The MEG

by Steve Alten

  “Easy Eddie had a son that he loved more than anything in the world. He gave his son everything … a good education, fancy clothes. Despite his own involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach his kid right from wrong. But there were two things Eddie couldn’t give his son; he couldn’t pass on a good name and he wasn’t a good example of how to live your life.

  “In an effort to cleanse his tarnished soul and restore some integrity to his name, Easy Eddie decided to testify against Al ‘Scarface’ Capone—as sure a death sentence as my father’s cancer. He testified anyway.

  “Capone died in prison, and within a year the mob killed Easy Eddie, who left this world giving his son the greatest gift he had to offer—his life.

  “The second man my father told me about was Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare. Butch was a World War II fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. On February 20, 1942, Butch and his squadron were sent on an important mission. After he was airborne, Butch realized his crew hadn’t topped off his fuel tank, which meant he wouldn’t be able to complete his mission and get back to the aircraft carrier. His flight leader ordered him to return to the ship.

  “On his way back to the Lexington, Butch O’Hare spotted a squadron of enemy aircraft heading for the American fleet. The American fighters were gone, and the carrier fleet was all but defenseless. O’Hare had no way of alerting the Lexington in time, so he did the only thing he could, he dove into the enemy’s formation with his 50 caliber guns blazing, taking out one plane after the next until all his ammunition was gone. Even then, he went after the remaining planes, attempting to clip them with his landing gear. In the end, he succeeded in diverting the enemy from the American fleet and made it back safely to the Lexington.

  “The film from O’Hare’s gun-mounted camera showed the extent of Butch’s heroism and he became the navy’s first Ace of World War-II and the first naval aviator to be awarded the Medal of Honor. A year later, at the age of twenty-nine, Butch O’Hare was killed in aerial combat. His home town decided to name their airport in his honor … Chicago’s O’Hare airport. There’s a memorial statue of Butch O’Hare located between Terminals 1 and 2.”

  “I never knew that. Why do you think your father told you about these two men?”

  “Butch O’Hare was Easy Eddie’s son.”

  Mac sat back, the story suddenly weighing heavier.

  “When they found Easy Eddie’s body, there were three possessions on him which the police gave to his son, Butch—a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem torn from a magazine. The poem read: ‘The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.’

  “The cancer took my father three months after he was diagnosed. To answer your question, Mac, I’m here because I have no control over my clock—none of us do. The only thing I can do is have faith and do the right thing. Take me to the Kiku.”

  “And the voluptuous Terry Tanaka.”

  Mac restarted the engine, then reached over and tossed Jonas’s bacon double-cheeseburger out of the open cockpit. “Don’t eat that stuff, it’ll kill you.”

  *

  Aboard the Whale Watcher: The Cap’n Jack

  Four days had passed since the death of Maggie Taylor. Although surfing, jet-ski, and parasailing activities suffered, other businesses attracted out-of-towners to the Northern California coast like bees to honey.

  At the top of the list were whale-watching excursions. Much like cage-divers yearning to photograph a Great White in the wild, the public was willing to pay good money for an opportunity to see a real live Megalodon shark … albeit from the safety of a decent-size ship.

  Within days, tour boat operators were offering special late afternoon and evening excursions to the Farallon Islands at triple the normal fares. Night trips sold out quickly, forcing the Coast Guard to announce it would be patrolling the area after dusk. Marine biologists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium reminded the public that the Megalodon had never surfaced during daylight hours and that the presence of hundreds of whales migrating south through the Monterey Bay Sanctuary without any noticeable changes in behavior served as a canary in the coal mine, rendering the odds of experiencing an actual Meg sighting on par with hitting the lottery.

  *

  Jason and Milisa Russell had driven from Covington, Washington to Monterey to catch “Meg-fever.” Unfortunately, all of the evening tours were booked, and the few late afternoon openings on ebay were beyond their budget, so they settled on a late morning tour aboard the Cap’n Jack, a forty-two-foot sightseeing boat docked at the Monterey Bay wharf.

