Megatooth: A Deep Sea Thriller Read online

  Carl didn’t mind. He’d gladly do this grunt work to keep Trevor’s mouth shut. Besides…for the moment, he wasn’t concerned with Trevor and his irritable moods. He was more concerned with that red flare.

  “Hey, Bo!” he called out.

  He gave Bo a few seconds, knowing that he’d be up in the main cabin with Trevor. Trevor, though, would be starting at the instrument panel, ensuring that the pump and filtration system were shutting down property. So, as usual, Trevor would be of no use.

  Bo showed up about thirty seconds later, coming out of the cabin and out onto the deck. “You called me?”

  “I did. Did either of you see a flare from inside?”

  “A flare? No. I was going over the last string of readings from the day.”

  “I figured,” Carl said. “But right over there,” he said, pointing to where he had seen the flare arc and then fizzle out as it had dropped towards the ocean, “I saw a flare. It died out about thirty seconds ago.”

  “A vessel in distress, you think?” Bo asked.

  “I don’t know. But flares at sea…never really a good thing.”

  “Want me start the engines and head over there?”

  “Yeah. We might as well have a look.”

  “Will do.”

  Bo headed back into the cabin, leaving Carl alone again. He looked towards the place where the flare had originated from. It was cloaked in dark and out of his sight. He hated the fact that the dead whale from earlier in the day popped into his mind as he peered out into that darkness. But it was there, torn open and dead despite its size and majestic nature.

  He felt and heard the boat’s engine come to life less than a minute later. As they started moving, he headed into the cabin. Everything had been shut down by the time he got there and Trevor did not seem happy. He’d wanted to run thing for another hour or so but Carl had been instructed by MarineEx to not run the ROVs after dusk. It had something to do with the ability of the sensors to detect the direction the ROVs were headed as they were brought to the surface. It was yet another thing that went over Carl’s head.

  Up in the bridge, Trevor was in his corner, his face awash in the greed and red glow of his system’s panels and computer screens. Bo was behind the wheel. While he wasn’t much of a sailor, he did know his way around the bridge and was the only other person Carl had ever worked with at MarineEx that he’d allow behind the wheel of one of his boats.

  “So we got a flare, did we?” Trevor asked, not bothering to look up from his readings and analytics.

  “Yeah.”

  “We going to play hero, I take it?”

  “No,” Carl said. “We’re just going to do the right thing. I don’t think it came from too far away. It won’t hurt to check it out.”

  Trevor made a grunt of response, his head still lowered like a monk as he looked over his screens. Carl thought about getting on the radio to call the flare in to the proper authorities but decided against it. He’d hold off on such measures until they actually saw something out at sea. For all he knew, the flare could have been the result of pranksters. He’d heard stories of such things and didn’t want to have to put up with Trevor’s snide remarks afterwards. Also, there was the fact that much of the equipment on their boat was classified.

  He walked over to Bo and gave him a clap on the shoulder. “I’ll take it from here,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Bo nodded, stepping away from the helm and giving it up to Carl. For a moment, both men looked out into the dark waters, the night pressing down on the sea like a heavy quilt. Carl flipped a switch to the right of the wheel and a pair of lights along the front of the boat came on. Their glow wasn’t very strong, illuminating the water only about twenty yards or so ahead of them.

  “Bo, do you mind heading up top to keep an eye out to the left and right?” Carl asked.

  “Sure thing,” Bo said. He seemed excited to be a part of something that could be potentially exciting. Trevor, meanwhile, might as well have been off in some other boat, floating along by himself.

  Carl steered ahead, listening to Bo’s soft footfalls as he walked up the stairwell and to the look-out deck overhead. As he navigated forward, Carl was struck with the harrowing concept of being stranded at sea. It had crossed his mind before, particularly six years ago when one of MarineEx’s very first experimental vessels had stalled out and been unresponsive for five hours one hundred miles out into the Atlantic. He’d been on that boat and it was a journey that came back to haunt him every now and then.

  At night, though…that was something altogether. The depth of the water was bad enough, but when you threw in dark skies and a shadowed horizon where anything at all could be waiting in the water…just thinking of that gave him the creeps.

  He pushed the boat a little harder, still well within the engine’s much-tested limits. Trevor gave him a brief glance of annoyance and then returned his attention to the day’s readings and data.

  He glared at the night-veiled sea ahead, keeping his eyes open for any sign of someone in distress. He started to notice a light rain falling, just enough to become annoying on the windshield of the cabin. After he’d been on course for roughly ten miles, he started to wonder about just giving it up. Tomorrow was going to be a long day—longer still if they got no real results, as Trevor would start to pout about not having enough time again.

  Before he could give the idea of calling it quits any real thought, he heard Bo’s voice. It was getting closer with each word, punctuated by footfalls approaching down the stairs.

  “Signs of wreckage to the east,” Bo said. “Take a gentle right and we’ll be headed straight for it.”

  Carl felt his heart start to beat a little faster. He also noticed that now that there was a clear sign of some sort of trouble. Trevor’s interest was now peaked.

  “A boat?” Carl asked.

