by Dennis Fueyo
“Emelia, dear,” the voice buzzed through the radio, saying, “meet me in your little boyfriend’s pea-sized brain.”
She shut her eyes, focusing on Sam, Leave him alone!
Sam bellowed, “My brain’s hemispheres are ripping apart, make it stop!”
I wonder if I could rip his brain apart. He’s not the dashing hero I’ve heard about.
Emelia squinted, Who is this? What do you want?
Hello, cousin! I wish we did not have to meet this way, but Grandpa considered me a mistake, you know.
Tom rushed to Sam and tossed a blanket over his shoulders. “Hang in there, Son, she will protect you.” He grabbed Sam’s hands and rubbed them in vigorous friction.
Cousin? Emelia concentrated, Who are you?
You know my name, hushed in family hallways and over stewing kitchen pots. I am the one they don’t speak about. The one crawling over your dishware behind the cabinet door after the lights go out. The one spinning a web between the frame and the wall over your head, dropping down at night to tickle your lips and inspect the dark crevices of your ears and nose. The one hanging beyond the corner of your peripheral vision. You know I am there, but you don’t see me coming. Eva’s bastard child.
Clark?
As a courtesy to my mother, I offer you safety on board my ship. I can provide whatever pleases you: food, warmth, clothing — a soft bed.
Please, can we talk on the radio? Sam is in immense pain.
No, I like it here. Sam’s brain is small, like a warm cocoon. I think I might try disconnecting the cortex. Never tried it before.
Ok, Clark, I’ll surrender. Please, let him go, and my friends.
No, I think I would prefer to destroy them. What do you care, you’re a Stone. They are insignificant.
A rush of memories flooded over her mind. She watched Sam and Tom play in a sunshine soaked, lush garden. She felt Sam’s concern seeing his mother’s vacant stare through a rain-soaked window. Sam’s anguish punched her heart as she watched Tom leave to work at Fort Dix. She tremored in his anxiety, wanting to protect Lisa Mason home alone in vulnerable Raleigh.
This man is weak. Forget about him.
Get out! She focused all her energy on Sam’s consciousness. Then, a deeper rumble shook her. The closet door in Sam’s mind swung shut and darkness consumed her, followed by a distinct, guttural sound—too many travelers in Sam Mason’s brain, I think that. Out you go, Clark Stone. Goodbye, Emelia Stone.
Sunlight washed her eyes popping open, and Sam screamed, his back arched, and went limp. Static hummed over the radio, then a voice hummed, “I have no problem killing you, Emelia. As I said, this is nothing more than a courtesy to my mother.”
Emelia staggered over to the boat’s port railing. Holding her head up against a downpour, she searched the jacker’s boats finding one with a 20 mm gun. Her arms twitched, entering the jacker holding its trigger. Turning him around, he squeezed loosening a stream of shells across the deck. Its captain and crew sliced in half, she sicked the gunner on nearby boats sinking two in seconds. A hard flick struck her shoulder. The gunner fell, chest burst open by a sniper.
Clark Stone’s voice crossed the airwaves into the Diver scuba boat, “I’ll tell mother I tried. Goodbye, Emelia. Say hello to Grandpa Arnold.” Clark’s voice paused and laughed. “Oh hell, say hi to mother as well!”
A five-inch shell erupted near their small boat. Tom Mason pushed Sam Mason into a rain-soaked donning seat. “Son, are you alright?”
“Get me in the damn water! I need to recalibrate.”
Tom helped both Lou Frasier and Sam strap their tanks and then scrambled to get his own gear on. Abu Zaid slid over to aid him, snapping the BC in place and checking weights. Along with Juan Delgado, they guided the men on the ledge and assisted back-rolls into the sea.
Another burst flung blobs of salty water across the deck. Its shockwave knocked Sheila Briggs over the side. Juan swept up his rifle and opened fire, joining Shaquan White already sending a steady array of bullets at the jacker armada. Abu dove after Sheila.
