The tent was a little too warm, so Will dropped the blankets and took off his parka. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Megalodon’s face. It was wider than the ship, yet high cheekbones rose on either side of its predatory face. Its nose was pointed and had a pinprick dot from where the spear had landed earlier. Its eyes, so very pitch black and glossy, blank, empty of thought. Could a monster like this have thought, or was it the zombie dust? Were they all tricked by the drug’s potency and this enormous shark could snap out of it anytime, eating the ship and everyone onboard?
No, Will didn’t think so. He felt safe. After puking and dry heaving, he felt better than he had in a week. He decided to let himself revel in simply looking at it, as much as he could see, which was just past the red gills slowly breathing in and out. It was incredible to behold. This was his time, his moment. Nancy, beside him, stared as well. She had her own moment to celebrate. He wished for a small second that Ellen were there.
Will imagined Sir Mallory’s moment would be when he used his compound’s satellites and showed the world.
What moment of all this did his father cherish? Will couldn’t imagine.
He decided to stop thinking and just watch. The shark was mesmerizing in its stupor. If Will hadn’t seen those rows of teeth ready to devour all of them earlier that day, he’d almost find it peaceful. Just a fish in an aquarium. A sea-sized aquarium. It made Will wonder how big Sir Mallory’s enclosure was.
Time passed. Will forgot all about worrying his father and felt content, even though the hail pelted the tent and the wind made the cold-proof fabric around them shake and sway.
The seas got rough again after a while, and Will’s stomach turned. He didn’t want to leave; he wasn’t finished watching the Megalodon. But, he knew that inside this warm tent with those choppy seas, it wouldn’t be long before another dry-heave spell hit him.
“Thanks, Nancy, for showing me. I better be going now,” he told her with a weak smile. Just talking was hard.
“Of course. We have a big night soon. You’ll see more, and I know neither of us will be sleeping.”
She had no idea how true that would be.
Will left the tent after covering back up, and slowly made his way across the ship to the bridge. Halfway there, he retched overboard a few times. After, he wiped his chin and looked out over the black night and sea. He could see ice floating in the water. How did his dad sail in this?
His dad. Oh, man. He was going to be pissed. Maybe if Will explained…
Then the smell hit. That awful smell, the one he’d smelled earlier. He’d only smelled it that one time in his life, when the Megalodon first came.
Had it awakened from its sedated state?
Will looked back at the lights on the Megalodon in the net. No movement. He gagged again from the smell. No, it was coming from the same direction he’d just puked, out at sea.
The rough water became even more turbulent. Will grabbed the rail of the ship to steady himself. He squinted into the darkness, plugging his nose and breathing through his mouth, with one hand in a death clasp on the handrail.
The ice chunks floating in the distance were rising…higher and higher. Something was coming. And that something was another one of those…of the Megalodons. There was more than one in these waters, and now it made sense that Sir Mallory captured one on his first try. What if there were dozens, hundreds of them?
Will used every bit of willpower to detach himself from the rail and run to the bridge to warn his dad, and by the time he got there, the ship was tilted at such an angle that he had to climb the stairs on his hands and knees.
His father had the wheel in a death-grip, and barked at him, “Goddamn it, son, where the fuck have you been? We got another one. Now, get the hell down and stay here. No arguing, no backtalk. Get down!”
The rage and fear coming off his dad filled the air so much so that disobedience was not an option. He got in a corner and pulled his knees up to his chin. “Where’s Ellen?”
His father didn’t answer, but Will saw a look of pain cross his face. He didn’t know.
The second, non-sedated Megalodon had to be almost upon them, and Will was afraid. Were Sir Mallory and the green-suited men ready? Did they have their spears? Was the same thing going to happen again tonight, in the pitch-black, as this afternoon?
Will doubted it, but he’d never know without disobeying his father and looking out the bridge windows.
