Vengeance from the Deep - Book Two: Blood of the Necala

by Russ Elliott

  “It’s only been about twenty minutes since I called. Shouldn’t take them too much longer to get here from Simon’s Town.”

  After a few moments of looking at the sea, she turned to him. “I don’t really mean to bring this up . . . but earlier . . . when the creature beached itself . . .well, I still can’t believe the size of the thing. And the way it looked at you, its eyes. Like you could see it thinking.”

  She’d mirrored his thoughts—he wasn’t going mad. “I know,” John said with a slow nod of his head. “Should have seen it from my angle. It didn’t seem too happy that I took its food away.”

  John headed to the cargo bay. He checked the depth charges for the third time then approached the open doorway. Looking down into the fog, he muttered, “Come on, Nathan. We need another signal.”

  Amy crept out onto the stern of the Sea Ray, noticing the fog had thinned out to mere sprinkled patches drifting over the black water. The mist felt cool against her bare skin. Anxious to head in, she wanted to see if Chris had pulled up the anchor.

  Chris turned around and pointed at her body, still draped in lingerie. “Go put some clothes on already!” he demanded. “What’s with you? Ever since I got those implants for you, it’s like you can’t stand to cover ’em up!”

  He picked up a plastic jug and drained the remaining few ounces of sports drink into his mouth. Tossing the empty jug across the deck, he looked at Amy. “On your way back in, get the second jug of sports drink from the fridge, will ya?”

  She wanted to ask why they weren’t heading back in but didn’t dare press her luck. “Okay,” Amy said, slowly walking toward the galley, still rattled from Chris’s earlier outburst. Halfway along the hallway she stopped and slapped her forehead. Oh no! Now he’s really gonna freak. She turned around and walked back onto the deck empty-handed.

  Chris looked over. “Where’s the drink?”

  “I forgot to mix it.”

  “Well, why don’t you just mix it now?”

  Amy nervously replied, “I . . . I forgot the water.”

  “That’s great!” Chris was on the verge of another rage rant. “Three miles from the coast and nothing to drink!” He took a step back, slipped on the empty jug, and nearly fell. In frustration, he kicked it across the deck.

  Gary tapped him on the shoulder in an obvious attempt to distract Chris. “Bro, check it. There’s another fin. Looks like a hammerhead. A lobster dinner says you can’t hit it on the first shot!”

  “You should know better than that!” Chris snatched up the spear gun and turned his attention to the waters off starboard.

  Running to the helm, Gary fired the engine and accelerated the boat until it was parallel with the fin. Amy stepped back, arms crossed and heaving a deep sigh, to give them plenty of room to pull their next victim on board.

  “That’s it! Keep her steady!” shouted Chris as he trained the spear gun on the fin. A spray of whitewater trailed behind the gray triangle as it glided through the night. His finger tensed on the trigger, his left eye squinted. “Come on . . . come on. Yes!”

  Chris squeezed the trigger.

  Ssssap. A perfect shot. The spear found its mark just below the dorsal fin. Chris fist pumped the air with a victorious shout. “Bro, you should have known better than to make that bet!”

  But the shark didn’t flinch.

  When the small fin began to rise, he noticed another fin in front of it. Another fin appeared behind it.

  Two more.

  Six more fins rose from the water, all lined in a row. Rising higher, the fins merged together, and Chris realized in horror that they weren’t fins at all––but the tip of an enormous jagged frill.

  Chris’s jaw dropped. He looked up and saw his spear dangling like a toothpick on a piece of the frill. He dropped his spear gun to the deck in disbelief. Then the water surrounding the boat turned black as the frill rose above the mist.

  “What the—? Get us outta here!” Chris’s voice cracked in fear.

  Gary pressed the throttle and the bow lifted, speeding forward. But the frill remained off port, matching their pace. As Gary drove like a madman, Chris looked past the bow, then the stern, trying to estimate the creature’s length. But there was no end to the black shadow in either direction. Then the frill cut the waters in a forward shift, plunging beneath the surface. The spear gun danced across the deck and flew over the boat’s side as the enormous shadow disappeared behind a spray of whitewater.