  The skipper, an Iraqi War Vet named Robert Gibbons, greeted the Russells as they boarded the vessel. The couple located an empty bench in the stern next to a silver-haired woman and her red-headed teenage daughter.

  “Hi, I’m Marilyn Rhea,” the woman gushed, her southern accent heavy, “and this is my daughter, Shannon. Shannon, put the gosh-darn phone away.”

  “Ugh, you are so annoying.”

  Milisa forced a smile. “We’re the Russells. I’m Milisa, this is my husband, Jason.”

  “Hey.”

  Marilyn rolled the collar of her sweater higher. “We’re from Tennessee; this is our first trip to California. Why is it so gosh-darn cold?”

  Before Milisa could answer the boat’s engines growled to life, its exhaust choking those passengers seated behind the pilothouse.

  Captain Gibbons’s voice squawked over the loudspeaker. “Welcome aboard the Cap’n Jack. I’m your skipper, Robert Gibbons, and we’ve got a great day in store for you. While I know many of you are hoping we’ll come in contact with the Megalodon shark, we won’t be venturing anywhere near the Farallon Islands this morning. We will, however, be looking to encounter the Meg’s favorite food—whales. So keep your cameras ready, you never know what can happen.”

  *

  Aboard the Kiku

  Masao Tanaka was waiting by the helipad as Mac landed the helicopter. He smiled when he saw Jonas in the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Taylor-san, I am so glad to see you. Unfortunately, my daughter may not share these same feelings. When she heard you were returning, she went to her cabin to pack her belongings. Perhaps you could speak with her?”

  *

  Jonas knocked on Terry’s door.

  “Go away.”

  “Terry, give me five minutes and I’ll be out of your life.”

  She yanked open the door. “Five minutes.”

  He entered her cabin. Her suitcase was on the bed, packed to the brim with clothes.

  “Terry, why are you leaving?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  “No, but I owe you one. The morning you left my cabin … I freaked out a little bit. See, I had this dream—”

  “I don’t care.” She stuffed a toiletry bag inside the suitcase and zippered it closed.

  “Terry, the reason I treated you coldly had nothing to do with Maggie. I do really care about you and—”

  She wheeled around to face him. “You don’t care about me. Your wife cheated on you and you used me to get even.”

  “That’s not true. Yes, things were happening quickly between us, but that had nothing to do with Maggie … our marriage was over long ago. What scared me off wasn’t you, it was these recurring nightmares about the Meg. I had these same premonitions seven years ago before I dived the trench for the navy. I knew if I stuck around that I’d probably die this time around, only I was falling in love with you.”

  “And so you pushed me away so you could leave without feeling guilty? That’s a pretty lame excuse.”

  “Agreed. But I’m back.”

  “Why? So you can replace me on yet another dive? So you can save me from that big, bad shark? Well, guess what? I’m not some helpless damsel-in-distress that needs to be
saved. As for these premonitions, did you ever stop to consider that maybe, if you had let me dive the Mariana Trench, things might have gone differently? Maybe it was your bad karma seven years ago that killed those men? Maybe, if I had gone with D.J. instead of you, my brother might still be alive.”

  Grabbing her suitcase, she pushed past him and left.

  *

  Aboard the Whale Watcher: The Cap’n Jack

  14 Miles West of Santa Cruz

  The Russells were sipping hot chocolate on the stern bench, the cold having chased Marilyn Rhea and her daughter, Shannon inside.

  Jason was scanning the ocean with a pair of high-powered binoculars when Captain Gibbons’s voice came over the loudspeaker, “Folks, this is really exciting! On our port, or left side, is an unusually large pod of orca.”

  Everyone moved to the port side, cameras poised.

  “Orca, also known as Killer Whales, are extremely intelligent hunters, able to kill whales many times larger than themselves. Looks like we’re catching this pod in the middle of a hunt.”

  Jason focused his binoculars on the black dorsal fins moving parallel to the boat a good eighty yards away. There were at least twenty Orca, with three big males taking turns converging on a smaller object, the rest racing along the perimeter to ensure their prey would not escape.

