The MEG

by Steve Alten

  The second wave of boaters swerved to avoid hitting the two disabled vessels, only to crash into one another, creating pile-ups similar to a multi-vehicle accident on a snow-covered highway, screams and swear words renting the chilly morning air.

  *

  Sweating profusely, Jonas could feel his claustrophobia building as he strained to reach the battery connections located in the aft compartment of his sub. Blindly, he groped at the terminals inside the rear panels, searching in vain for a loose connection.

  *

  The Kiku’s crew assembled on deck, frantically donning orange life vests.

  Terry Tanaka and Robert Nash stood over the registered nurse who had replaced Frank Heller as she tended to Masao, who was unconscious. “I can’t be sure, Terry, but I’d guess your father fractured his skull. We need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible.”

  “At this rate we’ll have sunk before that EVAC gets here.” Terry glanced overhead at the four remaining news copters hovering several hundred feet above the Pacific. “Robert, get on the radio; try to get one of those news choppers to land on the Kiku. Tell them we have a serious injury.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  *

  David Adashek focused his binoculars on the main deck of the sinking Kiku when he saw an Asian woman waving emphatically from the ship’s helo-deck. “Hey, I know her, that’s Tanaka’s daughter.”

  “I’m getting a distress call from the Kiku,” the pilot said. “They’re requesting we transport an injured man to shore. Radioman says it’s Masao Tanaka. Sounds serious.”

  “Land the copter,” ordered Adashek.

  The cameraman looked at him with a scowl. “My producer’s screaming at me to get close-ups of the Meg. He’ll have my balls for breakfast if we turn this chopper into a Medi-vac helicopter and leave the scene.”

  Adashek ripped the camera from the man’s grip, holding it out his open door. “Choose now. We land or I feed this to the Meg.”

  *

  The Megalodon circled beneath the Kiku. The ship’s metal hull was generating galvanic currents—electrical impulses that stimulated the female’s ampullae of Lorenzini like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  *

  The Kiku’s crew gathered around the Action News chopper as it landed on the awkwardly tilting helipad, each sailor vying for passage off the sinking research vessel. When the men grew increasingly violent, Leon Barre removed his concealed sidearm and fired a warning shot in the air. “The chopper’s for Masao; the rest of you can get on-board one of the life boats.”

  The pilot of the news copter looked at Adashek and the cameraman. “Okay, boys, someone has to give up his seat for the old man. Which one of you is going to play the hero?”

  The cameraman looked at Adashek with an evil grin. “Hope you can swim, tough guy.”

  David felt butterflies in his stomach as he exited the safety of the airship, allowing the Kiku’s crew to load Masao on-board.

  Moments later, he stood on the lopsided deck, his heart in his mouth as the helicopter flew off toward the mainland. Nice job, dumbass. You’re supposed to report the news, not be a part of it.

  *

  The sudden jolt rocked the Magnate, sending both men falling to the deck.

  Richard Danielson stood painfully, then grabbed Frank Heller beneath his armpits and hoisted him to his feet. “Frank, do you hear that noise? It’s the yacht’s pumps. We must be taking on water.”

  Heller looked around. “Where are Harris and Mackreides?”

  “They went below to try to fix the engine. Oh, crap—”

  The white dorsal fin was circling the yacht.

  “Any suggestions?”

  “The Zodiac …” Heller pointed to the motorized raft.

  “Frank, you really want to risk taking that tiny boat out versus staying aboard the yacht?”

  “The yacht’s sinking, Richard, and that tiny boat is fast. Give me a hand.”

  The two men released the catches to the pulleys supporting the bulky raft. It dropped to the surface with a muffled splat.

  “You first, Frank, seeing how it was your idea.”

  Heller waited until the dorsal fin circled behind the boat, then swung his leg over the rail. Danielson followed him in.

  The outboard whined to life. Heller gunned the throttle, the Zodiac skimming over waves, accelerating to the east in the direction of land.