  After a few seconds, Chris motioned Gary to slow the boat. Gary eased back on the throttle, bringing the roaring engine to idle. As the boat slowed, Gary stood up. “Tell me I didn’t see that!”

  “That had to be a whale,” said Chris, eyes wide. “Some kind of humpback.”

  Gary shook his head, doubtful. His eyes darted around the waters.

  Clouds drifted before the moon, and the sea grew darker.

  Chris motioned everyone to be quiet. All eyes stared into the pitch. At first they heard only the waves slapping against the hull.

  A bellowing roar echoed from the blackness.

  “Where did that come from?” shouted Chris.

  “I don’t know!” yelled Gary, his head on a swivel. “Everywhere!”

  Another roar. Closer. Palpable. No one uttered a sound.

  Amy began to weep from the doorway to the galley. Chris brought a finger to his lips, signaling her to keep quiet.

  She looked down at the deck, her voice a mere whisper. Terrified. “Chris! What’s that? Can you feel it?”

  The ocean began to rumble. The sound was distant, barely perceivable, but grew steadily louder. Chris’s eyes darted over the surface of the water.

  In all of their years together, Amy had never seen him express such genuine fear. The deep sound grew louder like an underwater volcano. Then the deck began to tremble as they felt the vibration nearing the surface. Amy stepped back farther into the hallway. “What are you waiting for?” she screamed to Gary.

  Gary slammed down the throttle.

  The boat lunged upward as the gigantic nose shot above the starboard in an explosion of whitewater. Chris fell back, the deck collapsing beneath his feet as he disappeared into the darkness behind the upper row of teeth.

  The impact propelled Gary twenty feet in the air.

  Amy was thrown back across a counter in the hallway. She tumbled to the floor. Through the doorway, all she could see was a blur of gray-striped flesh of the massive upper jaw across the starboard. She felt the deck and the entire hallway rise from the surface. The creature held the boat firmly in its awesome jaws. A heartbeat, and then the head rolled, plunging into the water, tearing the vessel in half.

  There was a moment of weightlessness. Everything whirled. Through the hallway, Amy saw a blur of the night sky until she felt the boat crash against the sea. Instantly, the hall and galley flooded. Cool water swept above her head, taking her breath.

  She felt her section of the boat swirling toward the depths. She swam through debris from the galley. Her blond hair flowed like a part of the ocean, clouding her vision on occasion, as she searched for a way out. She slipped her body through the large window in the hallway.

  Once outside the sinking wreckage, Amy looked up at the moonlit surface. Dozens of severed shark fins spiraled toward the depths, leaving trails of blood like red ribbons. She pushed the hair from her eyes and swam through the surreal underwater setting. Debris fell around her like confetti. A few strokes more and the blue water transformed into pink—she’d risen into the chum line. Amy burst through the surface, screaming Chris’s name at the top of her lungs, which slowly gave way to realization of her circumstances: the frill, the mouth, the boat in shreds. She stifled her cries, now silent except for an occasional whimper. She moved slowly, only enough to tread water. Her eyes scanned the surface. No trace of Chris or Gary, only floating debris and the faint smell of fuel in the air.

