Vengeance from the Deep - Book One: Pliosaur

by Russ Elliott

  “That . . . that’s . . . not going to fit in the cooler!” stammered Brad, recoiling from the edge of the dock and onto his knees. Without a word, he switched off the light and slowly slid it from the water. He stepped back, staring at the lagoon in disbelief.

  “Wooow! What’ve they got in there? That’s got to be at least,” he did rapid mental calculations, “at least eighty feet long.”

  A plank creaked behind him. He stood, whipping around to see a black face, a long, white spike covering its right side—a perfect match to the statue at the village entryway, except this time the ebony figure was real!

  Behind the imposing native, dozens of other white spikes appeared in the darkness. They drew closer. In his frozen state, Brad randomly noted the white spikes bore a strong resemblance to a long dinosaur tooth. Another plank creaked behind him and he heard the underwater light being smashed as glass scattered across the dock. He whirled around again.

  A crushing sound, and everything went black.

  ~~~

  Brad awakened to a language he didn’t understand. He had no idea how long he had been out, but darkness still surrounded him. His stomach was nauseous. The stars overhead were blurry as he felt himself being pulled along the dock by his feet. The motion suddenly stopped. He tried to get up, but his strength was gone. The back of his head throbbed in pain.

  Shadowy figures held him down, one man on each leg and arm. Kota was now standing over him, taunting him with Brad’s own machete. Kota held it sideways, tilting it until torchlight shone across the metal, revealing the blade’s full breadth. Beside the long painted spike, a row of white teeth appeared and widened into a smile.

  “I’ll break you in half,” growled Brad through clenched teeth, straining to lift his arms. But he couldn’t budge. Only the back of his head lifted from the dock.

  The machete playfully leapt from Kota’s left hand, then back to his right. Each time the blade passed above Brad’s chest he heard the laughter increasing, knowing that if Kota missed the catch, the blade would slice his chest in half. The blade paused and slowly lowered to Brad’s throat. It moved lower, to the left, and he felt the metal tip press the shirt to his chest. A little deeper, and the blade slowly pushed the skin into his pectoral muscle until he felt the pressure release as his flesh swallowed the tip of the blade. A searing pain shot down to his ribs.

  The laughter grew. And the blade rose, its shiny tip now moist and red. Brad felt another slash across his chest. He clenched his teeth, refusing to cry out in pain. No way would he give them that pleasure.

  He saw Kota nod and step away. Half-painted faces flashed before him, and he was brutally flipped to his stomach. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of light reflecting from the blade. “What are you—?” A foot on the back of his neck pressed his face into the dock, muting his words.

  This time the pain was unbearable as something sank into the back of his thighs. They now flipped him over on his back again. His buttocks and lower back turned warm from his own blood. He was moving faster along the dock, again being pulled by his legs. They paused. He felt the slippery warmth spreading beneath him. No, that can’t be my own blood.

  They grabbed his left arm, sliding him sideways. “No . . . what are you doing!” His free hand clawed at the planks trying to stop. He lifted his head finding his destination. “NO! NOT . . . NOT THE WATER!”

  Chapter 6

  THE SIGN

  On the third ring, John answered the phone in his office and heard a perky voice. “Hi, it’s Jenny. Jenny Heartfield.”

  “Jenny!” said John, feeling a lump form in his throat. This was a voice that hadn’t made his heart race since college. Jenny was a nursing major, and the first girl he’d ever truly cared for. They had dated for eight glorious months his freshmen year until she dumped him for a pre-med student.

  “Yeah, it’s me, I heard the great news. I still can’t believe it—an entire new species—and you’re responsible! A Rhidiphis . . . tian, I can’t even pronounce it. But they say you practically discovered a living dinosaur. I’m so proud of you!”

  John leaned back against the corner of his desk. His mouth dropped open in disbelief, “Jenny, it’s been years. How are you? How did you know where to reach me?”

  “Are you kidding?” The familiar soft voice laughed. “You’re famous! It’s big news everywhere. I first saw it on Fox News. So how’ve you been? What have you been up to . . . I mean, besides making headlines?”