Emelia Stone wreaked havoc on the jackers. Capturing the nervous system of a captain, she guided his boat into another, sinking both in a brilliant explosion. Anyone she could grasp became an extension of her wrath. She knew Clark Stone existed. The boogeyman of the Stones. Her grandfather complained having to get her aunt, Eva Stone, “out of a jam.” Translation, Emelia hypothesized, it regarded her Aunt Eva Stone; Arnold Stone had to help Eva reign in Clark. She needed to focus on the jacker onslaught. She rolled up her stomper jacket sleeves, exposing her dark, lateral lines and tucked back her perfectly bobbed hair.
Blinding trails of lightening brought rolling thunder up against the boat’s windshield. Bullets drilled into the boat’s side and ventilated its ceiling. Another typical day in North Carolina.
∆ ∆ ∆
Lou descended eight meters underwater and extended his own mental hand feeling for large animals. Like a star-nosed mole, his thoughts fondled the depths for recruits. Sam and Tom lowered near him, on guard to ensure he would have no interruptions. Booming thumps vibrated their eardrums from the surface.
Sam knew what Lou needed. There had to be a couple of them. They fed off the wreck-filled Carolina waters like maggots on meat. He looked up to check on the small scuba boat. Abu was struggling to carry Sheila back on board. He wanted to help him recover her, but had faith in Abu’s superior survivor skills. They are both accomplished tribal soldiers, he thought. Need to focus on the mission.
Rearing back, Lou drew his hand upward. He had something.
Sam’s neck pulsed the tempo of his heartbeat. Eyes deep below in the euphotic zone reflecting surface light glued onto him. Behind the glowing orbs, an enormous figure. Its girth hinted it carried over ten massive tons.
The huge biggen cruised upward to within arm’s distance of Sam receptive to the next command from Lou.
Lou swayed his arm, directing the giant shark upward towards the front-running jacker vessel. A few swishes of the biggen’s powerful tail sent it careening at the transport. Its staggering speed reached at least 40 mph upon striking the boat, crumpling it as if made of tin and launching jetsam into the ocean. The creature picked out several floundering jackers in the water and returned to Lou.
That monster is like his pet fish, Sam thought.
Lou repeated the volley again and again. Boats lurched out the water in a spectacular display of split wood and gear or crinkled into metal fortune cookies. With unrelenting hunger, the biggen shucked its food, exposing soft jacker cores. Stragglers desperately fought back while floundering in the ocean froth. They fired wet bullet casings and threw whaling spears, trying to hit either Lou or his behemoth pet.
Sam’s father got to work.
A few strokes of Tom’s fins propelled him over 15 mph, causing his mask to slip down his neck. Letting it hang loose, he used his radial arms to “see” underwater. Firing the watercannon Juan gave him, he stilled panicked jackers, one shell each. If he did not have time to reload, he combined heightened reflexes with combat moves Sam had never seen in any martial arts class. Lifeless jacker bodies with broken backs and necks floated down past the thermocline.
Watching them drift below, Sam caught sight of another biggen rising upward. A gam of sand tiger sharks and barracuda glided in the eight-ton creature’s wake. He found his nerve and prepared to steer them clear of Lou. Pulling a spotter party favor from a dive pack strapped to his BC, he screamed into his regulator upon seeing an arm stick out near his ear. Not a haunted arm, thankfully. Attached to Lou and reaching towards the other giant shark.
Steering his hands, Lou conducted the two biggens as if leading Beethoven’s Ninth. Waving one hand up and sliding the other, both sharks bounced boats out of the ocean and snacked away at their contents.
Sam pumped his arm and yelled heartily, “Yahoo!” They were winning.
Sheila and Abu had made it back on the scuba boat. It was taking on water but remain
ed steadfast against the enemy’s onslaught. A cutter keeled, hit by 5” shells from the other.
Emelia Stone, you are such a rebel, Sam thought, beaming. He imagined her working themselves into the sea. Audrey Hepburn eyes. We are going to win!
You’re a predictable, cocky little shit, aren’t you?
Sam’s temples stung upon the invasion of his mind.
You left Diver resources unguarded on our first charge, and you did it again to preempt our second.
Frantic, he aimed his watercannon upward searching the surface.
Shame the Diver’s reinforcements came up the coast. What a pity, Wilmington stays behind in its weakened state.
Underwater the psychic attack stung less but still felt like branding irons pressed against Sam’s head. He responded, Clark? Where are you — you are next!