  Suddenly, several fins appeared at the opposite end of the chum line and began to close in on some
thing orange in the water. She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to watch the inevitable.

  ~~~

  Gary swam out from behind a large piece of debris, his orange life jacket glowing in the moonlight. The second he hit the water, he remembered that he’d planned to tell Chris today was his last day out. Now, it was—in more ways than one. He looked at the swarm of fins and the realization hit him. This was the last night of his life.

  At that moment, something tugged at him from below. His mouth dropped beneath the surface, and he fought, rising above the surface again, gasping on the bitter taste of blood. Warmth swept over his torso, and he looked down at a red billowing cloud rising beneath him. No.

  Refusing to comprehend what had happened, Gary frantically swam back, but the warm cloud followed. Then, through the perimeter of the bloodstained waters, he saw the figure of a bull shark swimming away with something in its mouth that looked like a shoe. Before his eyes, another shark rammed the bull shark, tearing the foot from the severed limb.

  All around him, the water was moving—alive. Gary was then jerked to his left. Frothy pink water splashed into his face. He tried to draw his left hand back to his chest, but it was brutally snatched away. His free right hand pounded blindly into the water, grazing and connecting with sandpaper skin. Another fin rose, waving in front of him. His head swirled. He heard screams and pleas filling the air—louder and louder—but he did not recognize them as his own. Another shark hit from the front, and he felt the strap of the life vest pull into his back as it was torn away.

  Bloody gray skin flashed before his face. A searing pain raked across his abdomen, and he was pushed back across the water, then he was floating free. More warmth flowed upward. He didn’t have to look down to know what had happened—he was torn open. His guts were spilling into the sea.

  The moonlit sky disappeared, replaced by red water as his screams turned to bubbles. Then Gary closed his eyes and waited for the next hit.

  The wait wasn’t long.

  ~~~

  Amy swam back in horror, watching the orange life jacket dance amid the thrashing fins. She tried not to hear Gary’s screams, though it was impossible. All at once, the surface split and the great mouth stretched open, lifting Gary and the two bull sharks tearing into his body. Unaware of their impending demise, the sharks continued to fight over the torso until they disappeared within the pliosaur’s closing jaws. Then with a final crash of water, the giant head slammed back beneath the waves.

  As the shockwaves settled, Amy nervously looked across the water, not seeing a single fin. She hoped that maybe the huge creature had scared all the other sharks away.

  No such luck. A single fin broke the surface.

  Amy held her breath, watching the two-foot fin slowly veer back around into the chum trail and align itself for the kill—hers. She frantically looked for something to hide behind, but there was nothing. She floated helplessly in the freshly chummed waters. When the shark drew nearer, she could see its hammer-shaped head oscillating beneath the waves. The shark picked up speed, slicing through the chum line straight for her.

  Amy let loose a scream. That’s when the giant frill broke the surface, towering behind the approaching fin. Then an enormous swell appeared in front of the monster’s interlocked teeth, which soon parted to reveal a mouth wider than a set of double doors. The great nose cast a shadow over Amy as she watched the cavernous mouth completely swallow the large hammerhead. The pliosaur's nose plowed into the surface and it dove. Amy quickly spread her legs as the long frill glided between them, missing her by inches.

  Behind her, the pliosaur exploded from the surface, a hammer-shaped head protruding from the side of its jaw. With a kick of a massive paddle fin, a shower of water covered Amy.

  The enormous shadow was gone, fading into the sea.

  Amy continued to tread water, hearing only the sound of her racing heart echoing in her ears. She frantically searched the surface waters around her.

  Is it done?

  Out of the gloom, the vast head slowly rose beneath her. Less than eight feet away, an enormous red eye broke the surface. Her field of view filled with gray, pebbled flesh as the huge orb examined her from point-blank range. Clouds of blood gushed from its jaw.

  This is it. I’m done.

  The head rose higher, water cascading down from the rising teeth. Twenty feet above her, the huge jaws stretched open and unleashed a roar—so immense and terrifying, she could not move, only stare in wonder—as the great creature called out to the night. Then with a tremendous splash, the head rolled back into the sea and was gone.

  ~~~

  John peered forward through the chopper’s windshield, the walkie-talkie at his ear, fire in his eyes. “Are you sure the signal was moving east? As long as we’ve been tracking it, the pliosaur’s been headed west.” He listened for a moment, “Okay. Out!”

  Clicking off the walkie-talkie, John said to Kate, “Nathan said it’s no mistake—the creature is definitely headed east. Said it must have caught a scent to make it change course like that.” He stared down at the communication device in his hand. “He also said he would have picked up a signal sooner, but he noticed the generator powering the surveillance equipment had cut out. It took a while, but he finally fixed it.” John shook his head. “Unbelievable. Countless lives resting on a five-dollar spark plug.”

  Kate peered into the distance. “Maybe our luck is starting to change. Look at the moon—it’s completely full. And the fog’s starting to break up.”

  John gazed up at the full moon and felt an unmistakable sense of unease.

