Hotel Megalodon: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Rick Chesler

  “Watch it, asshole!” Stanley shoved the guy off the tram, and he went sprawling on the slick tunnel floor. The man got to his feet and lumbered at Stanley, saying nothing, but his intent was clear on his rage-addled face.

  “My wife is trapped here!” Stanley tried appealing to the person’s sense of mercy, but it apparently mattered little if at all to him, for he kept coming.

  The big man threw himself on the sports franchise owner, and tackled him to the ground. It was clear that neither man was a trained fighter, nor were they experienced in how to prevent damage to themselves. An ungainly series of grappling, hair-pulling, and missed punches ensued. Stanley’s foe lashed out with a foot, the kick finding only air. Both fighters heard those around them yelling to look up.

  “What is that?” The dark shape that passed over the tunnel had something sinister about it beyond its sheer size. The way it moved, calculating yet almost aloof...whatever it was it looked to be in no hurry, yet it also seemed like it didn’t need to be in a hurry because it could do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted.

  “Boat? Sinking boat?” someone suggested.

  “I read on the website this place has a submarine. Maybe they’re bringing it down to rescue us?” tried another.

  “It’s gone already,” a woman declared, pointing up out of the leaking tunnel. “I think it was a whale.”

  “Who gives a fuck what it was?” said a well-known rock star. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before this thing falls apart.”

  “How?” someone said.

  “Just walk out.” He grabbed his now disheveled girlfriend, a waif-like Japanese woman, by the hand, and started to tread up the artificial incline that led to the beach. At that moment, the man who had been fighting with Stanley pointed up through the tunnel.

  “Look, a scuba diver!”

  And then their world caved in on them.

  Chapter 14

  Coco floated above the tunnel, trying understand what went wrong here, and how she could be of most help to the people inside. She thought the damage to the tunnel must have been caused when the train car crashed, although if that was the case she found it odd that the tunnel leaked water from two places many yards apart. She was all too aware that she was no structural engineer. Which reminded her...Mr. White. What was he thinking? Sending a marine fricking biologist down to assess a tunnel collapse? Some of his engineers must be divers; where the hell were they?

  Then she saw a shape so large, so pervasive, that it blotted out the sun. It was so all-encompassing that at first she assumed it was a cloud passing over the sun. But then she watched it sink lower in the water, still moving while the sun shined once again down to the reef, its light doing little to lift her spirits. For a moment she just floated there above the plagued tunnel, shivering in a void of uncertainty.

  What was that?

  But deep down she knew what it was. That’s your visitor from the sub. Only now, she felt naked being in the presence of the monstrosity without even so much as her little submersible to shield her.

  She forced herself into motion before she could think the word...

  Megalodon...

  She saw the people pointing at her, and instinctively she did what she could to protect them: she pointed up along the tunnel toward the beach. Go that way. Don’t wait for anyone to come and get you. Go now, she implored them mentally, wishing she had some way to communicate with them. At least a couple of them did seem to be walking out, though, and she swam alongside the tunnel in the same direction that they went, gesturing with what she hoped looked like urgent pointing motions to head up to the beach.

  Coco’s head was on a swivel as she looked around for the megalodon, not quite believing that’s what she was doing. I’m checking over my shoulder for a megalodon? Whatever. For a really big shark. That’s probably all it is. Maybe if I’m lucky, it’s a whale shark or some other behemoth that only eats plankton and krill. But then she flashed on that tooth taken from the pipe, and knew that was nothing more than wishful thinking. If wishes were horses, she could hear her mother saying...

  What she saw next heading in her direction scared her, but it wasn’t a fish.

  Two people, both men, came running down the tunnel—from the beach side—to the wrecked tram. She was surprised to feel a pang of relief when she saw that neither was Mick. It was a terrible mixture of relief and foreboding; that something very bad was about to happen, but at least someone she cared for—you do care about him, don’t you?—wouldn’t be around to be hurt by it.

