Megatooth: A Deep Sea Thriller Page 9

  She nodded, but felt like she was floating into a very bad dream. She reached out for the cable attached to the basket and steadied herself as best she could. She was only now able to drawn breath into her lungs and her back was miserable. She saw a focused look come to the diver’s face and when he pressed a finger to his ear, she knew that he was getting more information from the helicopter pilot.

  “The shark seems to have gone away for the moment,” he said. “Get in the basket while you can.”

  “But the others…”

  “I’ll do what I can, but I have to take you one at a time. You’re here now, so you get in.”

  “Okay,” she said, feeling guilty at the relief that passed through her.

  She got into the basket and the moment she was securely in, the cable tightened and she felt herself being hauled upwards. The higher she was pulled up, she was given a better view of the turmoil below her.

  The entire starboard side of the ship was a mess; there was a visible hole that was large enough to drive a car through. Pieces of it were littering the water, mingling with the wreckage of their original rental boat. She also saw two people in the water—the first rescue diver and Carl. She looked around for Steve and saw that he had apparently fallen from the roof and landed on the back of the boat. He was getting to his feet as she looked down and she saw a noticeable hobble in his step. On top of the boat, Bo and the second rescue diver had still managed to remain in place. Bo was clinging to one of those small rails along the sides, crouching on his knees.

  She then looked up to the helicopter. There was another ten feet or so before she’d reach the safety of the interior. It hung in place overhead, its rooters slicing through the rain, almost teasing her. She looked back down, hoping that they’d all have time to be rescued. The boat, while damaged, was still managing to stay afloat relatively well and there were—

  In a flash, the surface of the water directly to the right of the boat seemed to explode. Emily shrieked as she saw the gaping mouth that surfaced, coming upwards like a projectile. The bastard had gone back below and sped towards the surface, coming up to breach and potentially destroy the boat. Earlier, they had discussed the possibility that this thing was hunting. But as she considered the spite and strength the megalodon was putting into making sure it did its best to kill them all, Emily couldn’t help but wonder if there was something inherently evil to it. Maybe it was a territorial thing, some base instinct to protect its home.

  She shook the thought aside. It wouldn’t do her any good to try to rationalize its actions. Yes, it was a mysterious creature that no one had ever experienced before, but right now it was trying to kill her. She could waste time trying to figure out its nature when she was back on land—if she ever made it back on land, of course.

  As she watched it rise up from the water, she feared that the basket was going to be snatched right out of the air in its jaws. But as more of its body tore through the water and into the air, she realized that it was coming up on the other side of the helicopter. It wasn’t the boat the shark was after—it was trying to bring the helicopter down.

  She knew that the shark did not have the mental capacity to realize that the helicopter was here as a means of rescue; it simply wanted to take down the noisy intruder. It made her think that maybe the megalodon was trying to protect the area it thought of as its home.

  Similar to what it had done before taking out The Gull, the shark’s entire body came out of the water and made a bent U-shape. It snapped its jaws at the helicopter and, despite its length, came up just a bit short. Emily breathed a sigh of relief, nearly collapsing into the basket.

  But then its tail came around to finish out that U shape, slapping around in a natural descent and following the weight of the rest of its body back down to the water. When it did, the tail slapped the side of the helicopter. Emily could hear the cracking noise from the basket.

  That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The shark’s tail got hung in the landing feet of the chopper. Skids, Emily thought. Those are called skids. She nearly laughed like a maniac at how that random bit of trivia popped up in her terrified mind. She was aware that this had happened several times in the last few hours and she wondered if it was simply her mind’s response to times of severe trauma.

  The trivial item of naming those lower rungs on the helicopter, like everything else in her mind and body, suddenly stopped being carried up as the weight of the shark pulled the helicopter down. My God, Emily thought as she screamed. That bastard must weight a ton…

  But that thought and her screams were cut off as the basket hit the water. She barely had time to recover from the impact, the water splashing up around her and the shaky frame of the basket jarring her, before she could hear the squeals of the helicopter rotors going underwater. It was a wretched noise that tore through the noise of everything else. It sounded out behind her like some ancient beast from the depths, rising up to see what all of the commotion was about.

  Emily felt herself being pulled under by the suction. She kicked off of the basket, stroking for the surface, but she could not move. She tugged her legs forward and found extra weight on them.

  The cable, she thought. The cable and the basket…my leg is wrapped to it. I’m trapped.

  She continued to try to free her leg as the ocean continued to swallow her and the sounds of chaos followed her down.

  14

  Her lungs started to ache and her heart felt like a caged animal trying to break free as her body desperately begged for air. She continued trying to free her leg, but there was no use; every time she pulled, the cable seemed to draw tighter against the basket. It was so tight that when the basket came to a sudden stop, striking against something and halting her descent, she felt a jarring in her bones. Even underwater, she could hear her teeth clink together. Her leg was pulled tight—so tightly that she feared that it might dislocate from her hip or at the knee at any moment.

