Right above him, Mary Finch and his co-pilot had a perfect view of the sharks dining on the whale carcass. The sea boiled from their activity.
“Is he heading out of the area?” Barry asked.
“Yeah, look, I’ll check around some more for you,” Finch told him, “See if I can spot that unusual shark for you.”
“Thanks pal, I owe ya one.”
“No worries,” Finch said. “Have a better one!”
“You too,” Barry told him. “Out.”
Inside the news van, after the transmission quit, Jethro and Hobart broke out laughing.
“A kayak! Fer Chrissakes!” Jethro guffawed.
“Oh, yeah. Can you believe it!” Hobart shouted out, then, added, “Probably one of those shark proof ones.”
“No shit?” Jethro exclaimed. “They make those?”
“That guy is wishing they did.”
Jethro and Hobart burst out laughing again.
“We there yet?” Peter asked, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice.
Jethro ducked his head down so he could have a better view through the front window and saw the exit for Marina del Rey coming up.
“Next exit, boss,” he told Peter.
Still out on the water, Kayak Guy paused about a hundred feet from the whale, then, turned back around to look again. He fired up a joint and inhaled deeply, cranking his music up a bit louder. A few fins from smaller sharks sailed past him. He reached out and let his fingers trail over top of one of them that passed right by his kayak.
In the distance, right above the whale, he could see the Coast Guard chopper hovering over the carcass. Their attention was clearly directed at the dead whale, and not him, so he took another hit from the joint and gave them a jaunty salute.
The water around him got very choppy and he coughed the thick smoke out of his lungs. Grasping his paddle tightly, he braced his knees deep inside the kayak, trying to hang on. The last thing he wanted was to be bucked out into the open water, especially with all of the sharks around. Skillfully, he turned the small craft into the waves to help prevent it from rolling over.
Suddenly, a large trough opened beneath him, and before he could do anything, his kayak dropped down hard into it then flipped upside down in the water. Kayak Guy’s teeth cracked together hard and he tasted blood from the ragged hole he punched through his tongue. His music sounded warped and wobbly under the waves as his headphones slipped away. Kayak Guy struggled to right the craft, and saw several sharks all around him, their jaws agape as they streamed towards the whale. Two sharks, at least as long if not longer than his kayak, raced directly towards him. Just before they slammed into him, the two split apart but not before one of them grazed the side of his kayak, pushing it further down into the water, away from the surface.
Finally, in a full-blown panic, Kayak Guy struggled back towards the top and got his craft turned the right way up, then, paddled furiously for shore. Copious amounts of salt water had gone up his nose, and the brine burned his sensitive tissues, causing his eyes to water badly. Sneezing huge wads of snot, he spit water, blood and mucous from his mouth and looked furtively over his shoulder every few minutes, searching for whatever might have caused the sea to become so confused. One of the first rules of being a good kayaker, was to remain calm but this was nuts!
He had kayaked for years up and down the coast and had never encountered a bizarre phenomenon like that before. He wondered what had caused such turbulence in the water, and decided it was a better plan to head back to shore.
In his effort to right the small boat, he lost his Walkman. The waterproof box drifted down into the deep water, still blaring rock and roll.
Chapter 7
Barry helped Misty out of his Land Rover. He offered to carry the cooler, but she declined. Together they walked towards one of the buildings, quite a distance from any of the tourist attractions. Barry also brought the chewed piece of lawn chair with him.
“You know,” Misty started. “I was just wondering . . . ”
“What?”
“How did that whale die?”
“Whales die. Everything dies eventually. It was probably his time, that’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“So, you said it was white?”
“Yeah, white. I don’t know anything about sharks, but it seemed kind of weird to me. That really light color. It just seemed, I don’t know, odd. It didn’t look real.”
“You mean, aside from being so big?” he laughed.
She laughed as well, and it felt good.
“Well,” Barry said, “that will be another detail to tell McGill. He’ll hopefully have some answers for you.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding a big confused. “But aren’t those great white sharks, I mean, aren’t they . . . white?”
“No, well, their bellies are, but their backs are a dark gray. It’s how Mother Nature helps to camouflage them so their prey can’t see them coming. If you‘re underneath one and looking up, their light-colored bellies blend with the sky color, and if you look at them from above, their dark backs help them disappear into the shadows and darker colored sea floor below.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
Arriving at the building, Barry held the door open for her. He offered again to take the cooler, but she shook her head no and hugged it closely to her body.
The inside of the building was cool, and conditioned air swirled around them. The chillier temperature felt good to them both. Together, they walked down a hallway, their footsteps clicking smartly on the green and beige composite floor. A few employees, most wearing white lab coats, hustled past them. Glass-fronted exhibit niches buried in the walls showcased unusual marine animals from all over the world.
“What is this place? What do they do here?” Misty asked, still clutching the cooler to her chest.
“Oh, it’s a conglomerate of research labs. Scientists working for different companies that have offshore interests like oil companies, and power companies . . . ”
“Aquatic Adventure?”