  John answered slowly, “I thought you got married, and lived in—”

  Jenny quickly interrupted, “Oh no. We were divorced after two months. It was a mistake.” There was an awkward silence. “After everything that happened with you, I was confused, didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I tried to look you up when I got back, but couldn’t find a trace of you. That is, until now.” After a short pause, the female voice continued in a shyer tone, “Well, are you involved with anyone right now? You didn’t run off and marry that nutty artist, did you?”

  “N . . . no! I mean, not now.”

  “Well, I would love . . . I mean, do you think we could maybe get together sometime?”

  John sat on the corner of his desk in a daze, still not believing what he was hearing as the voice said in a softer tone. “You’ve been on my mind long before I saw your face on TV, John. I have never stopped thinking about you . . .”

  Suddenly, the phone dissolved in John’s hand as a crashing noise awakened him from his dream. Two tribesmen burst into the hut. The blinding morning sun shone through the doorway. Someone raised the straw bed, violently tossing him onto the floor. John looked up through sleepy eyes. Two more men shot through the doorway, spears pointed toward him. His mind clearing, he looked at Brad’s empty bed, then beside it, and saw that the case and cooler were missing.

  What’s Brad done now?

  He felt himself being pulled across the bed. He reached for his vest, but it was ripped from his hand and thrown across the hut. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?” He looked around for Kota or the chief. Once he was pushed through the doorway, they were joined by six more armed men. Two of them grabbed him by the arms and forced him toward the tall walls along the coast.

  As they passed, women and children glared at him with a sort of eagerness from the dark doorways and windows of their huts. The anticipation he saw there turned his mouth dry. Approaching the large wall, John could hear the rumble of distant thunder. Moving closer, he realized it was the dull thud of a drumbeat coming from behind the wall. They paused in front of the massive wooden doors. Dozens of armed tribesmen appeared from out of nowhere and forced him forward as the doors opened inward as if by magic. The pulsating drumbeat grew louder and clearer.

  Before he knew what was happening, John found himself on a long, sandy path leading to the lagoon. Natives, spears in hand, formed walls on either side of him. Their angry faces all bore the strange white spike.

  They forced John farther along the walkway. He glimpsed cattle rustling behind the men off to his right. Straight ahead in front of the shallows of the lagoon, he saw what he guessed was his destination: two guards holding torches in front of a large rounded stone. To the right of the guards was an enormous dock that extended from the shoreline and formed a half circle around the lagoon. This isn’t looking so good. John tried to slow down but felt the hateful shoves from behind him. The powerful drumbeat surrounded him with its hypnotic rhythm.

  At the end of the path, he saw Brad’s cooler and net at the guards’ feet. This isn’t looking good at all. If Brad were still alive, he would have seen him by now. The thought made John feel faint. His stomach tightened. A surge of sweat rose through his pores and turned cold against his skin.

  Someone grabbed him, then another pair of hands. Powerful fingers sank deep into his arms. Helplessly, he floated toward the end of the walkway, his boots barely skimming the sand.

  His captors dropped him in front of the dark figures bearing torches in front of the rou
nded stone. He didn’t move. The torches divided, and Kota appeared between the flames like the Devil himself. John looked up into his smoldering eyes. The white spike on Kota’s face wrinkled with his smile.

  Then his black eyes flared with delight. “Now you will see!”

  Kota stepped aside and allowed John to see a rod standing in front of the large stone. It was a perfect match for the staff held by the statue at the village entryway. John’s eyes followed the four-foot-long, wooden shaft that projected up from the sand. At its top were three sticks tied together to form a long triangle. But the triangle of sticks appeared to be a support structure for a long white object in its center.

  John came to his feet and stepped closer. He stared at the curious, white object inside the triangle. Then his eyes widened in disbelief as he recognized the largest prehistoric tooth he’d ever seen. In that instant, he realized the significance of the white spike when he saw Kota’s face beside the tooth. A chill ran up John’s spine. He looked behind the staff at the large, rounded stone and realized it was carved in the shape of a prehistoric paddle fin—only it was fifteen feet tall.