  Danielson kept an eye on their wake, praying silently that the Megalodon would remain with the Magnate. As the seconds turned to minutes and the yacht gradually disappeared from the horizon he began to feel better about their decision.

  “Frank, head for those boats. Maybe we can—”

  The inflatable raft exploded beneath him, the concussive force of the breaching behemoth tossing Danielson and Heller high into the air like ragdolls.

  *

  Leon Barre and Alphonse DeMarco stood by the Kiku’s port rail in ankle-deep water, the two men watching the Zodiac race off to the east.

  Seconds later they both gasped as the creature attacked from below.

  “Man the lifeboats. We’ve got about five minutes before the Kiku sinks and the monster returns.”

  “Al, what about Jonas?”

  “We can’t help him, Terry. Wherever he is, he’s on his own.”

  Feeding Frenzy

  RICHARD DANIELSON SURFACED, his heart racing, his chest constricting from the cold water which, accompanied by the sheer terror of his predicament, was causing him to hyperventilate. He had caught an inverted glance of the monster while tumbling through the air—now he was treading water in its kill zone.

  He heard voices, saw a bizarre entanglement of boats forty yards away, and swam like hell for it.

  *

  Stephanie Collins stood in the bow of her boss’s boat. The twenty-three-foot cabin cruiser was completely out of the water, rendered immobile by the larger Boston Whaler it was now using as a dry dock.

  Between knowing the Megalodon was still on the loose and potentially very close, moving the Whaler’s wounded onto their boat, and dealing with her irate boss, she was about to lose it.

  Screw him. He doesn’t pay me enough to handle his crap. And why’d I have to be the one to drive his stupid boat—is it my fault he had too much to drink?

  The collective weight of the cabin cruiser and its wounded passengers had pushed the whaler three feet underwater, but the vessel was still quite buoyant. The boat’s owner, Jani Harper stood in water up to her knees with her twelve-year-old son and eight volunteers from the two boats, all attempting to push the cabin cruiser back into the water. The task was proving impossible with so many people weighing Michael Roddy’s boat down, and yet no one seemed to want to climb off the perched vessel.

  And then, without warning, the Megalodon had breached fifty yards to the north, flipping over a motorized raft.

  The creature’s proximity sent the volunteers scrambling back onto the cabin cruiser like rats fleeing a sinking ship—only every square foot of deck was now occupied by the Whaler’s wounded, and the additional weight was causing the boat to teeter.

  Michael Roddy, the boat’s owner, was losing it. “Stephanie, what the hell were you thinking? Get these drunks off my boat so our people can get back on.”

  “Sir, they’re hurt.”

  “And their blood is attracting the Meg.” He pointed over her shoulder.

  She turned to see one of the men from the raft swimming in their direction—followed by a five foot wake and seven foot dorsal fin. “Oh, God, everybody move to the center of the boat—”

  *

  Richard Danielson felt the wave overtake him. As it rolled over his head his feet struck a solid object, causing him to tuck his legs to his chest.

  Looking down, he saw an alabaster island rise beneath him, the Megalodon’s head as wide as a bus, its hide as coarse as concrete. For a brief second of insanity he found himself straddling the creature’s snout before he toppled backward into the sea.
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br />   The Megalodon’s nose rose out of the water, its upper jaw jutting away from its skull, the horrendous bite slamming down on empty sea a second before the blind behemoth’s head struck the two boats.

  The impact freed the stacked vessels. It also tossed a dozen passengers into the Pacific, igniting a feeding frenzy.

  *

  The tail assembly of the powerless Abyss Glider bobbed just below the surface, its heavier nose cone pointing straight down at the ocean floor.

  Jonas was standing upright in the mini-sub, his feet balancing on the shoulder harness while he worked on the battery. Drenched in sweat, he had located the severed wire and had managed to peel away a section of rubber insulation. Carefully, he wrapped the exposed copper lead around the battery terminal and twisted the rusty wing nut into place—his actions generating an encouraging spark.

  Twisting his body upside down, he slid back into the pilot’s prone position, the blood rushing to his head. “Okay, baby, give daddy some juice.”