My job here is done, Samuel. Scuba diving looks fun, but I need to return and prepare my technicians. After we burn away the bodies in Wilmington, they can get the water trade back online.
Help me understand, panic screwed into Sam’s mind, how your pathetic jackers will overtake the Divers. Looks to me like you are getting your ass kicked into your teeth.
Sam simulated pathways on this mental writing board. Unexpected alliances, military betrayal, or inside operatives: all were possibilities. The highest probability would be an unexpected alliance with a neighboring tribe or gang, allowing the jackers to utilize a surprise attack. Inside operatives were the least expensive. Spies using the Diver’s defenses against themselves, but no Diver would ever turn on their tribe.
Ass kicked into my teeth, how quaint. Look at your little mind race! I will help you — ground forces started their assault simultaneously with ours.
Good, Sam thought, without your ships, they will be gator food in an hour.
What a pity, so overconfident you are, Samuel. No, once you plopped in the water like the little turd you are, I coded in Outpost 31.
Recognizing the unforeseen variable caused him to wretch. Sam surrounded himself by others capable of detecting this type of attack; the theft’s plausibility remained questionable.
It was not hard; I plucked the passkey phrase from your memory and regurgitated it into your pathetic elder’s ears. I had to throw a dozen resources at my cousin to keep her busy but they distracted her long enough. Too bad you could not watch Wilmington launch itself off the planet. I would say the Divers fought bravely, but they didn’t. So focused on executing your directive, my jackers consumed them.
Sam could not respond, terrified to reveal any more.
Clark continued projecting into Sam’s mind, You’re defeating us here, so I’m going to go. I don’t need to kill everyone, Sam, just you. There is a friend of mine giddy to meet you.
Sam then felt a tug on his arm. This time, he doubted it was an inexperienced diver.
Your sticky, pestilent sentinel can’t reach you out here, Clark concluded and released Sam’s brain adding, Ta!
Nerves fried, he turned to see Tom’s eyes opened like two golf balls, an erratic finger pointing past his shoulder. Before Sam could turn to look, Tom hauled him upward ascending to the surface. The force shoved his head down to see rippling waves five meters below his feet. He presumed the source was an ocean current, but the ripples coalesced forming four appendages.
Swarms of diatoms channeled into a skinny proboscis. Two flaring red eyes opened, reaching their gaze through Sam’s optic nerve down into his gut, twisting it in knots. The orifice opened, emitting a skin-crawling shriek amplified by seawater.
Both father and son buckled and fired off watercannons in the direction of the screech.
Tom focused his watercannon sights and fired at Lou, sending a plastic bullet whizzing by his face and grabbing his attention. Lou blinked, shook his head in awe, and stiffened with outstretched lateral-lined arms. Reconnecting to the biggens, he commanded their performance crescendo.
The demonic presence crossed arms in the alacrity of their arrival plotting its next despairing act. As the closer biggen opened its mouth, human tissues wedged in its rows of teeth flapping, the evil dipteran thing dissolved back into the diatomaceous mass. The animal sickened upon ingesting the white powder of a million microscopic organisms. Blood seeped out the biggen’s mouth. It convulsed, then heaved partially digested jacker meat and sunk beyond light.
Lou released the other biggen. Snapping back to consciousness, it sped away in erratic bursts visibly rattled. He then hooked his arm under Sam’s, and with Tom drawing in the other arm, rose towards waning daylight sparkling through the surface tumult.
No need for decompression, they dove shallow.
Sam looked downward, double-checking their safety, and screamed into his regulator for the second time.
The dead biggen torpedoed at them returning from the grave. Its stomach gone, eyes polarized, and vengeance irreconcilable. Green fluids oozed from its mouth and anal pore. It opened its four-foot-wide mouth, creating a vortex down its gullet, and closed twenty meters in two torrential twists of its caudal fin.
Lou was unable to control the zombified fish. The three men aimed their wattercannons hoping Jonah’s story had an inkling of truth.
Something hit it. The undead creature slid sideways in a racecar drift. The zombie biggen sloped squirming its enormous husk. Its tailfin chewed off.
Flippers fluttering, the undead fish tumbled back down past the sea’s euphotic zone like a leaf in a fall breeze. Green fluids streamed from the corpse and dissipated into a slimy mist.
