Megalodon: Apex Predator

by S. J. Larsson

  Will skidded to the massive weapon and grabbed the front end, hunching to get the barrel over his shoulder like he’d seen the now-devoured techie do the night before. He felt Don Mack grab up the back as he watched the Megalodon, now absolutely furious, storm at them with a bloody, gaping mouth. Some more of its teeth were missing from the back of its gums—damage from the grenade explosion.

  His father ran back to them as the shark’s mouth enveloped the ice right where he had been standing.

  “Do it!” Ellen screamed.

  “Now!” his father yelled as the Megalodon’s open mouth closed in on them and the teeth began popping out, and Will felt its putrid breath on his face again.

  “Ready, kid?” Don Mack called out.

  Will nodded hard, and with all the fight he could muster against the oncoming death, he aimed the rocket launcher at the Megalodon’s mouth. It was mere yards away, and Will wondered why Don Mack hadn’t fired yet. As the teeth crushed the ice in front of them, his dad cracked his whip one more time across the giant shark’s white and bloodied nose, and then Don Mack fired the weapon.

  Will swore he felt the missile move through his very body as it shot out of the launcher. He’d closed his eyes when he heard it, and now opened them in time to see the rocket shoot down the Megalodon’s throat. Still, the beast came, the teeth closing down on them…and then, the explosion hit.

  The Megalodon stopped dead in the water, feet from them, and Will heard its stomach rumbling like thunder. Its mouth opened and closed, and then a huge load of its insides came pouring out its mouth, all over them.

  Human and fish body parts, muck and guts, and enormous amounts of blood poured over Will and the rest of them, covering their group and the ice around them. Everything turned blackish-red in the night. Then, Will couldn’t see as blood and chunks of meat hit his face. He felt the Megalodon’s warm blood soak through his freezing, wet parka and clothes. It was the first time he’d been warm in his entire life, he swore.

  Before he could clear the mess off his face and out of his eyes, he heard Don Mack whooping, and Ellen cheering.

  He felt a hand on his face. It was cleaning the blood out of his eyes. He was on his back. How did that happen? He looked up into his father’s eyes and saw true, shining pride, excitement, love.

  “You did it,” he said.

  Will found a smile for his father. “We did it. All of us.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “It’s dead?”

  He smiled back. “She’s gone for good.”

  He sat up and looked into the water, and the Megalodon’s giant, white body was sinking in the frigid seas. It rolled around, and its fins and tail twitched wildly, but then, the whole huge mess of a prehistoric sea monster was enveloped by the water, never to be seen again.

  “Wow,” Will murmured.

  “Wow is right!” Don Mack exclaimed.

  Just then, from far off, Will heard the sweetest sound ever. It was the sound of a ship’s horn.

  Epilogue

  “Come on, Willie. They have cool rocks in this shop.” Ellen smiled up at him and tugged his arm, dragging him into the new age store at the corner of the Virginia coastal town’s main street. They were visiting with their father, having taken time off from the ocean for a while.

  Their father chuckled and followed them inside. Ellen immediately went to the case full of rock spheres of all sizes and colors. A clerk was there to assist her in pulling each one out almost immediately. She oooed and ahhhed over each one, saying she could feel this energy and that energy.

  Will walked around, found a carved walking stick, and played around with it. Really, he was just waiting for Ellen to be done. He hated shopping, and disliked new age stores altogether.

  “Can I help you with something?” said a smooth-sounding man’s voice behind him.

  He turned and saw a guy about his father’s age bearing a long, gray ponytail and smiling.

  “No, I’m alright. Just looking.”

  “Okay.” He winked. “If you see anything, or are looking for something for your particular life needs, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Will said, and walked away, feeling irritated. He wasn’t looking where he was going, and had focused only on getting away from the hippie clerk.

  He walked up to the far wall by a shop window where several wooden bins bearing trinkets was anchored to the wall. He looked down, trying to appear busy.

  His heart stopped. He was staring straight down at a Megalodon tooth. Actually, about a dozen little, gray Megalodon teeth. They were all around an inch long. They must’ve belonged to babies.