His stomach lurched as the ship tilted even more with the rush of water coming at them. Will cursed under his breath. His dad could suck it right now. He wasn’t going to die without knowing, and he wasn’t going to drown without trying to swim and survive if the ship upturned.
He stood and ran to the window, but his dad said nothing. He was pulling the wheel hard, fully concentrating.
Will looked at the deck, but couldn’t see anything but random movements until he caught a glimpse of his sister, Ellen, and the techie, Caleb, with his arms around her as though protecting her. They lay sideways on the deck, and Will only made Ellen out because of all the people in the world, he probably knew her form best. Or maybe it was sibling connection. Whatever it was, Will was going out there and getting her.
He scampered sideways out the door, his father screaming after him to stop. He sounded furious, but Will kept going. He climbed down the stairs wall and scampered to the part of the deck where he saw Ellen and the techie.
“Ellen!” he called to her, just out of reach.
“Willie! Willie, run, it’s coming!”
He turned and saw nothing but black, and then the second Megalodon rammed the side of the ship. Will heard the crunch and bending of metal. The whole boat hopped high into the air, then plopped back into the water right-side up. The air got knocked out of Will on landing on his belly.
That had to be his dad steadying them. It had to be.
Will grabbed Ellen, and she reached for the young techie, but he had slid far out of reach, hanging by one hand from the deck.
“Caleb!” Ellen cried. She wrenched away from Will and ran to him, but before she could reach him, his fingers slipped and Will heard a splash.
“No!” Ellen yelled, bending over as the ship tilted again. There was no sign of Caleb, and Will knew there never would be.
Now the deck was a mess of activity. Sir Mallory and his green-suited men scampered to aim their weapons, and Nancy and the girls readied another net.
It seemed they suspected this might happen.
“Nancy,” Sir Mallory called to her as she got close to the edge of the tilted ship. “You’re too close. Back off!”
“I can get it. I can get it, trust me!” She dropped the net overboard as the other two girls did, but they then turned and ran, sliding in the continuous hail. Nancy stayed, staring down and over.
“Get back,” Sir Mallory tried again.
“I have to tell you when it’s coming up. I can do this. Sharks are my specialty. It’ll be up any minute and—”
Any minute became right then, because the Megalodon’s enormous mouth rose from the side of the ship and, as though to spite Nancy and only her, it seemed to bend its head and proceeded to chomp Nancy down in its cavernous maw. Will watched in terror as the Megalodon kept its head above water to chew, tilting it up just so, as if it wanted them all to see what it could do.
Her red curls tumbled out of her hood and filled the monstrous shark’s teeth. Nancy screamed awful sounds, and Will saw her arms and legs become gored from her body in those horrid, opening and closing rows of teeth. Finally, her head exploded from one ferocious bite, and the cries of pain and begging for mercy stopped. Blood squirted all over the glistening white shark’s mouth.
“Now!” Sir Mallory and the green-suited men instantly fired, pulled out the dart guns, and fired again.
The Megalodon struggled. It didn’t want to go down like the first one. Maybe the taste of human flesh invigorated it. It rammed the ship again, but with less force, the sedatives starti
ng to take effect. The ship still almost toppled, but Will’s dad steered them straight.
Both of Nancy’s girls were crying, covering their faces, but Sir Mallory wasn’t deterred. “Nancy will not have died in vain!” he cried out. “She believed in this! We will take this Megalodon, too, to the enclosure. The Drake Passage may be full of them! We must get to Elephant Island as soon as possible.”
The second Megalodon started to swim in place, as complacent as the first one had been earlier. Sir Mallory went to each girl and told her to take it easy, that he had it from here. With help from the green-suited men, he got the second Megalodon to the back of the ship with the first, side-by-side in a V with their faces close to each other, swimming in trance along with the ship. There was no way they could tow one Megalodon, and certainly not two. The zombie dust somehow made them swim at pace with the ship, not too slow or fast.
Will hoped nobody ever used the zombie powder on him.
