Zombie Shark

by Stephen D. Sullivan

  The beast bobbed in a crater of wreckage, surrounded by flotsam and floundering people, lashing out with its enormous scythelike tail, churning the water red with the blood of the dead and dying.

  “Keep shooting!” Admiral Jorum commanded the town’s remaining defenders, many of whom had already begun to flee.

  “Scaletown!” Vard cried, sprinting across the shattered boardwalks. The big smith hurled himself through the air and landed atop the creature’s back, just behind the head. “Scaletown!” he screamed again as he brought his huge mattock down.

  The hammer’s head was the size of a half barrel, and it landed with a spine-shattering CRUNCH!

  The blow would have killed any normal creature, but the undead shark merely rolled over, dumping the smith into the water. Then it sliced him in two with a single thrash of its tail.

  Admiral Jorum was still trying to rally the troops, but it was no use. People fled in all directions now, some racing toward their homes, others trying to reach their boats.

  The shark turned them all into unrecognizable red gore, gnawing its way through the intervening boats and walkways and smashing any structures it encountered into splinters. Scaletown was rapidly coming apart at the seams.

  The cries of the dead, the dying, and the terrified filled the hot late-afternoon air.

  Somehow, amid the catastrophe, Selni kept tending to the wounded.

  She dragged a man missing both of his legs out of the water and set him on a momentarily stable section of docking. Blood covered the healer from head to toe, though she moved as though she was uninjured.

  Turning, she locked eyes with Nissa.

  Through the whole, horrible spectacle, the young mage, Arzu, and Rat had lain paralyzed, propped up on their hands and knees, unable to move, unable to scream, barely even able to think.

  “Run, you fools!” Selni shouted at them, and that broke their mental paralysis.

  The two women and the girl staggered to their feet.

  As they did, the shark burst from the water behind Selni.

  WHOMP!

  The enormous jaws snapped shut, and all that remained of the healer and the legless man was a spray of red mist.

  FIVE

  The shark smashed down on the walkway, the vibrations threatening to knock over the three terrified girls.

  Somehow, the trio managed to keep their footing.

  They turned away from the horrifying scene and began running as fast as they could, heading deeper into the village. As they ran, the shark ravaged the rest of the town, hunting down the people who remained behind.

  Blood pounded in Nissa’s ears. Unfelt tears clouded her eyes. The stifling smells of gore, salt, splintered wood, and smoke filled the air. Smoke—! Somehow, amid this awful sea battle, something must have caught fire in one of the houseboats, and now the blaze was spreading.

  Cries of terror from the still-living townsfolk mixed with the thunder of rending wood and bamboo and the crackle of flames.

  “Gods of Mercy … Please!” Arzu pleaded, covering her ears as she ran.

  She staggered, but Nissa pulled her up, kept her going.

  Nissa had to pull Rat along as well. Despite the danger, the girl kept looking back, her eyes wide, at once terrified and fascinated by the carnage.

  “All gonna die,” Rat whispered.

  “Not today!” Nissa snarled, thrusting the other two in front of her.

  A horrible rending sound split the air, and the bamboo streetway behind them splintered as the shark burst through it, barely a dozen yards away. It flailed its rotting head, gore-stained jaws snapping.

  Rat screamed, and Arzu tripped and staggered to her knees.

  Nissa wheeled, fear sharpening her focus, and spoke a magical word of power: “Pinu!”

  Three daggers of white light blazed from her hand and struck the undead shark in the face, just below the left eye. The magic burst into blinding sparks, but she might as well have been throwing pebbles for all the effect it seemed to have.

  The shark lunged at the trio, its huge bulk sundering the boardwalks like a knife cutting roast mutton. Fortunately, the beast remained too far away to reach them.

  “Run!” Nissa told the others as a huge part of the burning town behind them broke off and started floating away. She pushed Arzu to her feet and shoved Rat onward. The young mage would buy time with her own life if she had to. Concentrating, she summoned the formulas of the shield spell to mind. The enchantment would afford her only a few moments of protection, but those moments might allow her lover and the girl to escape.