  ~~~

  Alone, three miles from the coast, Amy continued to tread water. Her lower jaw trembled uncontrollably as she nervously looked around the surface. The boat’s debris was scattered widely now with the exception of several large pieces of fiberglass that lingered close by. She felt certain that by now the chum trail had disbursed, and the boat’s underwater frequency device used to attract sharks had been destroyed. Her chances seemed better.

  She prayed for a break—that if there were nothing to attract the sharks to her, she would survive this. Amy knew sharks weren’t the mindless killers Chris made them out to be. But it did little to erase Gary’s gruesome death from her mind. For the thousandth time, his life jacket, still bouncing in the bloody waters, flashed before her. She closed her eyes, and it was still there.

  Then there was the hammerhead. She recalled how the shark came straight for her, rationalizing that it was only because she was in the chum trail. But the other thing . . . the monstrosity that came up beneath the boat was beyond her comprehension. And the bizarre way it had just stared at her. Maybe she was just a morsel too small to bother with. Maybe that’s why it left her alone.

  The water felt cooler. Amy wondered how long it would be before anyone knew they were missing. What a joke, she thought. Chris was so secretive about what he was doing that no one probably even knew they’d gone out. It could be days.

  Her mind went back to the huge creature. She tried to convince herself it was gone, but unbelievably, she could feel its presence. She thought about the frill she’d seen just a few moments ago. Once or twice she had felt a slight undertow, as if something enormous had passed beneath her. She refused to look down. There it was again . . . or was it her imagination?

  Whimpering, she fought the urge to look down, then gave up. She lowered her eyes, seeing the shadow of her legs rippling against a passing wall of gray-striped skin. The mass of flesh then tapered down into a sweeping tail and soared off into the darkness. In the distance she saw a ripple of water, the frill. It continued on a forward path, then slowly arced around. The creature was making huge circles around her.

  It had never gone away.

  She could now see the massive beast more clearly beneath the full moon—its body flashing in and out of the moonlight as it patrolled the waters around her.

  Why not just take me, monster?

  Her mind raced, but her ar
ms barely moved; just enough to tread water.

  Or . . . are you protecting me?

  She reasoned with herself that perhaps it was keeping the hungry sharks at bay. She felt a glint of hope, however unreasonable. She rationalized that the creature somehow knew she wasn’t here to harm it, that she wasn’t like Chris and Gary. Maybe the creature, with its complex brain, could sense she was innocent.

  Her theory of hope was short-lived.

  The wide circle began to close.

  The creature flashed by her. She lost sight of it.

  Amy screamed. She drew her legs up as the beast, approaching from behind, sailed beneath her. A paddle fin missed her by inches. She turned frantically in the water, catching sight of a trail of bubbles. The white froth divided and the towering frill rose, veering around toward her, cutting through the night water, closer, rising.

  Nowhere to go, Amy admitted her luck had run out. She was next. She could only watch the horror close in. The huge mouth stretched open before her, then closed, and the enormous head plunged beneath her. She screamed when jagged skin scraped her left thigh.

  Amy rose above the surface, spitting from the undertow.

  She felt it then—the pain of a hundred bee stings sweeping up her thigh from where the monster had brushed her.

  She wondered at the game this creature seemed to be playing. As if it wished to torture her more than kill her quickly.

  After cruising away from her, the pliosaur once again came around for another pass. The beast rose higher until its striped back broke the waterline. The huge eyes appeared beneath a pressure wave.

  But this time it didn’t dive.

  Instead, the pliosaur merely rolled its head.

  Beneath the water, the giant neck brushed Amy’s chest and thigh, sending her bouncing and rolling off the passing flank. Blood rose from her abraded skin.

  Hysterical with fear, she rose in the creature’s wake.

  “Just do it! Get it over with,” she spat angrily. Treading water, she glanced down at the stinging warmth. Amid the red haze, she saw that her teddy was little more than a few shards of waving black material. The water was cold, but the entire left side of her body was on fire.