Barry laughed, then, continued. “Yup. Aquatic Adventure. They hire them—the scientists, that is—to do research as well. The building is big enough that Aquatic Adventure leases the lab space to all kinds of industries doing research involving the oceans.”
He led her through several hallways until they arrived at a closed door.
“Just wait here for a minute. Okay?”
“Sure.”
Barry opened the door and headed inside, leaving her in the hallway. She backed up and leaned against the glass front of a display case and rhythmically tapped her toes on the floor, just passing time as she waited for him. Quickly growing bored, she looked over her shoulder at what was in the case behind her and nearly screamed as she saw the face of a gruesome, mummified goblin shark just inches away. The grotesque creature had an extremely long, flat snout with a wicked underslung, protruding jaw filled with dozens of pointed, sharp teeth.
At that moment, the door opened and Barry motioned for her to come inside.
“Hey Misty, come on in.”
She flew past him, startling him with how fast she was moving.
Barry chalked up her skittish behavior to the events of the day probably stressing her out. He gave her a reassuring smile, then, motioned for her to follow him.
Together, they wound their way to the back of the lab maneuvering past lab tables covered with all kinds of scientific equipment and specimens in jars scattered everywhere. Misty saw a man, about fifty-five years old, a bit short and portly, peering into a stereoscope. A steaming mug of tea and small plate of shortbread biscuits sat on the table next to the scope and an open specimen tray containing the autopsied remains of some kind of fish which he was studying.
Her stomach lurched when she saw him reach out and grab a piece of shortbread without looking, nearly grabbing part of the autopsied creature, then stuff it into his mouth.
“McGill, this is Misty,” Ba
rry said.
Without looking up, Dr. Lawrence McGill said to her, with a trace of a Scottish accent, “See something a wee bit scary this morning, did we?”
Misty was a bit put off by his casual, almost bored attitude, but answered him anyways.
“Yes.”
Barry gently eased the cooler from her grasp, set it on a nearby lab table, and popped the top off.
“And what have you got in there?” McGill asked scornfully. “Beer? Sandwiches? A heart ready for transplanting, perhaps?”
Misty’s brow furrowed as she watched him, unsure about his offhand demeanor and comments.
Barry started to pull the tooth from the cooler, wrapped up in a plastic bag, but McGill waved him off.
He grabbed the cooler roughly and tilted it towards him, looked inside, then let it go so quickly it clattered back onto the table. He reached for his tea, and took and long draught then asked, “Is this a joke, Barry? Were ya thinking this would be funny?”
“No, not at all!” Barry blurted out. “I was quite serious about this when I phoned you earlier.”
Misty held up her bandaged hand, truly puzzled by his behavior.
“It’s not a joke,” she snapped at him. “I cut my hand on that tooth, just holding it.”
“Did you now?”
McGill gently took her bandaged hand and examined it.
“Uh-huh. I am sorry for your injury, my girl. The bandage looks good, though. Nice work there.”
“McGill, we need your help. She has video, but the camera was damaged,” Barry said.
McGill let go of her. Barry held out his hand to her, and she handed him her damaged camera. Barry held it up for McGill to see.
“She taped the shark that tooth came from, but look, you can see the lens is smashed. The footage is digital, though. Is there some way you can retrieve the data?”
McGill took the broken camera and, with practiced ease, popped a card out of it then held it up for both of them to see.
“You taped the beastie that gave up that tooth? On here? You have proof?”
“Yes! But that tooth is proof, as well . . . ”
“Wouldn’t take much for me to show you it’s a fake. Made of polymers and the like. Easy to fake tooth enamel, bones . . . made a few myself in my day. Jokes! When I was in graduate school we used to make up things like that all the time. Even sold one or two. Certainly helped pay the rent back then.”
McGill moved to his computer.
“It’s not a fake,” Misty said defensively as she shot Barry an angry look.
“Uh-huh,” McGill responded, sounding bored.
“I think you’re the fake!” she shouted at him. “Listen to yourself! I mean, what sort of bogus shark expert are you anyway? You didn’t even take the tooth out of the stupid plastic bag. And you are passing judgment on me? Why won’t you even look at it?”
McGill inserted the card he took from her camera into his computer and began to open the movie.
“Because I don’t have to,” he explained to her.
While his computer worked on opening the large video file, he made his way to another table and pulled open a drawer where several large and deadly-looking teeth sat in glass-covered cases. He selected one, removed the tooth from the case, and placed it on the table near Misty.
“This is the tooth from a great white shark. The largest known living species of flesh-eating shark in the world.”
McGill dumped Misty’s tooth out of the cooler, still in the plastic bag, which obscured some of the detail on the surface. It clattered next to the great white’s tooth, dwarfing it in comparison.
“I rest my case,” McGill laughed.
“McGill, it’s real!” Barry implored.
“Not that hard to fake a tooth, Barry. Museums make them all the time for their exhibits. Websites sell ’em by the basketful and Hollywood does it, too. Makes them for their scary monster movies like that Jaws beastie.”
He turned to address Misty.
“What do you do, anyway?” McGill asked her. “Student? An art student perhaps?”
“No. I’m an actress.”