  Suddenly the gloomy mass—so large that it appeared fish-like only with sufficient distance away from it—rose from the reef not far in front of her, perhaps adjacent to the two approaching men. Inside the tunnel she could see the tourists turning to face it, some patting those next to them on the arm to turn and look at it. The rapid shifting from light to dark was unsettling.

  The gargantuan fish rose until it was atop the tunnel, its caudal fin slicing the surface of the lagoon as it angled its conical nose downward. Coco felt as though she were not even present in this moment, like she was watching a movie or in a dream (or nightmare, as the case may be). You’re not watching a megalodon, you’re not watching a megalodon...was the phrase she tried to force through her brain, but her mind refused to accept that false premise as it processed the reality in front of her: A sixty-foot-plus shark that looked a lot like a great white. What else could it be?

  She was jarred from her thoughts at that moment as the megalodon gave a powerful burst of its tail, propelling it forward and down with shocking speed. Coco had absolutely no idea what she would do—what she could do—if the prehistoric beast decided to turn toward her. She was sitting in the middle of the water column with absolutely no cover of any kind except for the tunnel. Closer to the hotel, the bottom of it was nearer to the reef, but here it was elevated well above the seafloor.

  Fortunately for Coco, she was not the fish’s target. The megalodon did not let up speed as it neared the tunnel, nor did it veer away. Coco had no idea why, but the huge shark rammed its weighty snout into the acrylic structure. She cringed with the crunching sound that travelled through the water to her ears.

  She watched, helpless and spellbound at the same time, as the two staff members just arriving were knocked off their feet just before the tunnel’s roof imploded with the force of the mighty fish. She had to tear her gaze from those men, though, to watch the megalodon, which, unbelievably, even with its great size, was pulled into the now open tunnel as the incredible suction of incoming water took it into the air-filled space.

  It wouldn’t remain air-filled for long, though, Coco realized with a start. Like watching some kind of disaster movie in slow motion, she processed the unthinkable: the train tunnel was flooding with water. Everyone inside was about to perish. Those nearest to the opening—the two hotel staff—were simply crushed by the unimaginable onslaught of rushing seawater, while those further back by the tram found themselves in the unenviable position of watching the water rise around them until they were trapped in a water-filled tube.

  Coco kicked toward the opening created by the megalodon. The beastly fish—yes, it was a fish, she was certain of that now—thrashed around inside the partially filled tunnel, breaking it apart even more. Its motions were slow, but immensely powerful, like an earth-moving machine capable of displacing many tons of material. When the inside of the tunnel was completely filled, the marine animal gained even more strength, and proceeded to bash the remaining Plexiglas material out of its way. Then the gigantic shark rolled free of the train tube on the side away from Coco, shaking its wide snout back and forth.

  Coco dropped lower to the reef, and swam toward the tram, which she could now see wobbling with the surge of water in the tunnel. Coco’s mind was awash with terror at the ghastly spectacle playing out before her. Many people were going to drown here, of this she had little doubt. Was there anything she could do to save even one of them? Trapped in that flooded train tube
was a terrible situation to be sure, but one that was potentially survivable, Coco realized, provided that the person didn’t panic, was at least an okay swimmer, and had the good fortune not to be hit in the head by a piece of heavy equipment on the way up—or be consumed by a rampaging prehistoric shark, she added to herself glumly.

  Coco looked into the tunnel as she swam alongside. She saw two people float past her, already drowned, the woman’s designer handbag still strapped to her drifting corpse. Then a glimmer of hope as she saw a group of four emerge from the gash in the top of the tunnel that had been ripped open by the megalodon. That glimmer faded as quickly as it appeared when the ginormous creature spun alarmingly fast for its size and barreled at what it no doubt considered to be prey. Coco finned up over the top of the tunnel, wanting a better view, wanting to help the people somehow, even though she had no idea what, if anything, she could do.