  He instantly flashed back to when the rescue ship arrived on their little piece of floating ice in the Antarctic sea six months earlier. The Argentinians were stunned when they saw the bloody mess that was their island and them. They were questioned, but none of them told the real story. Will didn’t know why, but he didn’t feel like it at the time. He’d just wanted it all to be over. The others must have felt the same way, but all through the questions and the ship ride to the mainland, he’d noticed his father had a new light in his eyes, and at the time, he’d suspected it might not ever go out.

  He reached in and took out the biggest tooth, which was about an inch and a half long. He ran his index finger up the serrated edge of the polished tooth, remembering Sir Mallory’s giant one, recalling Sir Mallory’s death, how he’d used his precious tooth as a weapon of revenge.

  It got him killed in the end.

  “Do those interest you?” Will heard the same man’s voice from behind him. He turned.

  “Those are Megalodon teeth, and the Megalodons were the apex predators of the seas around three million years ago. You seem drawn to them. I think I know why.” He winked a blue eye again.

  “Really?” Will said, unable to hide his sarcasm.

  The man laughed. “Of course. You seek transformation. You see, carrying a Megalodon’s tooth can bring about positive change in your life. It can reinforce old lessons and teach you how to handle new situations with a different perspective. It must be something you are seeking, because I watched you come right over here, straight to them. You seemed lost in a dream when you laid eyes on them. Yes, I think one of these are for you. Maybe even more than one.” He smiled.

  “Transformation, eh?” His father had come up next to them, having heard the conversation. “He’s transformed a lot in the last, oh, six months. He turned thirteen and grew three inches.”

  “Thirteen!” the sales clerk said in surprise. He turned back to Will. “You look about seventeen. That is extraordinary. What a great time in your life for a shark’s tooth. I promise, it would bring you through the painful transition of childhood into teen years with ease.”

  Will put the inch and a half-long tooth back in the bin with the others. “I’m doing alright, thanks.”

  The clerk tilted his head at Will’s father. “He’s so sure of himself for such a young age. You must be a very good father.”

  His dad looked at Will. “You’d have to ask him.”

  The clerk raised an eyebrow at Will. “I don’t have to ask what you’ll say. It’s obvious that the two of you love each other very much. How lucky you are to have such a family bond.”

  Will glanced at his father. “I guess he’s an alright dad.” He smirked at him.

  His father smirked back, and his eyes still hadn’t lost that special light they’d found the night they obliterated a giant Megalodon together.

  He turned back to the clerk. “I think I’ve transformed enough for now, but maybe later.”

  “Of course, of course,” the clerk said, but he seemed uncertain by Will and his father’s shared secret, sensing it, but not knowing with his all-seeing powers.

  Ellen came up behind them as the clerk nodded and walked away, and she saw the Megalodon teeth. “Hmm.” She picked one up, held it out. “These are kind of shitty and small, don’t you think?”

  “Watch your langua
ge,” their father said without commitment.

  “Learned it from you.” She tossed the tooth back in the bin. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Will and his father grinned, and the three of them left. They were meeting Don Mack and his girlfriend for lunch a couple blocks away, and their father hated being late.

  “Dad,” Will said as they walked down the street, “Thanks.”

  He glanced at Will. “For what?”

  He smiled up at his father. “For being a great dad.”

  Red crept up his father’s cheeks, but it wasn’t a blush of embarrassment, but rather feeling deep emotion bringing color to his weathered face.

  “Thanks for being the best son I could hope for,” he replied. “And Will?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m so glad you found your sea legs. Hurricane season is coming. Think you’d…?”

  Will laughed. “Sure, why not? I think we can handle a little weather.”

  Read on for a free sample of EAT

  Chapter 1

  Duty officer Naota Mitsuro focused on the console in front of him. The sky through the wide Perspex windshield of the Japanese freighter, Sapporo Sunrise, was dark and filled with the ice of a stormy spring night on the North Pacific Ocean. The green glow of the radar and other sensors were his only view of what might lie ahead.

  Satisfied that the seas around them were clear in all directions, Mitsuro opened the side door and stepped out onto the icy steel walkway. With gloved hands cupped around the end of his cigarette, he lit up and took a deep drag.