  John’s fear gave way to awe as he held his hand in front of the enormous tooth to give it scale. That’s got to be twenty inches long, thought John as he stared at a tooth longer than his forearm. “It’s white,” he muttered. He started to ask Kota if it was real, then noticed gum tissue speckled along the root.

  He couldn’t believe what his eyes were forcing him to accept. He was certain that no one had discovered a tooth in this condition. For a tooth to be in this condition could only mean one frightening thing. Its owner was still alive.

  “Where?” John demanded, “Do you know where this came from?”

  Kota glanced at the chief with a smile. “We have good idea.”

  “But no one has ever discovered a tooth like this. They’ve always been black or at least dark, in the form of fossils—never white like this. Where’d you find it? Are there more?”

  “Yes,” replied Kota, nodding with a knowing grin. “Many more . . . and we take you to them soon.”

  The group led John along the shoreline toward the dock. The chief stepped onto the wooden structure first, followed by Kota.

  John felt the powerful hands return to his arms and lift him onto the dock. “But when did you find the tooth? On what part of the island?” In all of his dismay, he was oblivious to the men pulling his arms behind his back. He finally felt a tug when they tightened the knot. He tried to pull his hands apart, but it was too late.

  “KUTA KEB-LA!” announced the chief in a bold tone.

  Kota stepped closer. “We call him Kuta Keb-la. In our tongue it means ‘Great Mouth of Death.’ Or as you people call it in your books, pliosaur . . . prehistoric marine reptile.”

  John looked at Kota in disbelief. “A pliosaur . . . but how? They’ve been extinct for millions of years. Where? When did you see it?”

  Kota interpreted the question for the chief.

  The chief turned and gazed out at the sea as Kota translated the chief’s response. John hung on every word. All the while, they headed farther along the dock. “Kuta Keb-la came in time when white man spilled blood of whales with his spears. They kill whales all around island. Much blood. Blood lure Kuta Keb-la from deep water. Then, maybe thirty year ago, white man stop killing whales. I don’t know why. Maybe there no more left to kill or they go somewhere else to kill. That when Kuta Keb-la come to island for food. Many of our fishermen go out, but not come back. Twenty men missing before we see giant shadow outside lagoon.”

  The chief pointed to the waters south of the lagoon. Kota continued translating, “That where reef opens that surround most of lagoon. One day Kuta Keb-la come into lagoon between opening. He hide in deep water of lagoon in daytime. Then come into shallow water at night and kill more people when they fish and bathe.”

  John looked at the huge, wooden posts surrounding the lagoon, “So, then you put pilings around the lagoon to keep it out, giving your people a safe place to fish and bathe?”

  Kota shook his head, “No, to keep him in!”

  “In! How long was it able to survive in the lagoon?”

  Kota stepped forward and pointed to the pilings. “The lagoon is surrounded by a reef with many large openings. The main opening is about thirty-five feet wide where we put a large gate-like structure that runs deep beneath the surface. We used pilings to block off the other openings that were wider than thirty feet. See all those pilings that appear to go deep into the water? Most of them are actually embedded into the top of the reef to prevent the creature from going over at high tide.”

  He pointed east where the lagoon entered a dark cavern, becoming more animated the more he spoke. “Also, there’s a series of underwater caverns that run beneath the island and connect to small tidal pools. The island has a strong current that flows through this lagoon and exits on the other side of the island. We learned this from the feedings. Sometimes parts of cows that we fed to Kuta Keb-la in this lagoon have been found on the banks of tidal pools on the other side of the island.”

  I guess that explains the hoof.

  Kota continued. “So what we have with the lagoon and underwater caverns is a very large, contained area that has a constant flow of outside water passing through it.”

  John paused, no longer looking out at the lagoon but instead staring at Kota. Throughout this incredible history lesson, he was slow to realize that Kota no longer spoke in pigeon English. His speech was fluent. “You . . . your speech?”