  He pressed the power button and was rewarded by the hum of the engine and a blast of cool air from the ventilation system. The revolving propeller leveled out the sub and Jonas quickly directed it to the surface.

  He looked around, realizing he had drifted with the current.

  A few pings from sonar revealed the Kiku and Magnate; the ships located a half-mile to the north. But it was the activity to the east that caught his attention.

  *

  The Megalodon may have lost its sense of vision, but the predator was far from blind. It could “see” its prey by the electrical impulses generated by their beating hearts, it could feel the vibrations of their churning muscles. Moreover, it could determine the weak from the strong by gauging the rapidity of its quarry’s pulse, the efficiency of their movements, and the telltale scent of blood in the water.

  To the Meg, the passengers thrown from the two boats were bizarre fish—their low fat content rendering them poor eating. At the same time they were easily consumed, requiring a low expenditure of energy, as opposed to taking on an adult whale. And they were now plentiful.

  A methodical hunter, the creature knew to incapacitate the largest, strongest members of the pack first.

  Michael Roddy may have been drunk, but the big man was still a good swimmer. Pushing his way past flailing arms and churning legs, he reached the aluminum ladder of his boat ahead of the others. Gripping a sun-warmed rung, he attempted to pull himself out of the water—only to discover that both his legs had been severed at the knees!

  Dangling from the ladder by his arms, he screamed for help, his lower torso surrounded by a spreading pool of blood.

  Richard Danielson was less than three feet from the Boston Whaler when his upper torso suddenly ignited with the insane sensation of a hundred surgeons’ scalpels slicing his gut into ribbons. The blood drained from his face and neck, the soul from his body before the horrendous agony of being bitten in half ever had a chance to register as a last fleeting thought.

  The Megalodon circled its feast from below, targeting its next prey—

  Ping.

  Ping … ping…ping.

  The powerful burst of sound energy coming from the approaching Abyss Glider irritated the massive shark. Associating the high frequency echo with the Nautilus, the creature pinpointed the source, going after its challenger.

  *

  Jonas soared seventy feet below a surface tainted by two rapidly spreading pools of blood churned by a dozen or more people attempting to swim toward two boats.

  The Meg’s been busy … where is she?

  Going active on sonar, he discovered the monster was bull-rushing him from below!

  Accelerating to twenty knots, he maneuvered out of harm’s way, the Meg chasing after him, forcing him to increase his speed.

  Where to go? The lagoon’s still too far away to maintain its interest. Better get back to the Kiku and let DeMarco drug it again.

  Executing a wide turn, he altered his course, heading north.

  *

  Frank Heller had managed to swim to the Boston Whaler. Too weak to drag himself up the ladder, he clung to the side of the fishing boat, his eyes closed as he waited for death.

  Minutes passed.

  “Hey!”

  Frank looked up, staring into the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy.

  “My mom says we’re leaving. She said either get your ass in the boat or get it bitten off.”

  “I c-c-c-can’t move.”

  Collin Harper signaled to someone. A moment later a large hand reached over the side and grabbed hold of Frank Heller’s life vest, dragging him out of the water.

  *

  The two-hundred-and-seventy-four foot long research vessel rolled to port and kept rolling, the Kiku’s flooded hull finally pulling her beneath the waves.

  Twenty-three crew members and David Adashek were packed into two lifeboats, the outboard motors of which remained dormant in fear that the disturbance might alert the monster.

  Leon Barre had tears in his eyes as he watched the bow of his command slide silently into the Pacific. Terry Tanaka used the captain’s binoculars to scan the surface for any sign of the Abyss Glider. David Adashek was visibly shaking, praying quietly, as were many of the crewmen, while Alphonse DeMarco waited for the albino monster to reappear, a loaded Colt .45 held in his quivering right hand.

  “Terry, let me see the glasses.”

  She handed them to the captain, who focused in on the two boats now racing back to shore. “Sum bitch, do we start the motors or wait? Could be the Meg is following those boats. Maybe now would be the best time for us to leave. What do you think, DeMarco?”