  But the sundering of Scaletown seemed to distract the monster. It turned, sensing a new disturbance in the water. As part of the village sank in hissing, burning wreckage, a flotilla of boats appeared on the far side: the remainder of the town’s fleeing inhabitants.

  Admiral Jorum sailed at the head of them, his longboat filled with frantically rowing men and women. Other, smaller craft, trailed in the longboat’s wake.

  Are they fast enough to escape? Nissa wondered. Where will they go? The next instant, she knew the answer.

  The undead monster whirled and dived into the foaming waves, heading straight for the tiny fleet.

  The flotilla would not be fast enough, Nissa realized; they would join the rest of Scaletown, below the waves and in the belly of the beast.

  Fear clenched at Nissa’s heart. Rat’s prophecy was coming true: We’re all going to die!

  “C’mon,” Arzu slurred, pulling weakly on Nissa’s arm. “We have to keep going!”

  What’s the point? Nissa thought. There’s nowhere we can run to, nowhere we can hide!

  But the look on her lover’s face and the sight of the scared little girl convinced Nissa that they had to keep trying.

  Frantically, the three of them dashed through the remaining skeleton of Scaletown—now seemingly a flotsam ghost ship at the mercy of the waves and the monster.

  As they ran, Nissa tried to block out the screams of Admiral Jorum and his fleet, tried to ignore the smoke and the stench of death, tried to focus only on her lover and the child.

  How could they survive this holocaust? How?

  The infirmary appeared before them, bobbing on the surging waves caused by the zombie shark’s attack. The bamboo-walled shack, which had once appeared so inadequate to Nissa, now looked to be one of the last solid structures in the rapidly sinking village. Devon, the healer’s apprentice, stood in the door, his pale face peering into the chaos.

  “I—I waited,” he stammered. “I waited for you to come back, but… What’s happening? I-is it … pirates?”

  Nissa could tell from the quaver in his voice that the teenager had been too afraid to see what was going on for himself.

  “He’s come back,” Rat hissed, her voice raspy from the smoke. “He’s come back to kill us.”

  Devon looked even more confused. “Who?” he asked as the group pushed past him and into the imagined safety of the infirmary.

  “The wizard,” the little girl replied. “Magrum Saark!”

  Nissa shook her head. Rat was clearly delusional. “No,” the young mage began. “It’s—” Then she stopped, a chill running through her whole body, despite the heat of the day.

  What if the little girl was right? What if, in some way, the evil warlock had returned in the shape of a giant fish? Certainly, this was no normal animal; it reeked of dark magic, though Nissa had never had time to use her enchantment-detection spell to confirm that fact.

  “It’s what?” Devon asked.

  “It… it’s the same,” Arzu said, plopping down hard on one of the infirmary’s cots. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes with her trembling hands.

  Devon seemed caught between confusing and panic. “The same as what?”

  And suddenly, Nissa realized that her lover was right—and so was Rat.

  “It’s the same shark we fought before!” Nissa announced. “The same shark we killed!”

  “What?” Devon blurted. “You say
ing some shark is tearin’ up the city? That ain’t possible!” The apprentice healer’s incredulity seemed to be overwhelming his fear now. “Ain’t no shark could sink Scaletown! It’s gotta be pirates!”

  Arzu shook her head wearily. She looked as though she might pass out at any moment. “This is no ordinary shark…”

  “No,” Nissa said. “It’s the corpse of a huge monster, and if Rat is right, it’s been reanimated, somehow, by that warlock your village executed.”

  “I tol’ you,” Rat said. “But no one listened.”

  “We’re listening now,” Nissa told her, trying to block out the echoes of Jorum’s dying flotilla, trying not to think of all those people, eaten one by one or drowned in the wreckage of the village. “Tell us what you know.”

  “I seen it in my dream,” Rat said quietly. “He were too mean to die. He’s found another skin—shark’s skin—and he’s come back to get us. He ain’t gonna stop until we’re all dead.”

  Nissa thought about the way the shark had acted. This was not the huge-but-simple-minded predator that she and Arzu had faced before. This beast had chosen its victims, turned away from easy prey—from the three of them—to cause greater carnage.

