In this video footage released by the Cuban government, the specimen is being pulled off of twenty-two-year-old Manuel after being shot three times with a spear gun and immobilized with a bang stick. Manuel suffered massive tissue and blood loss and was airlifted to a nearby hospital. He is listed in critical condition.
Sightings of other such squid by boaters and surfers have led to speculation that the cephalopods may be responsible for a rash of disappearances that have taken place over the last week. At least seven people have vanished from boats and in the surf off of Cuba and the Bahamas. It was presumed they all drowned . . .
Jake stared blankly up at the television screen. His eyes widened as he felt the first wave of nausea flood over him, nearly toppling him from his chair. He dug his fingers into the hard edge of the table as if it was his only anchor to reality, his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his ears. The walls of the Cove Hove started to fall down on him like dominos, and he felt like he was going to suffocate. The rapid breathing, the clamminess, the tunnel vision – there was no fighting it. His doctors called it Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Jake wouldn’t call it anything. Stubborn to the point of pigheadedness, he steadfastly refused treatment for his condition, including the assorted medications they prescribed.
Sucked into the spiraling vortex of his mind, Jake could see the nightmare happening once again. It was always the same. He was flying over the water in his chartered helicopter, searching for the dive site. Even with their radar, the thick fog was making it difficult. As they made their approach, Jake glanced out the window. He could see the faces of Sam’s teammates as they crowded around her. He spotted a medical chopper heading toward the group of dive boats, and felt a sickening cramp in the pit of his stomach as he realized something was terribly wrong.
Sam was down and she wasn’t moving.
Too worked up to wait for the pilots to land, Jake hurled himself out of the chopper from ten feet above ground. He came crashing down onto the surrounding dock, hard enough to shatter two bones in his foot. Ignoring the pain, he limped through the onlookers, observing the growing dread on the faces of the EMS techs as they worked away on his wife’s lifeless body using CPR, adrenaline, and the defibrillator. Again and again they failed to restore her breathing. He watched with sickening horror as their expressions of frustration gave way to resignation as they were forced to accept the worst.
Acceptance was replaced by shock and astonishment as Jake howled a scream of rage and denial. He rushed to Sam’s side, knocking down several EMS workers. His face intense, he began performing CPR compressions on her chest. He could feel the cool clamminess of her skin as he pounded her chest with his calloused palms. He remembered the taste of her cold, blue lips as he pressed his warm mouth tightly against hers those last few times, desperately trying to breathe life into her waterlogged lungs. He watched in abject horror as her lifeless eyes remained focused on him.
Unable to handle her unblinking gaze, he toiled on. He felt the animalistic rage well up within his chest as Sam’s teammates, exasperated with his unwillingness to accept the inevitable, tried to take her from him. He sensed himself snap. Two decades of martial arts skills forgotten, he went berserk with grief, using his sledgehammer fists to fracture jaws, flatten noses, and shatter ribs.
Still flailing away, he felt the sharp jab of a needle in his arm. Then, there was nothing but darkness, the kind no light could illuminate. He woke up in the hospital a few days later, blaming himself for Samantha’s death.
It was my fault. If I’d been by her side for the diving competition, instead of posing for a fee, I’d have been there when she needed me. I could have saved her. I could have–
“My God, Jake,” a voice called out faintly. “Isn’t it horrible? Jake?”
He heard the distinctly female voice again. For a moment he thought . . . Sam? He heard the voice once more speaking his name.
“Jake? Can you hear me?”
As Amara Takagi’s hand settled on his shoulder Jake’s head snapped in her direction, his eyes mirroring his pain.
“Jake? Are you okay?” Amara asked. Her exotic features hosted a concerned expression.
“What?” Jake managed after a moment. He regained his composure. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry doc, I must have drifted off. Rough night, you know?”
Amara smiled. “Gee, sheriff, must’ve been a lulu. From the way you were sweating there, I thought you just ran a marathon. Anyway, isn’t it terrible?”