He’d never seen anything like Nancy’s death, and he felt numb. Simply numb. Like, it didn’t happen. Like, he hadn’t just been sitting with her sharing a special moment. Maybe his father had been right. This was too dangerous.
He looked at his watch. It was almost 2am. They should be at the Elephant Island compound anytime. Maybe then he’d feel safe again, and maybe he’d believe Sir Mallory saying Nancy died for a cause she believed in, not take it to heart.
But he’d watched it, her being eaten alive, heard her terror and pain-filled screams until she was shark meat. What if that was all of their fates?
He met his father on the bridge. He looked older than an hour or so ago. “Thank you for saving your sister,” was all he said. He sounded defeated, yet angry.
“What is it, Dad?” Will asked. He just might tell Will, and it felt like he would right then.
“That woman, Nancy. I didn’t want anyone to die. But you know what? I knew. I knew deep down we would be sailing into death, death for us, some of us.” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, then softened his voice, not meeting Will’s gaze. “You and Ellen will be fine. Mallory has a sound plan.”
“Dad, did you know about the Megalodons?”
He shook his head. “It’s so long ago, and I was young. I saw things, knew to sail with them. And not to talk about them.” He looked at Will. “But I never forgot them.”
“I’ll never forget them.”
“Son, you’ll be remembered for them.” He smiled.
“You really think that even though two people died tonight, it’s going to work out?”
“Two?”
“A techie went over. Caleb. A kid Ellen liked. Into the water, just gone.”
His father examined him carefully. “Yes, you’ll be remembered.”
Chapter 8
It was quarter past 4am when the ship was safely docked in a port Sir Mallory had built beside the Megalodon enclosure on Elephant Island. Nobody talked. They went about the routines set out for them in the frigid night. Sir Mallory had warm water rushing in to de-ice the ship at all times, but there was nothing anyone could do about the storm.
There was some damage to the side of the ship where the second Megalodon had rammed, but nothing his dad’s boat couldn’t handle.
With Nancy and Caleb gone, some of the spark had left with them. The magic. The non-reality. Will felt it.
The green-suited men got the two sedated Megalodons into the enclosure from the ship. The nets were made of a gelatinous material that stretched at the main rope line, and they could maneuver the giant, docile monsters to a place Will had not yet seen, but was nearby. A giant, natural cave.
He was physically and mentally exhausted, but his head was straight and his stomach still. And man, was he hungry, despite the tragedies and excitement.
Sir Mallory told the remaining people in his party and Will’s father’s crew that he’d take them to the compound through a tunnel next to the ship’s bay. He said tomorrow would be the day he’d show them all the Megalodon enclosure, and they’d broadcast the sharks. Nancy and Caleb would be heroes.
Outside, though, the storm raged on, undeterred by anyone in the group’s plans. It had its own ways to follow, its own winds to blow.
The tunnel to the compound was lined ceiling-to-floor with white marble. It led to a black marble room with dozens of colored rugs, and a fountain with a mermaid spilling water from a shell into the pool below in the center of the room. Some of the most comfortable-looking couches and chairs sat all around, and tables engraved with silver and gold etchings rested between and around them. Three chandeliers with at least two dozen lights each hung from the cavernous, molded ceiling.
Sir Mallory said, “Up the stairs there, you’ll find the rooms. There are four dozen. Choose as you will. We all need rest. We’ve fought, and lost great people. Let’s dream of them, and let’s dream of them when we first saw them.”
He looked worn, and went up the steps, Lady Katherine behind him with eyes cast down. People followed, not looking back.
Will watched them go. He still wasn’t sleepy and all he could think about was food. He knew from past trips that the minute his body adjusted to joyous land, he felt like Popeye after eating a can of spinach. And he had a lot to think about. He didn’t want to do it alone in a bed. He wanted to do it over a ham and cheese with globs of mayo.
He was aware enough to duck behind a large palm plant by the staircase when his dad walked up, because he looked around and asked Ellen where Will was. Ellen shrugged and said Will was probably asleep. He’d seen a lot.