  Distract the shark? She looked down, and saw that another section of tunnel had been ripped apart, one she hadn’t noticed before. She would be able to fit through it, but the megalodon would not, at least not without stopping to bash it open first. She removed her scuba mouthpiece, and yelled as loudly as she could into the ocean. Still the shark was unwavering in its approach to the four struggling prey items. She yelled again until she thought her lungs would burst. No change. She removed her dive knife from a sheath on her calf, and banged the blunt end against her aluminum scuba tank, producing a piercing clanging noise.

  Amazingly, the megalodon changed course. It didn’t stop, but it whirled around, and with almost the same speed it had built up, proceeded to charge at her. Coco grinned for a split second in spite of the situation as she saw the four terrified swimmers stroke for the lagoon’s shimmering surface. Then she darted inside the tunnel like a reef creature ducking into a crevice to avoid a predator.

  It was completely flooded now, and the moment of elation she had felt at saving the foursome above was crushed into oblivion by what she encountered here. Bodies everywhere. The bodies of people who just minutes before were simply tourists looking for a unique and exciting—but not this exciting—experience, now dead, all of them.

  Wait!

  She almost missed it—the frantic motion of an arm waving from the floor of the tunnel. Up ahead by the tram, where the water had engulfed the tunnel only moments ago. Movement. She started to kick to move faster, but as soon as Coco was inside the tunnel it was like stepping into a raging river. She was swept along fast toward the tram, and realized she would not be able to stop. She saw two people who were way beyond terrified—a man and a woman. She remembered seeing them in the reception bure only hours ago. It was hard to believe this had happened to them.

  The man was pulling on his wife, yanking her out from beneath the tram. Coco grabbed onto a handrail on the tram to hold herself in position. She knew the two victims wouldn’t be able to see clearly, not having masks on, but she could tell the man was aware someone was here. He reached out to her. Coco took his hand, and pulled him to her. She could see him starting to panic, unable to communicate, and not knowing what he was supposed to do in order to be rescued.

  Coco’s scuba training kicked in. She knew that within seconds he’d start flailing around in a blind panic unless she got the situation under some kind of control. She felt for her “octopus,” a spare regulator mouthpiece to be used in emergencies when a diver’s primary regulator malfunctioned, or if another diver ran out of air. Rather than sharing a single mouthpiece, it enabled the diver performing the rescue to give the stricken diver their own breathing source. She cupped the mouthpiece end of the hose in her right hand while clutching the side of the tram with her left. She waved the regulator in front of the Stanley’s face, knowing he couldn’t see clearly, but wanting to let him know what was coming, then she shoved the regulator into his mouth.

  She hoped he’d been scuba diving at some point in his life before, because then he’d know that you needed to blow out first before breathing in, to expel the water inside the outer part of the mouthpiece. She had no way to explain that to him now, though, and so had to hope that either he knew it already, or would be okay dealing with it on the fly.

  She was pleased to see his hand situate the regulator in his mouth, and bubbles blow out of it immediately, meaning he had breathed out first. Good. Now to focus on the missus, who was in full-fledged panic mode. Coco grabbed her, and pulled her the rest of the way out from under the tram, wary of the fact that should she lose her grip on her she would drift away further into the tunnel, and they would not be able to find her in time.

  Coco encircled Priscilla Doherty with one arm while she took her own primary regulator out of her mouth, and placed it in Priscilla’s. Stanley’s wife did not have the presence of mind to exhale first, and breathed in water. She started choking, arms flailing. Coco and Stanley gripped her hard while they fought not to be carried away by the torrent of water passing through the tunnel. Coco refused to let Priscilla spit the mouthpiece out or jerk her head away, knowing it’d be over for her if she did. She held her in place until she breathed in, and her eyes bugged out with the realization that she got air instead of water. Coco waited while she took a few breaths to calm herself down.