  The shrieking northerly wind tore at his face like frozen fingernails. He smoked quickly, one eye on the dull warning lights of the console inside. From here, Mitsuro could hear the twang and creak of the steel ropes that connected the Sapporo to the ship they towed. The Mikhail Lazarov, a Russian-made cruise liner, one of the small ones that only took a hundred passengers. After going unpaid for three months, the Mikhail’s crew had deserted in the port of Vancouver. Now she was on her way to Japan, destined for the scrap yards.

  A new sound rose above the wind, a rumbling, like a thunderstorm, that went on and grew louder. Mitsuro’s first thought was an earthquake; the deep bass vibration of a seismic event had a similar sound. Then he heard the hiss of water spraying from a cresting wave and dropped his cigarette.

  Akutōnami!

  Throwing the bridge door open, Mitsuro dashed to the control console and hit the general alarm. The bow of the 600-foot long ship dipped, and the vessel bore down into a void while the rising wall of a rogue wave came rushing towards them.

  The ship’s officer secured himself and began to pray as the klaxon of the alarm was drowned out by the roaring mountain of seawater that now filled his view.

  Her engines howling, the Sapporo powered up the slope of the oncoming wave and then, the tempest erupted. White-foam exploded over the bow of the ship, sweeping the forward deck clear and flooding over the bridge. The ship foundered under the crushing weight. The crew scrambling from their bunks and stations below decks crashed to the floor with the force of the impact.

  With the buoyancy of the 10,000-ton ship forcing her upwards, the Sapporo tore through the wave and resurfaced, millions of gallons of seawater pouring off her deck and hull.

  The ship’s captain, Takahiro Fujiwara, stumbled onto the bridge, demanding that Mitsuro explain. The deck officer picked himself up from the floor, struggling to stand up straight as water poured out of the bridge through the open side door.

  “Akutōnami! Rogue wave!” Mitsuro shouted.

  Fujiwara had been a sailor all his life; he knew they were lucky to have survived their encounter with the random ship killers that surged across the seas for no apparent reason.

  Snatching up a radio handset, he barked instructions to his crew. All hands check and report any damage. A team was ordered to activate the bilge pumps to clear any flooding.

  “Mitsuro! Check the tow-lines.”

  The officer bowed with a bob of his head and scuttled off the bridge. His boots clanged on the metal walkway as he ran down to the stern of the ship. Here, steel cables, bound together to form a rope as thick as the sailor’s wrist, ran out into the darkness where the derelict ship they were towing floated.

  Instead of a taut, creaking line, the cable lay on the deck, limp as a caught squid. The rope trailed off the end of the ship and into the cold ocean.

  Mitsuro took a heavy flashlight from a steel cabinet. The 5000 lumens beam turned night into day for a range of nearly a mile. The churning sea behind the Sapporo was empty. The Mikhail Lazarov was gone.

  Chapter 2

  Dale woke to the shuddering vibration of an impact on the hull of the Crystal Blue. One berth aft, he heard the muffled cursing of Keith, owner and self-proclaimed skipper of the 60-foot yacht, as he tumbled out of bed.

  With a tired sigh, Dale slid out of bed and put his feet into two inches of seawater on the cabin floor.

  “Fuck,” he yelped. “Shona! Wake up! We’re taking on water!”

  He didn’t wait to see if the woman sleeping next to him had registered his alarm. Instead, Dale pulled on a T-shirt and headed topside.

  The sun was breaking the horizon, casting an eerie glow across the ocean. Lily, retirement age and loving it, had the wheel, her face grim as she squinted into the distance.

  “What the fuck did we hit?” Dale asked.

  “I don’t know.” Lily gripped the wheel with white knuckles. “Logan’s up front. You might ask him.”

  Dale ran up the narrow deck, the swinging sails blocking his view. “Logan?”

  “Over here, mate,” Logan replied. Old enough to be Dale’s dad, he and Lily had come on board in Sydney, Australia. Now he lay face down, head and chest hanging over the bow of the yacht. “I think we’re holed,” Logan announced as Dale crouched down beside him.