  “I’d safely say so,” Bo said. He came back behind the helm again, looking out through the widow and to the night outside.

  As far as Carl was concerned, the water seemed even more menacing just due to the fact that Bo had confirmed the wreckage. This was heightened when he saw the first bits for himself. A splintered section of wood, about two feet long and six feet wide bobbed in the water, eerie-looking in the lights atop the boat. Some sort of cloth rode small waves directly behind it.

  Carl put the engine into neutral as they coasted closer to the debris. It didn’t take him long to see the worst of it. The ocean softly bounced their boat, making the small flood lights go up and down, revealing the scene a bit further out only to have the lights then fall back several yards.

  In the crest of one of the small waves, Carl caught sight of something that nearly made him shout in surprise.

  Two women were huddled together on a plank of splintered wood. They were soaked—from the ocean or the rain was anyone’s guess—and looked, for just a moment, like ghosts in the boat lights.

  “Oh my God,” he said, instantly heading for the stairs. He nearly fell down them as he called back behind him. “Bo, bring he boat in a little closer. Let’s get them on board!”

  Carl reached the stern and found that the rain was surprisingly cold and coming down a bit harder than he had thought. He ran to the side of the boat and saw the women clearly just as Bo started the engine. Looking out, Carl also saw a third person with them. It was a man, half-on and half-off of what looked to be a ship’s engine compartment.

  “Thank God!” one of the women shouted. She was small with black hair and looked incredibly pale in the glow of the flood lights.

  “I see three out there,” Carl called out to them. “Are there any more of you?”

  “No,” the other girl said. “There were four of us, but one of them is…he’s dead.”

  The boat puttered closer and Trevor was suddenly standing beside him with life vests in his hands. There was also a life preserver—one of the hard circular ones—around his forearm. When did he suddenly decide to be useful? Carl wondered.

&nbs
p; “Well, let’s get you guys in,” Carl said, shielding his face from the rain.

  “Thank you so much!” the girl closest to him said.

  “Are you good with the life jackets you have on?” he asked. “We have more if you need them?”

  “No, we’re good.”

  “Are you injured? Can you swim to the back of our boat? There’s a ladder back here.”

  “No one is injured,” said the girl with black hair. “But there’s…there’s no way I’m getting in the water.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Carl said. “Let’s just take it one step at a time and—”

  “No. I’m not getting in the water.”

  “What’s your name?” Carl asked, trying to get her mind over the fear of the water.

  “Zoe.”

  “Well, Zoe…there’s less than fifteen feet between us now. By the time you get off that plank, it’ll be less than that. I think you can manage. We’ll get as close as we can, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said with some reservation.

  With that, Trevor raced to the back of the boat, skidding along around the ROVs and heading for the ladder. He unfastened the latch, letting down their metal ladder, which stretched out to a depth of three feet...

  “What the hell do you think happened to them?” Trevor quietly asked.

  “I have no idea,” Carl whispered. “That boat…it’s absolutely destroyed.”

  “Probably shouldn’t ask them until they get on board,” Trevor said. “It might slow them down…maybe freak them out.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Carl agreed. He was pleasantly surprised at how calm and logical Trevor seemed to be in a crisis. It almost made him not hate the man. Almost.

  They stood along the rail until all three of them had their lifejackets on. When they started to swim for the boat, Carl ran to the back and let down the ladder. The engine was idling, leaving an almost non-existent wake.

  The man had reached the women and seemed to stop to check on them. After a moment, the blonde woman that seemed to have her act together slowly slipped into the water. The one called Zoe let out a squeak of disapproval.

  With the blonde woman and the man in the water, Zoe remained where she was. Carl could hear the other girl talking to her, trying to coax her in. After a while, Zoe nodded and slipped in.

  It broke Carl’s heart to her the way she cried when she was in the water. But there was little he could do other than watch them cover the right feet or so between their plank and the back of his boat.

  He watched them come, Zoe taking up the back of their little line. Her cries drowned out the rain and the idling engine, carrying across the waters like the sirens of folklore.

  Then the crying stopped and she screamed.

  It was a scream that sent a bolt of fear straight through Carl; it was a scream of utter terror, of a woman who was looking death in the face.

  Then everyone in the water was screaming and before Carl saw what they were screaming about, he heard a rushing of water as something big broke the surface.

  Carl saw what it was, but his brain didn’t seem to make the leap on its own. It was too muddled with thoughts like: it’s too big to be a shark and no, that makes no sense.

  But then the terror gripped him, too. He managed to not scream and for that, he was thankful. But by the time he was able to move and take action, it was far too late.

  10

  When the megalodon broke the surface of the water, Emily could literally feel the water all around her being churned in a mad sort of frenzy. She could feel the force of the thing tearing through the water and for a minute, she feared she might get sucked under. It all happened so fast that it took her a moment to make sense of her location—right and left were mixed up, making her feel dizzy. The night was partly to blame, but it was mostly the fear that surged through her.

  Finally, she was able to tell where the commotion was coming from. It was directly behind her. She chanced a look over her shoulder just in time to see the shark hit the water again, going back down. It had missed Zoe by less than a few feet. Still, the crashing waves left in its path were immense. Emily caught the briefest glimpse of Zoe being essentially erased by one of the waves as it shoved her forward towards the boat.

