by DAN MONTY
“You came back to me," Abby said. Bo closed his eyes, nodding his head. Abby and Bo stood apart, looking each other up and down.
“You look like shit!” Abby said, and Bo laughed.
“You look as beautiful as the day I left the island," he said, opening his shirt and pulling a necklace over his head, offering it to her. The great white shark tooth on a necklace she had given him all those years earlier. Abby took it in her hand, studying it.
“You kept this?” she asked, and Bo nodded, taking a deep breath.
“I wore it every day. I thought about you every single moment and... I knew I would see you again. Nothing in my life made sense after I left that island. I hunted a savage bull shark, and I’d look out into the water every night hoping you’d leap up from the water and into my arms. I wanted to say so much to you, Eagleeye... but it’s too late. I waited too long and I’m sorry!” Bo said.
John and Beverly exchanged glances as the final wave of seagulls passed over their heads.
“Abby we have to go!” John said. Abby nodded. Bo was about to speak again, but something caught his eye, looking towards the beach he stopped still and stared.
“Bo? What’s wrong?” Abby asked. Bo pointed to the beach.
Bo, Abby, John, and Beverly stood frozen in awe as the tide rolled out to sea as if it was being sucked out towards the horizon. The sand slowly grew and grew as the waves were pulled out to sea, revealing soaking sand beneath.
“The water is pulling back... “ Beverly said. Bo’s mouth fell open, sweat dripping down his face.
“Oh my God," Bo uttered, “We have to get out of here now!” John was standing in front of him.
“What is it? What’s wrong now?” John asked. Bo started moving off the beach.
“If we don’t get out of here right now we are going to die! RUN!” Bo said, and the four of them took off running towards the car park across the street.
Bo smashed open a car window and Abby, Beverly, and John jumped into the car. Bo checked in the glove compartment, and under the sun visor, for a set of keys that fell onto his lap. He stuck the keys into the ignition of the Ford Falcon, and fired up the engine.
The car drove out onto the road and sped along the beach, John looking out at the horizon and freaking out. A massive wall of water was rising, creating a giant wave about three thousand feet high... and it was coming right for the beach.
“HOLY SHIT!!! DRIVE!!!!” John screamed, as the others caught sight of the mega tsunami making its way towards the land.
Bo floored it, speeding the car onto the street and gunning it towards the city along the tram tracks. The massive wave rose and rose, speeding towards the bay.
The towering wave washed over the hotels and restaurants along the edge of the bay, blowing through them like they were paper, the impact shattering glass and lifting parked cars off the car park and sending them crashing through walls of the hotel. The supports of the hotel buckled as the wave ploughed through the buildings, completely submerging the hotels and restaurants.
The wave washed over Luna park, buckling the track of the rollercoaster, snapping it in half and sending the broken piece spinning through the water, the laughing face of the clown at the entrance shattering under the pressure of the rushing ocean water. The wave kept rising, devouring everything in its path – a nearby theatre also being easily swallowed by the sea.
The gargantuan wave pushed through St Kilda, drowning the entire seaside town, crashing through wooden houses, shattering them to pieces. Traffic lights were ripped apart, sucked into the angry mouth of the towering waves as the wall of ocean water pushed onward.
At the marina, boats and yachts were pulled under the water, and sent tumbling through the rushing ocean – the angry sea pushing the water crafts through buildings and homes, adding to the chaos.
The Ford Falcon sped towards the city, screaming down Swanston Street with the wall of water towering over their heads behind them. Bo turned into Flinders Street, then onto Elizabeth, flooring it down the almost empty street, gunning it towards the Queen Victoria Market.
“WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!!!” John screamed, looking out of the rear window at the monstrous wave which had now reached the city. Flinders Street Station crumbled as the wall of water crashed through, devouring everything in its path.
The remaining people on the street looked up in horror as the giant wave crashed through the city, bursting through towering buildings, shattering glass and crumbling structures as they were swallowed by the sea.
One man was eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut as he stepped out of 7-Eleven, looking upward as the wave ripped through the street, tossing him into the furious sea – the doughnut sucked far from his reach as his body was tossed about, ripped apart, and scattered by ocean water and shattered building fragments.
The Ford sped past the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Bo hit the breaks, looking in horror at the road ahead. It was blocked with traffic.
“NO! GODDAMMIT!” he screamed, and opened his door.
“COME ON WE HAVE TO GO NOW!!” Bo yelled. His passengers got out of the car, running along the street.
They ran through the traffic which wasn’t moving at all, running past parked cars full of frustrated drivers and families.
Behind them, the wave was still coming – a massive wall of water rushing for them. Bo ushered his three companions into a nearby building, opening the door and pulling them inside, slamming the door closed.
“What are we doing?? We won’t stand a chance!” John insisted. Bo nodded.
“Look, we are going under. This building might protect us a little – but out there? We are already dead. Abby? Come here!” Bo said. Abby rushed over to him.
“I’m sorry, okay? We’re not going to make it,” he said. John and Beverly started pacing and freaking out. Bo stayed calm.