  Could Rat and Arzu be right? Had the corpse of the monster shark been possessed by the warlock? It seemed possible, even likely—but how?

  “That’s crazy!” Devon insisted, pacing around the infirmary, shaking with fear and agitation. “You’re all mad! The whole world’s gone mad!”

  “Mad or not, that’s what we’re facing,” Nissa said, “and we need to figure out how we’re going to fight it.”

  “But Admiral Jorum—” Devon began.

  “Is dead!” Nissa spat the words at him. “Everybody’s dead but us—so far as we know.”

  “An’ we’ll be dead soon,” Rat added quietly.

  “No!” Nissa replied. “We have to think! Have to figure out a plan!”

  “I only wish I could think, Niss,” Arzu said. “My head’s spinning, and I—” Her eyes rolled up and she slumped to the cot, murmuring softly.

  Nissa couldn’t make out her words. “We need her,” the young mage told Devon. “We need her awake and able to help! She has some spells … Well, I don’t know what good they might do, but… What can you do to wake her up?”

  “She’s still sick,” Devon protested. “Silver kelp extract might bring her around, but it’d be dangerous. She might backslide...”

  Nissa scowled. “And if we don’t wake her, we’re all dead. We’re going to need every one of us to fight this thing. Do it.”

  Devon nodded reluctantly and fetched a silvery powder from a jar on a shelf. He mixed it with a bit of water, and then tipped the infusion into Arzu’s mouth, holding her head while she drank.

  “How long will it take to act?” Nissa asked.

  “Right away. See? She’s stirring already.”

  Arzu moaned softly and her eyelids fluttered.

  “Listen!” Rat hissed.

  “We are listening,” Nissa said. “She isn’t saying anything yet.” What had Arzu been trying to tell them?

  “No!” Rat insisted. “Listen!”

  Nissa and Devon stopped what they were doing and listened.

  “I don’ hear anything,” Devon said.

  Nissa’s entire body tensed. The remains of the village had fallen as silent as a watery grave. “It’s coming!” she said. “Everyone get ready!”

  “Is it the pirates?” Devon asked, apparently still unwilling to believe what they’d told him. He got to his feet and looked around, panic rising.

  “I’m ready,” Arzu said, jerking upright on the bed, like a puppet whose string has been pulled. She didn’t look ready—she looked like hell—but at least she was conscious.

  “I’m ready,” said Rat, clutching her ragged-edged knife. “An’ it ain’t pirates. It’s him.”

  “You’re telling me some undead wizard is coming here?” Devon asked, his teenage voice squeaking.

  Rat shrugged. “He killed everybody else.”

  “She’s right,” Nissa said, forcing herself to remain calm. “The shark’ll be coming for us now. Can you fight?”

  “I—” Devon stammered, “I’m a healer, not a warrior. I—”

  And then the floor erupted beneath him.

  SIX

  Splinters of bamboo shot to the ceiling, and Devon barely managed to scramble out of the way as the monster’s head thrust up, out of the floorboards, jaws snapping.

  “Lindu kuat!” Nissa cried, and a shimmering magical bubble appeared, surrounding her and the others.

  The shark’s rotting head thrashed sideways, and its hand-sized teeth struck the protective magic.

  Nissa shuddered, struggling to maintain concentration against the force of the attack, but the shield held. The massive jaws turned away, and sparks flew from something glittering inside the monster’s mouth.

  Devon shrieked, his voice register momentarily returning to what it had been before puberty.

  “Bola rashan bakar!” Arzu chanted, and threw a scintillating ball of green energy at the monster.

  “No!” Nissa cried, fearing that being so close to the explosive spell would kill them all.

  “Kinil!” Arzu finished, ignoring her and speaking the word that would set off the magic.

  Nissa braced for the explosion, trying to shield Rat with her own body, but the blast never came. Instead, the deadly magic sparked and sizzled before vanishing with a WHOOSH!

  Something about the failed spell, though, seemed to do the trick, because the shark twisted and dived back under the water with a huge splash, drenching the whole of the infirmary, which was now rapidly disintegrating around them, as had the rest of the floating island.