Lou pointed his gun barrel and hollered into his primary, “Look!”
Swimming away, a ten-foot sand tiger shark gnawed on a tailfin chew toy of equal length. Cartilaginous vertebrae dragged the caudal fin through the corner of its mouth.
Lou and Tom hugged, Sam propped like a CPR dummy between them. They continued upward, reached the scuba boat, and called for help.
Emelia and Juan dragged Sam on deck, then helped Lou who collapsed next to him. Tom sputtered out of the water last. Shaquan turned over the boat’s engine without a word.
Emelia steadied Sam in her lap and twirled at his hair working to calm his nerves. Her head weighted and eyes puffed, she epitomized the embodiment of sadness. Juan stared at him through drooping eyes.
“What happened?” Tom asked. Abu and Sheila disappeared into the ship’s cabin, sobbing.
Tom surveyed the deck, saying, “We won, didn’t we? I saw one cutter and two boats retreat. This boat looks beat up, but it can take us home, and we’re alive.”
Lou, awestruck, twisted Tom’s shoulder. “Doc, you better take a look.”
Enormous billowing plumes of smoke rose into the atmosphere where Wilmington once stood.
Chapter 17
All were quiet on the beaten, exhausted dive boat as it drifted into the evening. Abu Zaid and Shaquan White labored to patch holes and mend supports. Juan Delgado steered guided by a rising hunter’s moon. Tropical storm Ben, not more than three days out, kept swells at a constant three feet. The boat’s bow dipped and swerved in the chop, piling on efforts to keep food down. Sheila Briggs sat wrapped in a blanket holding her view on the horizon.
Abu took a break and waded towards the stern to check on Sam Mason, busy cleaning scuba gear. “You ok?”
He did not respond. Tom Mason squatted next to Sam futzing with the radio he removed from the captain’s dash.
Abu asked Tom, “How can you two repair these with steady hands?”
“We need to contact somebody,” Tom replied. “Try to find stray Divers or another friendly tribe. Maybe I can reach the depot or even Fort Dix.”
“Sammy”—Abu rested his hand on Sam’s stiff shoulder—“do you want to steer for a while?”
Tom answered, “Leave him be, Abu. He is still processing things.”
“I am fine, Dad.”
“Yeah, ok, Sammy. Whatever you say.”
Sam loved diving. It was like exploring an alien planet thirty meters below the Earth’s surf
ace. Striking colors and bizarre animal behaviors never disappointed. A tangential benefit, diving required a sharp mind focused on safety and variables, distracting from problems of everyday life. Tinkering on straps and clearing valves of particulate were poor substitutes for a dive but helped draw his thoughts from domineering emotions. Failure, self-loathing, and unrepentant guilt, to name a few.
“Sammy,” Juan called, “keep going south?”
“Yes,” he replied, not looking away from his tinkering.
Emelia watched him, face dressed in gloom and eyes accessorized with pity. She took an open space next to him and held his hand. “Want to talk yet?”
“I don’t know what to say. My brain speeds along a raceway of ideas, but any of them might send my mind careening off a cliff. I don’t feel as confident tonight as I did this morning.”
“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
“Maybe,” Sam said and dropped a screwdriver, missing his secured toolbox.
She swept it up and set the tool in her lap. “Pass me the dive computer?”
“Sure.” Sam stretched across and handed the gear to Emelia. “Know how to calibrate one of these?”
“No.” Emelia’s gentle, caring hand held Sam’s cheek. “I know how to calibrate one of these.”
She kissed him.
The first time Sam and a romantic interest touched lips, he experienced a plethora of rushing sensations. Excitement, wonder, joy, and adventure. Something new burst into his emotions with Emelia’s kiss. An abstract feeling only described using unfamiliar scenes: a rustic house on a lake, a glowing blue sweater, soft beads of warm shower water, electric air flowing through fingertips on a journey.
He leaned back and asked, “What happened?”
Emelia snickered. “I kissed you, silly.”
Sam’s harping emotions melted away. He caressed her arm and said, “No, there was something else. Impressions of events not yet experienced.”
“Amazing!” Emelia’s remark was followed by a harrumph from Tom. “Hey! Mind your own business, old man!”