The last time Jennifer checked, the outer ridges of Gary were darkening the sky. The wind was strong, blowing rain in fierce pellets. Gary was definitely going to strike them dead center.
Her plan to go to Ocean City and observe the creatures first-hand had been foiled by her responsibilities to the aquarium. It had taken longer to evacuate everyone than she’d thought it would, and by the time they were done it was too late. By now, Hurricane Gary’s winds would be lashing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge mercilessly, and it would be suicide to even attempt to drive across it. Frustrated, she’d called her parents in Hunt Valley and assured them she was fine. The facility had its own emergency generator, but so far the power had remained stable, and they still had phone and internet service— albeit slower than normal and unreliable. There had been sporadic failures of service with both over the last hour. After talking to her parents and calming their fears, Jennifer holed herself up in her office and started researching the creatures that were currently making headlines. The minute she’d first seen them, they sparked some memory of something she’d read a while back. It had taken a good thirty minutes of Google searching, but in time she found it.
First there was Ian Sinclair’s research on Megarachne Servinei and the possible links to the giant eurypterid and the Woodwardopterus. She’d taken a keen interest in his research, especially regarding invasive crustaceans. She remembered his initial findings when they first made the news, as well as the fire that claimed his life and destroyed his research. Luckily, much of his research was published and she’d read some of it in scientific journals and online while in college. And it was there where she’d first learned of Homarus Tyrannous.
The journal she’d read about Homarus Tyrannous was one she no longer had access to, and there had been no illustration accompanying the article. From the description, it appeared Homarus Tyrannous was a cross between Megarachne Servinei and the Woodwardopterus and apparently died out two hundred million years ago. Not much was known of them, but images of the creatures embedded in rock had been found along the coast of Greenland, Nova Scotia, and Scotland.
Acting on a hunch, she began researching Homarus Tyrannous on the web. She got very few leads.
Then fifteen minutes ago she’d typed “cryptozoology” and “giant crab creatures attacking people” in Google and the first website was for a site hosted on a server with annoying pop up windows. Jennifer navigated through the website, which was badly designed, obviously constructed and written by some nut that lived in his mother’s basement. Aside from entries on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, Moth Man, and other creatures of myth both infamous and obscure, Jennifer came across a brief story on an incident she remembered clearly: Hurricane Floyd, and the destruction of Phillipsport, Maine in 1994.
Reading the article brought the memories back. She’d
been a sophomore in college at Penn State. She remembered thinking how horrible it was that all those people had been killed and there were only two survivors.
Now she was reading an entirely different account of what happened at Phillipsport.
And as she read the story, it set her heart racing.
While obviously badly written, the article referenced a self-published pamphlet called Creatures of the Deep, which referenced a story similar to the Roanoke expedition of the early 1700s when an entire British village disappeared, the word CROATOAN carved on a nearby tree. The story in Creatures of the Deep was similar except for the message…demons from the s— had been painted on a rock. Like Roanoke, the citizens of that settlement disappeared without a trace. The pamphlet theorized that the natives had known what was going to happen and tried to warn the settlers, to no avail. The natives had retreated further inland and something had come out of the ocean and decimated the town.
The writer of the website hypothesized that the same thing had happened to Phillipsport in 1994. Furthermore, he theorized that Homarus Tyrannous was not extinct but still alive, and that every few hundred years deep ocean currents brought them up to the Maine shores to breed. He further theorized that they lived so far beneath the ocean surface and had access to underwater caverns that were unknown to modern man, which was why they were seldom seen and believed to be still extinct.
Jennifer jotted all this down in a spiral notebook, the possibilities swirling in her mind. She punched in the search term “survivors of Phillipsport, Maine disaster” in Google and after a few minutes learned their names: Melissa Peterson and Rick Sychek. A few more Google searches turned up plenty of results on Rick but none on Melissa, so she concentrated on him.
She learned he’d been a writer of cheap paperback horror novels, that he was close to becoming the next Stephen King, and that after Phillipsport he and Melissa had simply disappeared.
There’s no doubt about it, she thought, leaning back in her chair and looking at the computer screen. Rick Sychek and Melissa Peterson lived through something awful. They witnessed something that somebody in the government wanted covered up. That was the only thing she could think of. She’d read all the stories she could find on the Phillipsport incident and found hints of a government conspiracy. It was one thing to have casualties during a hurricane the size of Floyd had been…but to have such a wide swath of destruction? With the entire town wiped out? And what about the suggestion that the people of Phillipsport had been not just killed by drowning or being thrown against buildings during storm surges, but actually mauled? And what about the stories she read (however scant they were) that the dead were found clutching weapons, some partially devoured. As one story she read related: “It looked like something ate them.”
And then there were the rumors of crustacean shells found littered with the bodies, and more stories that government scientists had whisked them away and after that…well, not so much as a whisper of them.