  “Sorry,” Arzu said, “I—” She put one hand to her head. “My concentration…”

  “It’s all right,” Nissa told her, secretly glad that the hex hadn’t worked.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Devon declared. “If you’re smart, you’ll follow me.” Without waiting for a reply, he dashed across the floating wreckage, and out the gaping hole in the infirmary wall where the door had been.

  “No, wait—” Nissa called, but it was too late. Already the young healer was skipping across the wreckage like a kid jumping stepping stones.

  “Look out!” Arzu screamed.

  Devon turned back just as the shark surged up out of the water. It slid its rotting body across the wreckage, the way Nissa had once seen a sea lion skid onto a beach to catch a seagull, and grabbed the teenager by the legs.

  The youngster screamed as the monster bit down, filling the air with the snap of breaking bones.

  “Lindu!” Nissa shouted, but he was too far away for her shield to reach.

  With a vicious shaking of its head, the undead fish snapped the boy in two, gobbled up both bits, and then slid back beneath the wave.

  “Bola rashan bakar!” Arzu screamed, tossing another of her deadly balls of energy.

  This one soared straight and true into the eddy created by the beast’s departure.

  “Kinil!” Arzu said, triggering the magic.

  WHOOMPH!

  The sea where the spell had vanished surged up into a dome of white swirling water, pushing the disintegrating pieces of the town away in every direction. Scaletown itself had become a flotilla now, a fleet of disorganized wreckage, some burning, much bloodstained, all eerily silent save for the ebb and surge of the waves.

  As the dome of the explosion settled, the monster reappeared, surfacing beyond where the hex had struck.

  The beast turned back toward the three companions, the sun gleaming off of its huge, yellowish teeth.

  “Die, you rotten sonofaslug! Die!” Rat screamed. She ran forward across the flotsam, brandishing her tiny knife, heading straight toward the gaping jaws of the beast.

  Astonishingly, the monster turned away, diving down below the wreckage once more.

  Nissa and Arzu gaped, astounded.


  Is the knife magical? Nissa wondered, and whispered the spell that would allow her to see enchantments. “Sihir vilat!”

  But the knife didn’t glow within her sight. Then what…?

  Then it occurred to her: this was the blade that had killed Magrum Saark, given to Rat by the warlock’s executioners. Though merely a fishgutting knife, it remained fearsome for the man it had slain.

  “That bastard’s soul is in the carcass,” Arzu said, confirming Nissa’s deduction. “He’s afraid of the girl’s knife!”

  Rat stood on a floating piece of walkway, a tiny “raft” in the middle of the wreckage, looking every which way, trying to find her foe.

  “Come out, you son of a sea slug!” she screamed.

  Suddenly, the makeshift raft surged upward as the monster burst straight up from the water beneath it.

  “Lindu kuat!” Nissa shouted, silently praying that this time her spell would have enough range.

  The zombie shark flung its jaws wide as the raft tumbled aside, hurling the startled girl into the air above the beast’s undead maw.

  Rat screamed, and the precious knife tumbled from her hand.

  The monster snapped its teeth shut with bone-crushing force.

  But Nissa’s magical bubble protected the child. Rat and the shield bounced off of the creature’s decaying nose, and the enchanted bubble bounded away—vanishing as it flew out of range.

  The knife fell straight for the monster’s mouth.

  The shark wheeled and crashed back into the white caps, avoiding the knife and diving away, just as Rat tumbled, screaming, into the waves in the opposite direction. The girl splashed down hard and then resurfaced, floating face-up, unmoving.

  Nissa watched, unsure what to do. The monster had vanished once more, and Rat lay beyond the range of the young mage’s protective magic.

  “Get the knife!” Arzu said, her tone more a command than a suggestion.

  “But—” Nissa replied, her eyes locked on the girl.

  “The knife is its enemy,” Arzu told her lover. “If we have it, the beast will come for us.”

  Nissa reached out with her mind, chanting the formulas of the metal-summoning spell, the one she’d learned to rescue treasure from the sea bottom.