  Steve was between them and his eyes were locked on the boat with an intense focus. As much as Emily hated to do it, she knew that she had to do the same. Yes, Zoe was in the rear of their line and she had almost been crushed by a prehistoric creature that should have been dead long ago…but she still needed to get her ass to the boat to make sure she made it out of this alive.

  She was certain the thing would come back, and quick. Still, it was massive, and it would need to go deep in order to swing back around to come for them. She recalled the window of time that had passed between the original breach and the attack on Cliff’s boat. She figured she had about twenty or thirty seconds.

  Fortunately, the force of the megalodon’s splash propelled her forward. Her hand was touching the metal surface of the ladder within a matter of seconds following the splash and she wasted no time trying to climb it. She made it only two rungs up before she felt a hand fall over her wrist. She looked up and saw the first man that had come out and spoken to them. He gave a hard tug, bringing her up the ladder and safely onto the back of the boat.

  The relief of being out of the water and on something solid was fleeting when she realized that she could feel the violence of the shark’s wake rocking against the boat. She sat up quickly and looked back out to the water. All she could see was that same man hunched over, now helping Steve up out of the water.

  The second man that had been on the side of the boat—the one that had let the ladder down on the back of the boat—approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you inside, out of the rain.”

  She could hear the fear in his voice. He’d seen what had just come out of the water. She wondered if he’d had the time to do the math: that something so big had torn apart the boat these three strangers had been on and that it could likely do the same to his boat.

  Emily nodded to him but neither of them moved. The man at the ladder had gotten Steve up and he was crawling over to her. Steve’s eyes, like Emily’s, were back out at sea, though. They both saw that the man at the back of the boat was no longer moving. He looked back to them and gave a defeated shrug.

  “She won’t come any further,” he said, looking back out to the water.

  Over the rain and water slapping at the back of the boat, Emily could just barely hear Zoe’s shuddering noises. She wasn’t speaking, but was making a choked sort of crying. She sounded like some trapped and wounded animal.

  The man at the ladder looked back to them and said, “She’s frozen.”

  From the way he said it, Emily knew that he really didn’t care. His mind was elsewhere—namely on the huge beast that had just leaped out of the water.

  Emily got to her feet and stumbled towards the rail along the back of the boat. She felt Steve reaching for her, but she jerked away. She looked out and saw Zoe in the water, bobbing aimlessly. Her eyes looked lifeless, but her head was moving. She was looking for any signs of the dorsal fin that had torn through their boat or the nightmarish face that had opened its jaws and swallowed Cliff whole.

  Emily opened her mouth to speak but the first words were locked in her throat as she saw something rising up from the bottom of the ocean. She had no idea how she saw it; the lights on the boat offered very little and the rain clouds blocked out the moonlight. Still, she saw it and it made her knees unhinge. She dropped to her knees and was helpless but to watch.

  She saw the head of the megalodon racing for the surface, no more than ten feet below them. Its mouth was already partially opened. Zoe was directly in the center of it and she seemed to grow smaller as the shark got closer. Just before it broke the surface, Emily looked into that dark maw, darker than the night-shrouded sea. It was an abyss in there—a dark hell of thing
s unimagined. It was bottomless and there was no escaping it.

  Zoe was able to let out a single cry before the megalodon breached, its mouth perfectly taking her in and swallowing her whole. It actually looked as if Zoe was falling into some deep, dark hole. Emily barely had time to see this, though. The bottom half of the shark’s enormous jaw hit the bottom of the boat, lifting the back half of the vessel into the air. Something cracked and popped beneath Emily as her legs were thrown out from beneath her.

  She screamed as she felt herself being pitched forward. She was rising up and then quickly coming back down as the boat dropped back towards the water. Her knees slid along the rain-slickened surface of the boat, taking her directly towards the water. She wasn’t going to be able to catch herself and—

  She felt a hand clamp around her wrist, keeping her from falling off. She looked back, her heart thumping in her throat it seemed, and saw Steve. He looked terrified but when his eyes found hers, she was surprised to find that it helped. God help her, she felt safe with him. This was the second time he’d saved her in the last four hours or so.

  “Hold on!” came a man’s voice from her right.

  She looked and saw the man at the back of the ladder, looking out into the water. As the boat steadied itself back out in the frantic water, Emily looked over the rail and saw that the man that had let the ladder down for them had fallen off the back of the boat during the attack. He was swimming frantically for the ladder but was being tossed in the chaotic waves left behind by the megalodon.

  Emily watched as the man beside her went to the rail and yanked off the circular life preserver that hung there. Emily watched as the man that had pulled her onto the boat tossed the ring out, the white rope attached to it unspooling through his hands.

  She then realized that she and Steve were still sitting on the stern. She was leaning into him, watching in horror as events unfolded in front of them. They were both shuddering when she saw a third man come running onto the stern from the cabin. He looked Asian and was a relatively short man. He was holding a large walkie-talkie device in his hand but it hung limply by his side as he looked out to the water.