach, but it was close.

  “Steve,” she said, her voice a hissed whisper.

  His head jerked a bit, as if he had been dozing, and he looked at her, eager to speak to her. “Yeah?”

  “The bench,” she said. “It’s coming up on your right.”

  Steve moved around a bit, awkwardly getting out of the half-sitting state he had been in for the last few hours, and then managed to get on his knees. He seemed to think about something for a while and then nodded, as if agreeing with himself.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “If I put my weight to the left side, this thing tilts. Too much weight on that side and I think I’d sink. But with my weight on that side, I can also sort of turn this thing a little.”

  Stupid, she thought, directing it towards herself. You never even stopped to think about how he’d actually open the bench, did you? He’d almost have to get out into the water.

  But she knew how Steve was thinking. In the water or in his little hull….what did it matter? Floating around on the wreckage of a boat was the same as being the water when you were talking about a beast the size of the one they were dealing with.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  He smiled at her and, God help him, he looked delighted with himself. She watched as he shifted most of his weight to the left. As he had said, the hull tilted that way, bobbing a bit before starting to fully commit to the total shift. As it started to tilt, Steve put his arm in the water and gave a few furious paddling motions. With each one, Emily couldn’t help but cringe.

  As she watched him manage to turn the section of the destroyed engine hull, everything seemed to work perfectly. It turned just enough so that he could see the bench approaching. When he was able to see it, the bench had come to within arm’s reach. He reached out and pulled it towards him. As he did, the hull shifted a bit more and more of it went under water. Somewhere along its broken base, it was starting to take on water.

  Emily and Zoe watched as Steve opened the seat compartment of the bench. When he did, he had to lean out of the hull to keep the bench from tottering over backward and spilling its contents out into the water. In doing so, he nearly fell into the water himself.

  Through the darkening dusk, Emily saw a smile on his face.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Steve reached in and pulled out something. He looked at it, testing it in his hands, before showing it to them.

  A flare gun.

  “Not too bad,” he said. “Only, there’s nothing else we can really use in here. Lifejackets, some twine, a bunch of empty boxes and a manual for the engine.”

  “You know how to work that?” Emily asked, pointing to the flare gun.

  “No. But it can’t be hard, right?”

  Emily watched him observe it as well as he could in the gloom of dusk. Actually, the dusk had nearly managed to become night. She looked up into the sky and saw that the rainclouds were close now. She felt certain that if the sound of the lapping sea weren’t in her ears, she’d be able to hear rainfall nearby.

  “Okay,” he said after thirty seconds or so. “I think I got it figured out. Is there any certain direction to shoot it?”

  “Up,” Zoe said.

  Ignoring Zoe’s sarcastic and panic-laced comment, Emily thought about it for a moment. “Probably to the east,” she said. “I figure more boats will be closer to land that further out to sea.” She had no idea if this was right or not, but she had to have some sort of plan to keep herself from freaking out.

  “Okay,” Steve said.

  “Before you get trigger happy,” Emily said, “why not throw us two life jackets? If we end up back in the water for some reason—”

  “Don’t even go there,” Zoe said, cutting her off. “But yeah…lifejackets would be nice.”

  Steve momentarily placed the flare gun back in the bench while he carefully pulled out the jackets. He tossed them underhanded towards the plank and Emily was able to catch both of them. However, putting it on without rocking the plank she and Zoe were sitting on was easier said than done.

  While they worked together to get their lifejackets on, Steve also buckled his up. He then reached back into the bench for the
flare gun. He peered to the direction they had agreed upon and Emily could see him gathering his courage. She wondered if he knew that a good deal of their chances of being rescued soon were literally in his hands.

  She saw that he had to lean out of the hull to get a good angle for the shot. He used the top of the broken bench to steady himself and that seemed to do the trick. He took a moment to raise his arm, his body shaking on the unsteady footing of the wobbling hull. He winced as he pulled the trigger and the sound of it startled him. He nearly fell into the water with the gun still in his hand.

  The gun made a hissing sound that reminded Emily of her white noise maker back at home. A split second later, a flare erupted from it. A red arc of light shot upwards and slightly to the east. The three of them watched it go, an uneventful little firework in the gathering night.

  As it streaked across the sky, Emily felt the first drops of rain on her face.

  Then, to her left, there was a quick “Shit!”

  This was followed by a splashing noise as Steven lost his footing and fell into the water.

  9

  The last of the six rovers was being securely buckled along the back of the MarineEx boat when Carl spotted the thin trail of red light in the sky to the northeast of them. He knew it for what it was the moment he saw it. The flare hadn’t been shot from extremely close by, but it hadn’t been that far away, either.

  He watched it complete its arc as he fastened the last clasp on the latch. The vacuum system made its tell-tale shutdown noises ten minutes ago and with the ROVs and the Collector fastened down, the day was essentially over. The vacuum was being emptied by the shutdown blowers, a series of simple air jets spaced throughout the pump to ensure bits of detritus and debris weren’t left in the system to create clogs the next time the system was in use.

  He was latching the ROVs down because Trevor has basically reported that he was done working for the day the moment he had instructed the ROVs and the Collector to come to the surface.