“What was that, doc?” Jake stalled, poking at his cold breakfast.
“On the news,” Amara said. She pointed at the TV. “That poor whale!”
Following her gaze, Jake stared up at the current broadcast.
. . . as seen from the live feed of a Coast Guard chopper, the carcass of a giant blue whale has been spotted drifting forty miles offshore. The rarest of the great whales, the blue whale is the largest known animal to ever inhabit the earth. The whale pictured here measured at least one hundred feet in length . . .
As he watched the broadcast, Jake could feel his trip-hammer pulse gradually returning to normal. “I’m sorry about the whale, doc,” he offered. He reached over and pushed out a chair. “Join me?”
“Thank you,” Amara said in a quiet voice. She plopped down into the chair, her eyes still on the screen.
“Can I get you anything?” Jake asked, gesturing for the waitress.
“No, no. I’m fine.”
“C’mon, it’s my treat. You can have anything on the menu.” He leaned forward and winked. “As long as it’s one of the breakfast specials . . .”
Amara blinked, stared, and then chuckled. Before she could reply, Mary came prancing over, her happy-go-lucky expression evaporating as she realized Jake was no longer alone.
“Yes, sheriff?” she asked, pretending quite convincingly that Amara didn’t exist.
“Can I get another ice water, and–”
“Sure thing,” Mary said, spinning on her heel.
“Whoa, hold up there,” Jake said with a titter. “You forgot my friend.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry.” Mary whirled back, order pad in hand. “What can I get you?” she asked coolly, her green eyes scrolling across the top of her pad as she studied Amara in detail.
“I’ll have an ice water too, please. With lemon,” Amara replied.
The waitress walked off with wide strides.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Jake prodded. “I was joking about the specials, and the food is pretty good here.”
“I think your girlfriend is pretty jealous here,” Amara replied, hawking Mary’s retreating form as she disappeared into the kitchen. “I’m nervous enough getting water from her. Lord knows what she’d do to my breakfast.”
“Mary’s not my girlfriend,” Jake emphasized. “And she’s really very nice.”
“If you say so.”
“I do,” Jake said. He cocked his head. “See, here she comes already.”
Mary strolled over, placed the two glasses on the table, and gave Amara a wide smile, before moving off again.
“Figures . . .” Amara muttered through taut lips.
“What?”
“The little brat forgot my lemon.”
“That’s okay,” Jake replied. He smiled, put his tea down, and scooped up a slice from a saucer to his right. “I’ve got plenty.”
“Thanks.” Amara smiled.
He extended his hand over her glass and gave a smirk. “May I?”
Amara gave him an inscrutable look, then grinned. “Knock yourself out.”
As Jake’s thumb and index finger came together, the gleam in his eye vanished. A spritz of juice spurted across the table, striking Amara square in the face. The cetaceanist recoiled, her right eye closing tight and blinking uncontrollably as the lemon’s acidic juice went to work.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” Jake sputtered. He fumbled for a napkin, leaning forward as he held it out to her. “Are
you alright?”
“Oh, sure,” Amara pretended. She dipped the napkin in her water, dabbing it gingerly around the edges of her spasming eye. “This is a real pick-me-up, first thing in the morning.”
Jake felt his face grow hot and anxiously scanned the restaurant, focusing on the television. “I’m really sorry about that. Did they say how it died?”
“My eye?” Amara remarked. She sniffled loudly and rolled her eye around, trying hard to blink away the last of the pain.
“No, the whale . . .”
“Oh . . . the newsman says it bled to death from an enormous abdominal wound.” She wiped away a tear and pointed with what remained of her napkin. “You can see it there.”
“Wow,” Jake said as he studied the screen.
“The Coast Guard believes it collided with an ocean liner and got its tail chopped up by the ship’s propellers.”
As she focused once more on the newscast, Jake studied Amara with interest. With her fingers intertwined like she was praying, and her pale eyes glued to the screen, the cetaceanist seemed more like a frightened child than the tough ship’s captain he met the other da y.