“Ah. An actress. In Hollywood? Un-huh. Again, I rest my case.”
A loud chime issued from McGill’s computer. All three of them turned to look. The file had opened and the first frame showed a smiling Misty with the wild and beautiful ocean frozen behind her.
Barry noticed the remarkable difference in how she looked this morning as compared to the exhausted and strained face she showed the world this evening.
McGill motioned for all of them to grab chairs near his computer.
“Shall we, then? I’m always up for a good show. Sorry I dinna got any popcorn,” he said as he shoved the rest of his biscuits into his mouth.
Chapter 8
A bit further down the road, Peter and his crew pulled into an available parking slot at the Riker Institute, their brakes squealing loudly and the van rocking back and forth as they came to a stop. The massive, ultramodern building in front of them sported an enormous neon logo that showed an entwined red dragon and a blue shark.
The center of the building was a large box of steel and glass that rose three stories high and allowed a clear view of the ocean on the other side. The sun was just about to set, and the lighting was blood red and dramatic on the waves that were tossing themselves up onto the sandy shore. A long dock exited from the back of the institute where a few ships were moored, all belonging to the institute. They were long, white, sleek, and appeared to be extremely expensive. Each boat had a substantial array of antenna, indicating a large amount of communications and survey equipment on board.
Hobart shut the engine off and turned in his seat to face Peter and Jethro. Bags of fast food littered the interior of the van between them.
“We’re here,” he mumbled past a mouthful of overcooked burger.
Flecks of food went flying which Peter dodged as he shot Hobart a disgusted look.
“Did we have to stop for all of this crap?” Peter asked. “I mean, seriously! What happened to my pros?”
“Hungry, man. Gotta feed your troops. You want some?” Jethro held out a half-eaten burger towards Peter. His beard was full of salt and French fry crumbs.
“Not on a bet.” Peter snapped as he yanked the van door open. “Come on. Let’s go see the man. Daylight’s burning.”
Peter hopped out onto the asphalt of the parking lot, followed by Jethro and Hobart, who carried the fast food and drinks with them. Peter did a double take when he saw their arms full of the bags and both men chewing huge wads of food.
“Can we lose the grease?” Peter asked, clearly exasperated. “Please?”
“Yeah, okay,” Hobart mumbled.
Jethro and Hobart ignored him and continued towards the building, moving past Peter, still carrying their bags of food. Seagulls, sensing the food they carried, swooped down around them.
Exasperated, Peter followed them in, ducking the wheeling gulls.
Inside, Dr. Delbert, a forty-year-old thin, average looking guy, slipped their flash drive into one of his playback machines. His lab was very high tech with white surfaced lab tables, shining, modern equipment, and several large saltwater tanks filled with small sharks, rays, and eels.
“Frame point zero-zero-four-eight,” Hobart told him.
“Point zero-zero-forty-eight. Okay, got it,” Delbert said.
His computer rapidly cued up the frame showing, again, the dozens of panicked people, frozen in their flight on the beach, and in the distance slicing through the water - the fin.
“So, Doc? What do you make of this?” Peter asked him as he pointed to that part of the image.
“Shark,” Delbert said, sounding bored.
“Great. Just great. Can you give us a little more than that?” Peter coaxed him.
Delbert fiddled with the computer, then retrieved a flash drive from it, different from the one Peter had given him.
“What’s that for?”
�
�Just a screen grab. I want to get a better look at this.”
Delbert loaded the drive into a different computer and keyed some information into the machine. After a few seconds, the frozen image of terror on the beach was blown up several times larger as he projected the image onto a whiteboard across the room. He toyed with the image and shifted it from dark to light and then ran through a series of colored filters creating a wide range of contrast and colors. The scene from the beach took on a weird psychedelic appearance.
“What’s that do?” Hobart asked him.
“Well, there’s a lot of glare on the water there. I want to see if I can screen a bit of it out. To see if I can bring out any more detail. The light on the water is really tricky. Look how pale it makes that fin look.”
“But, it is a shark?” Peter asked.
“Oh yes, definitely a shark.”
“A great white?”
“Possibly. Probably. The fin shape looks right for that. Looks to be a fairly large one. If it is, that’s very unusual for it to be so close to shore. Might be something wrong with it.”
He finally hit on a good combination of filters and levels, reducing the amount of white in the image and providing substantial contrast.
“Ahhh . . . our science guy . . . ” Peter said.
“Pruitt?” Delbert interjected.
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“What’d he have to say? Did he see this?”
“Yes, and he did form an opinion.”
“He thought it was a great white, too?”
“No.”
“He was talking about—” Hobart started.
“How big it was,” Jethro finished.
Delbert looked back at the screen again, his brow furrowed substantially. The purpose of Peter’s trip down to show him this image was starting to become a bit clearer.
“Well, it seems really close to the shore here. This angle is tricky. But, it’s hard to figure out exactly how big it is.”
Jethro pointed to the channel markers that were quite close to the fin.
“Those plastic markers,” Jethro told him, “are eighty feet from the beach. See those shadows? See how they overlap? That shark was swimming right next to one of those markers.”
Big Ass Shark Page 5