  “How fast can these boats get us to land?”

  “Overloaded like we are? Twenty-five … maybe thirty minutes.”

  DeMarco pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging out some of the tension. “I don’t know. Jonas said this creature can feel the vibrations of an engine. Maybe we should wait, let the Megalodon clear the area.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?” Robert Nash asked. “You expect us to just sit here and wait to get eaten alive like D.J.? Sorry, Terry, but I didn’t sign on to this mission to end up as bait.”

  Murmurs of agreement.

  “Okay, we take a vote,” Leon Barre said. “All those who want to start the engines raise your hands.”

  All but two crewmen and Terry agreed.

  “Okay then. Al, you follow me. We gonna head south away from those last two boats … just in case, then we turn east. Might take a bit longer but it’s safer.”

  The two motors coughed to life, spewing thick clouds of carbon monoxide.

  Terry used the binoculars, scanning the horizon.

  Suddenly she stood, pointing to a five-foot wake heading in their direction, chasing an object running along the surface like a torpedo. “It’s Jonas!”

  Leon swore. “Sum bitch … he’s bringing the monster right to us.”

  *

  Jonas surfaced. He saw Bud Harris’s yacht in the distance, but could not locate the Kiku.

  Sonar found it sinking a hundred and ninety feet below the Pacific. Escorting the research vessel into the depths, he prayed no one was aboard—momentarily forgetting about the creature—his sonar warning him a split-second before he was nudged from behind with the force of a train tapping a Volkswagen Beetle.

  Pulling back on his joystick, Jonas launched the Glider into a steep ascent, the mini-sub shooting out of the Pacific like a marlin being chased by Moby Dick. From his vantage he spotted the Kiku’s two lifeboats heading east a moment before his vessel plunged belly-first back into the sea.

  He descended quickly, his head on a swivel as he searched for the Meg. Unable to locate the creature, he engaged three more pings, waiting for the sound waves to return a reflected echo.

  To his horror, the battery gauge suddenly dropped from 63% in the mid-green range all the way to 17% in the lower orange zone, the indicator very close to the red warning area.

&n
bsp; Before he could react, the Megalodon appeared on his sonar monitor. The monstrous shark had changed course and was now chasing after the two lifeboats.

  Damn it, Jonas … what have you done?

  *

  The two lifeboats were just over three miles from shore when the alabaster dorsal fin rose out of the sea fifty yards behind Alphonse DeMarco’s boat, its presence sending waves of panic among the Kiku’s crew.

  From the lead boat, Leon Barre frantically signaled to DeMarco to separate.

  Barre turned south.

  DeMarco continued to the east.

  The Megalodon submerged.

  Terrifying seconds passed; the two boatloads of survivors knowing the monster had descended to attack one of them from below.

  “Faster … go faster—”

  “No, keep zig-zagging!”

  A concussive explosion became a gyroscope of brilliant blue sky, flailing bodies, and a towering white silo, all of which terminated with a shock of frigid water as DeMarco’s boat was blasted apart from below.

  Eleven men and a woman plunged into the sea. Seven heads broke the surface, gagging and moaning in pain, floating in their lifejackets among fragments of wood that, seconds before, had been a lifeboat. Three crewmen—Alphonse DeMarco among them—bobbed in their life vests along the surface, unconscious. Two were dead. Sonar tech Roberto Nash and crewman Chad Shahriyar had been seated on the bench absorbing most of the Megalodon’s kinetic energy. Their spines had shattered on impact, their limbs torn away from their bodies.

  Ten beating hearts remained.

  Ten dinner bells.

  The sixty foot prehistoric shark circled its killing field, its dorsal fin slicing through three foot seas as its owner sized up her next meal. The creature’s sheer mass caught the unconscious DeMarco within its current, towing him along as the Meg homed in on a flailing body.

  Petrified, Terry froze as the Megalodon surfaced, heading straight for her and one of the Kiku’s cooks. Rolling onto its side, the monster opened its mouth, creating a vacuum which inhaled the screaming chef into its gullet.