He appreciated that they thought he was fragile, and maybe he was, but they had no idea how good it felt to be on solid, hard-packed, non-moving earth. Nothing could keep him away from finding the ten-million-dollar kitchen and devouring every morsel of goodness he could land a hand on.
He shed his layers of coats and clothes on a red velvet sofa after everyone was gone, and explored. He went down another white marble hallway with a sharp right turn. He took it without looking. It led to another sharp turn, this time to the left. What was this, a funhouse?
This hall was short, and at the end stood a steel door, locked with a keypad. Hmm.
He went back to the main room, looked around. Found another hallway, this one lined with finely polished wood panels and floors. Lamps lit the passageway to an ornate wooden door with a silver doorknob. Will turned it and pushed the door open.
More like a zillion-dollar kitchen!
Will ran from cabinet-hiding food storage spot to the next, muttering, “Yes! No! Yeah, maybe!” but never actually making a decision until every nook and cranny had been observed. He settled on what he’d first thought of. A ham and cheese with globs of mayo, but these ingredients were from heaven… He ate two, and then sat back and belched for a solid ten seconds.
It felt so good to be on land. He breathed, cleaned up after himself, and then his mind wandered back to that steel door with the keypad. It’s not like the marble hallway was hidden. Anyone could wander that way and find the door. It wouldn’t be weird at all if Will asked Sir Mallory about it, a thing in plain sight. Would it?
He wandered back to the lush main room and lounged on a golden, soft loveseat, propping his feet on a hand-carved coffee table. This was the life, but it was kind of boring. He felt restless, had put off thinking about the deaths earlier, and just wanted to roam, feel the earth, be alone for the first time in ages.
He decided to go back down the first white marble tunnel to the boat dock.
He wasn’t wearing his layers, so he stayed close to the door, and only for a minute. He examined the dock as well as he could. There was a curve to the wall of the island that must be one side of the cave holding the Megalodons.
Will’s curiosity piqued. He couldn’t make it to that curve or he’d freeze to death, but there had to be some way into the enclosure. He could find it, sneak a glimpse tonight.
If he dared.
And he did.
He went back down the marble hallway and to the ma
in room. He studied the six walls, all with doors or halls leading off them. Then there was the staircase on a seventh wall.
One hall led to the kitchen, another to the boat dock, and the weird one led to the locked steel door, leaving two Will hadn’t explored.
One was directly beside the white marble hallway to the boat dock, and it had a subtle look to it. A simple light wood with carvings of starfish, and a nice brass handle. With a big, old-fashioned keyhole.
A keypad was something Will could not crack, but this? All he needed was a small fork, and the everything-stocked kitchen had any tool he could ask for. He headed that way, returning with a few pieces that might do the trick.
Within ten minutes, the lock clicked and Will turned the doorknob. He looked inside.
The walls were carved from the rock of the island and polished to a high shine, with track lighting on the floors and ceilings. Will went into the hallway and followed its natural rock curve to what he hoped was the Megalodons’ enclosure. It was a long hall, but his wishes paid off as he entered a softly lit, enormous room the size of three football fields, a cave formed in the rock made perfectly for this. Lights under water showed how deep it went, so deep the bottom couldn’t be seen. Once on far side of the enclosure, Will saw the open sea, snow falling there. Giant metal bars blocked the way out. On the other side, the cave simply rounded out.
It was chilly inside. The sharks had to be kept cold, perhaps. But it wasn’t freezing. As Will’s eyes adjusted to the soft lighting and he scanned the water for a Megalodon, he heard a voice.
“You couldn’t rest, either, could you, Will?” It was Sir Mallory’s accent and voice, but soft, subdued as before.
He looked to his right and saw Sir Mallory standing at the edge of a thick metal fence between the Megalodon enclosure and the walkway the hall led out onto. “No.”
Megalodon: Apex Predator Page 5