“We only have a few minutes, but I gotta tell you something. I wanted to tell you I love you! Okay? That’s all! I love you Abby! I always have!” he insisted, and Abby cried, taking him in her arms.
“Bo, please! You just came back into my life! Don’t... You can’t leave me again... “ Abby said, tears in her eyes.
“Abby listen to me. Our time is over. You were meant to survive this. You have a higher purpose! You are special, Abby. You always were,” he said. Abby cried, falling to her knees.
“Bo we can survive! I know we can!” Abby said, not really believing her own words but unable to accept the truth.
The building was a hall of some kind, and offered little in the way of comfort, only a few wooden chairs which Beverly and John sat in. There were tears in Bo's eyes, as the distant sound of rushing water and crashing debris could be heard outside.
Abby looked into Bo's eyes and he looked into hers. They kissed, tears streaming down their cheeks as the world around them seemed to fall into absolute silence.
The wall of water crashed through the hall, flooding the room with water as Bo and Abby kissed passionately. Tables were tossed upward, John and Beverly thrown out of their seats as the outer walls crumbled, sucking them out of the large room. Bo and Abigale were tossed around, thrown apart by the rushing water as Abigale morphed into her mermaid form, turning around to find Bo but he was gone. The walls around her burst outward, the wooden walls smashing under the intense water pressure as she lost sense of balance and was sucked into the rushing ocean water. Abby swam with the current, swimming with the wave as it rushed through the streets, tearing through buildings and tossing cars, trees, and people through the water around her. Abby swished her tail, avoiding debris flying towards her in the rushing water. She pushed onward, a large garbage bin rushing at her and knocking her unconscious. Everything went black.
Chapter Nine: The Sunken City
Abigale opened her eyes to an underwater world of shattered windows and floating debris. She looked at her clawed hands, taking in her surroundings and soaking in the realization that she had been knocked unconscious and woken up underwater – i
n the surreal experience of the submerged metropolis that surrounded her, Abby floated over Bourke Street, looking down at the destruction before her eyes – the streets were far below her tail as it flapped in the cool water, keeping her swimming. Keeping her alive.
The city of Melbourne was completely submerged, the streets creating a new ocean floor. Wrecked cars, and broken traffic lights, littered the ground below her and she swam down towards the streets that sparkled with light from the sun high above her head. All manner of creatures drifted with the current – fish swam through broken buildings and torn structures as the once living, breathing city, suddenly revealed its new self – cold, blue, and teeming with aquatic life navigating new surroundings.
Abigale swum, her bluish body camouflaging her in the water; a deathly quiet abyss that was once a busy, thriving city. Myer and David Jones were open, but now completely flooded, the ground floor exhibiting a mess of floating perfume bottles and broken displays. Great green and yellow trams lay wrecked across the streets laying on their tracks, some ripped apart by floating debris. Abby swam towards Swanston Street, which ran through Bourke, swimming over fallen traffic lights and damaged cars. She couldn’t believe the devastation – a city she had loved despite its bizarre weather and insane laws, yet here it was, swallowed by the sea.
Abigale swam towards a 7-Eleven on Swanston Street. The man who had worked there was floating around in the shop – his body fat and bloated from the sea water and bleeding from what ever creatures that had swum by and had a taste. Abby passed through the doors, looking around at the boxed sandwiches and chocolates floating around the shop. God bless him! The world was ending and he still didn’t leave the counter. The old guy was more reliable than the postage service.
Abigale grabbed a few floating chocolate bars, and a sandwich, swimming out of the underwater shop and out into Swanston Street again.
She opened one of the chocolate bars, as she floated down the street, taking a bite of the candy as she continued her way down the street. There were wrecked police cars, and more bodies floating, one of them a woman... her bloated face a silent scream. Abby came to the corner of Swanston Street and Flinders Street, looking at Flinders Street Station. The magnificent old building, and several behind it, had taken a beating – its architecture damaged by the sudden hit of the tidal wave. Damaged cars that had been knocked against walls and tossed through windows, rested on the once busy street, their bodies smashed and crumbled.
Abby finished her chocolate, still trying to get used to eating underwater – her gills working hard to breathe for her. Abby swum into the glorious structure of Flinders Street Station, trying to process the surreal feeling of floating over the staircase leading up into the station.
The station was full of floating bodies and Abigale gasped, swimming backward and taking in the gruesome sight. One man at first looked alive, but Abby then realised his eyes were looking through her not at her. His body drifted towards her, and she covered her mouth, the chocolate wrapper floating out of her hand. The body drifted past as another approached, and Abby sneakily swam past it noticing there was some kind of crab climbing out of his mouth. Abby gagged, closing her eyes as she swam down the stairs leading deeper into the station.
What was once a pedestrian corridor at the bottom of the staircase used to provide access to train platforms – and the far end used to be an exit to the riverside. Abby moved through the hideously grotesque floating corpses that drifted out of the entrances to the platforms. Pushing through, she swam faster, coming to the staircase that lead out of the station at the other end and up to what was once the riverside, now an underwater channel, the river and ocean now one.