  In the murk of the dark ocean water, Emily could see flickers of fire in the violence all around her. Her head started to hurt and she felt light-headed as her oxygen supply reached its end. Her lungs seemed to be screaming and the only relief she had as she was sure there were less than a handful of seconds before she would drown, was that the basket had struck something—likely a portion of the helicopter. A moment of blinding hope flared up inside of her when she realized that she was no longer sinking straight to the bottom.

  Still, even this small break was useless. The cable was too tight and she was disoriented. There was no way she could—

  She felt something brush by her leg and she nearly expelled her last bit of breath in a scream of terror. She was sure the megalodon had come for her and for one terrible moment, she was relieved that she’d be swallowed whole by the beast and this entire stupid mess would be done. To drown or to be devoured by the shark…she didn’t care. She was just done. She was tired. She was—

  Her leg was suddenly free and there was a different sort of pressure against her. She felt something hook her under her arms and then she felt herself carried upwards. She could feel her lungs tightening, almost like they were being pinched shut. She felt a thrumming in her leg as the circulation returned to it and, though it all, the chaotic motion of the sea all around her.

  Then somehow, out of nowhere, there was air. Emily gasped it in. It was painful at first, her lungs expanding and once again getting used to the air. She coughed as she took the air in, taking in some sea water as well. She gasped again and again, like someone choking, before her lungs seemed to remember what it was like to breathe.

  “I got you,” someone said from close by. It was this voice that helped her to realize that she was in the arms of one of the rescue divers. “Give me a minute…everything’s a mess. I need to figure out how to—”

  He stopped here and she wondered if it was because she’d heard the panic in his voice. Perhaps he was on the verge of losing hope and didn’t want her to sense it.

  “Donald!”
The driver screamed the name so loud that it hurt Emily’s head. She felt herself being pulled through the water quickly. She could hear weird screeching noise from beneath her; she assumed these were the muffled complaints of the downed helicopter as it continued to fall to the bottom of the ocean beneath her.

  Slowly, she started to come around. The diver, still pulling her along, yelled that name again: “Donald!”

  “Where is everyone else?” Emily asked.

  “Scattered,” he said. “I saw you go down so I went after you. We’ll see what we can do about the others after I get you safe.”

  “But they—”

  But the diver wasn’t hearing it. He had reached the man he had been calling Donald. He looked to be treading water and fighting for his life. There was something attached to Donald’s back and he seemed to be pulling it along as if it were a large knapsack. Everything in the water around them was a mess. The debris of two boats and the abstract lights from below as the helicopter sank threw everything off. She was pretty sure Donald was pulling something behind him, though.

  “This damned raft is tangled,” Donald said. “And I can’t reach the straps to untangle it.” Emily could tell the man was terrified. She looked from the raft and then back to Carl’s boat. It bobbed haphazardly, its damaged side having taken on enough water to make the ship tilt almost completely on its side. She saw someone—Bo, she thought—trying to swim slowly towards it.

  “Shit,” the diver said. Emily felt him trying to angle her in a way where he could reach Donald’s pack without releasing her.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I can tread for a while.”

  “You sure?”

  She wasn’t, but as her body became less starved for air and her mind began to work clearly again, she understood the severity of the situation. “Yes. But not for long.”

  “Okay. If you get tired, just grab my shoulders.”

  He released her and instantly went to Donald’s back. The moment Emily started treading, she began to look around for any sign of the shark. She wondered if perhaps the crashing of the helicopter had frightened it away. But this seemed stupid, especially since the shark was at least twice as large as the helicopter.

  She looked back towards the boat and saw Carl at the top, managing to hold on to the small rails. He was looking frantically around for something and was yelling for Bo. So far, there was no sign of Steve or the other rescue diver.

  She looked back to the diver that had saved her and saw that he had nearly untangled a strap that seemed to extend from the base of a pack that Donald had on his back to a secondary pack that floated about two feet away. It then struck her that Donald had referred to the pack as a raft. As she watched, the diver untangled the strap and then removed the pack from Donald’s back.

  The pilot and Donald then worked together to position the pack in a particular way. The pilot then pulled a small cord from the side and gave it a fierce tug. Without any sort of warning, the pack seemed to explode. The pack became a large inflatable raft in an instant, almost like a magic trick. It was a sizeable raft and when it expanded, it nearly smacked Emily right in the face. She instantly tried climbing into it but was not able to get a firm grasp.

  “Hold on,” the diver said, swimming to the side. He helped her up and she slid into the raft, noticing that the pilot was clambering in on the other side. As he fell into the raft, Emily saw that he had a large cut on his left leg. Blood was pouring from it, instantly staining the soft floor of the black raft.

  Emily sat up and looked back out to the water. The diver was already swimming towards the boat where Bo was still in the water, headed for safety. Bo was swimming slowly and seemed to be disoriented. His head would go under for a moment and then resurface. He’d take a lazy stroke forward and then seem to forget where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

  When the diver finally reached Bo, the disorientation washed away immediately. The diver placed a hand on his shoulder and Bo started to scream. He thrashed around in the water and screamed for his life. Emily knew the feeling; he was sure that the briefest touch was the shark. But what Bo was doing bordered on hysteria. And the more he screamed and splashed around, the more terrified Emily became. It could easily catch the attention of the megalodon, wherever it might be.