  As he watched, Jason saw what looked like an albino Great White shark, its two-foot dorsal fin bleeding as the wolf pack tore at its hide.

  *

  The Megalodon pup raced along the surface, prevented from submerging by the much larger predators below. The pod had tracked down the female as it hunted southeast of the Farallon Islands.

  With frightening speed and power, the Orca bulls snapped at the shark, taking turns flipping its broken carcass high into the air, making a sport of the demise of the would-be future queen of Monterey Bay.

  *

  Ten minutes later the Cap’n Jack’s engines powered off, leaving the boat to roll gently in three foot seas. The gray horizon ran unimpeded for miles in every direction, the sudden quiet magnifying the sensation of isolation.

  “Folks, you’re about to get your money’s worth. Twenty yards off the starboard bow is a Gray whale cow and its calf. If we’re lucky, they may come closer.”

  Marilyn and her daughter rejoined the Russells in time to witness the mother Gray whale’s head break the surface, allowing a few passengers to reach over the rail and touch it.

  “Wow, Shannon, did you see that?”

  The teen ignored her, attempting to find a signal on her cell phone.

  The Russells waited their turn, Milisa managing to take a picture of her husband reaching out to touch one of the gentle giant’s barnacles.

  The Gray whale submerged, its calf remaining close enough to the boat for passengers hovering by the starboard rail to snap selfies.

  Without warning, something violently pounded the ship’s keel, the multiple impacts rocking the vessel.

  Jason watched as a patch of sea swirled below, the surface pooling a dark red.

  “Is that blood?”

  With a whoosh, the Gray whale breached ten yards behind the boat. Thrashing about, it slapped its fluke repeatedly against the surface before rolling onto its side—revealing a crater-shaped gushing wound the size of an open beach umbrella.

  Pushing one another, the passengers rushed to the back of the boat to take photos.

  “Maybe it’s the Orca?”

  “Can’t be, the wound’s too big. It has to be the Megalodon.”

  The Gray whale calf approached its mother, chuffing rapid exhalations.

  Without warning, the Megalodon’s stark-white head rose vertically from beneath the newborn, engulfing the newborn whole, slamming shut a second later like a steel bear trap, cetacean blood splattering the passengers.

  Some screamed, others cheered.

  The wounded Gray whale surfaced again, blood splashing everywhere.

  A crewman raced inside the pilothouse to report to the captain. Seconds later, the engine restarted, joined by a sickening clang of metal as the dented propeller bashed against its crushed housing.

  Feeding below, the Megalodon registered the annoying disturbance and rose to investigate.

  *

  Aboard the Kiku

  Terry Tanaka entered the bridge to confront her father, who was standing over Alphonse DeMarco manning the radio.

  “Masao, where’s Mac? I need him to take me back to Monterey.”

  “Not now, Terry. The Coast Guard just picked up a distress call from a whale-watching boat not far from here.”

  “The female? In broad daylight?”

  Jonas entered the bridge. “The attack on the yacht … Mac’s light must have blinded her.”

  “The monster’s blind? Taylor-san, is this a good thing?”

  “Not if she’s surfacing during the day. A shark losing its sight is a lot different than you or me going blind. She has other sensory organs that she’ll be able to use to guide her. Considering daylight had been her Achilles heel, I’d say things just got worse.”

  Sonar operator Robert Nash pressed his headphones to his ears. “Masao, the Meg’s transmitter signal just appeared on sonar. She’s nineteen kilometers to the northwest on course two-seven-three.”

  Captain Barre adjusted their course and speed as Mac entered the bridge.

  Masao turned, barking out orders. “Mac, the creature has surfaced. Refuel the chopper, then I want you in the air, Captain Barre will feed you the coordinates. Alphonse, get to the harpoon gun. Jonas, I’ll need you ready in the Abyss Glider.”

  “Change in plans, Masao. Terry’s going to pilot the mini-sub. I’ll work the winch.”

  Masao turned to his daughter. “You are okay with this?”