Abby swam upward from what was formerly the riverside. She looked out across the city, taking in the full scale of the cityscape that had just become completely submerged underwater. Everyone was dead. She was all alone.
A loud noise from inside the station caused her to spin around wildly, her heightened senses on full alert as she stared back towards the station below; her eyes a glowing, piercing blue. She swam closer, cautiously, and another sound rang out, almost like a steel pipe banging against the tiled walls of the station corridor. Something moved in there.
Abigale flapped her tail, pushing herself through the water quickly to move to the passage she had just swum out of. Slowly, she turned the corner coming face to face with a great white shark.
The great fish had knocked some lights as its twenty-four foot body swam through the tunnel. Its jaws opened wide at Abby’s face and she did the only thing that at that moment made any sense to her – she swam.
Abigale flapped her tail furiously, swimming out of the station, and upward, swimming over the top of Flinders Street Station. The shark was fast, opening its massive jaws and swishing its tail as it pursued her with stalking ferocity.
Abigale swam as fast as she could, gliding over Flinders Street and down towards Elizabeth with the massive shark in hot pursuit. Abby turned to see how close the female white was, recoiling in horror when she saw it was right behind her, baring a mouthful of three hundred razor sharp teeth, not unlike the one she wore around her neck. She darted upward, swimming against the towering buildings that climbed up and up, most of the windows had shattered from the force of the giant wave tearing through the city. Windows flew past her as the shark gained on her, and Abigale frantically tried to plan an escape.
Abby navigated the bizarre new terrain as quickly as she could, darting between buildings, and dodging hanging streetlights and signs. She swam quickly into an alleyway between two buildings, quickly realizing it had become much darker. She glided through a smashed open window, swimming into an abandoned apartment twelve floors up from the street below.
She whirled around as the ferocious shark tried to follow her through the window but was unable to squeeze through, its head pushing into the room as it wriggled and snapped its jaws trying to get closer to Abby.
Abby swam backward as the shark shook its head, trying to push itself through the window. Snapping it’s jaws wildly as Abby floated around in the room, looking around the room of floating furniture for something – anything useful to use as a weapon. She swam over to the kitchen and pulled open a drawer, seizing a knife and ducking her head as a toaster drifted past her head. She held the knife tightly in her hand returning to the window to face the shark – but it was gone.
“Shit!” Abby exclaimed, talking perfectly underwater. She looked towards the window, swimming closer to it carefully. Had it gone? Where was it? She approached the window and the shark pushed it’s face through again, causing Abby to yelp in fright. She reached out with the knife, stabbing it through the head once, twice, and thrice for luck.
Blood filled the water, and the shark pulled away from the window, swimming away from the nasty mermaid with the shiny blade. It had not been killed, but she had wounded the beast good, it was bleeding which hopefully meant it would be eaten by something else.
Abby sighed, moving away from the window, and back into the apartment of floating furniture and the drifting toaster, which she had almost smacked her head on before. She looked at the knife in her hands, and reached for the curtains grabbing the curtain rod. She allowed the curtains to float away freely, the blue light of the ocean now shining into the apartment. She seized a ball of string as she went through the other drawers, wrapping the string around the knife handle and the curtain rod binding them together and fashioning a spear. She laughed to herself for a moment, the experience of laughing underwater truly unusual to her. She used to think that the city was dangerous before and that was just because of the people.
Now, the predators of the city had teeth, and if Abby was going to survive she would need to keep her wits about her. God only knew what was lurking in the waters of the city now.
On the island of Aquatica, some of her best friends had been part-shark. Mako and Hammer got wild at times, but they had killed sharks for her – even cooked and eaten them with her. Despi
te the fact that Abby was technically a sea creature herself through genetic mutation, however did not mean that the oceans predators did not see her as food. Regular sharks could be dangerous and would eat anything, unless they were of course trained like the guard sharks of Queen Teera which protected the mermaids and mermen of the underwater city of New Aquatica.
Abby missed the mermaids. There was a time when she had thought she was the only one, but Hans Strucker had created hundreds like her. Abby could have even been queen herself, only she wanted to act as a missionary on the island and educate the shark-men to control their aggressive urges, an act of kindness that nearly killed her when Ivan The Terrible rose to power, taking over the island himself and encouraging the other shark-men to be savage and warlike.
The mermaids were generally peaceful, but Abby had always felt more comfortable on the island. She did not deny her mermaid gifts, but preferred to walk on land. She felt somewhat freakish beneath the sea – bluish skin, claws, razor-sharp teeth... nope. Abby had not asked for these abilities. Had she been given a choice she would likely have refused them. However, now it seemed she had no choice. The land was gone, and one way or another... Abigale was going to have to learn to accept the monster within. The thing she had been made into was who she had become now, and for the time being at least – there was simply no land to run off to.
Chapter Ten: The Chase
Abby leaned towards the window of the underwater apartment, glancing down to the street far below. There was no sign of the great white as Abby pushed herself through the window, spear in her hand as she swam out into the murky depths of the underwater city.