  As Emily watched, Bo finally started to settle down. But when he did, he started clinging to the diver in an almost reckless fashion. He was still speaking loudly and in panicked tones, but at least he wasn’t screaming anymore.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Bo seemed to come around, allowing the diver to actually help him. The diver supported him by taking one of his arms and assisting him along. They were within about twenty yards of the boat, headed in that direction. Emily wondered if they were going to collect Steve or if the diver was electing to use the boat as Bo’s safety. There was easily enough room remaining in the life raft to hold another eight people or so but it was much further away.

  She watched them swim towards the boat, Bo now taking strides on his own.

  To her horror, she saw the water separate behind them. It was replaced by the bulbous head of the megalodon. It came up quietly and without much force, just bobbing up in an almost casual manner.

  The diver must have heard it. He had enough time to turn around and lay eyes on the beast. He was less than three feet away from it when the shark made a single movement forward and yanked him and Bo under. The last thing Emily saw as the shark went back underwater were its jaws closing up over Bo, as if he was nothing more than a tiny little fish.

  Emily collapsed back into the raft. She felt a shriek building up in her throat but she swallowed it down. She felt like she had done that far too often ever since The Gull had been attacked. She wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to do it.

  Behind her, the pilot sat motionless and wide-eyed. From the looks of it, he’d seen the entire thing play out as well. He looked to be speaking to himself, but no words were coming out of his mouth. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one that might be losing their mind out here, Emily thought.

  The idea that she was safe in the raft was ludicrous but she still felt much more secure than she had been out in the water. She dared to hope that as long as they remained quiet, they could go untouched. And surely, since the helicopter had gone down, the Coast Guard would send someone else out to check on their crew when no one was responsive over the radio. That was Emily’s hope anyway.

  She turned to the pilot to ask him about this and was again faced with the sight of his wounded leg. She assumed he had cut it in the crash somehow. Seeing it, she also followed the trail of his blood. It was pooling in the floor of the raft but before it collected there, it was also streaked all over the side of the raft where he had climbed in.

  That meant it was also on the exterior side as well—and out there in the water. She knew sharks could smell blood and it was the equivalent of a bull being taunted with a red cape.

  Realizing this, Emily didn’t feel safe at all.

  This was truer still when, just a handful of seconds later, she saw the familiar sight of that impossibly large dorsal fin breaking the surface of the water about fifty yards away from them.

  It was headed directly for the raft, and it was coming fast.

  15

  The fin came closer at alarming speed and Emily couldn’t help herself. This time, she let her scream out. She frantically tried to think of a way out of this. For a moment, she considered waiting until the very last possible moment and jumping out of the raft. One of the very few things she knew about the massive shark was that its massive size seemed to affect the speed it was able to maneuver. Going straight ahead, it was fast—almost impossibly so. But when it needed to turn, say going underwater and redirecting itself as it had done when it had taken Cliff’s boat out, it took some time. She wondered if she could jump out of the raft and have enough time to swim the forty or so yards to Carl’s capsized boat.

  She needed to de
cide fast; the fin was less than ten yards away and now there was more than the fin above water. She saw its massive back rising up as it brought the tip of its head out of the water.

  “Move!” the pilot yelled from behind her.

  Before she could obey, she felt him shove her down to the raft floor. She looked up and saw that he had a flare gun. She had only a moment to wonder where the hell it had come from—maybe from the helicopter or a small hatch within the raft that she had not yet spotted—before he fired it.

  He fired it directly ahead, as if it were an actual gun. The flare jetted out at the same moment the shark reared its head up. It struck the beast just to the left of center, pinging its snout. The flare seemed to sprout more flames for just a moment before falling from its hide. It seemed to have the merest effect on the shark; it slowed just a bit and went back underwater. When it did, its head slammed against the side of the raft.

  Emily felt the raft being overturned and used that fact as her deciding factor from her earlier speculation. Seeing that the shark was still headed in its original direction—which would have placed it behind their current location after tearing through the raft—she leaped in the opposite direction, towards Carl’s boat.

  When she hit the water, she also hit something else. It was solid and moving with great speed. It cartwheeled her across the water, actually getting her much closer to the boat than she could have hoped. When she stopped skipping across the water and started swimming for the boat, she glanced back quickly. She was fairly certain she had struck the shark’s tail and it had slapped her almost nonchalantly. But now she saw that tail going underwater quickly, taking a nearly instant turning motion.

  It was going under to whip back around and finish the job. Emily went under herself, hoping that swimming underwater might not cause as much of a commotion for the shark to come after. That, plus the fact that she’d be away from the pilot’s blood in the water, gave her some hope that she’d make it to the boat before it even noticed her in the water.