Amara let out the breath she’d been holding. “I wonder . . .”
“Wonder what?’
“What? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.”
“About what? About what killed the whale?”
“No, never mind. The collision killed the whale. After its flukes were damaged it must have been unable to maneuver and was sucked back into the propeller, eviscerating it.”
Jake shook his head. “That’s horrible. Do you think that’s what really happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, do you think there’s any chance your transient killer whales had anything to do with this?”
As the broadcast came to its conclusion, Amara turned back toward him. “I considered that, but I doubt it,” she said. “I mean, it’s possible. But unless they’re desperate, killer whales tend to tackle far easier prey than a blue whale twenty times their weight. I’ve seen pods harassing calves when the mother was distracted, but I’ve never heard of them attacking a healthy adult.” She closed her eyes and started rubbing her temples with her fingertips. She leaned forward, her high cheekbones and delicate chin giving her face a heart-shaped appearance. “Besides, the wound is far too large. I’m afraid the Coast Guard is right.”
Nodding, Jake wiped his hands on a napkin. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small wad of money and left a couple of bills on the table. “So, do you think the whale just ended up blundering into the ship’s path?” he asked. “I thought whales had sonar, not to mention common sense.”
“Who knows?” Amara sighed. “Maybe she was sick or old. I just hate to see an endangered species like that die so needlessly.”
“Me too,” Jake said. He rose to his feet. “Listen doc, I’m about to start my day’s adventures. I hate to say it, but you look like your best friend just died. Can I walk you anywhere? Sometimes it’s nice to have a police escort.”
Amara managed a feeble smile. “Thanks, Jake. Actually, we’re about to cast off. I just came in to grab breakfast for my crew. We’ll be out at sea for two weeks or more, and I can’t have Willie cooking for those smelly bilge rats every day!”
To his surprise and confusion, Jake suddenly felt sad. He smiled to conceal it and reached for the bags. “Well spoken, matey. You sound like a regular Captain Bligh. Come on, doc. I’ll walk you down to your pirate ship.”
Behind them, the news re-aired the broadcast of the dead blue whale drifting on the surface, its giant mouth gaping and its stomach wide open, leaving a wound large enough to park a limo inside.
SIX
Like a stealth submarine, the creature cruised undisturbed through the undersea canyons. It was headed toward the Cutlass, a towering, scimitar-shaped mountain peak jutting up from the ocean floor, some seventeen miles off the coast of Paradise Cove.
Since the moment it escaped, the giant carnivore generated fear in everything it approached. As it loomed in the distance, the ocean before it became a desert, its occupants fleeing in terror before the approaching leviathan. Sharks, marlin, even whales fled. The creature detected the mass exodus of sea life and reveled in the reality that nothing in the surrounding seas could challenge it.
Spiraling into an underwater roll that displaced tens of thousands of gallons, the beast’s highly evolved sensory systems focused on the endless variety of life forms all around it. Giant schools of squid and shiny silver baitfish abounded, with shoals measuring as large as a football field. Undulating forests of green kelp added to the sights that piqued its primitive curiosity.
As it passed directly over the fifteen-hundred foot Cutlass, the creature’s blazing eyes spotted an enormous grouper lurking just outside a large cave opening, near the very top of the underwater mountain. A top ambush predator, the Volkswagen-sized fish took one glance at the approaching nightmare blotting out the sun and immediately retreated for the safety of its lair. To the creature, neither the grouper below, nor the life forms fleeing ahead, mattered in the least. It wasn’t hungry.
Its battle with the blue whale had been a ferocious one, but in the end it succeeded in dispatching its significantly larger opponent. As it moved in to feed, it was rewarded with the discovery of a fully developed fetus, writhing within the giant cetacean’s still-warm womb. Its deadly jaws tore open the whale’s stomach region. Mercilessly wrenching the still-living infant from the uterine cavity of its mother, it gorged itself upon it. The blubber-enriched meal was a delicacy, and sufficient to sustain the huge carnivore for several days.