  She glanced at Jonas, then nodded to her father. “I can handle it.”

  *

  Aboard the Whale Watcher: The Cap’n Jack

  The Gray whale’s fluke had bent the Cap’n Jack’s propeller when it had been attacked beneath the boat. The screw could turn, but not without chafing metal on metal, creating a sound that irritated the Megalodon.

  Each time Captain Gibbons attempted to move the boat, the sixty foot shark charged the stern—causing the twenty-seven passengers on-board to yell at the crew.

  “Stop angering it!

  “Here it comes again—hold on!”

  Whomp.

  The creature plowed into the keel, the collision propelling the boat thirty feet, knocking Milisa Russell off her bench while sending the Meg’s wake spilling over the transom, soaking her husband, Jason.

  *

  “Jonas, you read me?”

  “Go ahead, Mac,” Jonas yelled into his walkie-talkie. He and DeMarco were positioned at the Kiku’s stern rail, ready at the deck-mounted harpoon gun.

  “I’m about two hundred feet above the whale-watching boat. There’s blood everywhere, looks like the Meg took out a whale. And the boat’s just sitting there, dead in the water.”

  As Mac watched, a swell suddenly appeared sixty yards off the boat’s starboard flank, the albino creature charging the vessel.

  Whomp!

  The boat shuddered as it was plowed thirty yards to port, the passengers flailing across the deck.

  To his horror, Mac saw a red-headed woman fall overboard.

  “Jonas, what’s your ETA?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “You’d better tell Leon to haul ass or this is going to turn into an all-you-can-eat human buffet.”

  *

  Marilyn Rhea screamed as she saw her daughter flip head-first over the side.

  Shannon surfaced forty feet from the still-drifting boat in water so cold it took her breath away. Barely able to tread water, still gripping her cell phone, she realized her clothing was stained in blood.

  “Oh God, I’m bleeding.”

  Turning to her left, she saw the floating island of blubber and realized it was the Gray whale’s blood, not hers. Relieved, she turned to
her right—and screamed.

  A four foot wake was rolling toward her. The monster was moving just beneath the surface, its open mouth visible within the swell, its mouth turning sideways to eat her.

  Shannon bit down on her cell phone and then lunged to her left, desperately clawing and scrambling and pulling herself out of the sea and onto the back of the dying Gray whale.

  The Megalodon rolled onto its side to consume its prey, its senses had been locked on the electrical impulses of Shannon’s beating heart—which suddenly disappeared. The albino predator passed beneath the whale, its head rotating from side to side as it attempted to relocate the signal.

  Shannon clung to the bobbing, bleeding whale as the swell rolled over her cetacean island up to her thighs.

  When she looked up she saw a large ship racing towards the whale watching boat from the southeast.

  *

  Leon Barre cut the Kiku’s forward speed in half as he attempted to come alongside the tour boat’s portside beam, giving Jonas a clear shot.

  Jonas spun the harpoon gun counterclockwise on its base and focused through its sight. “Mac, where is she, I still can’t see her?”

  “She just passed beneath the wounded whale.”

  “Okay, I see her. Al, warn them.”

  Alphonse DeMarco raised the megaphone to his lips. “Attention whale watcher passengers and crew. Get in the middle of the boat and take cover.”

  *

  The passengers were lying on deck, fearful of falling overboard when they looked up and saw the research vessel’s bridge pass by, followed by the top of a steel A-frame and what appeared to be a harpoon gun.

  Jonas fired.

  The harpoon exploded out of the cannon, trailing smoke and steel cable. The projectile struck home, burying itself four feet deep into the Megalodon’s thick hide, inches from the base of its dorsal fin.

  The monster spasmed. Arching its back, it whipped its head sideways and submerged, jerking the steel line faster than its spool could unravel slack.

  The Kiku lurched hard to starboard, its aft end smashing into the whale-watcher.

  WHOMP!

  The Meg rammed the Kiku’s keel, the force of the blow bending steel plates, sending Jonas, DeMarco, and the two crewmen flopping to the deck.