  “Bad?”

  Logan raised his head and nodded. “Possibly. It’s likely to be debris from the Japanese tsunami, back in 2011.”

  “What did we hit?” Dale scanned the calm ocean around them.

  “Telegraph pole? Shipping container? Who knows?”

  “We’re taking on water,” Dale announced. “If we can’t patch it…”

  “Yes, I hear you. Perhaps I should get the women onto the life raft. Just in case, eh?”

  Dale nodded, standing up and hurrying back down the deck.

  Keith stood in the hatchway in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “We’re taking on water!” the older man bellowed.

  “Yes, Keith. We hit some Japanese tsunami debris. I’m going below to see if I can patch the hole. I think you should get everyone on to the life raft just as a precaution.”

  Keith bristled. “Bloody Japanese! I’ll sue the mongrels.”

  “Sure,” Dale nodded. “But right now, could you get out of my way?”

  Keith climbed out onto the deck. Dale slipped past him and climbed down.

  “Shona?”

  “I’m here.” She sounded calm and that helped Dale’s nerves. She stepped out of the tiny cabin they shared, shorts, sneakers, and a lightweight jacket zipped up, ready for action as she was tying her long hair back.

  “We’re taking on water,” Dale stated the obvious as it sloshed around their ankles.

  “Can we patch it?” Both Shona and Dale had been raised on sailboats, and of the six people on board, they were the only ones with the experience and qualifications to run a sail yacht.

  “I hope so. Get Mrs. Tulley and all the supplies you can. Prep the life raft. Just in case.”

  Shona shot him a concerned look. “Just in case,” she echoed and grabbed a small knapsack.

  Dale hurried through the narrow corridor and lifted the trapdoor that led to the narrow space between the hull and the cabins. Dark water boiled up through the doorway. “Shit.”

  “Dale? Is everything okay?” Elizabeth Tulley, Keith’s young wife, was about as much use on a boat like this as a brass band on a submarine.

&
nbsp; “Everything’s fine, Mrs. Tulley. Get your life-jacket on and go up on deck, okay?”

  “Oh…okay.” She was wearing a floral-patterned sundress and, if she was true to form, a scandalously small bikini underneath.

  Dale often wondered if Elizabeth’s way of coping with being dragged on a yacht voyage across the Pacific, from Australia to Japan, via Hawaii was to stay stoned on prescription drugs. Though if he was married to an arrogant prick like Keith Tulley, he would probably want to be wasted all the time too.

  The water surged again. Dale took a deep breath and reached through the trapdoor as far as he could and groped for any sign of a tear in the outer hull. Cold water swirled past his hand and he felt the jagged edges of a ragged hole in the aluminum shell.

  Pulling back, Dale raised his head above water. It was deep enough now that he could barely touch the underside of the trapdoor without ducking his head under. In the gloom, a dark lump popped up out of the water. Dale blinked and then leapt up with a yell as a massive rat lunged at him.

  The rodent dog-paddled for the light of the entrance, and Dale shivered as he watched it go. He hated rats. Their cold tails, sharp teeth, and general squirminess.

  Shona came down the ladder to the water’s edge. “Dale?”

  “I’m here!” He stood up, the water now around his waist.

  “She’s done, get out of there!” Shona yelled.

  Dale waded down the narrow corridor, snatching up things that floated past. By the time he reached the ladder going up to the hatch, he had an armload of torches, dried food, and an extra first-aid kit. “Here, take this lot.” He pushed his loot at Shona who gathered it up.

  “Come on,” she insisted.

  “I’ll be right up.” Dale turned and plunged into the water again. Half-swimming, half-wading, he pulled himself into the tiny cabin he shared with Shona.

  The batteries that gave the yacht its internal power supply shorted out and Dale was plunged into darkness. Feeling his way, he found the belt with his dive knife and the slack rubber sling of his spear gun, both hanging from the hook where he had left them. There was now less than a foot of air between the water and the ceiling. Dale pushed himself off the wall and out into the corridor. The yacht groaned and rolled off center. The weight of the water threatened to capsize the boat, and the sudden change in position threw Dale against the wall.