  Coco needed to breathe, too, but recognized that Stanley was the less panic prone of the two of them, and so she reached out and made a grabbing motion in front of his face. She didn’t know what she would do if he decided to fight her for the mouthpiece. To her great relief, he nodded, took one more breath, removed the regulator from his mouth, and handed it to Coco.

  She placed it in her mouth, and took a couple of quick breaths while looking around. This was it. She had to get these people to the surface before they were separated, or one of them panicked too much. Coco identified a large rip in the side of the tunnel, but it went against the still-flowing current. They had to get to it in order to escape the tunnel. She decided to let Priscilla keep her mouthpiece, and buddy-breathe with Stanley while they moved.

  She handed the mouthpiece back to Stanley, tapped him on the shoulder to get his undivided attention, and then pointed to her right. Time to move. The man nodded his understanding. He sure as hell didn’t want to hang out here any longer, either, Coco thought. And he wasn’t too scared to move. Good.

  The tether to Priscilla was shorter, the primary regulator hose not designed with sharing in mind. This meant Coco would have to swim with Priscilla very close to her, which was probably a good idea anyway, Coco thought. Stanley, with the longer hose, could get as far as a couple of feet away from Coco’s right side. In this manner, she set off to her right up the tunnel, bucking the torrential current.

  Fortunately the tram was still there for them to hold onto, even though now it wobbled in the current. Her hands occupied grabbing the tram and prodding the Doherty’s along, she relied on her fins to push forward along the train car. She felt bad for Stanley and Priscilla, pushing forward with one hand waving out in front of their faces, barely able to see, but somehow they kept on. A terrible moment transpired when a corpse drifted out of the tram right in front of them; Coco pushed it above their heads where it was caught in the fast-moving water, and carried away before her rescuees could bump into it.

  At the end of the tram she looked up, searching for the smashed open section of tunnel roof.

  There!

  An opening large enough for them to fit through. Coco didn’t have a free hand to check her pressure gauge to see how much air she had remaining in her tank, but with the three of them breathing off of it, she knew it wouldn’t last long. At least once they got out of the tunnel they’d have an unobstructed path to the surface of the lagoon.

  And to the megalodon...

  She forced that thought from her mind as she pointed toward the roof of the destroyed tunnel, hoping that her two charges would catch her meaning in spite of the fact that they wouldn’t be able to see any details. She couldn’t see the shark, at least, not that she was looking as hard as she could have. B
ut it wasn’t lurking just outside the tunnel waiting for them. To stay here much longer was to invite death for them all, though, so it was time to move.

  Coco let go of the tram and put one arm on the man, one on the woman and kicked off the bottom. The unlikely trio ascended the ten feet or so to the tunnel roof and Coco dragged them through the jagged aperture into open water.

  Then the woman began to panic. Coco didn’t know what the problem was. She had air, she could see her blowing a frenetic curtain of bubbles, rapidly consuming their remaining breathing gas. But for whatever reason, she had had enough.

  But so had Coco. Still kicking, she glanced up at the surface. At the sun. She wanted to push them away now, but was worried they wouldn’t know not to hold their breath, which could cause a serious diving injury called an air embolism, a bursting of the lungs due to expanding air as the pressure decreased. Coco resigned herself to dragging her two victims the rest of the way to surface so that she could keep an eye on them.

  The last few feet up scared Coco the most, for she knew that was where they were most vulnerable to the apex predator in their midst. To a megalodon, three humans splashing around on top of the water was like ringing a dinner bell. She hauled them the last few feet, the sunlight growing more intense, until their heads burst through the water into the world of air. She could read the stunned expressions of the married couple as they spit the mouthpieces out, not believing they were actually breathing natural air once again. There was not time to let them rejoice in the moment.

  “Swim for the beach. Go!”

  She assumed they knew how to swim. They damn well better, she though, sticking her mask back underwater, scanning back and forth for signs of the—

  Megalodon! There it was, down by the tunnel, but now swerving their way.