Jennifer supposed she could spend the rest of the evening doing searches on whether or not the species of crustacean was ever identified, at least until the internet connection failed completely, but she had a feeling it would prove futile. If government scientists really had taken all the specimens at Phillipsport, whatever they’d found out about them was extremely top secret. And with the storm raging outside and the havoc happening right now outside the aquarium, she didn’t have the time to spend poking and prodding among the dark corners of the internet to learn more.
The talking heads on the news were calling the creatures “Clickers,” and Fox News interviewed a marine biologist in Florida who stuttered and stammered that he had no idea what species of crustacean was currently causing so much trouble. According to him, it was a species that was completely new. Other biologists were of the same opinion. Jennifer watched the coverage with a feeling of simmering anger. Shortly after she’d decided that going to Ocean City was no longer possible, she’d called the local Baltimore news station to tell their producer that she was available to be interviewed over the phone. She’d done a few interviews with the local media before, and sometimes they came to her to get her perspective on things relating to marine life. Not so this time. Nobody called her back, and when she tried getting in touch with her contacts again, the line was busy.
Fine, she thought, leaning back behind her desk. Screw ’em. It wasn’t going to stop her from trying to find out what these things were. She couldn’t study them up close, and the internet wasn’t providing much help, but she had other resources.
She was just about to flip through her Rolodex to find another contact that might be able to help her when the lights went out.
Then the screams started.
Chapter Six
Magog Bunker
The White House
Washington D.C.
7:49 PM
President Jeffery Tyler was holed up in the “Magog” Bunker directly beneath the oval office, on his knees in prayer. He clutched his Bible. The leather binding was worn and cracked, and a broad crease ran down the spine. The pages were dog-eared and many of the verses themselves wer
e circled with red pencil or highlighted with a yellow marker, especially in the Book of Revelation—the book detailing the end of the world. The Apocalypse. Armageddon.
He hadn’t removed his suit or his slacks, even when the Secret Service stepped in and forced him to leave the oval office and make his way to the bunker, secreted far beneath the White House and built in the 1950s. It was one of several underground chambers beneath the nation’s capitol. The room exited into a tunnel network that honeycombed the area beneath Washington D. C. and Virginia, and eventually, to similar bunkers beneath Camp David; Gettysburg and Hellertown, Pennsylvania; and White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The entire maze was built so that key members of the government could get to safety in the event of a nuclear war. To the best of Tyler’s knowledge, the evacuation plan had never been used, not even during 9/11. When Tyler became President two years ago, the first thing he’d done was insisted on venturing into the underground rooms for a tour. A secret service agent accompanied him and gave him quite the tour. And when Tyler saw this room, the spirit had hit him. This would be his room, his place to go when things were getting a little too intense for him so he could pray and commune with God in quiet.
He’d been praying for over an hour now, oblivious to the screams of terror and pain outside the White House as giant crab-things chased people down and ate them alive. Tyler wasn’t oblivious to it all—the Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs had briefed him. He wasn’t immune to the suffering of his people, which was why he’d chosen to descend down to his prayer chamber to pray and ask for guidance from his Lord.
He needed guidance now. He was being torn by temptation at every step.
When the Secretary of Defense suggested calling in troops from Fort Bragg, Tyler had balked. The local police force and National Guard can handle things, Tyler had said. The Secretary of Defense had looked at him as if he were off his rocker and Tyler had to remind him how he’d come into this position—by my hand, he’d said. Remember that? Barker had nodded, and then started rambling about something else regarding the monstrosities everybody was so concerned with and Tyler had tuned him out.
But now Barker was in a teleconference with other military and civilian officials, and Tyler knew they’d call for military action as well.
He’d watched some of the coverage on Fox in the oval office and frowned during an interview with a biologist at the University of Florida at Tampa, who said the creatures could be related to Homarus Tyrannous, a crustacean species that some scientists previously thought to be extinct. “It’s believed they died off in the Mesozoic Period about two hundred million years ago,” the scientist said, looking nervous. “Carbon dating puts them squarely in that period and we have a few reliable specimens embedded in rock that have been found all along the Atlantic region. However, there have been scant reports of alleged sightings of specimens who resemble Homarus Tyrannous in various parts of the world, and—”
Tyler changed the channel in disgust. Fox was degenerating into a liberal quagmire—a result of sagging ratings and the continuing decline of the nation’s moral fiber. Two hundred million years ago? The earth was ten thousand years old, for God’s sakes! Didn’t these people know their Bible?