Passing the Cutlass and picking up speed, the creature scanned the surrounding waters and the landmass of the continental slope. A water-muffled grumble issued from its toothy jaws. It detected nothing but an alien landscape. The creature was in a state of confusion. It had followed the serpentine coastline of eastern Florida for several days now, during which time it sought out the deepwater trenches and submerged landmarks it expected to find. But none of them were there. The shallow inland sea that covered a huge portion of North America during the time of its ancestors was long gone, as were the migratory routes they once used. Frustrated that its inherited sense of direction no longer served any useful purpose, the creature’s brain eventually accepted the futility of the situation. Like a circuit breaker tripping, its highly evolved instincts redirected it to focus on exploring its newfound territory.
Noisily breaching the surface with a blast of water vapor and sucking in tremendous lungfuls of air, it closed its watertight nose flaps and dove beneath the surface. Trailing bubbles, it spiraled slowly down, its skin and eyes sensing the day’s heat and light fading as it descended into the void. As it passed the four-hundred foot mark, the creature’s infrared vision began to lose effectiveness. Soon, it could no longer detect either shape or movement. It arched its massive neck and a group of specialized muscles that lined its muzzle began to undergo tiny spasms.
It started emitting a prolonged series of loud ratcheting noises, similar to an enormous door creaking open on rusty hinges. The deep clicking sounds were produced by specialized organs housed within the creature’s nasal passages, and traveled through the water as sonic waves at four-and-a-half times the air speed of sound. As they bounced off nearby objects and animals they returned with a series of echoes. The echoes brought with them translated images, absorbed by specialized bones in its gigantic mandibles, and sent directly to its brain. To enhance the effectiveness of this technique, the creature’s tiny outer ears were acoustically isolated from its brain, enabling it to use the sound waves it emitted as a substitute for eyesight. It was able to “see” over incredibly long distances, even in complete darkness.
It was using echolocation – an ability the creature’s kind had perfected millions of years before such well-known sonar specialists as whales and dolphins swam the seven seas.
As it hurtled past the one-thou
sand foot mark, the chilling temperature and water pressure began to exert their deadly effects. The creature’s circulatory system sensed the dangerous drop in temperature and automatically diverted blood flow away from its heavily insulated skin, sending it toward its body’s core. Like modern diving animals, it was able to create a significant temperature difference between its core temperature and that of the surrounding water, enabling it to function effectively for hours on end in freezing water.
As the deadly hydrostatic pressure continued to build, the creature’s powerful ribcage and lungs became too compressed to function. The increased oxygen carrying capacity of its blood and surrounding tissues took over, compensating for the strain, and enabling it to function with efficiency during the most strenuous deep-water dives. It was a biological machine built to survive.
At fourteen hundred feet, the creature neared the ocean floor. It leveled off and cruised at a comfortable pace, exploring the bottom as it went. A few minutes later, it spotted the beginnings of a precipitous drop that gaped across the rocky seabed, its unplumbed depths draped in perpetual darkness. After passing over it and scanning it with its senses, the creature entered the giant chasm, accelerating swiftly as it descended.
Time stood still as it descended like a phantom through the watery void. At five thousand feet the rocky walls of the deep crevasse began to grow barren, and the only life forms it detected were the omnipresent foot-long squid, crustaceans and bioluminescent fish that made the stony slopes their home. As it prepared to head for the surface, something piqued its interest.
Six hundred feet below, suspended within the invisible trough of a deepwater current, was an enormous squid. It was similar to the ones the creature fed upon during its youth, but a third larger, measuring forty feet in length and weighing nearly twelve tons.
Ignorant of the larger animal’s presence, the cephalopod remained motionless. Cloaked within the darkness of the blackish waters, it waited patiently for unsuspecting prey to come within reach.
KRONOS RISING: After 65 million years, the world's greatest predator is back. Page 11