  “Aha!” Kota laughed. “What’s the matter? I no longer sound like the ignorant savage you took me for? Let’s just say, my education in Africa well exceeded the sixth grade. That’s just a game I like to play. You had another question?”

  John paused, trying to focus. He heard deep mooing sounds behind him and looked back at the pasture. Kota followed his gaze. “Guess you wonder how they got here? They were a donation from your ancestors. Generations ago when the white devils--the slave traders—came to this island to steal our people, their ships were also loaded with cattle from Africa. After we destroyed their ship, the cattle swam to the island. They have flourished for generations.”

  “So, you use the cows to feed it?

  “Yes,” said Kota, “among other things. We started feeding Kuta Keb-la in the daytime by putting slaughtered cows on small canoes. Other times, we would leave the carcass in the shallows, sometimes during the day and other times at night.”

  “Why the change up in methods?”

  “We wanted to expand its feeding habits,” replied Kota. “We wanted Kuta Keb-la to look to the surface for food, and if it’s not there, to come into the shallows—day or night.”

  “But what difference did its feeding habits make when you had it in captivity anyway?”

  Kota smiled. “So that upon release, it will not return to—”

  John, his eyes open in horror, cut him off. “Upon release? You mean, it’s still here? You still have it?”

  Kota continued in a somber tone, “So that upon release, it would not return to the depths of the ocean in search of food, but instead, look to the coastal areas to feed.”

  “What are you, insane?” John locked eyes with Kota. “Do you have any idea what kind of effect that thing would have on populated areas?”

  Kota’s lips widened into a malicious grin. “Exactly!”

  “But why? I thought you only trapped it to protect your people?”

  The towering native stepped back, raised his arms grandly. “At first that was true . . . until the chief’s prophecy revealed all. For Kuta Keb-la is no mortal creature, but a spirit of vengeance risen from the depths!” He glared at John, eyes ablaze. “I’ve seen your world, and it’s evil, the white man’s ships raping the sea with great nets—pollution, oil spills like the one that killed our people. You’ve used your technology to make your lives easier, but you’ve only destroyed, brought death to the sea. The sea is our life. The sea is all life.
And now the sea will reclaim all life that has been taken from it!”

  John gasped. “This is insane!”

  “No! All will know the prophecy is true when they see the first sign.” Kota looked up into the sky, “It is foretold, by the first full moon, the blood of the necala will be shed, and then innocent blood will fill the sea.” Kota paused, again with a wicked smile. “But you will see none of this!”

  With that, he pushed John, sending him stumbling along the dock. Ahead, John saw the sun reflecting from the broken glass of Brad’s underwater light. A few steps closer and he saw a puddle of blood beside the glass. His eyes followed the red smear to the edge of the dock. “What did you do with Brad?”

  “For thirty years we’ve slowly increased Kuta Keb-la’s appetite for warm blood while awaiting the sign. The sign to let Kuta Keb-la fulfill the prophecy and drive man back onto land where he belongs.”

  Kota turned and pointed to the wall behind the cow pasture. “All this time no white man has ever entered our sacred ground.” John looked to the top of the wall and saw the rope dangling from the grappling hook. “Last night, your friend violated our sacred ground. This we take to be the sign!”

  In that instant, John’s astonishment faded, and his stomach churned in fear. “What’ve you done with Brad?” he demanded, fearing he knew the answer.

  Kota’s mouth stretched once again into that unsettling smile. “Last night Kuta Keb-la had his second taste of white meat. Today he’ll have, as you people say, one more for the road!”

  John looked to an area of the dock about thirty yards ahead where several men poured blood into the lagoon from a barrel. Behind them were the tops of the large gated doors that separated the lagoon from the open sea.

  John turned to the chief. He looked into his smoldering eyes, searching for the slightest trace of reason. But he saw nothing; the eyes were dead, vacant, as if the chief were under a hypnotic spell. Again, John looked at the tribesmen as they poured blood in front of the gated doors, “Why—why are they doing that?”