The President rose to his feet in the room, wondering what to do now. Clark Arroyo, the secret service agent who’d escorted him to his private prayer chamber, was upstairs waiting for him. Tyler pursed his lips, deep in thought. One can only pray to the Lord for so long for guidance, for strength. He’d been in constant prayer since the first news reports reached his desk shortly after noon today, and he’d been in close contact with his advisors. They were clamoring with him to address the nation, but Tyler had continued his day as planned, and was looking forward to his meeting with Prince Alhazred when he was advised the meeting should be cancelled. “It’s not going to look good for you if the meeting goes as planned,” his press secretary said shortly before five that day. “The American people are going to expect to see their president do something about this tragedy.”
Tyler agreed. It wouldn’t look good if he ignored what was going on and continued on with business as usual. He’d learned that by watching the fallout over Hurricane Katrina.
And now something much worse than Katrina was happening.
“Lord, why?” Tyler said, tilting his face up. He brought his hands together in prayer one last time. “Lord give me strength. My closest advisors are telling me I should heed their advice, that I should listen to our scientists who are telling them that the animals…the things that are beaching themselves and causing so much death and terror are thought to be creatures they thought extinct. They think these things died out millions of years ago. Lord, I know this is impossible. You created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. According to your word, this earth you created is no more than ten thousand years old, which means those creatures can only be from one thing—your adversary, Satan. I believe that Lord, and I will fight these creatures from hell if you just say the word. But I know I can’t sit by and listen to this evolutionary drivel, this ridiculous…oh, Lord forgive me for saying this but I have to—this horseshit! Evolution is a trick from the devil, Lord. I know that, and my good friends in Christ know this, but so many of these people, these scientists…they’re not only blinded, they’re holdovers from previous administrations. It’s making me confused and sick and I don’t know what to do. All I know is that I have to trust in you. Which is why I’ve been here, praying.”
He paused, eyes closed. His heart raced. He knew he had to go upstairs sooner or later and face the music. Government sharpshooters were on the roof of the White House and last he’d heard, twelve of those things had been shot. They’d surfaced from the waters of the Potomac, well ahead of the storm. The White House was not only very heavily guarded, it was under lock down.
Key staff members were already in private underground bunkers. Other staff members had been escorted out of the building and others had been sent home. Tyler’s closest advisors were telling him he should give the press conference, and then get on board the helicopter that was waiting on the roof and get to higher ground, but Tyler couldn’t do that. He had to stay and fight. He had to show his support to the American people. He had to present his strong image to the public that he had things under control, unlike the fiasco of Katrina.
He would not disappoint them.
“Lord give me strength,” he said, feeling a welcome surge of strength seep through him. He felt stronger now, more confident, as the pieces began falling into place. “Give me strength to see this through. I’m going upstairs to talk to the American people, to put their minds at ease, to tell them everything will be all right. Most important, I will tell them to put their faith in you, to put their trust in you, to pray. To accept your son, Jesus Christ, into their hearts.”
Yes! That was the ticket! President Tyler began to see God’s purpose now. God wanted to show Tyler His strength. And He brought these minions of Satan into the world to show the unsaved, the unbelievers, that the powers of Hell were bubbling beneath them. And if President Tyler went on national TV and witnessed to the country—to the entire world—hundreds of thousands of souls would be touched by the Lord and perhaps, just perhaps, some souls could be saved. People would find Jesus.
Amen!
“Thank you Jesus,” he whispered. The revelation hit him so suddenly, he was overcome with gratitude. Oh, to be shown Gods’ plan! It was so overwhelming, so overpowering, that he felt tears spring to his eyes.
He wiped away the tears, feeling a surge of adrenaline rush through his system. He felt on top of things, in control. He was going to take charge. He knew God’s plan now. And he wasn’t going to let God down.
He never had before.
After all, he’d managed to be elected President.
Tyler opened a door and ascended a narrow stairway to the main floor of the White House. He opened a door at the top of the staircase and entered a small room that was painted white. He cross
ed the room and opened another door and Clark Arroyo stood at attention, his features expectant. “Mr. President!”
Tyler buttoned his coat. “Is everybody ready for my speech?”
“Yes sir, Mr. President.”
“Lead the way.”
“Follow me, sir.”
“Do you trust in the Lord, Agent Arroyo?”
The man paused before answering. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. May He bless you and keep you.”
As Clark Arroyo led President Tyler to the pressroom where the cameras and audio equipment for the occasional televised addresses he made to the nation were housed, Tyler felt more on top of things, more in control, than he’d ever felt. The people who worked in the media room were all waiting; a skeleton crew had remained and would be quickly whisked to safety when the speech was concluded. His speechwriter had already prepared something, complete with last minute additions after conferring with Defense Secretary Barker after his teleconference and it was waiting for him at the console, ready to be recited aloud. All Tyler had to do was smile, put on the charm, and let God work his wonders.
Clark Arroyo opened the door to the media room and President Tyler entered, ready to do business.
* * *
Clickers II: The Next Wave Page 10